too.'
Jane's foot in the small black childish shoe rested on the floor, but only the heel touched and the ankle was tight. No one could see Jane's foot. Her face was calm and her eyes cast down, watching her work.
'You remember,' Gahagen went on, turning to Grandy, 'that day, along about early afternoon, some of the newsmen got in here?'
'Yes, yes.'
'Took your picture?'
'Did they not?' sighed Grandy. 'Yes.'
Gahagen's eyes went to the mantel above their heads. 'One of those shots was right here in front of this fireplace. That clock's electric, ain't it?'
'Yes, of course.' Grandy's voice was sirup sliding out of a pitcher.
Gahagen said, 'I'd like to have a look at your fuse box, Luther. Want to see what arrangement you've got in this house.'
“Why, Tom?'
The detective slipped away from Grandy's bright and friendly gaze. He chose to explain all this to Mathilda. 'You see,' he told her, and she couldn't wrench her eyes from his plain, kind face, 'the girl got up on Mr. Grandison's desk in there. You know his ceiling hook—the one he had put in for hanging special lights? She—er—used that, y'see, and stepped off the desk, like.' Tyl felt sick. 'Well, it isn't pleasant to think about, but she couldn't help it—kicking, y'know. Her leg got tangled in the lamp on his desk, pulled it
over, wires came out of the bulb socket.'
'So they did,' said Grandy. He sounded politely puzzled.
'What we figure now,' the detective said, 'is that she must've blown a fuse. Blown a fuse when she kicked the lamp, see?'
'Is that possible?'
'Certainly. It's possible all right. Couple of bare wires, they're going to short-circuit. I'll tell you why we wondered. That electric clock up there was showing behind your shoulder in this picture, and it was all cuckoo. Gave the time wrong. It says twenty minutes after ten. And the picture was taken after two o'clock in the afternoon. We know that.'
'The clock was wrong?'
'Lemme look at it, d'you mind?' The detective got up to examine the black, square modern-looking clock. 'Yeah, see? This one is the old kind. It don't start itself.'
Mathilda was near enough to Grandy to feel him suppress an impulse to speak. Oliver spoke up impatiently. 'No, of course it doesn't. You have to start it after the currents been off. The new ones start themselves.'
'Anybody cut the current off that morning?' asked Gahagen. 'Was the master switch thrown at all, d you know?'
Oliver said, 'Not that I know of.'
'Nor I,' said Grandy. He edged forward in his chair. 'I'm not sure that I follow you, Tom. What are you getting at?'
'Gives us the exact time,' the detective said. 'That is, if it does. Y'see, there was no power failure that day anywhere in town. We've already checked on that. So it must have been something right here in the house made the clock stop, see? Now I'd like to look at
your circuits, eh? If this clock actually is hooked in on the same circuit as the study lamp, why—'
Again Grandy suppressed something. Tyl had a telepathic flash. Who'd told Gahagen about the clock and the circuits? The kind of clock it was, what circuit it was on? Because he wasn't wondering. He was checking.
'I don't understand,' purred Grandy, 'about the clock. But something's wrong with your thought, you see, Tom, because the lights worked.'
'Yeah, we know.' He nodded. 'Lights were O.K. when we got here. So there's this question: Did anybody put in a new fuse?' Oliver was looking blank.
'If so, who?' said Grandy softly. 'Fuses don't replace themselves. I really —'
'They don't,' said the detective. 'If a fuse'd been blown, somebody knew it. Somebody replaced it. None of my men did.' He waited, but no one spoke. 'Well I don't suppose it's important. Still, I oughta— Where's your fuse box? Cellar?'
'Oliver, show him, do. . . . Jane, dear—'
Mathilda held on to Grandy's knee. The lights were going off and on all over the house. It was queer and frightening. Jane had gone to stand at the top of the cellar steps and call out which lights went off and when, while the two men below were playing with the fuses. Mathilda held on to Grandy's knee, which was steady. She had begun to cry a little.
Grandy was talking to her. He stroked her hair. “ . . nor will we ever know. Poor child. Poor, dark, tortured Rosaleen. She was so very tense. Tyl, you remember? Remember how her heels clicked, how quick and taut she was? Remember how she held her shoulders? Tight? Brittle, you see, Tyl. Strung too tight. Poor little one. No elasticity, no give, no play. And since she couldn't stretch or change, she broke.'
'But why?' sobbed Tyl. 'Oh, Grandy, what was wrong?'
'Not known,' he said, like a bell tolling over Rosaleen's grave. 'Not known. She didn't let us into her life, Tyl. You remember? She was with us and of us, but she was, herself, alone.'
'I think it was in the air,' he continued. 'The house was waiting, days before. The storm in her was disturbing all of us, but we didn't know. Or we put it down to sorrow and suspense over you, my dear. But now I remember that morning. She was writing a letter
for me, and the typewriter knew, Tyl. It was stumbling under her fingers, trying to tell me. I felt very restless. I didn't know why.
Althea was fussing with a new kind of bread. She was in the kitchen, I remember. I felt the need of homeliness. I wanted to smell the good kitchen smells. Instinctively, I left her, Tyl.' He paused.
'And of course, since it was rather a fascinating thing Althea was trying to do— cinnamon and sugar and apples in the dough—I became enchanted with the process. I'm afraid we forgot about Rosaleen behind the study door. Alone in there. Oliver was with us. The three of us were happy as children.' His beautiful voice was full of regret and woe. 'But there is a fancy bread of which we shall not eat, we three.'
She sobbed. 'When—how did you—who?'
'It was Oliver who—' he told her gently. 'Noontime. He opened the door to call, and there was that little husk, the mortal wrappings—'
Mathilda whimpered. She heard the men coming back, Oliver and Gahagen. Jane too. She wished they wouldn't yet. She wanted Grandy to say one thing more, something, anything to reconcile this tragedy, to heal it over, not to leave her heart aching.
'Well, its on the study circuit, all right,' said Gahagen mildly. He walked over and looked at the clock. 'But you tell me nobody put any new fuse in?'
Grandy didn't repeat his denial. He sighed.
'Maybe somebody did and said nothing about it,' suggested Gahagen.
'Possibly.'
Oliver said, 'But who? After all, we don't have servants, you know.'
'Funny.'
'Could the clock have been out of order?' offered Jane timidly. She was back in her corner. Her blue eyes were round and innocent, and wished to be helpful.
'It's running now,' Gahagen said, frowning at it. 'Who started it again after that morning?'
'By golly, I did!' cried Oliver.
'When?'
'Let me see. That night. I noticed it, set it and gave it a flip. Never crossed my mind till now.'
'Don't sound like it was out of order. And it's on that circuit, all right. Kitchen, study, and this double plug, backed against the study wall. That's the fuse that went with the desk lamp when she kicked it over.'
Grandy shook a puzzled head. He said wistfully, 'I find mechanical contrivances very mysterious. Believe me, Tom, they are not always simply mechanical. They have their demons and their human failings. My car, for instance, has a great deal of fortitude, but
a very bad temper. The oil burner is subject to moods, and the power lawn mower is absolutely willful.'
Gahagen laughed. He said in a good-humored voice, 'I don't want you to think we're snooping around after one of those unsuspected murders of yours, Luther.'
'Oh, Lord,' said Grandy humorously.
Jane turned her ankle over convulsively. Her heel clattered on the floor. She stopped knitting to look hard at the stitches.
'It's just that it was funny and we kinda wanted to check. Er—this Mr. Howard, he—er—wasn't here at that time, was he?'
'No,' said Grandy. 'No.' His black eyes turned behind the glasses, slid sidewise in thought.
Gahagen frowned. 'Have I got this straight, Luther? Now, when he came here, he was a stranger to you?'
'To me,' said Grandy, 'he was an utter stranger.'
Oliver said, 'Nobody knew him except Tyl.' He said it with smiling implications.
Tyl opened her mouth to say, 'But I didn't, don't.' She felt Grandy's hand on her shoulder. It said,
