The Unsuspected

Francis.

His voice was light and rather gentle. They were the only customers in the whole room now. The soft music from the bar was punctuated by the dick of silver, off in a corner, where a busboy was sorting it away.

Francis was thinking. Murder. One person dead, that meant. He'd seen them die in quantities, seen the flames come up like an answer from the earth beneath. Yet when it was just one, alone, that was murder. There was something a little bit quaint and out of joint in the mixed values.

Jane said, 'What shall I do?'

Francis picked up a spoon and balanced it on his finger. 'You think Rosaleen was murdered?' He might have been asking, Do you think it's going to rain? 'By whom?' he said.

'By Luther Grandison.'

All he said, again, was, 'Why?'

'Read the letter.'

He took up the letter; his eyes raced through. Stuff about the weather, kidding stuff about Jane and Buddy. 'Who is Tyl?' His voice was different; suddenly it had become crisp and demanding.

'Tyl's Mathilda. One of Grandison s wards. He has two—two girls. They lived there with him most of the time.'

'Who's Althea?'

'That's the other one—the beautiful one. She's married to Oliver Keane now. Look.'

Jane's finger pointed out the paragraph Rosaleen had written in her breezy style:

The old spider makes out like money is too, too vulgar, but he had

his reasons why he'd rather marry off Althea. Some day I'll tell you

what makes me say that. It makes me mad. He's so smooth and philo-

sophical, you tend to get fooled. The last thing on earth you'd imag-

ine would be what I'm . . . imagining! Sorry, hon. Let it go until I

see you.

But her pen had refused to leave the subject. The scrawl went angrily on:

Nobody can tell me money's not like the blood in his veins! And if

he's so wise, why doesn't he know that Tyl's heart is broken? Because

it's broken, Jane, a real smash! And that's an awful thing to be in the

same house with. She's going away, thank God. And Oliver's moving

in.

I think he does know it's broken! I don't think he cares! I think be

is perfectly selfish! I think— Sorry, I'm in a bad mood. I feel like

 throwing things. Excuse it, please, and love.

                                   YOUR ROSALEEN

'Well?' said Francis coolly.

 Jane said eagerly, tumbling the story out, 'Mathilda was the rich one—very, very rich. Her parents both got killed in the same accident when she was a little girl. Her father lived just long enough to turn her and all the money over to Grandison. And it was Mathilda that Oliver Keane was engaged to. And only two days before their wedding, he went and married the other one.'

'Althea?'

 'Yes, Althea Conover, and she's not rich at all. Of course, she's gorgeous, and I guess poor Mathilda wasn't so hot. Althea's the daughter of another friend. Grandy took her in.'

'Grandy?'

'That's what the girls call him. Now, here's the thing, Fran. This is the way Mathilda's money was fixed. She was to make her own will at twenty-one, and she did. But she didn't get the money then. She was to get control whenever she married! Don't you see?'

'No,' said Francis.

'Grandy didn't want:her to get married. So there must have been something funny about the money.'

He shook his head.

'I don't care,' she insisted. 'What if he'd done something he shouldn't? What if Rosaleen did find out? She'd bring it right out in the open. You know she would. She wouldn't have stopped to think to be afraid. So, you see?'

'He killed her because she knew too much,' said Francis, and began to laugh. It was pretty rusty laughter.

Jane said, “I'll give up the job and go home, if you say so.' Jane's tea was cold. 'Just the same,' she said, 'if Rosaleen felt like throwing things, that's not a suicidal mood.'

Francis' face darkened He looked at the date on the letter. 'So a man of over sixty took hold of a lively little dame like Rosaleen Wright and hung her up by the neck? And she just quietly let him? Come, Jane.'

'It's a soundproof room.'

'It is?' he said.

'He could have talked the noose around her neck,' said Jane bitterly. 'The man can talk'' She looked at her watch.

'But hanging!' he burst out. 'Why not poison? Why not-'

Jane broke open a hard roll. 'If the note he got her to copy happens to talk about hanging, as it did, then maybe he thought it had better be hanging.' She put butter on the roll and then put the roll down on her plate and pushed the plate away. She put her fingertips to her temples. Tm not trying to believe this. If you really think I'm crazy, Fran, I wish you'd tell me so.'

He said, 'Honey, I don't know.'

The waiter was getting nervous. Those two. They didn't eat. Now they weren't even talking. The man had looked kinda sad and tired when they came in, but now— Cripes, the guy was boiling. Whatever she told him, it sure made him mad. The waiter went over and got himself a drink of water, watching over the brim of the glass.

Jane whimpered, 'I wish I hadn't said anything. Now I've got you upset, and what's the use?'

Francis turned his head and brought himself back. He'd been thinking, when they killed yours you killed them. That's the way it was in the war. But this was going to be different. He knew he had to get the anger swallowed under, and think about proof and stuff like that, think legal. Move slowly. Be sure. Put it in the department of the brain.

'Find out,' he said aloud.

'The trouble is, I don't see how,' said Jane. 'Fran, I know there's something wrong. I know it as I know I've got a hole in the heel of my stocking, where it doesn't show. First I guessed and then I wondered, but the longer I'm up there in that house, the better I know it! I feel it! I smell it! And still I can't see what to do.'

Francis beckoned and the waiter came sidling over. Take this junk away and bring us sandwiches and coffee. Any kind.'

'First you think, 'Go to the police,'' Jane was saying. 'All right. With what will we go to the police? I've thought and thought—'

'Walk in,' he murmured, 'and say, 'I'm Miss Wright's fiance and I don't think she committed suicide. I think she was murdered.''

Jane nodded. 'They'd say, 'Why?''

'Naturally. So I say, 'Well, she didn't compose her own suicide note.'' He frowned.

'But they say,' Jane took it up, “Who did it?' And you say, 'Why, that nationally known figure, Mr. Luther Grandison, the famous director, the man who staged Dead Men Do Talk with Lillian Jellico in 1920.'' She looked at her wrist. 'Oh, quick, we're missing it. Tell him to ask the bartender. The radio. I want you to hear Grandison.'

'You know what he's going to say?'

'Of course I do. But I want you to hear.'

Francis hailed a busboy, and Jane gave the message. Francis said, 'Where were we? The police were laughing.'

 'Oh, they'd be laughing, all right,' said Jane. 'We say, 'We think he might have stolen some money from a ward of his, and his secretary found out and night have been threatening to expose him.' Then they laugh fit to die. They'd say, 'But Mr. Grandison made a lot of money in the theater before he retired. And in the movies. And his book.' They'd say, 'Prove it.'”

'Yeah,' said Francis. His eyes had a kind of light behind them or deep within. 'How are we going to prove it?'

'Well, there's a lawyer,” said Jane wearily, 'who comes up once in a while. He takes care of everything. Grandy doesn't. I write all the checks to pay the house bills. Grandy signs them without even looking. He won't talk about money. He won't look at figures. He

pretends it's all so vulgar and distressing; says it affects his digestion. Says life should simply