The Unsuspected

his hand,

looked at the palm, turned it over, let it fall. 'Since two pretty young girls have died in this house,' he said, 'I'd just as soon there wasn't any third one. So take a good look at Mathilda now. And if she's in a dangerous mood, let's have nurses in and watch her. Let's

take no more chances.'

There was silence—rather a strained silence. Tyl shook her head. 'I don't understand.'

'You want to live, don't you? You're not depressed? Not brooding? Not low? You feel well? You're young and looking forward? You've got something to live for?' Francis barked questions at her harshly, angrily. 'You don't want to die?'

'Of course I don't want to die! I don't know what you're talking about!' She was so angry she stood up without knowing she had done so. With her head thrown back, her chin up, eyes bright, her breath drawn with indignation, her lovely figure taut and poised, she was most vividly alive.

'Now, Mrs. Howard—' Gahagen began soothingly.

Mathilda flashed around to face him. She would have said she was not Mrs. Howard, but Grandy was around his desk and beside her suddenly, and his hands on her shoulders were quieting and warning her. 'There, duckling, there. Francis worries. Naturally. Naturally. You mustn't be angry.' He turned to Gahagen. 'I think he's made a point,' he said. 'We could not possibly say there was any mood at all. I can't condemn—' Grandy's voice broke a little. 'I dare not damn Althea with a piece of imagined nonsense which may have been my own mood after all. And if we can't say for sure, Tom, ought we not to say it was an accident?'

'That—er—note—' began the detective.

'Such a strange little note,' said Grandy. 'So vague. So meaningless. I fancy she's written such a note to me or Oliver many a time. And as long as we do not know her reasons or even whether she had any, need we mention any note? To—to people? Frankly, Tom'—Grandy compressed his lips—'I don't want to hear them speculating. I don't want to hear their guesses. I don't want to know they're wondering why Althea wanted to die. For myself, I would rather believe Althea left us accidentally. I do earnestly believe that she loved and trusted us enough to wish to stay.'

Francis put both hands over his face.

Tyl thought, Francis is more upset than Oliver, even. She thought, Poor Althea, how could she make a mistake and die? She thought. Oh, my poor Grandy! Pity and grief wheeled around, tumbled each other in her consciousness and yet hardly roused her. They were pale images of coming emotions, only their mental shadows.

But Francis' hands were hiding a black and deadly anger, full grown.

Chapter Eighteen

All afternoon people came. Tyl was still encased in an aching paralysis that hadn't yet sharpened to pain. It didn't occur to her not to remain in the long room, not to stay there and bear it She was there, and people came— Grandy's friends—and she stayed and watched and listened numbly.

Grandy was in his big chair. No tears, no sighs, no break in the rich gentleness of his voice. He made kind little inquiries of his friends about their daily affairs. Ever so gently, he kept his grief private. The assumption was that it lay too deep for tears. Tyl saw more than one turn away from him with a convulsed face. It was so beautiful a performance, such a touching thing.

Grandy's friends. Personalities, all of them. They would go to him and receive his gentle greeting, his sweet questions. Then they would go to Oliver, who was in the room, although he seemed not to know where he was exactly, and only stammered “Oh, hello,'

and 'Thanks' and 'Yes' or 'No,' stupidly. Then they would come to Tyl and Francis, who was there beside her, and they would congratulate her, weakly, on being alive. They muted their joy in her return in deference to the death in the house. It was as if they were

all saying. Too bad. He's lost his beauty, though of course he's got this one back. Too bad.'

Althea would be a legend. The lovely girl with the silver eyes who died so young. She'll never grow old, Tyl thought, but stay young and lively in their memories. They will forgive her for everything. Well, she thought, I forgive her.

Francis was introduced as Mathilda's husband. It didn't seem to matter. It was too hard to explain now. Too involved and fantastic. Let it go.

Francis was taking a good deal on himself. It was he who, when the emotional pressure got too high, knew how to break the fever. When Schmedlinova made a gliding run all the way down to Grandy, wailing like a Russian banshee, it was Francis who made

a cynical aside and steadied Mathilda's jumping heart. It was Francis who sat at her elbow to say the right thing when she couldn't think of what to say at all. She found her eyes meeting his over people's heads. They seemed to have suddenly acquired a full code of signals that went easily between them. It was he who rescued Oliver from the poet who kept quoting, when Mathilda asked him to with her eyebrow. He took slobbering old Mrs. Campbell away before Mathilda screamed. It was his shoulder she found behind her when a sudden wave of fatigue sent her reeling backward. It was Francis who told her quite rudely, at six o'clock, to go upstairs and lie down. It was Francis who brought her a tray, who pulled the comforter over her feet, who dimmed the light. Lying on her bed, weary and numb, she supposed, with dull surprise, that Francis had been acting very like a husband.

When Jane got off the train at seven thirty, Gahagens men were there to meet her. They took her to his office without telling her why. It was obvious that she hadn't known what had happened to Althea. She nearly fainted when they told her. In fact, Gahagen was

alarmed and called the doctor. The girl was badly shocked. It was no fake, either. Gahagen was sorry that his duty had led him to distress her. After all, the poor little kid didn't know anything, had nothing to tell them, sat there twisting her hands, looked dazed and unhappy. Gahagen sent a man to run her up to Grandy's house.

Francis had taken so much on himself that it was only natural for him to meet her at the door and put his arm around her.

What they exchanged under their breaths was not much, because Grandy's voice said, 'Is that Jane?' and people leaned around the arch to say that Grandy was asking for her. It was only natural that Francis should keep his arm around her and lead her to Grandy's

throne.

It was a lovely scene. The yellow-haired child in the powder-blue suit with the little white collar kneeling there. Dear old Grandy bent over her so tenderly. And that tall, good-looking Howard man, standing there with Jane's little blue cap in his hand, that he'd picked up when it fell. The long room was quiet.

'I know,' Grandy said. 'I know, child. I know.' His voice was soft and sympathetic, and it didn't change as it went on to ask, 'What were you doing in the garden last night with Francis?'

Jane cut a sob or two. Francis, standing by, looked perfectly blank. He felt himself to be within the range of Grandy's eyes, although those eyes were kept on Jane. He struggled for blankness.

Jane took down the handkerchief, revealed her tousled face, all lumpy with weeping. 'Oh, Mr. Grandison, I didn't know you knew. I'm sorry.'

'Sorry about what, dear?' They were speaking low. The people in the room couldn't hear what they were saying. It all went for part of the tender little scene.

'He only had an hour,' wept Jane. 'It wasn't anybody's fault. I told him he shouldn't have come and tried to see me, but, seeing that he had, I couldn't just tell him to go away. So I thought it wouldn't really. . . disturb you.”

Grandy said, 'You re telling me it wasn't Francis?'

'Oh, no,' said Jane. 'Of course it wasn't. It was a—a boy I know. I'll never do it again, sir. I'm so sorry.'

Grandy said, 'But, my dear, I was not complaining. I was curious, y'know. Next time bring him indoors, child. We are not ogres.'

Jane began to cry again, as if such kindness were too much to bear.

Francis said, 'What's this about? Something to do with me?'

'Tyl thought she . . . saw you,' Grandy said, with a curious little break of hesitation and doubt. His eyes turned. Not his head.

'Tyl did?' said Francis. He kept his face blank, turned his eyes, not his head. Too bad. Tough on Mathilda, but the kid would have to put up with this. It looked as if Jane had really fooled him. But at any rate, Tyl's evidence on what she knew or saw was tending