The Unsuspected (26 page)

together."

Francis said gently, "None of you could be expected to see our point of view." He didn't say it reproachfully, but as if the fact had been troublesome, but not misunderstood.

Oliver said weakly, "I suppose that's so."

Gahagen turned curiously to Mathilda. "But you finally did see their point of view. Miss Tyl. What made you so sure, all of a sudden?"

She felt blank and dull, couldn't remember.

"Up to that point, you were pretty near ready to think you'd been seeing tilings, weren't you? I don't understand how you came to be sure enough to take a jump like that."

Mathilda said, slowly, "I don't know. Yes, I do, but I don't know how to explain it exactly."

"Don't try," said Francis quickly.

"Oh, yes," she said, "I'll try." She went on, groping. "You see, there were a lot of pieces. I'd heard all about the fuse blowing. Oliver gave me another piece. He told me how Althea had heard a man on the radio. Then Jane gave me another piece when she said

she'd been checking up, and the man had said 'Burn tenderly' so late that morning. You see, I had all the pieces. Hey went together, just all of a sudden."

They sighed.

"But that wasn't all" Tyl said more vigorously. She felt better for being able to explain. "There was another handful of pieces. You see, I knew Francis had been down in the cellar." She was half sitting up now, her face was vivid. "And I was sure it was Francis, on account of the candy. Who else could have left that for me to see?"

"Who else but you could have seen it?" said Francis huskily.

"Well"—she shot him a green glance—"then Jane had her story about the man Mr. Press and the truck. I just suddenly saw that if Grandy wasn't"—she'd said the name—"wasn't a true link, if he was unreliable, then the impossibilities all cleared up. I just suddenly put the thing together and I saw that Francis had been there. He had gone; he must have gone somewhere, and Jane was on the track of how he could have gone. And then," she said, "I happened to look at Grandy, and I saw that piece of Dutch chocolate spilling out of his trousers pocket."

'The candy?"

"Yes." A little shiver ran down her slim body. "I didn't stop to think he might have had one of his own chocolates in his pocket. I just remembered that I'd seen them on the ground by that house, and that they'd disappeared. Who picked them up? If I wasn't

crazy— Who knew enough to pick them up? Who knew what they meant? Only me and Francis . . . and Grandy.

"So you see," she added quietly, "I understood that he wasn't reliable. I think I just . . . saw him."

"He was—" Gahagen shook his head. He had no adjective for what Grandy had been. "Then, when he unlocked that trunk under our noses to pretend to look inside! And he locked it again too. He didn't dare risk the thing falling open when the bucket picked it up. Of course, that finished him."

"You were quick to see that," Jane praised him.

Francis said, "I must say I'm glad I was out like a light most of that time. I'm just as pleased I didn't know about that bucket or where I was."

Jane said simply, “I nearly went crazy."

Mathilda, looking at the pulse in Francis' throat, thought.
So did I.
 

"Well, that finished him," said Francis abruptly. "He might have pleaded bad eyesight. He just might have been able to pretend he couldn't distinguish me from a bunch of old rags in the bad light, eh? He'd have talked, and who's to say he might not have wriggled out of it, when and if you'd found my bones? But with that key in his pocket!"

"He fell in on purpose, to keep us from looking inside that trunk," said Gahagen. "It was a brilliant idea. Mr. Howard, here, might have been pretty well destroyed. We might not even have stopped the works to look again. I don't know. Can't say. Looking back, it seems impossible that we believed him at all. But, of course, we did believe him at the time."

Gahagen got up to go. Perhaps his tongue slipped. When he said “Good night," he called Mathilda "Mrs. Howard."

When he had gone, Francis moved restlessly about, poked at the fire.

Oliver came out of the shadows and took a nearer chair. "Doesn't he know you two aren't married?" he asked with bright interest.

Francis stood still, with the poker in his hand swinging like a pendulum. "I guess you realize now that Grandy deliberately rearranged your wedding," he said bluntly.

Whose wedding? What was he talking about? Tyl looked up. Met his eye. "Mine!" she gasped.

Oliver said, "Ours, dear."

Tyl let her head fall back again. She didn't know how revealing her face was. How its serenity and the simple curiosity with which she asked her question told them so much. "But why didn't he want Oliver and me to marry?" she wondered almost placidly.

"He didn't want you to marry, ever," said Francis angrily, "on account of the money. Didn't he teach you to think you'd never be loved except for the money? Didn't he make you believe you weren't personally very attractive? Didn't he play up Althea against you? Weren't you always the Ugly Duckling? And not a damn word of it true." He put the poker into its place with a banging of metal on metal. Mathilda felt surprised.

Oliver said uneasily, "He certainly tried—"

"Of course he was a pretty persuasive old bird," said Francis much more mildly.

Oliver's face was red. Of course, thought Mathilda. Oliver had let Grandy persuade him. He hadn't seen Mathilda or Althea either with his own eyes, but through Grandy's eyes. And now Oliver was ashamed. So now he was preparing to laugh it off. Oliver was about

to be nonchalant. How well she knew all the silly expressions on his silly face.

"Mathilda doesn't care for me," said Oliver gaily. "Maybe I'll marry Jane."

“I don't think so," said Jane promptly. "My husband wouldn't like it."

Francis laughed and got up and put his arms around Jane. He put his chin down on her hair. "You're wonderful," he said. "Little old Jane." He kissed her. "Go to bed now. I want to talk to Mathilda."

When Jane had gone and Oliver had, rather awkwardly, gone, too, and they were alone, Francis' eyes were filled again with trouble. But Mathilda's green eyes were wide open now. The long room was a real room, after all Those people were real. She could

see.

She said, "I thought you were engaged to Rosaleen?"

“I was.”

"But . . . you're married to Jane!"

He gasped. "I'm not married to Jane. Her husband happens to be in Hawaii at the moment. That's Buddy." He began to laugh. "It's ridiculous, but she's my little old Aunt Jane. My father's youngest sister, bringing up the rear of the family. Hasn't anyone told you? I'm Francis Moynihan."

"Oh." Mathilda played with her belt. She said, "I haven't seen things or people the way they are. It's hard to begin to see."

He said, "I know." He said, "But you'll be all right." He said, "You need to . . . look around now. Now that he's gone."

She turned her face away. Her heart—something—ached terribly.

He said, "I realize how you see me. I don't know how to explain to you or apologize. I dreamed up this thing before I knew you. In fact, I thought you were dead."

She murmured that she wasn't.

"I know," he said. He got up again and ran his fingers through his hair. He didn't seem to know how to go on.

She lifted her head. "But who is that Doctor White?"

He corrected her gently, "Doctor Wright. Rosaleen's father."

"Oh. Oh, then that's why— He walks like Rosaleen."

"Does he? Yes, I guess he does."

Francis looked unhappily into the fire. "What can I do now about this marriage business?" he blurted. "You see, I haven't told. Gahagen doesn't know. The papers will say I stumbled on something suspicious after I got here. I didn't want you dragged through all that—at least until I asked you what you wanted."

She said nothing. She thought,
Is it up to me?
 

"Tyl, what can I do now to fix things? Would you like to get a— fake divorce? That might be better for you. Better than to confess all this ridiculous masquerade. What do you think?"

"Can we get a divorce if we're not really married?" she asked thoughtfully.

"Maybe we can fake something."

"Let's not fake any more," she murmured. "Do you think Doctor Wright would just quietly marry us—really, I mean?"

"Tyl—" He half crossed the rug to her, but he stopped.

Her green eyes were wide open and cool. "Then, you see, the divorce could follow."

"I see." He went back to poke at the fire. He ran his fingers through his hair. He took a turn on the hearth rug. Then he looked at her and his brows flew up. "It's a risk," he warned.

"Risk?" she repeated.

"Terrible risk."

She got up on her elbow and looked across at him with a curious intentness, as if she were, indeed, seeing him for the first time. "I don't think so," she said slowly.

He came quickly to her and sat on the edge of her couch. He took her hands. "We'll do that, if it's what you think will be— Actually, it might be the sensible way. There's no risk, Mathilda."

"You don't mind?" she murmured.

He said with a twist of his mouth, "Why, I guess the rest of my life is yours. There's no one else I owe it to."

She shook her head, not satisfied.

His eyes lit, but he hid the light "Well do that, Tyl," he murmured. "Then . . . we'll see."

She nodded. He put his face down on her hands.

The End