He would turn out to be a certain kind of modern. His energies, held down by five years of paralyzed misery, were on an upswing now, what with better food and a little fun, now and then, and peepings and cracklings of hope—yes.
But Zan was not for him. There are unwritten rules in these matters. At twenty-five, she was years too old for him, at twenty-four. She was too much her own woman, besides. There were many very pretty young girls with the proper training.
Mrs. Moffat, her head to one side, considered this pretty structure that passed for thought. It was not true.
While Nicky, inside, was polite to the boy, the father came out to speak to Mrs. Moffat, saying he feared his son had not properly thanked her, since he didn’t yet seem to realize that Mrs. Moffat had told his father where to find him, nor did Paul know she had heard about the so-called treason. “Although that’s what you might call ambiguous,” the father said, struggling to tone down his personal rejoicing, since he was a decent man. “The doctors who debriefed him were pretty hard on the unforgivable sin, but his seventeen-year-old sister is the mascot for his fan club. I don’t know what he’ll do!” He flashed her an impish look of wild surmise.
Then father and son were gone.
Nicky joined the ladies on the porch. He raised Zan from where she was huddled and tucked her under his arm on the settee.
“Tommy went for that bullet,” she said very softly, into the flesh under his ear. “I could tell. He went for that bullet from the day he was born.”
“Could be,” said Nicky, rumbling the words into her hair.
There would have to be some rites of finality, tomorrow or the next day. Zan knew. She also knew what she could not have. She had told the red-bearded boy that she was sorry. What harm? He had been sorry, too. But the ghost of Tommy Moffat would stand between them and live forever.
It wasn’t that she “couldn’t have” such a thing as a sudden, sweet, and mindless need to be near some one man. She feared it. She didn’t really want it. She wanted it, but only with other things. She wanted Nicky.
Mrs. Moffat, having been released to rock, was rocking timidly. Muffled to the tip of her nose in her gray stole, she felt mousy.
Tommy Moffat had never behaved as she had wished he would. All so bad and sad, and yet Tommy had danced like a demon in the light of the fires—and God knew …
Her Simon was lost from the garden now. Linked into his own life between past and future, consequences to overcome, rewards yet to win, ladders to climb. Ah, well, he was young. And, of course, some would say that the boy was found.
But Mrs. Moffat was not young. She knew about Moffat’s law. Anyone’s puny little conception of the whole must rattle around within the vast and awesome reality. Wonders must press on all sides, and piercings of wonders be sliding like silver light on unknown dimensions, through and through, at the very edge of the range of the eye, and this was true, and she was frightened and too old to speak of such things because they’d only call the doctor …
Alexandra Terry Moffat stirred and said in her clear young voice, “It’s chilly. I don’t like the burny smell. Let’s go into the kitchen. Polly can call us if she needs us. And Nicky can put the kettle on.”
She whisked off to the kitchen to put the light up.
“We may as well do as she says,” said Nicky.
“I think so, too,” said Mrs. Moffat joyfully.
About the Author
Edgar Award–winning Charlotte Armstrong (1905–1969) was one of the finest American authors of classic mystery and suspense. The daughter of an inventor, Armstrong was born in Vulcan, Michigan, and attended Barnard College, in New York City. After college she worked at the New York Times and the magazine Breath of the Avenue, before marrying and turning to literature in 1928. For a decade, she wrote plays and poetry, with work produced on Broadway and published in the New Yorker. In the early 1940s, she began writing suspense.
Success came quickly. Her first novel, Lay On, MacDuff! (1942) was well received, spawning a three-book series. Over the next two decades, she wrote more than two dozen novels, winning critical acclaim and a dedicated fan base. The Unsuspected (1945) and Mischief (1950) were both made into films, and A Dram of Poison (1956) won the Edgar Award for best novel. She died in California in 1969.
All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 1970 by Jack and Charlotte Lewi Family Trust
Cover design by Jason Gabbert
ISBN: 978-1-5040-4276-5
This 2016 edition published by MysteriousPress.com/Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.
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CHARLOTTE ARMSTRONG
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