Unsuspected

by Charlotte Armstrong

  The pavement told her nothing. How could it? The houses here were a little less aloof, a little more chummy with the street, but still— A car passed yesterday morning. What remains to tell you that it has passed or where it went, which corners, after this, it turned, which way?

  She felt very small and helpless. There was no use walking along Dabney Street. No use, she thought.

  There was a little boy in leggings and jacket, sitting on his three-wheeled bike, watching her. He was part way up the walk of the first house around the corner. He was about three years old.

  Mathilda started toward him. She would ask. She thought, No, how silly! It’s just a baby! She stood irresolutely at the opening between hedges, the end of the walk where he was.

  The door of the house beyond him opened suddenly and his mother appeared, rather suspiciously, as if she thought this strange young woman might have designs on her child. She hurried down the walk, wearing only her house dress, moving fast in the chilly spring air.

  “Gigi …”

  Gigi kept on looking at Tyl.

  “Let me see your hands.” He surrendered his dirty little paws. The woman began to put her fingers into the tiny pockets of his snowsuit. She looked over her shoulder at Tyl. “Was there anything you wanted?” she inquired with a polite grimace.

  “I …” Tyl gulped. “I did want to find out something,” she said, “but I don’t know quite how to go about it. I was going to ask your little boy, but I’m afraid he’s too little to remember.”

  “Remember what?”

  “Just … whether a certain car went by yesterday morning.”

  “He wouldn’t know,” said the mother sternly.

  “No, I guess he wouldn’t,” said Tyl. She turned away.

  “You come right in and let me wash those hands,” she heard the woman saying. “Where in the world …! You didn’t get into any more chocolate, did you?”

  “Uhuh,” said Gigi.

  “You didn’t pick anything up and put it in your mouth today?”

  “Uhuh.”

  “You remember what Mommy told you? Did you?”

  “Umum.”

  “He doesn’t know,” said the woman apologetically to Tyl, who still stood uncertainly on the sidewalk. “Lord, he’ll pick up any old thing and it’s so dangerous. Gigi, I told you to throw that paper away.”

  The woman pulled something out of the little pocket and threw it on the ground.

  Gigi bawled protest.

  “You cannot have it! You mustn’t keep dirty old things other people have thrown away. How many times …?”

  But Mathilda was at her elbow now, breathless, demanding. “When did he find the chocolate? Was it yesterday?”

  “Yes, it was,” the woman said in surprise.

  “Oh, thank you!” cried Mathilda. “Thank you so much! That’s just what I wanted to know!”

  She swooped down and picked up the bit of bright metallic paper, gaudy enough to attract a child, bright enough to see in the grass. She flattened it out with eager fingers. There was the Dutch name hidden in the pattern. It was a wrapper from one of Grandy’s chocolates!

  Francis, in her room that night, had taken a handful. He’d put them in his pocket. No one on earth but Francis or Grandy could have dropped one of those candies. And there was a car that had turned on Dabney Street, that had picked up a man who had waited for a bus.

  Francis! It was a trail! It was going to be a paper chase! Oh, clever Francis!

  “Oh, thank you! Thank you so much!” Tyl flew back down the path. The woman stood in belated curiosity.

  But Tyl went off down Dabney Street with the paper in her pocket and her fingers tight on it. Oh, clever Francis! But this showed he hadn’t got into that car because he wanted to. Or why drop clues?

  28

  Perhaps he had taken it out to eat it. Perhaps he had dropped it by accident. Perhaps somebody else, after all, had Dutch chocolates. But no, no, no. At least, she thought, I’ve got to go on down Dabney Street and keep looking.

  She kept her eyes along the curb, remembering that Francis would have been the passenger, would have been sitting on this side. Still, it was yesterday. Other children on the street might have found other candies, and how would she know? She thought of Hansel and Gretel, of the birds that ate the crumbs and spoiled the trail home.

  She came to the next corner and stopped to think it out. A car turning a corner keeps to the right. Francis sat on the right. She went around the corner to the right, searching the inside curb. Nothing. Then she thought that if the car turned left, he would be on the outside. The middle of the intersection was no good. She crossed over and searched along the curb near which Francis would have been carried had the car turned left. Nothing.

  Now what to do? She saw the search branching out hopelessly. Now she had a choice of three, and each corner she would reach on each of three routes would have, in turn, a choice of three. The thing multiplied violently. It was impossible.

  She went along Dabney Street, walking on down on the right side, watching the curb. He had dropped a clue, hadn’t he, after they’d turned a corner? He wouldn’t drop a clue at every cross street. So, at every intersection she searched, after the turns. Six blocks along, she saw a bit of burnished purple. Intact. Candy and all. Another one! The car had turned right on Enderby Street. Oh, clever Francis! Oh, clever Mathilda! She walked along jauntily, happy and pleased and excited. She knew where to look now, for sure.

  She found a green wrapper twisted up, empty, on the brink of a sewer. Her lip began to bleed where she’d bitten it, thinking how near that clue had been to being lost. Head down, she plodded on. She spotted a blue one from all the way across the road. She thought, My eyes are good. They’ll last as long as the candies do. She wondered how many there could have been in that handful. And how many more corners—

  She plodded on. Ten blocks on the same street. She stopped, then, and went back in a panic. She’d missed it. Or it was gone. She came along the same ten blocks again, almost despairing. Nothing.

  On the eleventh corner there was a purple one shining under a hedge. To the left, then. Yes, Francis. Eyes aching, she went on. The trail had led her into a meaner part of town, a poorer part, at least. A part where she’d never been. Not on foot. Not alone. Surely the afternoon must be wearing along. This street seemed to have uneasy shadows. The trail had been so long. She looked at her watch. No, it was not even two o’clock.

  She stopped in her tracks. Her eye just caught it. She would have been by in another second. Inside the driveway, inside the straggly border of barberry bushes, there was a little heap of five or six candies all together. Bright and gay, like Christmas, they sparkled on the dull grass. Inside the drive. Inside the property line.

  The house was a dirty white, an old frame house, respectable enough, closed looking. No sign of children here, no flowers, no outdoor life at all. A bleak porch, a tall door with old-fashioned hardware.

  She made herself walk by, hiding as well as she could her sudden stop by pretending to search in her purse, as if she’d thought of something. She walked two doors beyond. Shrubs, just leafing out, hid her now. She stopped again. That was the house! In there. The thing to do was to call the police, of course. But would they come? Would they believe her? Would they be quick enough? Would they go into the house? Could she convince them there was enough to warrant going in?

  She thought, If I could only get closer.

  She dared not go to the door and ring and make an excuse. If Francis was in there, he would not, in any case, be sitting in the front parlor to be seen by a caller. He would not answer the door, either. That wouldn’t be any good.

  She turned slowly back and went, instead, up the walk to the neighbor house. There was a deep shrub border between the plots. She had an idea.

  The lady of the house was at home.

  “I beg your pardon,” Tyl said with all the charm she could muster. “I want to ask you a strange kind of favor. You see, the ot
her day my little boy and I were coming by, and he lost his ball. His favorite ball.”

  “Isn’t that a shame,” said the woman. She had a long flat jaw, and she pulled it far down, as if she were making a face. She meant well, Mathilda realized.

  “Yes, it was too bad,” she continued, “and I was just going by again, and I thought perhaps you’d let me look in among your shrubs there. I’ll be very careful. I won’t injure them; really I won’t.”

  “Well, I guess you won’t,” the woman said rather grudgingly.

  “Then you don’t mind if I poke around in there a little? If I could find it, he’d be so happy. He’s three,” she babbled. “His name is Gigi. That’s what I call him. I would be so grateful to you.”

  “Go ahead,” said the woman harshly, as if she washed her hands of the whole thing.

  “Oh, thank you.”

  “Don’t mention it.”

  The door drew shut slowly. Tyl thought, She’ll go to a window. She’s watching, remember.

  Slowly, she went across the narrow strip of lawn and peered on the ground along the edge of the border of mock orange and straggly overgrown lilac and shabby privet. She bent her head to appear to look at the ground, but her eyes were directed higher.

  She looked up under her brows to inspect the shabby white frame house, so near, actually, in distance, although the fact of the shrubbery border set it apart from where she stood. There was only a driveway and then a narrow strip of ground with rhododendrons, and then the white house wall, the stone foundation.

  Shades were drawn in the stingy bay of the front room on this side. The next window was high—on the stairs, probably. Two windows farther back would be the kitchen, and that would be dangerous.

  She stepped within the shrub border, moving slowly, stirring leaves and sticks with her foot, but watching next door. She was disappointed. There really was no way to see in from this side. The bay was high and the shades were drawn close. She wouldn’t dare to try to see into the kitchen, and besides, it was too high. The stair window would be no good at all without a ladder. In the stonework, however, below, there was a little window, down back of the rhododendrons.

  She thought, So my little boy’s ball might have gone into the rhododendrons. Mightn’t it? Do I dare? She thought, I must. They won’t see me. Nobody sits on the stairs. The kitchen’s too far back.

  She went stooping through the shrubs, crossed the invisible boundary line between the lots, moved quietly across the hard-surfaced driveway, kept her head down, kept her movements tentative, groping, wandering, but edging herself to that cellar window.

  Francis was lying on his right side now. When Mrs. Press had brought him food, he had wiggled around. She had crouched over him, feeding him carelessly, not caring much whether he got the food in his mouth or on his vest. His mouth was stiff and sore. It was agony to try to eat, but he did try. He didn’t speak to the woman. She didn’t speak either. He felt about her as he might have felt about a sleeping dog. He didn’t want to awaken her to being aware of him. He wanted her to feed him carelessly, as if it were only another chore. He didn’t want that look back in her eye. So she had put the gag back in efficiently and gone away, and now he was lying on his right side, which was a change.

  Press himself had not been down. If only Press could be reached. What if he knew that Grandy, too, was a murderer already? For Press was a murderer already and Grandy knew it. That much was clear to Francis now. Press was one of the unsuspected, perhaps the one the old man had in his mind that day on the radio. That was why he had to do what Grandy said.

  But what if Press knew they were even? Would he obey then? If only Press could be told. But how, even if the man did come, could Francis explain all this, lying, as he was, speechless and gagged? The light was flickering.

  What light? Daylight. That was the only light at all. Murky daylight from the dirty little window, and it filckered. He rolled his eyes. He saw a hand on the glass. Someone was crouching down outside the window, trying to see in. He lifted both heels from the cement floor and dropped them with a thud. He did it again. Again. The fingers curled. They tapped twice. He made the thud with his heels twice. He nearly choked, forgetting to breathe.

  The fingers went away and came back. They expressed emotion, somehow. Whoever it was knew now. He could make out the shadows of arm movements. Fur. A woman.

  The little window was nailed tightly shut.

  Outside, Mathilda crouched behind the rhododendrons. She couldn’t see clearly at all, only the barest glimpse of a bare floor where a little light fell. The window was too dirty. The place inside too dark.

  But she had heard. She had signaled. She had been answered. The little window was locked tightly, nailed shut. She took off her shoe and struck the glass with the heel. It tinkled on the floor inside, so faint a sound she was sure it couldn’t have been heard. She put her mouth up close to the opening, “Francis?”

  Francis strained at the gag. His throat hurt with the need to answer. He tapped with his heels. It was all he could do.

  “Francis? Can you hear?”

  Tap again. Raise your ankles and let the heels fall.

  “Can’t you talk?”

  Tap again. Tap twice.

  “Tap twice for ‘no,’” she whispered. “Once for ‘yes.’”

  He didn’t tap at all.

  “Can’t you talk?”

  He tapped twice for “no.”

  “But you’re Francis?”

  He tapped once for “yes.”

  “Thank God!” she said. “Are you hurt?”

  “No.”

  “What shall I do?”

  No taps. How could he answer?

  “Can I get in?”

  “No.”

  “I’d better go for help?”

  “Yes.”

  “Are you in danger?”

  “Yes.” Oh, Mathilda, so are you. Go away, quickly. All he could do was tap once for “yes.”

  “I’ll get help. I’ll get the police.”

  “Yes!”

  Tyl, he wanted to cry, don’t get Grandy. Of all people, keep away from him. Don’t even tell him you’ve found me. Tyl, if you really do thank God, then hurry. Go to the police, the public authorities, to someone safe. Go away now, before that woman sees you. Go silently. Don’t run yourself slam bang into danger. Don’t run. Oh, Tyl, be careful. Take care of yourself.

  “I’ll hurry,” she said. He had an illusion that she’d heard him thinking. He raised his heels, tapped “yes.”

  “Don’t worry,” she said.

  He couldn’t answer that one. Worry! God, would he worry. Oh, clever Tyl. She’d followed the trail. She’d found it. But he couldn’t talk, he couldn’t warn her, he couldn’t say— If only she would go now, silently, quickly, straight to the public authorities. If only he could have told her so.

  There was hope now—too much hope. It was terrifying. Hope and fear. He was afraid for her. He almost wished she hadn’t found him. He rolled his head on the floor painfully. He groaned beneath the gag. He almost wished for the peace of hopelessness.

  29

  Mathilda went back through the shrubbery border. She stooped once, remembering, and pretended to pick up something, in case the woman next door should still be at a window somewhere.

  Then she let herself move faster, went out onto the lawn and the street. She walked a little way. Then she began to run, gasping, heart pounding. Only get far enough away and then find a telephone. She was a little deaf and blind with excitement and haste. She didn’t see or hear the rattling old car until it honked a surprised little squawk at her and pulled up at the curb. “Tyl! Tyl!” Her body didn’t want to stop running. She had to will the brakes on.

  “Tyl, what is the matter? Darling!”

  And there was Grandy, tumbling out of his car, fumbling at his pince-nez to keep them on. Dear Grandy! He would know what to do! She’d forgotten everything but that she was in haste and Francis must be saved, and here was Grandy, to
whom she had told all her troubles all her remembered life.

  She threw herself upon him. Wept with relief. “Grandy, I found Francis! I found him! Something awful has happened!”

  “Hush,” he said. “Hush, Tyl. Now tell me quietly.”

  “Oh, Grandy, help me find a policeman! Somebody to get him out! Because he’s in there! He’s in there!”

  “In where?”

  “In that cellar! He’s tied up! He can’t talk! Oh Grandy, quick, let’s get somebody!”

  He held her, supporting her. “You say you’ve found Francis? Are you quite sure?”

  “Of course, I’m sure! It is! Oh, Grandy, be quick!”

  “But where, dear?”

  “That house back there. The white one. Can you see? The first white one, with the reddish bush. That’s where he is. In the cellar. I saw through the window. What shall we do?”

  “Get the police,” said Grandy promptly. “Tyl, darling, how did you— Look here. Are you sure?”

  “I’m positive!”

  “But did anyone see you?”

  “I don’t know. So hurry!”

  “But how could you tell it was—”

  “I broke the glass.”

  “Tyl, darling.”

  “Oh, hurry!” she sobbed. “Because he’s in danger!”

  He said, “Yes. This is bad business, isn’t it?” Now he was matter-of-fact, no longer surprised. He sounded cool and brisk and capable. “Tyl, do you think you could take the car and go find a telephone? There’s a drugstore a block down, or two blocks down—somewhere down there. You go call the police. Call headquarters. Ask for Gahagen himself. Can you manage?”

  “Yes, I can,” she said.

  “While I go back and keep an eye on that house.”

  “Oh, yes!” she agreed gladly. “Oh, Grandy, that’s right! Oh, yes, do! You stay and watch. Watch out for Francis.”