The Unsuspected

by Charlotte Armstrong

  “I know!" she cried. "I couldn't make a fuss! I had to get home! Grandy, what in the world can we do about it?"

  "To think he fooled me," Grandy said sadly. "To think he fooled us all."

  "Oh, darling, I suppose you couldn't help that," she soothed. "The letter was so well done. I know. But it's a fake, just the same. Grandy, what I can't understand is, what's he doing all this for? And what shall we do? You'll throw him out, won't you?"

  Grandy said nothing.

  "What do you think?" she cried.

  "Oh, poor child," he said. "I was thinking what a dreadful day you've had. Poor darling, it's a wonder you didn't begin to think you were out of your mind."

  "I pretty near did," she confessed.

  "It was wicked."

  "Yes, it was," she agreed, her eyes smarting with a rush of self-pity. "You don't know how confusing it was. I had to keep telling myself to hold everything and wait, because you'd fix him! And you will, won't you, Grandy?"

  "Oh, yes, I'll fix him," said Grandy. She made a little satisfied sigh. "You see, duck, we did feel so dreadfully sad. And he seemed to feel the same. Quite as if he'd known you. I want you to understand—"

  "Darling, I don't blame you."

  "But I blame myself," said Grandy. "To think we pitied him and let him stay! Of course, he must have supposed you would never turn up."

  "He thought I was dead. He thought I'd never come back to tell you he was lying." She nodded.

  "We must ask ourselves," said Grandy, "what he wants here."

  A car roared out the drive and off down the road. Grandy's pince-nez fell and dangled on the cord. "Dear me, what was that?"

  "A car," said Mathilda impatiently. "Grandy, what is it about Althea? Why did they go off together?"

  Grandy said, almost absent-mindedly, "You see, Tyl, Francis told me that you couldn't remember him."

  She was amazed. "He told you? When?"

  "As soon as you came. While you were upstairs."

  "Before dinner?" her voice squeaked.

  "Yes, right away."

  "Then— Oh, Grandy, you guessed it was all a he. You did know."

  "Why, yes. I knew."

  Mathilda sank back, puzzled, bothered.

  "What I assumed was that his disappearing with Althea was a part of his act," said Grandy, shifting in the chair. "He was your poor, flouted, forgotten lover, and of course he had to be comforted. Althea's done a good deal of that sort of tiling," he mused—"comforting Francis."

  "I imagine," said Tyl faintly. She thought, Althea would. Faint

  color came to her face.

  "Althea s impulse was to be kind," said Grandy, "and it was kind."

  She thought. But Althea's impulse isn't to be kind. That's not so. She said, "Jane has impulses too. She climbed out her window just now to meet him in the garden."

  "Eh?"

  "Oh, yes, I saw them."

  "Jane?"

  Mathilda nodded. She thought, How many women does he need to comfort him? Her cheeks were hot. "More part of his act," she said.

  "But what's the act designed for, eh, Tyl?" Grandy looked both shrewd and stern. "I think we must know that. We must find out Yes. You see, I told Francis we'd—er—wait."

  "Wait?" Mathilda looked at him, surprised. "Wait?" she cried again, indignantly. Yet she wasn't as indignant as she might have been.

  Grandy said, "Because I wonder what he's after, and I'd like to know. Yes. I'd like very much to know."

  "So would I." Mathilda felt a little flustered, a little lost.

  "You see, duck"—Grandy leaned toward her; his voice took on its old persuasive richness—"the thing's so delicate. We don't want it to be spread around. What fun the newspapers would have if you swear one thing and he continues to swear another. And to do with love and marriage. Oh, Tyl." She looked at him doubtfully. "And yet"—he changed his voice, watching her face—"I should adore to kick him out of here very fast and very hard in a spot where a kick would take the best effect, eh? Perhaps we will do just that. Yes, I think so." Then he said crossly, "What does the fellow want? Did he say anything at all, duck? Any little thing?"

  She shook her head. "I haven't the slightest idea," she said. "At first I thought he must have wanted to get in here to get close to you. Because he wanted something from you, Grandy. But I—" She shook her head again. She remembered Francis had said he was jealous. "I don't think so any more. I just don't know."

  "A very mysterious article, our Francis," mused Grandy. "Now, what could he want of me?"

  Mathilda moved her hands, pulling her robe together nervously. Tomorrow they would lack him out like a dog, and he would deserve it. She lifted her chin. Serve him right. She said aloud, "Maybe you're right"

  “Eh?”

  "Maybe, if we waited, we could find out what he's after," she said weakly. She thought, What am I saying this for?

  "Let us go slowly," said Grandy thoughtfully. She had a sensation of relief. They both relaxed, as if a decision had been taken. But Grandy had another thought. "Naturally, duck, you dislike him. I could see, at the table—"

  "Naturally," she said.

  “Therefore , if he annoys you in any way, if even his being here or anything he does—”

  Mathilda tossed her head. She thought, I won't let myself be annoyed.

  Grandy said, with sudden, almost boyish pleasure, “But isn't it the damnedest thing!” and Mathilda looked at his twinkling black eyes and she laughed.

  “It certainly is,” she agreed. “Oh Grandy, I feel so much better now.”

  “Don't you let him make you think you've had amnesia,” scolded Grandy fondly. “Don't you let him shake you, duck. Or undermine your confidence. No. He shan't do that. Not if I know it!”

  Grandy kissed her. He went out. The door fell softly closed. She stood quite still a moment. It's all right. It's all right. Of course, it's all right. She slipped off the rosy robe. Grandy believes me. Mathilda brushed her teeth very thoroughly and vigorously. She put herself to bed with great decision and firmness. It was almost as if she had to prove she was firm and unshaken.

  Grandy's beautiful bathroom, a bubble of glass and luxury, had been designed and built for him by one of his famous friends, an architect of the modern school. It had been installed for some four years. Before that, Grandy had for his own the bath between his room and the garden room, which bath now served the garden room alone. The connecting door to Grandy's room had been locked and forgotten.

  So it was that Jane, sitting in the dark with her eye to the faintest crack at the edge of her own door,k where she had just not quite closed it, saw Grandy come out of Mathilda's room, the gray room, go up toward the front of the house and enter his own place. She did not see him come out again, as indeed he did not, for she watched until dawn.

  But Althea, gargling her throat, heard his tapping on the locked and bolted door.

  “Grandy?”

  “Slip the latch, chickabiddy. Are you decent?”

  Althea slipped the latch. “I'm decent,” she said sulkily.

  He stood in the half-open door, looking at her with a worried frown. “Oliver?”

  “Oh.” Althea slashed at the rack with her towel. She had a white satin negligee pulled tight around her hips. The wide sleeves were embroidered in silver. "We had a fight. A regular knock-down, drag-out."

  Tm so sorry" said Grandy. "So sorry, dear."

  "Hell get over it," she said. She looked angry to the point of tears.

  "Was it because of Francis?"

  "Such stupid nonsense!" cried Althea.

  "He thought-"

  "I don't know what he thought, but I can guess. Just because I wouldn't tell him what we were talking about."

  "But why not, chicken?" Grandy moved in a little, all benevolence, all loving concern.

  "I might have told him if he hadn't been so nasty." She sniffed. "Oliver gets on a high horse and he's just unbearable."

  "Then it wasn't a secret?"

  “
I don't know," she said thoughtfully. A funny cruel little smile grew on her sulky face. "You know, Tyl's a sly one."

  "Tyl?" Grandy showed his innocent surprise.

  "Francis didn't tell me much," she said, "but he's all upset." She turned away to reach for her lotion. Grandy didn't move. "Such a lot of jealous nonsense!" she stormed. "So Oliver's gone of for the night, and let him! It'll do him good! After all, if Francis wanted me to talk to him, why shouldn't I? Francis isn't very happy."

  "Why shouldn't you, indeed?" murmured Grandy mildly. "But you're upset now, chickabiddy, and you mustn't be. It spoils your pretty face."

  Althea looked into the mirror.

  "Better sleep " said Grandy gently. "Better try to sleep it all away."

  "I know," she said. She turned to him repentantly. "Oh, Grandy, you're such a sweet—"

  "I want you to sleep well," he said, petting her. One hand on her silver hair, he reached in his pocket with the other. "Some of your little pills, darling? They'll help you."

  "Yes," she said. "Grandy, sometimes Oliver's so stupid."

  "There," he said. "There. There are these little adjustments."

  She took the pills childishly, a lot of them. He held the glass of water for her. She turned to dry her lips. "I hope I don't dream."

  Grandy went around the sides of the glass with a towel slowly. He put the glass in her hand. Automatically, she set it in its place.

  "Latch the door, chickabiddy. Sleep well." His beaked, beaming face, alight with loving-kindness, remained in the door a brief moment.

  "You, too, Grandy," said Althea affectionately. She flicked the latch.

  Grandy slept well enough. Jane s head ached where she rested it against her door. Francis, in the garden, was cold. Mathilda had dreams. Oliver, down at the country club, couldn't sleep at all. Althea slept and dreamed no more.

  Chapter Seventeen

  The sudden and unexpected death of Althea Conover Keane, caused by an overdose of sleeping tablets, was called an accident Tom Gahagen was handling the case himself. He had them all together in Grandy's study, late that morning. All. that is. But Jane Moynihan, who had gone off to New York early. She had been on her train before Oliver came home. It was, of course, Oliver who came home in the morning and, finding it impossible to waken his wife by pounding on the locked bedroom door, had got in

  through a window finally, and found what there was of her.

  Grandy sat behind his desk, and Mathilda's heart ached for him as, indeed, it also ached for poor white-faced Oliver, for poor Althea, for the dreary day, for herself, for everything. Grandy's hands shaded his face and he kept looking down at the polished wood, too desperately sad to raise his eyes, even to answer questions.

  In this privacy, Gahagen at first said he assumed it was suicide. There was the fact that she had locked herself in, locked the hall door after Oliver when he had left her, about midnight The connecting bathroom door to Grandy's room was bolted, and had been for years. She was securely locked in. She had wanted to be alone. The stuff she had taken was available there in her medicine cabinet. Althea had been fond of dosing herself. Locked in alone, obviously she took the stuff herself.

  Added to this was her note. "Darling. Forgive me, please do," it read, and it was signed boldly with her big sprawling "Althea," of which the last two letters trailed off insolently, as if she assumed it wasn't necessary to be legible. Everyone would know.

  A sad and cryptic little note, it was. Francis had found it on the floor, after Oliver had got in through the window and cried out and opened the door, and Grandy had rushed in to stand by the bed and look down at her. In all the confusion, Francis had seen the paper fluttering at Grandy's slippered feet, stirred, no doubt, by the breeze of his passing.

  "Now, I'm mighty sorry," Gahagen said, "but I've got to ask you if anybody knows why she'd have wanted to do a thing like this?" The silence fell in a chunk, as it did here, in this unnaturally sound-proofed atmosphere. "What did she mean— 'Forgive me?"

  Tyl thought, But that was what she always said. She remembered Althea's easy, charming "Forgive me's." Something she, herself, could not say at all. The phrase sounded to Tyl, in her own mouth, pretentious and wrong. For Althea it had been so easy. "Forgive me for not telephoning yesterday." "Forgive me for splashing your dress." "Forgive me for not listening." Gahagen wouldn't know how trivial a matter could call out that phrase. She felt too heavy to make the effort to tell him so.

  "Who's the note meant for?" he was insisting. "Who's 'darling'?"

  Oh, anybody, thought Tyl. Everybody.

  Grandy answered as if he tolled a bell. "Surely she meant 'Forgive me for what I am about to do.' God help me, I was afraid."

  "Afraid?"

  "I don't like to say this now. Yet it's all I can think of. It obsesses me. I had a warning "

  "What do you mean, Luther?"

  "Premonition. The house felt wrong. She was not right. Not herself." Grandy took off his pince-nez and rubbed his nose. The homely gesture punctuated his talk. It was as if he'd made a homely gesture to reassure himself.

  "Was it something she said, Luther?"

  "No, nothing she said. Nothing she did. Nothing I can describe. It was . . . the lurking death wish that lies so secretly in the heart. . . . Oh, my house," groaned Grandy, "my poor tragic house." Tyl felt the world would come apart at the seams.

  "Sorry, Luther," said Tom Gahagen. "You know I'm sorry. Got to ask a few questions, get it straightened out." He shifted uneasily.

  Grandy said, "Don't mind me, Tom." Then, in tones of pure heartbreak, "I am wondering, of course, what I ought to have done that I left undone."

  "Aren't we all?" said Francis in a queer, harsh, angry voice. It was as if he'd been rude. Grandy's gentleness reproached him.

  Oliver said monotonously, "We had a quarrel, a dumb, jealous quarrel. She'd been out in the guest house with Howard, and I didn't like it So we said a lot of bitter, nasty stuff and I slammed out of here. She wouldn't tell me what they'd talked about, and I wanted to know. I thought it was my business. She said it wasn't."

  The careful voice broke. "It couldn't have been over me that she did it. Because I didn't matter that much to Althea, and that's the truth."

  It didn't sound like Oliver. He'd been shocked into honest humility. Tyl could have wept for him.

  Gahagen looked at Francis. "What were you and Mrs. Keane talking about so long?" he asked with cold precision.

  Francis said, "She was in no suicidal mood."

  "What d'you mean?"

  "She was in no suicidal mood." He repeated his statement quietly. "I spent a good while last evening talking to her, and I would have known."

  "What were you talking about?"

  Francis shrugged. "As a matter of fact, I was telling her my troubles, and she was very kind," he said smoothly. "And she was not thinking about suicide."

  Gahagen's glance passed from one young man to the other. His thought was transparent on his tight face. A triangle. Jealousy. Trouble. No way to get to the bottom of it.

  Grandy said softly, "We can't be sure that note was not just a note she'd written some other time. Perhaps this was an accident.... Is that possible, Tom?"

  Gahagen examined this soft suggestion and thought he understood it. Some tangle of emotions here that could not be publicly explained.

  Mathilda spoke up at last. "Althea did use that phrase, 'Forgive me,' such a lot"

  "She did. She did," murmured Grandy. "You're right, Tyl. So she did."

  "You don't think it was a suicide note at all?" Gahagen sounded tentative, as if he might, in the end, take their word for it.

  Grandy said, "Not necessarily. Quite possibly, it wasn't.”

  Francis said coldly—almost as if he knew, Tyl thought—"She didn't commit suicide, Mr. Gahagen."

  "Then you think it was an accident?"

  Francis didn't answer.

  But Oliver's new and bitter voice said without drama, "I'd rather think so."


  There was one of those silences.

  "She was," said Francis firmly, insistently, even loudly, "in no more suicidal mood than Mathilda is right now."

  Heads turned. What an odd thing to say! Gahagen's brows made puzzled motions.

  "I'd like you all to look at Mathilda," said Francis easily. That is, his voice was easy; his arm, hanging over the back of the chair he sat in, was dangling with an effect of being relaxed. But there were two hard little fines near his mouth that Jane would have recog-