Unsuspected Read online

  Jane’s nails went into the flesh on Francis’ wrist.

  “I myself know such a man.” This was Luther Grandison speaking. This was his voice. “Yes, I know a man who has committed that gravest and most interesting of all crimes, the crime of murder, and who never has been suspected at all. No, he lives, and has lived for years, wearing his mask, taken for one of us, ordinary, going about his daily business, and yet he did it! I say, he did it!” The voice fell. “I say I know. I had better add that the authorities also know. But alas, such knowing is not legal proof.” The voice was so sorry. It was sorry about everything, but faintly pleased too.

  “You see, with all our cleverness, we do not know how to tear the mask from his face. And, indeed, were I to give his name, he might use the law itself to punish me for what he would call libel. And yet”—in a thrilling whisper—“he did it!”

  A beat of silence. Then the voice said softly, and it licked its chops with relish now, “Oh, they are among us. The Unsuspected! There’s many a murder, not only unsolved but unheard of, unknown … unknown. You may be sure, men and women have gone to their graves, quietly assisted, with no fuss and no bother.”

  The voice died. It left its audience with that delicious little shudder that Luther Grandison knew how to give them. His famous trick of putting terror into the commonplace. It was like the little touches in his plays, the Grandison touches, in which he took the ordinary, and gave it just a little flip, and it was terrifying.

  Jane opened her eyes. “That’s Grandy. You see?”

  Francis sat still with angry white face. “The Unsuspected,” he murmured. “Has he got the crust to mean himself?”

  2

  “Suppose I go to see this lawyer?” His voice was sharp and angry.

  “You can’t walk in there and say, ‘Look, folks, I want to see all the dope on the Frazier fortune.’”

  “The law could.”

  “The law won’t!” she wailed. “He’s unsuspected. And, Fran, if you try to stir up something that way, I can see what would happen. He’d be ever so gentle with you. But he’d treat you like a museum piece. He’d put you in his collection of psychopaths. By the time he got through, everybody would be so sorry for the poor young fiancé, unbalanced by grief.”

  “Like that, eh?” The rich purr of Grandy’s voice hung remembered between them. “Well, let that go for a minute,” snapped Francis. “Start another way. How did he do it?”

  “He’s even got an alibi,” said Jane despairingly. “Althea was with him. I mean, she saw Rosaleen alive, and after that Grandy was with her all the time, until they found—”

  “Althea saw her?”

  “Well, heard her speak, anyway.”

  Francis’ eyes lit again. “What if we could show the alibi’s a fake?”

  “If we could! Fran, do you think a private detective—”

  Francis let his lips go into something like a smile. “I think I’ll attend to this myself,” he said.

  Jane moaned. She took hold of his hand, but he twisted it around and patted hers reassuringly. “We’re going to have to assume he did it,” he said in a moment. “Because if he really did, in fact, in cold blood, then this Grandison is dangerous.”

  Jane agreed. “He’s dangerous.”

  The waiter came with their new order. Francis bit into the sandwich. They were both hungry, suddenly.

  “Could I get at those girls?” he asked her.

  “Mathilda’s drowned,” said Jane, with her mouth full.

  “She’s what? How?”

  Jane read his mind. “Oh, no, Grandy couldn’t have had anything to do with it. She started out for Bermuda and the ship went down—oh, five weeks ago. They haven’t heard a thing since.”

  “So she’s drowned. That’s the rich one?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “She was lost before this happened to Rosaleen?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Who gets her dough?”

  “He does.”

  “Grandison?”

  “Yes, that’s her will. Of course, they keep hoping Mathilda’s still alive. They can’t do anything about the money yet.”

  “Meanwhile, he still controls it?”

  “Of course.”

  Francis thought awhile. “How can I get to Althea?”

  “What do you mean, get to her?”

  “Talk to her. Get to know her. Well enough to ask a lot of interesting questions.”

  “You can’t,” said Jane. “There’s no way.” He looked at her. “Listen, Fran; in the first place, she’s a bride. She and Oliver are still honeymooning. She sticks around their crowd, besides, and it’s a closed crowd. Nobody could get in.”

  “Want to bet?”

  “No, because I know. Grandy’d never bother with somebody just nice and ordinary and civilized and in between, like you, Fran. Somebody famous, maybe. Or somebody very humble. But not you. And, you see, if he didn’t take you up, you’d never get to Althea.”

  “Is that so?” said Francis with a kind of mild surprise. “Could I get in there as a servant? I’ve never tried, but I don’t doubt I could be a butler, for instance.”

  “No servants.”

  “No servants at all!”

  “Not a one. He doesn’t believe in them. He says they’d limit his complete freedom.”

  “No chauffeur, even?”

  “Oh, no. He drives himself around in an old jalopy. He wears an old brown hat.”

  “I could be the gas man.”

  “Where would that get you?”

  “Nowhere,” he admitted. He drummed his fingers on the table.

  “Fran,” she said, “remember, I’m in there, after all.”

  “You lie low, Auntie Jane.” He smiled. The absurdity of their relationship amused him once more. His father’s baby sister, Jane was. His cute little Aunt Jane. “You keep your little old nose out of this. In fact, maybe you’d better not go back at all.”

  “Oh, don’t worry. He thinks I’m a dumb blonde.”

  “Lots of people do, and they’re so wrong,” said Francis. “How am I going to get in there? Couldn’t I pretend to be some famous character?”

  “I doubt if you could hoax him. He’s such a shrewd old—”

  “Never mind. Would it be possible for you to lure Althea out to meet me?”

  “Althea thinks the sun rises and sets with her Grandy,” Jane warned him.

  “How about this Oliver? What kind of guy is he?”

  Jane wrinkled her nose. “Oh, he’s all right. He’s pleasant. He’s the kind of man who understands women’s hats.”

  “Lord.”

  “Of course, he thinks Grandy’s practically God. They all do.”

  “Maybe Grandy does,” said Francis grimly.

  They both drank some coffee. He tried again. “Could I hire myself out to that lawyer, get into his office?”

  “I don’t know, Fran, I don’t think you’d find anything. Surely he wouldn’t let there be records.”

  Francis shook his head. “How did Rosaleen find out?”

  Jane looked blank.

  “Instinct tells me I’ve got to get to know Althea,” he insisted.

  “But, Fran, how could I lure her out? What could I say? ‘Come and meet somebody who thinks your guardian is a stinker’? And if you hinted anything like that, she’d go straight back to Grandy—”

  “Then you mustn’t have anything to do with my meeting her,” said Francis promptly. “I see. And yet I’ve got to get at her.”

  “You watch out for Althea. She’s got silver eyes.”

  “Do you think,” said Francis, and suddenly he looked very old, “that any woman, with or without silver eyes, is going to bother me?”

  Jane drank some more coffee. Francis was looking down. She hated the drawn line of his cheek, the too-thin look of him. This wasn’t the Francis she loved, who was sure of things, the one all other girls immediately assumed to be mysterious and exciting. He wasn’t mysterious to her, not even
now. She was his little old Aunt Jane, and she knew what ailed him was only sorrow, and that bitter anger he was holding leashed and ready. And God knew what he’d been through in the war, besides.

  But Fran, bitter and old, missing that something wild and nimble in his spirit, that quicksilver quality. She thought, outraged, He’s only twenty-five. She babbled out loud, unhappily, “I’m not belittling your fatal charm, darling. But it’s not a good moment to establish yourself as Althea’s boy friend.”

  “Let it go,” said Francis irritably. Then, in a minute, he lifted his head. “Suppose I were Mathilda’s boy friend?”

  Jane felt a little shock. “They say— I mean, there wasn’t anyone but Oliver.”

  “They’re so wrong,” said Francis softly. He kept his head up. She saw his nostrils quiver. “How old was Mathilda?”

  “Twenty-two.”

  “That’s fine. I think I’ll be Mathilda’s boy friend, all upset because she’s drowned.”

  “But Fran—”

  “When did she sail on this fatal ship?”

  “In January.”

  “From New York? Alone?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Then she met me in New York. I’m a new boy friend.”

  “But, Fran, she went off with a broken heart. You can’t pretend—”

  He wasn’t listening. He went ahead. “Was she here in the city long before she sailed? How long, Jane?”

  “Three days.”

  “All that time?” said Francis, in a pleased way. “And she was alone?”

  “She was alone. Don’t you see, it must have been that she ran away from the situation. There was that newly married pair moving in. Althea’d copped off her man. It must have been a hideous blow.”

  He didn’t say anything. Jane, watching him, suddenly remembered the time he’d gone out and bet his allowance on a horse race, and won enough to buy his mother a wildly extravagant bracelet for Christmas. He had just that crazy gleam, that funny high-sailing look, as if now he wasn’t going to bother to use the ground. He was going to take to the air. His spurning look. He’d get these reckless streaks, as if something in his will, or something mysteriously lucky, or some fantastic kind of foresight, would signal to him. He’d scare everybody to death. Then it would come out all right. This was the old Fran, the one she loved, with that leaping look.

  “By gum, why didn’t I marry the girl?” he asked, as if this were a reasonable question.

  Her heart turned over. “Marry what girl?”

  “Mathilda. Obviously, I married Mathilda.”

  “No! Fran!”

  “Now, wait. Think about it. Be logical.”

  “Logical!” said Jane. “Oh, gosh! Logical!” She hung on to the table. “Now, just a min—”

  “But that does it! She’s the one with the money. See here, Jane, sooner or later won’t they have to presume she’s not coming back from her watery grave? Ah-ha, but when she married me, you know, she technically got control of her own money. So I’m the guy that’ll be right there, asking bright, intelligent questions, when the books are opened.”

  Jane stuttered, “She w-willed it to Grandy.”

  “Never mind.” He brushed her off. “I’ll fix that. I’m an interested party. That’s enough. That’ll do it. And besides—look, honey. I go up there. Most natural thing in the world. My God, my bride! I’m all upset. I want to be with her nearest and dearest. Don’t I? So I talk about her. So I talk. I talk to everybody. I talk to Althea. I’m a tragic figure. Althea’s going to be powerful sorry for me.” His eyebrows flew up. He looked full of the devil.

  “But, Fran—”

  “Don’t say ‘But, Fran.’ Ask questions. Be helpful.”

  “No, no. Listen.” Jane struck the table with her fist. “Don’t underrate that man! Don’t dare! Please don’t try anything half-baked. He’s too smart, too terribly smart! This isn’t any parlor game. You can’t just go and tell a plain lie and expect him to swallow it. You said it yourself. Assume he’s guilty. Then he’s bound to check. He’ll be very wary.”

  “Let him check,” said Francis coldly. “Let him be wary.”

  Jane closed her eyes. She heard his voice go on, now quick and excited.

  “What you do is, you go back. Send me her handwriting. All you can find. Steal it. Send me pictures of her. Good ones.”

  “But, Fran—”

  “Got to have them. Think about it.”

  “There’s a roll,” said Jane slowly, as if he had hypnotized her, “that Althea had in her camera. She had them developed last week and they all cried over the ones with Mathilda.”

  “Those are the ones I want.”

  “But, Fran—”

  “Don’t ‘but.’”

  “Fran, you’re crazy!” She opened her eyes.

  “Am I?” said Francis quietly. “O.K. The point is, I intend to get in there and find out what happened to Rosaleen. Because if anybody hurt her, he will get hurt. I don’t mind what methods I use, or what trouble I take, or what lies I tell, or bribes I have to pay. If this is the way you get in and find out, then this is the way I go. You can’t stop me. I don’t think you want to, really. You might as well help, don’t you think?”

  “I’d h-help,” she stammered. “But, Fran, Mathilda could not have—”

  “You don’t understand her psychology,” he said whimsically.

  “But, Fran!”

  “But what?”

  “But everything!” she wailed.

  Francis leaned back. He was smiling. She thought, He’s lost ten years. He looked like a man who contemplated moving heaven and earth with bright, interested eyes. “Ask me something I can’t answer,” he challenged, “so I can fix up some answers.”

  3

  The April morning was sunny, cool and clear. Down in her stateroom, the girl with the green eyes took a last look at herself in the mirror door. Her old tweed suit was, she thought, respectable enough. She was lucky to have found it, forgotten in the Bermuda clothes closet. The black shoes weren’t quite right, but they would have to do. She had no hat. The scarf she’d knotted around her head like a turban had blown away one day on deck. She wore her gold-brown hair very plain. It was clean and shining. For the first time in her life, she hadn’t felt able to spend the money to have her hair done, so she had washed it herself, carefully. A good job, she thought. No gloves. Just this old brown-and-white summer bag. She picked it up.

  Her luggage had already gone, such as it was. One nightgown, one toothbrush and a bag of very expensive Dutch chocolates rattling lonesomely in the clumsy suitcase. She’d spent half of what she had left for the chocolates; each one of them was just about worth its weight in gold. Well, but he loved them so. He must have them. It would make him so happy.

  She smiled, and saw herself smile in the glass. Yes, she thought, she must remember to smile. Her face had grown thinner. It was bonier than ever now. Better smile. It wouldn’t do to look woebegone or exhausted. She wasn’t really, except for reasons that had nothing to do with what they would want to know. Not that they wouldn’t love to know the real reasons.

  She turned for a last look at her stocking seams. She felt very calm. She knew exactly how to behave. She opened the door of her stateroom and walked down the corridor.

  An officer spoke to her. “They’re waiting for you.”

  “Thank you.”

  Be a lady. Smile. Be pleasant. Be sweet and dull. She remembered her lessons.

  The officer took her into the room where they were—several men and one girl. Their eyes licked at her.

  The officer said, “This is Miss Mathilda Frazier.”

  She said quietly and in a friendly fashion, “How do you do?”

  The cameras popped off like a quick lightning storm. They flashed one after another. Mathilda stood still, her lips curved pleasantly and a little shyly.

  Grandy’d told her long ago, “Tyl, you’re an heiress and, for various reasons deeply ingrained in the fundamentals of human nature,
my dear, that fact makes what you do several times as interesting as what other girls do. Now, Althea, being penniless, doesn’t have quite the same problem. Yet Althea, with her great beauty, has her own trouble.”

  She shook off the memory of Grandy, sitting in his favorite chair. Never mind Althea now. The point was, he’d taught her how to handle this. Dear Grandy, he’d taught her so much. Her heart felt warm when she thought of him.

  The men of the press took an impression that she was well-bred, that she was shy. One or two of them approved of her ankles. It was the female among them who realized that, although her clothes were dull, this girl was beautifully made and essentially lovely. One of them suggested that she might like to tell her story in her own way.

  “Never give them an emotion,” Grandy used to say. “Look placid, dear. Placid as a milkmaid. That’s the way.”

  “I was reading in my room when the ship caught fire,” she began. “There was an alarm, of course. I took my coat and went up to my boat station. They lowered the boat almost immediately. It was all very orderly.”

  She stopped and smiled the shy little smile. But it was too brief, too bare. They began to question.

  “Were you hurt, Miss Frazier?” someone said warmly.

  “No, not at all.”

  “Did you see the fire?”

  “No,” she said.

  “I couldn’t see anything.”

  “No smoke? No flames?”

  “It must have been at the other side of the ship,” she said in her clear, gentle voice.

  “Were the passengers scared? Any panic?”

  “Not that I saw,” she answered. Better leave out about Doctor Phillips, praying so loud, arguing with the Lord under the stars. And how surprised he was when his prayer was so promptly and practically answered. He’d even, she remembered, seemed a little disappointed and thwarted, as if he’d had a lot of prayer in him yet, O Lord. “We were picked up in only two hours,” she said.