The Unsuspected (22 page)

"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 kitchens 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 flickered. 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.

Chapter Twenty-nine

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."

"That's what I'll do," he said gently. "Go to the drugstore, duckling. Call from a booth. We can't have this all over town."

"Give me a nickel," she said resolutely.

He gave her a nickel. Watching her, he knew she would obey the suggestions. She would go to the drugstore. She would ask for Gahagen. It would all take time.

Mrs. Press opened the back door suspiciously. Then she let the door go wide, recognizing him.

"What have you got to put him in?" said Grandy briskly, without introduction.

"There's a trunk," she said.

"Get it."

“It's upstairs.”

"Drag it down."

Recognizing emergency, she went without saying anything more, Grandy called a number on the telephone.

"Press?"—crisply. "Can you send a truck here in the next five minutes? Trouble. Police. Tell them to pick up a trunk." Sharply: “If you can't do it in five minutes, there's no use." Coldly: "You realize what will happen if you don't, this being your house?" Calmly:

“Yes, I hoped you would. Tell them it's full of germs. Yes, germs. Typhoid. Anything."

Grandy hung up the phone. There was a loud bumping and crashing. He went into the stair hall and helped Mrs. Press with the big old empty turtleback trunk.

The two of them went down for Francis. Even with his limbs bound, even gagged and stiff and sore as he was, they had no easy time. Francis was sick at heart. This hurry, this wild anxiety of haste, could only mean that Tyl had made contact somewhere, somehow,

and Grandy had found it out. So it was to be no good? No soap? Not even now, after she'd found him and thanked God? He would not see her face again, to thank her or to explain or just to see her face again?

He was damned if he wouldn't! The woman had great strength, and Grandy was not so weak an old man as he, perhaps, looked. They were desperate and in a hurry. They got him up the cellar steps, although all the way he bucked like a bronco. The scene in the hall was dreadful in its grim wordlessness. It was a voiceless battle of desperations. The yawning trunk was like a tomb, and the living man, in all his helplessness, refused to go.

But he fell. He fell out of their weakening grasp, and he had no arms. He struck his head. They folded him over, jammed him in, stuffed him down.

The woman, panting, said, "Better do it!"

Grandy screeched, "No time! No time!"

They shut the lid down. Grandy took the key and turned it in the lock. Together, they dragged again, tipped the bulky object over the front doorsill. Mrs. Press closed the door.

"With a knife," she gasped, "it wouldn't have taken long!"

Grandy said, "Blood?" He sneered at her stupidity. Then he warned her, "You don't know anything, when you're asked." He looked no more than a trifle worried now, a bit flustered. His frenzy was gone.

"I don't know anything," she said contemptuously. She watched him go back toward the kitchen. She heard the soft closing of the kitchen door.

The police car came wailing down the street to where Tyl stood, hopping with anxiety, on the drugstore corner. It barely stopped. It snatched her up. She showed them the way and told them as much as she could in the few brief noisy minutes it took them to swoop on, five blocks—the drugstore had been farther away than Grandy had said—down the street.

When the big, clumsy gray garbage truck came rumbling along, going in the opposite direction, the men on top, in their dusty boots and aprons and heavy gloves, looked wonderingly down. They leaned against the big trunk balanced there, the last of their load.