The Unsuspected by Charlotte Armstrong Page A

He chose to explain all this to Mathilda. "You see," he told her, and she couldn't wrench her eyes from his plain, kind face, "the girl got up on Mr. Grandison's desk in there. You know his ceiling hook—the one he had put in for hanging special lights? She—er—used that, y'see, and stepped off the desk, like." Tyl felt sick. "Well, it isn't pleasant to think about, but she couldn't help it—kicking, y'know. Her leg got tangled in the lamp on his desk, pulled it
    over, wires came out of the bulb socket."
     
    "So they did," said Grandy. He sounded politely puzzled.
     
    "What we figure now," the detective said, "is that she must've blown a fuse. Blown a fuse when she kicked the lamp, see?"
     
    "Is that possible?"
     
    "Certainly. It's possible all right. Couple of bare wires, they're going to short-circuit. I'll tell you why we wondered. That electric clock up there was showing behind your shoulder in this picture, and it was all cuckoo. Gave the time wrong. It says twenty minutes after ten. And the picture was taken after two o'clock in the afternoon. We know that."
     
    "The clock was wrong?"
     
    "Lemme look at it, d'you mind?" The detective got up to examine the black, square modern-looking clock. "Yeah, see? This one is the old kind. It don't start itself."
     
    Mathilda was near enough to Grandy to feel him suppress an impulse to speak. Oliver spoke up impatiently. "No, of course it doesn't. You have to start it after the currents been off. The new ones start themselves."
     
    "Anybody cut the current off that morning?" asked Gahagen. "Was the master switch thrown at all, d you know?"
     
    Oliver said, "Not that I know of."
     
    "Nor I," said Grandy. He edged forward in his chair. "I'm not sure that I follow you, Tom. What are you getting at?"
     
    "Gives us the exact time," the detective said. "That is, if it does. Y'see, there was no power failure that day anywhere in town. We've already checked on that. So it must have been something right here in the house made the clock stop, see? Now I'd like to look at
    your circuits, eh? If this clock actually is hooked in on the same circuit as the study lamp, why—"
     
    Again Grandy suppressed something. Tyl had a telepathic flash. Who'd told Gahagen about the clock and the circuits? The kind of clock it was, what circuit it was on? Because he wasn't wondering. He was checking.
     
    "I don't understand," purred Grandy, "about the clock. But something's wrong with your thought, you see, Tom, because the lights worked."
     
    "Yeah, we know." He nodded. "Lights were O.K. when we got here. So there's this question: Did anybody put in a new fuse?" Oliver was looking blank.
     
    "If so, who?" said Grandy softly. "Fuses don't replace themselves. I really—"
     
    "They don't," said the detective. "If a fuse'd been blown, somebody knew it. Somebody replaced it. None of my men did." He waited, but no one spoke. "Well I don't suppose it's important. Still, I oughta— Where's your fuse box? Cellar?"
     
    "Oliver, show him, do. . . . Jane, dear—"
     
    Mathilda held on to Grandy's knee. The lights were going off and on all over the house. It was queer and frightening. Jane had gone to stand at the top of the cellar steps and call out which lights went off and when, while the two men below were playing with the fuses. Mathilda held on to Grandy's knee, which was steady. She had begun to cry a little.
     
    Grandy was talking to her. He stroked her hair. “ . . nor will we ever know. Poor child. Poor, dark, tortured Rosaleen. She was so very tense. Tyl, you remember? Remember how her heels clicked, how quick and taut she was? Remember how she held her shoulders? Tight? Brittle, you see, Tyl. Strung too tight. Poor little one. No elasticity, no give, no play. And since she couldn't stretch or change, she broke."
     
    "But why?" sobbed Tyl. "Oh, Grandy, what was wrong?"
     
    "Not known," he said, like a bell tolling over Rosaleen's grave. "Not known. She didn't let us into her life,