She felt, in spite of his words, that he was vague. Could he be doubting her, after all? She got hold of her handkerchief and drew away, drying her eyes. "I'm sorry," she said. "It really doesn't mean anything. I really do know that none of what he said was true."
"Of course, you do," Grandy agreed. But his eyes filmed over somehow, and Mathilda had a wild, fantastic, fleeting impression that he was wondering what to do with this self-doubt of hers; not wondering how to dispel it, but how to use it some way.
"Duck, you do not remember writing out any such document as that will, do you?"
"Oh, no," she said. "Oh, no, I never did." He was standing there, looking a bit hurt. She thought she understood. She said, "Oh, Grandy, I'11 make another one. I—"
She caught the tiny folding down of flesh at the corner of his eye, the merest trifle of satisfaction.
He said petulantly, "Tyl, you know I want to hear nothing about your money."
"I know," she breathed. But she did not know. She was not sure. The fear was in her veins again, running in a swift thrill from a sinking heart. She did not finish the sentence that had been interrupted. She did not go on to say, "I already have made another will, silly, so we needn't worry about the finest forgery in the world." She didn't say it.
Grandy moved across the room. For one awful second, she thought she had spoken and told him, and then forgotten her own words. She thought her memory had skipped a beat or at least that he'd read her mind. Because he crossed to the little bookshelf and took a book down.
"What a disgraceful collection," he murmured. "My dear, such unfit stuff in this room. I must find you something better."
She was beside him swiftly. "Oh, no. I love Lucile," she said, taking it gently out of his hands. "It's so stuffy and there's a Mathilda in it. And it puts me to sleep."
He chuckled.
"Oh, Grandy," she said. It was on the tip of her tongue to tell him how foolish she'd been, to confess and get it off her soul and be free, where she stood, with no disloyal fear on her conscience. She suffered a complete reaction. The pendulum had swung. Afraid of
Grandy! Absurdity of all time! Impossible!
"Now you will tell me the real trouble," he purred, surprising her.
"It's Francis," she murmured.
She hadn't meant to turn her head away or to say that name. She held Lucile in her hands still.
"If anything has happened," she murmured again, "we'd feel so cheap."
"Darling, you are absolutely right!" cried Grandy. "Of course you are! We must take steps, eh?"
"Yes," she said in utter relief.
"Of course we must," said Grandy. "That's only decent, isn't it? For all his sins, Francis was a guest in this house. Yes, I think we must be sure he is not lying in a ditch somewhere. That's what you mean?"
"Oh, Grandy, darling," said Tyl, "you do understand everything!"
Jane's door closed with a little click. They saw Jane in the hall with her blue jacket on over the gingham dress and the little blue cap on her head. She looked quaint and young.
"May I go out for a little while, Mr. Grandison?" she said humbly. Please, if you don't need me?"
"My dear, of course,'' he beamed. "Unless it is something I can do for you. I'll be downtown a little later."
"No, I don't think you can, sir " said Jane primly.
"Take the time you need, my dear," said Grandy kindly. "Oh—er—this business about Francis. Tyl thinks we must ask the police to search for him." Jane's face didn't change much. "In case, you know," said Grandy, "he is hurt or dead."
Jane said woodenly, "Of course."
Then she smiled her pretty smile. Her pretty lips formed their pretty thanks. Her feet tripped off. They heard her going down the stairs, not too fast.
But Mathilda knew she flew as one who from the fiend doth fly. She, herself, stood in a backwash of fear. Jane's fear.
Grandy went off to telephone. Mathilda felt disloyal. She felt guilty and soiled. She ought to have told Grandy about Jane. She fidgeted. She went downstairs. Grandy was in the study. The mailman was at the door. She went and opened the door and said, "Good
morning" He put a sheaf of letters in her hands.
She said, "Will you do something for me, Mr. Myer? If anything should happen to me, will you look in a book of poetry called Lucile? It's on a shelf in my bedroom."
His mouth dropped open.
"And don't mention what I've said to anyone," she warned, and smiled and closed the door. He stood on the step outside for some time, but at last he went away.
She pulled at her fingers with nervous anxiety. Now she felt disloyal. And guilty. And soiled. But why? What was it now? She mustn't trust Francis. He'd said so himself. She shook her head angrily. She was only doing what he had suggested because she didn't
trust him.
Besides, he isn't here, she thought, and she sat down and covered her eyes.
Chapter Twenty-seven
The police were going to check hospitals and all that, and send out a missing-person alarm, Grandy had told her comfortably. It meant that there would be an eye out for Francis for miles around. They would find him, he'd said confidently. Grandy had gone off in his ramshackle car, wearing his old brown hat jauntily.
But Mathilda, waiting alone in the long room downstairs, was not satisfied and far from confident. She wished Jane would come back, or that she knew where Jane was, so that she could go there. There were so many questions Jane could answer. Oliver was in the
house, and Mathilda wished he'd go away. He was upstairs and any minute he would probably appear and perhaps he'd want to hash things over. She wished he wouldn't. She wished she weren't alone, but she wished it weren't Oliver who would probably come to keep her company. She wished—wished— She didn't know exactly what it was she wished or what she was waiting for. Vaguely, she was waiting for some word, some news. Did she expect them to find Francis in a hospital? Did she expect them to find him at all? What if they did?
She tried to think, tried to clarify. There were two opinions about the disappearance of Francis. One, that he had run away deliberately, having failed to do whatever he had been attempting to do here. Two, that he had been prevented by violence from getting to the police by someone who didn't want him to get to the police. And, of course, there was a third possibility, which took in all the normal suppositions, that he had been taken ill, he had been in an accident.
She realized that it was the normal land of disappearance that the police would be able to check, and would be attempting to check now—sudden illness, accident, sudden death. They would also be covering the possibility that he had gone away voluntarily, in which case he wouldn't be hurt at all, but they would find him someday. Through their teletype system, his description, persistent vigilance.
But the possibility they would not cover, and, moreover, had no machinery for covering, was that he had met with malicious violence. For if he had been hidden away, they were not searching in the right kind of place or looking deep enough or close enough, she
thought.
She was huddled in the corner of a sofa, as if the room were cold. If only Jane would come back. If only Oliver would come downstairs and not talk, but do something. If only the police would send somebody and start here. If only she could tell someone these
thoughts, so that something would be done. She didn't think Grandy had made it clear. Grandy didn't suspect violence.