Free The Unsuspected by Charlotte Armstrong

Just hope. Just wishful thinking. Well, he'd seen quickly enough that it wouldn't work. And he hadn't wanted things to burst.
     
    There was Jane for one thing. He'd made a mistake to mention her name. He hoped Mathilda wouldn't begin to wonder about that. No, he couldn't have confessed the whole crazy device then and there, and risked Mathilda rushing to a phone and risked Grandy finding out that Jane was . . . Jane. Not when Jane was here alone. Not when he had been too far away to stand between. Grandy was too smart. He could put two and two together too fast.
     
    Well it would burst now. Any minute. Unless, by this stubborn acting, he could muddle them enough. It was a nasty trick, a mean, cruel trick on the poor lad. Geoffrey had said so. Geoffrey hadn't wanted to go on with it. He'd been ready to balk. But when he saw
    how close it was, how sure Francis was now, and when he was reminded of Rosaleen—
     
    Besides, sooner or later, the silly kid was going to be in danger herself. Blindly devoted to this evil old creature, she would never see what he was up to until too late. Wasn't it up to Francis, then, who knew all about it, to guard her, even from herself? Fancy thinking, maybe. A fine, high-minded excuse. There was some truth in it, although he didn't like it, didn't like any part of it.
     
    But he had to make this desperate try. And at the back of his mind was the thought of the trap it set, the temptation. Grandy just might-just might pretend to be taken in long enough— After all, it would be very convenient for Grandy, in many ways, if there turned out to be something a little wrong with Mathilda's mind.
     
    Grandy was being rather unnaturally silent. Francis turned around. He said, "What do you think? Ought I to fade out of the picture? Just to go away somewhere?"
     
    Grandy was gnawing thoughtfully on his holder. His eyes were veiled. Francis thought, He must be pretty sure I'm a fraud.  
     
    Grandy said gently, "We certainly must do nothing at all in a hurry."
     
    Francis felt a faint ripple of relief.
     
    "She doesn't remember? She really doesn't remember?" Grandy crooned in his wondering way. "It's all gone out of her mind, you say? She feels she never saw you?"
     
    Francis shook his head. He hoped he looked miserable.
     
    "How very extraordinary," said Grandy again. "Poor duckling. Poor Tyl. You must have frightened her this morning. She's timid, you know, and shy, the little thing."
     
    Francis thought, Nonsense. He'd fallen into the habit of checking this man's statements against his own evidence. It was very easy to let yourself go along with Grandy. You had to resist him. He thought, I saw her spit fire. She's got plenty of guts. That yarn I told  
    was well told. She might have gone to pieces. She isn't even little. She's a good-sized young woman. Even so, the picture of Tyl, forlorn, pitiable, lingered in his mind.
     
    He said aloud, "I tried not to frighten her. I will do exactly what you say, sir. Believe me, whatever you want me to do for Tyl's sake will be done, sir. Anything. Divorce?"
     
    Grandy flicked him with a glance. Then he began to speak in his mellow, rich, butter-smooth voice: "How curiously we are made. Is it possible? The needle writes in the wax. The needle of life writes in the wax of the brain, and the record is our memories, Does the needle lift from the wax and leave no record? Or does a fog come down? What can we say? Do you know, I think the miracle is not that we sometimes can forget, but that we remember so much, so well."
     
    Francis thought, And I've got to get the record out of Althea's brain and play it back. He shook himself away from the hypnosis of Grandy's image. What is this? Is the old bird nibbling?  
     
    "I do think," murmured Grandy, and Francis braced himself for the verdict—"I do think, dear boy, the wisest thing—" The soundproof room had a dead atmosphere. Sound behaved queerly. Silence closed in fast here. Grandy let a little hunk of