Black-Eyed Stranger by Charlotte Armstrong

before the police get into it. Don’t you see? They should have done so already.” He was puzzled by a break in the pattern. He did not notice the motionless silence of his host, the movement of Martha’s elbow as it pressed her knitting bag to her side. “When they do, we may get hold of something more to work on. At least, we will be sure what this is. We will have something to turn over …”
    Salisbury said quietly, “You’re not, in any way, going against our wishes, Alan. Are you?”
    Alan’s face tightened. “I only wish I could convince you. This isn’t for you to handle, sir. You are too close, too emotionally involved. Amateurs cannot deal with this thing. My men aren’t amateurs, of course, and they are doing their best but it needs the organization.”
    â€œI want my girl,” said Salisbury for the second time. Although his voice was quiet it was as if he had screamed. He was sorry to have said it. He looked anxiously at Martha.
    She was knitting. Her hair was oddly tousled. It was a strange effect. She sat so quietly, knitting under the lamp, and her hands were swift and her voice was calm. As if she had everything under control except her white hair, which rebelled and rose from her scalp to betray her.
    Martha said, “If we could find Sam Lynch. Where can he be? He knows.”
    â€œHe certainly must know,” Salisbury murmured. The sum Lynch mentioned was the sum they asked. Lynch had known.
    â€œHe more than knows,” Alan was grim.
    â€œAnd yet,” Salisbury spoke with an admonishing doubt, “he did come here to warn us. And although they left the building at about the same time, they did not leave together. I believe he is on our side. I think he would help us. If it was his plan to take her away, why did he warn us?”
    â€œThe man’s mind is so twisted,” Alan said, “so devious, so split, I don’t suppose, sir, that you and I could follow his reasoning. I’m sure he is involved.”
    Salisbury, watching from behind his hand, felt an impulse to cry out at the tense young face, don’t be so cocksure! The boy was behaving well. He’d done no breast-beating, no brow-clutching, and he had been industrious. Nevertheless, something about him plucked at the nerves. Some glib use of words, as when he said “emotionally involved.” And some arrogance, as of an expert in these things, and even his very assumption of so much responsibility was irritating.
    â€œLynch will be found,” Alan said as if. this was doom, “and Lynch will talk.”
    Salisbury didn’t feel so sure. He could imagine Lynch never talking at all, since dead men don’t. But he kept this image to himself. “I suppose your people can do little more tonight,” he murmured. “Alan, Martha is too tired. I rather think she must take something and sleep.”
    â€œYou, too,” Martha said. “Both of us, Charles.”
    They seemed to lean on each other, and by leaning, hold each other up. Yet they dared not admit to each other anything but hope. The father thought, ah, my brave love! and felt a fullness behind his tired tearless eyes. “Must rest,” he murmured.
    Alan sensed no dismissal. “If only I,” the pronoun bore some emphasis, “had heard all Lynch had to say. Maybe he let drop more than you realize. There may have been something.”
    â€œI’ve told you everything,” the father said.
    The blond boy turned to the mother. “Tell me everything he said to you.”
    Martha’s hands became still. Her pretty face, framed in the wild white hair, lacked the airs and graces of her prettiness, but all its lines seemed to have been carved deeper, cleaner, to a most somber beauty. She told how Sam Lynch had identified himself. How they had spoken, and she so frivolously, about crime. “And we spoke about you and your interests, Alan. I saidhow Kay