Theo Marsh subdued his energy long enough to listen quickly, somehow. He got the situation into his mind, whole and fast.
"Yes, I was on a bus. Took it in front of the public library late this morning. You the driver? I did not study your face."
"Few do." Lee shrugged.
"Can you help us?" interrupted Rosemary impatiently. "Did you see a green paper bag, Mr. Marsh? Or did you see who took it?"
The artist took his gaze off the bus driver and put it upon Rosemary. He leaned his head sharply to the right
as if to see how she would look upside down. "I may have seen it," he said calmly. "J see a lot. I'll tell you, in a minute. Let me get the pictures back."
Mrs. Boatright took a throne. At least she deposited her weight upon a chair so regally that it might as well have been one.
"You, with the worries and the graceful backbone," the painter said, "sit down. And don't wiggle. I despise vviggling women. I must not be distracted, mind."
Rosemary sat down in the only remaining place, on the couch beside the model. She sat . . . and her spine was graceful ... as still as a mouse.
(Mouse, thought Mr. Gibson. Oh, how have we come here, you and I, who surely meant no harm?)
Six of them, plus the model Lavinia, all stared solemnly at Theo Marsh. He enjoyed this. He didn't seat himself. He moved, fiippety-fiop, all elbows and angles, up and down.
"G-green," stammered Mr. Gibson.
"Green?" the painter sneered. "Look out the window."
Mr. Gibson looked, blinked, said, "Yes?"
"There are at least thirty-five different and distinct greens framed there. I know. I counted. I put them on canvas. So tell me, what color was the bag?"
"It was a kind of . . ." said Mr. Gibson feebly. "—well, greenish . . ."
"They have eyes and see not," mourned the painter. "All right." He began to act like a machine gun, shooting words.
"Pine green?"
"No."
"Yellow green? Chartreuse? You've heard of that?"
"No. It wasn't—"
"Grass green?"
"No."
"Kelly green?"
"Theo," said Mrs. Boatright wamingly.
"Am I showing off, Mary Anne?" The painter grinned.
"Yes," said Mrs. Boatright.
"Well then, truce to that." The painter shrugged. "Well then, gray green?"
"Y-yes," said Mr. Gibson, struggling. "Palish, dullish . . ."
"In other words, paper-bag green," said the painter, amiably. "Of course." He rambled to the left and stopped still and looked blind. "I sat on the left side of the bus," he said dreamily. "For the first ten minutes I examined a hat. What blossoms! Watermelon shade. Nine petals, which is W7Zlikely. Well, to proceed. I saw you . . . the man there with the good eyes. That can't tell one green from another."
"Me?" squeaked Mr. Gibson.
"A man of sorrows, thought I," the painter continued. "Oh yes, you did have in your left hand a gray-green paper bag."
Mr. Gibson began to tremble.
"I watched you a while. How I envied you your youth and your sorrow! I said to myself, this man is really liv-ing!"
Mr. Gibson thought one of them must have gone mad!
The artist's eyes sHd under half-drawn lids. "I saw you put the paper bag down on the seat." The eyes were nearly closed now, and yet watched. "You took a small black-covered notebook out of your pocket . . ."
"I . . . did?"
"You produced a gold ball-point pen, about five inches long, and you wrote—brooded—wrote . . ."
"I did!" Mr. Gibson began to feel all his pockets.
"Then you got to brooding so bad you forgot to write. I lost interest. Nothing more to see, you know. Besides, I discovered an ear without a lobe, two seats ahead of me.
Rosemary had jumped up. She stood over Mr. Gibson as he drew his little pocket notebook out and flipped the pages. Yes, pen marks. He looked at what he had written on the bus. "Rosemary . . . Rosemary . . , Rosemary." Nothing but her name three times. That was all.
"Trying ... a letter to you," he stammered, and looked
up.
Rosemary's eyes were enigmatic . . . perhaps sad. She shook her head slightly, walked slowly back to the couch and sat down. Lavinia changed her feet, and put the top one underneath.
"I saw you, Mary Anne," the painter said, "and pretended not. I lay low. Forgive me, but I didn't want to be snared and exhibited."
"I saw you, you know." said Mrs. Boatright calmly, "or we wouldn't be here. Had nowhere to exhibit you, profitably, at the moment."
"You lay low?" The painter sighed. "Ships in the night. I am a vain man, amn't I? Well, let's see. Let's see.
"The paper bag?" pressed Rosemary.
"Quiet, now," the painter's eyes roved. "Ah yes, the heart-shaped face. Saw you."
"Me?" said Virginia.
"On the right side, well forward?"
"Yes."
"Where you could turn those gentle eyes where you liked," said the painter, mischievously.
Virginia's face turned a deep soft pink. Lee Coffey's ears stood up.
"I didn't try to see whether he was looking sly at you. Perhaps in the mirror?" said the painter and swung to the driver. ''Were you?"
"Me!" exploded Lee, and then softly, "Me?"
"Theo," said Mrs. Boatright severely, "you are showing off again. And behaving like a bad little boy."
"I don't care to have her embarrassed," said the bus driver stiffly. "Got on to the subject, the poison."
The painter flapped both hands. "Don't mind me," he said irritably. "I see things. I can't help it." (The bus driver picked up the nurse's hand in his, although neither of them seemed aware of this or looked at each other.) The painter clasped his hands behind him and arched his thin ribcase and teetered on his toes. "There was that ear ..."
''Whose ear?" demanded Rosemary fiercely.
"Can't say. All I noticed was the ear. We could advertise. Wait a minute . . . Didn't Mary Anne say your name is Gibson?"
"Yes."
"Then somebody spoke to you."
"Did they? Why, yes," said Mr. Gibson. "Yes, that's true. Somebody said my name, twice. Once while I waited. Once, just as I was getting off. Somebody knew me" He was suddenly excited.
"Who, Kenneth? Who?"
He shook his head. "I . . . don't know," he said with shame. "I paid no attention."
"He was sunk," said the painter nodding vigorously, looking like a turkey cock, his wattles shaking. "He was sunk. I noticed that."
"Did you notice who spoke to him?" Rosemary demanded.
The painter looked dashed. "Darned if I did," he said with chagrin. "I'm so eye-minded. Oh, I heard. But I made no picture of the speaker. I did not connect. However ..." He paused in vanity until all of them were waiting on him. "I believe I did see somebody pick up the paper bag."
"Who?"
"Who?"
"Who?"
They exploded like popcorn.
"A young woman. A mere girl. A very handsome young female," the painter said. "I was looking at her face. But I do believe she picked up that greenish paper bag and carried it off the bus. Yes."
"When?"
"After he got off, just after. I was driven back to the ear by default."
"Who was she?"
The painter shrugged. "I'd know her," he said, "but I'd have to see her. Names, labels, mean nothing to me."
"Where did she get off?"
"Oh, not many blocks after . . ." Distance meant nothing to him, either.
"Was she dark?" said Paul Townsend, tensely.
"I suppose you mean ... to put it, crudely . . . was her hair of a darkish color? Yes."
"Jeanie! cried Paul. "Oh Lord, oh God, it could have been Jeanie. Where's your telephone?"
"No telephone," said Mrs. Boatright. "Who is Jeanie?"
Paul had moved into the center somehow. He was tall and angry. He glared at everyone. He was a raging lion.
"But Paul," said Rosemary, "what makes you think it could be Jeanie?"
"Because she went to her music lesson, just about then. Her teacher is out on the Boulevard. She could have got on as he got off. She knew him. She would have spoken. She might have taken his empty seat. Jeanie l" Paul's handsome face contorted.