Charlotte_Armstrong_-_The_Girl_With_A_Secret

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THE

GIRL WITH

A SECRET

A Crest Reprint

By CHARLOTTE

ARMSTRONG

Crest Book 382

First Crest printing, June 1960

the right to reproduce this book or

portions thereof.

THE GIRL WITH A SECRET was

originally published in Duo by

Coward-McCann, Inc., and is reissued

at 25c in this new Crest edition

through arrangement with that

company. All characters in this book

are fictional and any resemblance to

persons living or dead is purely

coincidental. CREST BOOKS are

published by Fawcett World Library,

67 West 44th Street, New York 36, N.Y.

Printed in the United States of

America.

CHAPTER 1

They had been sealed in, sitting still, for seven

hours from Chicago, but motion, in the dry sunlight of

Los Angeles, began to erase that lifeless feeling.

Tony said they would take the airline bus as far as

Hollywood, so they went with the crowd.

Alice knew when something happened.

They were pushing along through the waiting

room. A man sang out: “Tony Page! Hey, Tony!” Old

friend. Chance meeting. The man was going

somewhere. It was quick… so quick that Alice didn’t

even get the man’s name… a greeting, a handshake.

Yet, when the man had gone on toward the gate to

the field, and she and Tony had pushed out upon the

sidewalk, Alice knew that something had just

happened; something had changed.

Tony didn’t say so. He said, “Fellow I used to

know,” without repeating the name. She looked

searchingly up, but his kind, blunt-featured,

undistinguished and beloved face was no different.

They climbed aboard the bus. Tony went on talking

about his grandmother and the family, about the

planned visit, but Alice seemed to know that, in his

mind, the plan was no longer exactly the same.

Something had intervened.

She sat quietly, looking out upon the unfamiliar

scene. Perhaps he would tell her. If he did not, there

would be a reason for that and she would accept the

reason’s existence. There were things Tony had

done, had known, that he could never tell her. She

understood.

Tony kept talking like a guidebook to this city.

They came to the hotel in Hollywood, transferred to a

cab; Tony gave the address.

“Wait till you see the house,” he said. “It’s an

antique. Back in the mouth of a canyon, and you’d

think you were a hundred miles from civilization.

Except that the house is a civilization, all by itself.

“Gran is an antique, too,” he added. “She is a

lady.”

“A lady?”

“Yup. Real thing.”

“I’m terrified,” said Alice with considerable

honesty. “I Will never be a lady. I haven’t even got

the ambition.”

“Be you,” said Tony.

So they kissed, in the corner that the driver

couldn’t see. Alice was comforted. She slipped her

arm through his, felt snug.

“Your grandmother lives with her niece and her

niece’s husband,” she mused.

“Aunt Hortense. Uncle Greg. My cousins, really.”

“And their child.”

“Cousin Bee.”

“Seems strange.”

“Why?”

“Isn’t a grandson closer than a niece in… you

know… blood?”

“Fat chance Gran’s had to live with me.” Tony

grinned and Alice was reminded of the wide world,

the far places, the reaches of his experience, that were

secret from her, because they had been in secret

service. And even the secret of their existence was

not yet to be told. Or was it?

“Do they know…?” she began.

He began at the same time. “They don’t know…”

The Pages laughed together.

After which, he said seriously, “They have no idea,

honey. And we won’t tell them.”

“If you say not,” she said submissively. She knew

very little about the secret work he used to do, had

done for several years, was now done with. Her only

reasonable and loving attitude was quiet obedience.

“Let them go on thinking I was an international

bum,” Tony continued. “Like my father before me.”

“Oh, was he?”

“Yes, he really was, I guess. I suspect his fleece

was distinctly gray in Gran’s view. I don’t think he

ever saw her after Ma died. But she’s fond of me. I

want to present you. It seems right.”

“Of course it’s right,” she said.

But Alice (Hansen) Page didn’t particularly look

forward to being presented to a real lady in an antique

house to receive (her bones boded) judgment.

“How old is Cousin Bee?” she asked, to be saying

something.

“Bee? Oh, let me see. For gosh sakes, Bee’s my

age. She must be twenty-eight.”

“Not married?”

“Not that I know.” He was casual about Cousin

Bee. “Uncle Greg’s an old smoothie,” he told her.

“Sells insurance and makes a big thing of it. Rotary

Club and all that.” Tony looked down sideways.

“Don’t be so smug,” he teased, shrewdly, “just

because you got yourself a man before you turned

twenty.”

“I turn twenty day after tomorrow!” She felt

delighted to be teased.

“Just the same, for two days yet, you are nineteen

years old, Mrs. Page.”

They kissed again.

Tony said, in a moment, “Aunt Hortense is a bit of

an oddball. So is Bee, as a matter of fact. I’m not…

especially close to those Staffords. You mustn’t

worry about a thing.”

He tightened his arm around her.

Damn it, Tony Page was thinking, I’ll have to go

see the Old Man. But they can’t ask me to do a job,

go anywhere. I’m out. And I don’t want to leave

Alice, my darling, and I won’t do it. Maybe it’s

consultation. Maybe they think I know something

useful. They know I’m out. For me, that stuff is over

and done. I’ve got a job in the building business. Got

a wife, God bless her.

Alice, so young, so fair. Fair beloved brow with the

dark smooth hair going up like a pair of wing’s

shoulders, and then furled and feathered neat against

the darling head. Eyes between purple and gray,

grave eyes. “Grave Alice and laughing Allegra…”

Grave Alice. He liked that very much. Whenever he

thought of her, his mind was turned toward poetry.

He’d had enough adventuring, which he now knew

meant long dull days of waiting in dirty

uncomfortable places. He’d had enough of being

outside the patterns, un-placed, and always

pretending to be placed. Conniving, snooping,

deceiving. Now he was placed. Nobody, nothing was

going to take him away from her upon whom all his

heart was settled.

Yet… this nagged him: what did he know that they

didn’t know already? So what did the Old Man want

of him? Why had Herb Innes given him the old signal

that had so shocked him? He had had to reach for

that old imperturbability. It had slipped for a moment.

Why had Herb Innes been sent for him?

Could he ignore the summons?

No, couldn’t quite do that. He’d worked under the

Old Man, into South and Central America, a long time.

Common courtesy. All right. Go. Today, if he could.

Get it over, whatever it was. Whatever they wanted,

he could refuse, couldn’t he? He was free. No, he was

wonderfully unfree. He was married!

The cab drove down sideways from Cahuenga

Pass, scooted east around the foot of the Griffith Park

Hills, swung across the tilted valley, climbing. Pretty

soon Tony had to give directions.

The cab went straight into the Verdugo Hills. It

skirted a kind of mountain meadow, going up. It

passed into a tangle of trees and shrubs. It came to

his grandmother’s house.

Alice could scarcely see the house for the trees

and the vines. There were some yellowing stucco

walls. There were short, bewildering flights of

concrete steps, partly overgrown. Then there was a

door.

An elderly maid in uniform opened it. “Oh, Mr.

Tony!”

“How are you, Ellen? This is Mrs. Page.” Tony was

feeling very boyish and proud.

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THEGIRLWITHASECRETACrestReprintByCHARLOTTEARMSTRONGCrestBook382FirstCrestprinting,June1960©1957,1959,byCharlotteArmstrongLewis.Allrightsreserved,includingtherighttoreproducethisbookorportionsthereof.THEGIRLWITHASECRETwasoriginallypublishedinDuobyCoward-McCann,Inc.,andisreissuedat25cinthisnewCrestedi...

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