Date with Death. Leslie Ford
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the bag back in the closet and closed the door. She turned the light off and was gone. Jonas went quietly along the wall in the shadow of the roof, in time to see her run down the bank to the boat. She stepped in and pushed off. Then she was rowing with quick strokes back along the shore to the Milnors’ pier.
Jonas took a deep breath. “I’ll be damned,” he said. He went back to his room. His clothes were on the chair by the bathroom door. Without turning on the light he felt his way across the room, took off his bathrobe and pajamas and dressed. He reached down and patted the setter.
“Good boy,” he said. “Stay here, boy, I’ll be back.”
Roddy, hating it, would be there until the crack of doom.
“You didn’t know it, Roddy, but old Jonas Smith is going to be the White Knight of Arundel Creek.”
Outside at the back of the cottage he stopped, thinking. He could get to the Milnors’ quickest by swimming or rowing. Either seemed out of the question, being a frontal approach in plain sight. That left the long way, around the marsh, or the middle way, across the marsh—risky, but possible if he kept his footing on the slippery bulkhead the Milnors and Fergusons had put up with the hopeful idea of making a fortune out of terrapin if and when they ever got around to it. He had crossed once in daylight. He hesitated, guessed he could make it at night, and guessed right, with only one narrow margin halfway across when an owl hunting for frogs rose on ghostly silent wings with a malignant hoot barely ten feet in front of him. Unstrung but undaunted, he kept his balance, made the shore, remembered the vicious thickets of poison ivy along the bank and climbed up.
It was too late to go back to the lane, poison ivy or no poison ivy. He went on, looking for the path leading into the old unused wagon road that was a short-cut to the Milnors’ orchard. He came on it in a few steps through the undergrowth, a narrow silver ribbon in the dark woods. Along the curving back road he could see the banks of laurel blossoms glowing in the moonlight sifting through the oaks and dogwood trees. As he stepped through them he thought of the poison ivy again. It was all through the violets and honeysuckle that covered the old tracks and flourished down the middle of the road.
“Forget about the ticks and the ivy, Smith,” he said to himself. “Get on with whatever it is you think you’re going to do.”
As he looked around before starting out for the oyster-shell lane that led to the cottage he started violently, and relaxed with a grin. The bulk there was only the Milnors’ old black jalopy, standing forlorn and abandoned by the woodpile in the curve of the road. He went on toward the lane, through the orchard. What exactly was it he did plan to do? He shook his head. Nothing, except stand by, in case there was more trouble from Gordon, or whatever the trouble was, until Tom came, whoever Tom was, and took the Baby home. It would be simple. Through the top of the orchard he would come to the big three-pronged-tulip tree a hundred yards from the cottage. He could stay there, quietly, on hand if needed, unobserved if not needed.
He went through the orchard, across the meadow, and stood by the big tulip. The lights were still on in the cottage. The girl was nowhere in sight. He waited, and heard her. She was pulling the boat up on the muddy beach.
“The poor little devil,” he thought. She must have been sitting down there in it, ready to pull out into the creek if she had to. He had a sudden impulse to go over to the cottage and let her know he was there, to help her if he could. He took a few steps from the tulip tree. She was coming up from the beach then, tiny and fragile in Natalie Ferguson’s black dress. As she came onto the lawn in front of the cottage she pushed her hair back from her head with a gesture so tragic and hopeless that he stopped. She crossed the lawn to a group of painted wood chairs and sat there, small and lonely, watching the lane.
As she sprang up suddenly Jonas took a quick step into a clump of dogwood. A car was coming. He could hear the motor, the tires grinding on the oyster-shell, and finally see the lights through the trees. The car swung around the bend into the clearing and braked to a sharp stop. Two doors opened and slammed shut. A man and a girl were running toward the cottage. The girl on the lawn stood, waiting for them.
“—Jenny! Jenny baby…what is it?”
The girl stood speechless, her hand raised, pointing at the cottage.
“Jenny!”
It was the man speaking. Jonas saw the glint of the insignia on his cap, the glint of the single gold stripe of an ensign in the United States Navy on his sleeve.
He heard Jenny’s voice. “There…inside. It’s Gordon. I…I’ve killed him…”
Three people stood rigid…Jonas Smith as blank and dazed as the young ensign and the girl by him.
“—I tell you, it’s Gordon. He’s in there. I’ve killed him.”
The girl said it again, quietly. Then, as if their shocked immobility was more than she could take, she threw her hands out to them.
“Oh, don’t just stand there! Do something! Can’t you hear me? Can’t you hear what I’m saying? It’s Gordon. I’ve killed him—he’s dead! Oh, do something! Please…do something!”
The two turned quickly then and came running up the path to the cottage. Jonas Smith took a quick breath. The girl Jenny was standing there on the lawn, her head down, her arms hanging limp at her sides. The ensign and the other girl were running across the porch. He himself was standing there. He was Jonas Smith M.D. He was a doctor. He had an obligation to himself and to his profession. It was his duty to dash in there, see if the man was dead, save him if he was not, do everything he could to save him. And he hadn’t moved.
The ensign had opened the cottage door. He stood there motionless, one arm held back to stop the girl coming up behind him. Jonas heard her voice.
“Don’t be a fool, Tom. Is he dead?”
She pushed his arm away, stepped quickly into the doorway, and stopped.
“Oh, dear God!”
She turned back, brought her clenched fist to her mouth and stood, shocked and perfectly still for an instant, before she went slowly across the narrow porch to a chair. She stood holding to the back of it with both hands.
She straightened up and turned back. “Tom—what’ll we do?” Her voice was controlled. “Where’s Jenny?”
“I’m here.”
The girl came around the end of the cottage and stood there by the screen door.
The ensign’s voice was curt. “Keep out of here, both of you.”
“No. I’m coming in. I did it. It was—”
“Shut up, Jenny.”
“But I did. I tell you I did it.”
“All right, Jenny baby.”
The other girl’s voice was quiet and reassuring. “We’d better go in, Tom, and shut the door. We’ll wake everybody in St. Margaret’s.”
Jonas Smith moved out of the dogwood. The ground was carpeted under the pines. He went silently across to the end of the cottage. A dim light showed through the window there. He went up to it. Through a tiny kitchen and the open door across it, he could see into the single living room. As he saw the thing lying there on the green composition-tiled floor, he felt a sudden guilty sense of relief. No matter how he had acted, there was nothing he could have done for Gordon—nothing anyone could have done for him. Gordon had been shot through the heart. It was not pretty, but final. The look of surprised horror on the handsome face staring up from the floor was evidence enough, more evidence than the bright crawling stain still moving through the white string rug in front of the fireplace.
“—And quit riding her, Sis.”
Jonas could not see any of them, but their voices came through clearly.
“She’s not riding me. She told me not to go out with him. She told me what he was like. And I didn’t mean to. I did go to the hop. I went just