Date with Death. Leslie Ford
Читать онлайн книгу.
was all for her. He’d never have brought the beach bag along, with the telltale dress and mud-caked shoes, if he had not known it. He’d have stayed to meet the police if he had not been in it, in it as far as the ensign and Elizabeth.
It was a funny thing what a difference two hours and one unleashed libido could make in people’s lives… in Jenny’s, in Elizabeth’s and the ensign’s. To say nothing of Gordon’s.—To say nothing of Jonas Smith’s, he thought. He remembered himself lying there on the pier in the moonlight. Then he grinned quickly in spite of everything, thinking of his landlord in Annapolis. Professor Darrell owned the Blanton-Darrell House, the right wing of which Jonas had leased, if the maze of restrictions and prohibitions he’d signed could be called a lease. So far as he could remember, there was nothing among them about coming in at three o’clock in the morning. On the other hand, from certain indications he felt definitely it would be a good thing, as he’d said he would be there Sunday evening, not to get Professor Darrell out of bed to see who was there now.
He parked the car on College Avenue and went the rest of the way on foot. The Blanton-Darrell House stood in the center of Darrell Court, the only Georgian house in the heart of the old city still enclosed in its own brick wall, the only one left whose grounds had not been sold off to have frame houses and stores built up to meet or enclose it. Randall Court was to the west, the Chase House and Ogle Hall and the Hammond-Harwood House to the east and south—all distinguished monuments of the past glory of Annapolis, all within a long stone’s throw. Jonas stopped in front of the old house, filling the square block between College Avenue and Tabernacle Street, where Prince George divides to become Princess Anne Street on one side and Queen’s Street on the other. He looked across the open garden at the mauve brick façade sleeping quietly behind the magnolia grandiflora, guarding on either side like a pair of glossy and gigantic Nubian slaves. A fan of frail yellow light shone above the carved white wood, and the slate roof glistened like hoar frost in the slanting last rays of the moon. The floribunda roses were moonlit too, their blossoms transmuted into a bank of drifting lemon-colored snow high above the ragged black outlines of the old yew trees.
He went quietly along the narrow brick walk to his own front door. A stray shaft from the street light over the brick wall lighted the brass plate there. “Jonas Smith M.D.” It had been his father’s. Seeing it, he felt a small tightening in the cords of his throat, remembering the years of his life it had been on another door. What would his father have done if he’d been at the cottage on Arundel Creek? You could never say how any older generation would act about a younger generation’s problems. Maybe, he thought, that was what Elizabeth had meant out at the cottage when she said, “It’s Grandfather I’m thinking about,” and the younger girl had cried out suddenly. It was certainly when the ensign had made up his mind and picked up the gun.
He went inside and switched on the light. There was a small parlor off the vestibule that was to be his waiting and reception room. He turned on the lights, put his suitcase on the old leather sofa that had been his father’s and set the beach bag on top of it. He went back into what had been a dining room wing, opening out into a small garden now fitted up as office and consulting room, and turned on the lights there. His two sisters had moved him in and arranged things. His bag was on the desk in front of the windows, the calendar was torn off to Monday, May 17th, when he would presumably start the practice of medicine.
He looked around with a sense of satisfaction and contentment, in spite of the last hour, and groaned suddenly as Roddy scrambled to his feet off the hearth, growling, his tail out, pointing toward the front of the house.
He should have pulled the curtains so Professor Darrell could not see the lights. It was too late now. He could hear the footsteps himself, coming along in front of the wing from the main house. He looked at himself in the mirror just as he heard the knock on the door, reflected that he looked more like a deck hand than a doctor of medicine and there was nothing he could do about it, went out into the vestibule and opened the door, a vision in his mind of an irate and plethoric landlord, in pajamas and dressing gown probably, as mad as a hornet undoubtedly, demanding who the hell he was . . .
He stood there staring for an instant at the girl whose face he had last, and for the only time, seen reflected in the mirror on the kitchen shelf of the Milnors’ cottage. He pulled himself quickly together as she stared at him for an instant before she took a quick backward step.
“Oh, I’m sorry… I’m terribly sorry! I thought Dr. Smith… I thought perhaps the doctor had come.”
She spoke quickly, the color flushing up from her throat and warming the pale oval face turned toward him in the lamp light. She took another step back.
“I beg your pardon. I didn’t mean to disturb you.”
He found his voice as she turned to go, making it as matter of fact as he could.
“That’s all right. I’m Dr. Smith.”
He smiled down at her. “I guess I don’t look it, but that’s the way it is.”
She had turned back and was looking him up and down, her eyes as incredulous as her voice. “You mean you—” Her color went a quick shade deeper as she broke off. “I’m sorry. I’m being awfully rude. I just thought you were going to be… going to be older, I guess.”
“I am,” Jonas said. “Every day I’m going to be one day older.”
“I mean I thought you were going to be middle-aged. Anyway, it doesn’t matter. I’m Elizabeth Darrell, I live next door—”
Sudden involuntary laughter bubbled up like champagne in her voice and lighted her grey eyes.
“You rent the wing from my grandfather, Professor Darrell. I don’t see it’s any more surprising than for you to be Dr. Smith.”
“It isn’t,” Jonas said.
It wouldn’t have been, except for the last hour, and even then it was not half so surprising as the job she was doing, covering up what he knew was an acute and desperate fear. With no prior knowledge, she would have seemed only naturally worried about an emergency situation that was sending her out to hunt a doctor at that hour in the morning.
The laughter had gone out of her voice and faded from her lips and eyes.
“I came over to see if I could get you to help me. My sister’s had a… she was in sort of an accident tonight, and she’s pretty upset. She can’t get to sleep. I thought when I saw your lights on maybe you’d give me something to quiet her down.”
“Would you like me to come over and see her?” he asked quietly.
Her lips parted, the pulse in her throat throbbing.
“Oh, you’re nice, aren’t you? But you don’t have to do that. She wasn’t hurt. She’s just sort of… shaken, is all. She’ll be all right if—”
The glance she shot back toward the main house seemed to him to be sharper and more apprehensive than her fear he might insist on going back with her. She took a step inside the doorway where she could not be seen from her home.
“I’ll be glad to come if there’s any point in it,” he said.
“No, please!”
She caught herself quickly. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to be abrupt. I couldn’t let you come. I… don’t want to disturb Grandfather. I mean… well, he doesn’t like to be disturbed. You’ll find that out if you’re going to live here. He’s really an angel, if he likes you…”
“And vice versa?” Jonas suggested.
She nodded, looking toward her grandfather’s house again. The warm color had faded out of her cheeks and throat.
“He wouldn’t like it if he knew Jenny was upset. So if you will give me something for her I’d be glad if you wouldn’t say anything about it. And…I’ve got to hurry.”
“Come in,” Jonas said. “I’ll get you something.”
She followed him through