Date with Death

by Zenith Brown

  “As your sister can tell you, I brought the beach bag in town. She saw it in my place and took Jenny’s dress and slippers out of it when, she came to get something to get Jenny to sleep. Which is how I found out you’re my next door neighbors.”

  The midshipman’s eyes left him for the first time. He felt rather than saw the imperceptible nod Elizabeth gave him.

  “Before I walked out with the beach bag, I called up the operator. She called the police. I haven’t seen them yet. I’m as much an accessory after the fact of murder as the two of you are.”

  “It was not murder! She—”

  “Shut up, Elizabeth.”

  Tom Darrell cut her off without moving his eyes from Jonas’s. There was a stubborn determined light in them that was not so disquieting as something else there that Jonas was aware of but could not give a precise name to. It was in his voice as he said, “Go ahead, doctor. You wanted to talk. We’re listening.”

  “I’m going ahead.”

  Jonas resisted the temptation that rose with a slight flush of adrenaline to add “. . . you damned young fool.” Tom Darrell spoke with a controlled but determined hostility that seemed misplaced.

  “I’m telling you all this is too steep a price to pay for one late date. If Solomon had one with the Queen of Sheba it would be too steep. Gordon Darcy Grymes has paid it one way. Your grandfather another. Now you. They’ve taken your star and your extra stripes off. You’re going to sit tight and let them take your uniform off and kick you out of the Academy two weeks before you graduate. You’re going to let your whole career be wrecked before you start it. What for?”

  He would have been glad if one or the other of them had said what for, so he would sound less like a sententious ass. But neither did. The silence in the room was stony and uncompromising. He had a second temptation to say “Oh, what the hell” and skip the whole thing. If it was the sort of thing that could be skipped and done with… It seemed clear already that he was going to get the cooperation and gratitude he’d get trying to help untrap a trapped porcupine.

  “I’ll tell you then.—For a concept that went out with crinolines.”

  He saw the hot flush that stained Elizabeth’s cheek and the quick tightening in Tom Darrell’s already hard tight jaw.

  “You may think it’s a concept that’s gone out, Dr. Smith. We happen not to. Gordon—”

  “Look,” Jonas said patiently. “We’re not talking about the same thing, Miss Darrell. I’m not talking about Gordon Darcy Grymes. He’s dead. He was a heel, he had it coming to him. That’s that. What I’m talking about is what happens now. I’m trying to get both of you to use a little common sense. Your brother’s trying to bull it through and wreck his career. I’m telling you Jenny was right last night. Everything she told you was true. And I don’t know who the State’s Attorney is, but he’s a Marylander, either by birth or adoption, and he feels the way Marylanders do or he wouldn’t be in the job. Call him up. Take Jenny to see him, let her tell him the whole story. Even if it does have to go to the Grand Jury and get out in the papers, it’s not going to hurt her as much as it’s already hurt your grandfather. And not half as much as it’s going to hurt your brother here if he’s kicked out of the Naval Academy two weeks before he graduates. It won’t hurt Jenny herself as much as what you’re trying to do will, in the long run.”

  He was angry and getting angrier. He knew it was stupid. He was being as irrational in his way as they were in theirs. And at least they were keeping their mouths shut while he was going on sounding off with no visible effect except to increase the tension and make the defensive wall between them and him higher and more solidly opaque. It also convinced him more firmly of the truth of what he was saying. That he wasn’t convincing them was very apparent. All he was doing was driving them, more stubbornly unyielding than ever, closer together behind the invisible wall. The stormy protest darkening Elizabeth’s eyes blue sooty-black was evidence of that. Where he had ever got the idea of hyacinth tranquility and lovely repose in connection with her was beyond him at the moment. She was exactly like the rest of them. They were all hot-tempered, stiff-necked and stubborn, putty in nobody’s hands—even the youngest, as Gordon Darcy Grymes had found out to his surprise.

  To his great surprise, in fact. The look on the dead man’s face flashed across Jonas’s mind again, as perplexing and disquieting then as it had been in the early hours of the morning. It didn’t change any of the known facts, or make what he was saying less sensible, or Elizabeth or Tom Darrell any the more sweetly reasonable.

  “—That’s what I’m talking about,” he said more quietly. “That’s the concept I mean that went out with crinolines—that a gal couldn’t defend herself without a lot of Grundys pointing their finger at her all the rest of her life. And if you hush this up now, all of you’ll go on living in fear that some day it’s going to crop up—just when it can really hurt her. It’s a hell of a lot better to let her go through with it now and get it over and done with, and forget it, than it is to keep it a secret and let it turn into some kind of a guilt complex, and maybe make a first-rate neuropsychotic out of her.—If you can get away with it, that is.”

  He looked steadily at them for an instant. “You’ve forgotten Philippa Van Holt. She’s out for blood, and she’s plenty smart. You might as well try playing around with a load of hot isotopes as fool yourself you’re covering anything up when she’s around.”

  He took his pipe out of his pocket and stuck it between his teeth in a gesture of finality. “Well, that’s my say and I’ve said it.”

  “—And for a minute in there I thought you might be going to help us.”

  The tinge of ironic contempt in Elizabeth’s voice made him flush with sudden anger.

  “And you’re both too pig-headed,” he said deliberately, “to see that’s what I’m doing. What’s done can’t be helped. It’s too late to help your grandfather. It’s not too late to keep your brother from wrecking his career as a naval officer just because a cockeyed sense of chivalry—”

  “—Went out with crinolines,” Elizabeth interrupted coolly. “Go on.”

  “I’m going on. In the first place, you haven’t got a Chinaman’s chance of getting away with it. Your brother’s on the point of being kicked out of the Naval Academy for deserting his post on duty, frenching out, impersonating an officer, and a whole flock of Class A offenses. What do you think’ll happen to him when they find out he’s an accessory after the fact of murder?”

  “It wasn’t murder. If anybody tosses you a gun and says shoot me or else and you shoot to protect yourself, it certainly is not murder! And I know he… Gordon did that same thing to me—one night on the road coming back from Washington. Only I’m older than Jenny and I tossed it back to him and told him not to be a fool. I was sure it wasn’t loaded anyway. It was one of those fancy mother-of-pearl and silver jobs. This time it was a real one and it was loaded. That’s the—”

  “—Will you shut up, Elizabeth?”

  Tom Darrell looked at Jonas with tight-lipped hostility.

  “Listen, doctor. I told you we don’t know what you’re talking about. That’s the way it still is. The minute we get out of this room we’ve never heard of what you’re talking about. Get that, doctor. If you saw a murder and walked out of it that’s something for you to explain—not us. You say this guy had it coming to him. How do you know, doctor? What were you doing hanging around? Why did you duck out so fast? Who are you trying to cover up for? Not us. You don’t know us. You never heard of us before. You talk about cockeyed notions of chivalry, so that’s not the reason you’re pretending you want to help us, is it? It doesn’t matter a damn to you whether I’m a naval officer or a garbage collector. Maybe there’s some other reason you’re so interested in what you call getting it over and done with? You seem mighty anxious to have somebody else whip up to the State’s attorney and take the rap. Maybe it’s you t
rying to get us to help you, doctor, not—”

  “—Oh, Tom!”

  Jonas heard the shocked protest in the girl’s voice as her brother’s meaning became too clear for her any longer to be blind to it. It had been clear to Jonas from the first words. He could neither mistake it nor, he thought with a certain amount of sardonic amusement, particularly object to it. It had been the known and no doubt well deserved fate of the Good Samaritan since the beginning of time. Furthermore, on the face of it, and from anybody else’s point of view, it was a perfectly sound hypothesis. The reason that he could regard it, with a dispassionate if wry detachment, as of no real importance to himself, was simple. He had so completely forgotten Agatha Reed that it never crossed his mind that anyone would through her make any further connection between him and one of a pair of identical twins. At the moment he could stand there objectively and listen to the case being presented against him with what Mark Twain called the calm confidence of a Christian with four aces.

  And more than that. The fact that Elizabeth Darrell’s quick volatile anger, directed against him a few seconds earlier, was now after her first shocked protest directed at her brother Tom in defense of himself, was altogether satisfactory to Jonas Smith.

  “Tom—stop it!” She flashed across the worn turkey rug and took hold of his arm. “You’re being a complete fool, Tom! You’re practically accusing Dr. Smith—”

  “So what? And why not?” He ignored her hand on his arm, and looked coolly at Jonas. “What do we know about him? How do we know that what Jenny said is true? How do we know she wasn’t too scared to know what really happened? I don’t see any reason to trust somebody we never saw before—especially a guy that’s so anxious to have a seventeen-year old kid dragged through the courts and her name on the front page of every newspaper in the country.”

  He turned back to his sister.

  “Don’t call me a fool until you think it over a minute, Sis. Maybe I have a cockeyed sense of chivalry, but it’s not as cockeyed as all that.”

  Jonas saw Elizabeth’s fingers relax and slowly release their grip. She let her hand drop to her side. As her eyes met his he saw the confidence in them change into a bewildered and questioning incredulity. The small seed of doubt her brother had planted was still dormant, but he knew enough to know that no faster growing or hardier perennial is cultivated in the female mind.

  “You don’t believe that, do you, Miss Darrell?” he asked quietly.

  “No. I don’t believe it… not really. I…I don’t believe it at all.”

  He saw her swallow and moisten her lips slightly as she looked away from him. If the small seed could sprout that quickly in his own presence… He felt a small sinking sensation in the middle of his stomach as he thought what it would do when he was gone and she had a lot more time to spend on it.

  “It’s absurd,” she said slowly.

  The necessity she felt to go on saying it was the most convincing proof she could have offered that she was no longer sure.

  “It doesn’t matter whether she believes it or not,” Tom Darrell said deliberately. “It’s what a smart lawyer’s going to be able to make of it if you drag my sister into court.”

  “Oh, for the love of God,” Jonas said. He turned in exasperated weariness to him. “Look, you dope—”

  “Listen!” Elizabeth cut him off quickly, ran across the room to the other door and stood a moment. “It’s Dr. Pardee.” She opened the door and ran out into the hall. “Oh, I’m so glad you’re here!”

  Jonas shrugged. “She doesn’t even trust me as a doctor, now,” he thought. He started to follow her. As he moved, Tom Darrell spoke again.

  “Let’s get this straight, Dr. Smith.”

  “I’ve got it straight. Don’t worry,” Jonas said patiently. “As soon as you get it that way, let me know. I answer both day and night calls. And I think maybe if we could get together on this, we might be able to figure something out. Like why the gun was loaded this time, for instance. If that was the guy’s routine in his love making.”

  “That’s just what I’ve been thinking about myself, Dr. Smith.”

  Jonas turned, startled, and stared at Tom Darrell. His mouth widened suddenly into a broad grin.

  “Okay—if that’s the way you feel about it. But it would save wear and tear if you’d just get it through your thick skull that my interest in this is the same as yours… even if my reasons are different.”

  “Reasons?”

  “Yes—reasons.”

  “If you’ve got any, let’s have them.”

  Jonas looked at him for a moment.

  “Arrogance is not a virtue in dealing with civilians, Mr. Darrell,” he said imperturbably. “Nor is impertinence. Which I’m sure they teach you on the other side of the wall. If they teach you any good books, maybe you’ve heard of an old bird named Falstaff. He wouldn’t give his reasons under compulsion—not if they were thick as blackberries. I’m the same way. What’s more, mine are strictly my own business. Though if you’ll come down off your high horse they oughtn’t to be too hard even for you to figure out. So, if you’ll get out of the way, I’ll go in and see Dr. Pardee.”

  He said “Thanks,” as Tom Darrell stepped silently aside, and opened the door. Through the passage he heard the heavy labored snoring of the old man on the four poster bed. His conscience suddenly bothered him. Maybe he’d been too rough on the young devil. After all, he was a first classman. Everybody knew a midshipman would never again be as important, even when he was a five-star admiral, as he was in his last year at the Naval Academy. It wasn’t his fault, maybe, if he seemed stiff-necked and arrogant to the eye of a lowly reserve officer back in civilian life. And he was in trouble.

  Jonas turned and looked back. Midshipman Darrell was still standing by the door, but there was nothing any longer arrogant or stiff-necked about him. His younger sister had crept noiselessly in from the hall. His arms were around her, his chin on the top of her small dark head, his eyes closed… a boy whose private universe was shattered, falling about him, trying to be a man when breaking down and being a boy would have been more natural—and more therapeutic, thought Jonas Smith, M.D.

  “—It’s okay, Jenny—don’t worry, kid. It’s going to work out. Just leave it to me, baby.”

  Jonas went into the old man’s room and pulled the passage door softly to behind him. Elizabeth and Dr. Pardee were beside the bed. They both turned. Dr. Pardee gave him a searching diagnostic survey over the silver rim of his glasses.

  “Don’t take it so hard, doctor.”

  He was small, brisk and immaculate, with white hair and a white tuft of hair under his lower lip. He snapped his words out as if the race of mankind was a personal irritant to him and the sicker they were the more irritating.

  “There’s nothing you could have done. If he hadn’t been such a pig-headed sot he would have died in his bed like a Christian ten years ago. I’ve no doubt his liver is pink as a baby’s. There’s no justice in nature, and you’ll never be as good a doctor as nature is. So let her take care of him. She always has, the old scoundrel. Elizabeth, give me another pillow. I think we can make him more comfortable. And you, young woman—what’s the matter with you? If you don’t take care of yourself you’ll die before he does. You get out of here. I’ll get you a nurse.”

  “No, I’ll—”

  “You’ll do nothing of the kind.” Dr. Pardee’s goatee snapped out like a Christmas cracker. “You’ll do exactly what I tell you to do.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “—You have to bully the Darrells,” Jonas thought. He made a note for future reference as he went over and picked up his bag. It was clear that neither Elizabeth or Dr. Pardee had any use either for him or his opinion.

  “Well, I’ll go along, sir.” He started for the door.

  Dr. Pardee shot him a shrewd critical glance.

  “G
o,” he said. “But come back. He’s all yours. I’m too old to waste my time taking care of people who won’t take care of themselves. You’re welcome to half a dozen more I’ve got just like him. And come and see me when you have time. I’ll call you up when I get home. I want to talk to these young people now. Good-bye.”

  “And thank you, Dr. Smith.”

  Elizabeth’s dismissal was not quite as peremptory as Dr. Pardee’s, but it still left a great deal to be desired in terms of any warmth or enthusiasm. Jonas went down the stairs and out the front door strongly suspecting it was for the last time.

  “Okay, and the hell with it,” he thought irritably.

  CHAPTER 8

  He went along the uneven brick walk under the living room windows that was a short cut to the wing. He was irritated at the Darrells, at Dr. Pardee, and also at himself. There was no use in even trying to pretend he’d made an imposing impression, either professionally or as self-appointed friend and advisor… or to pretend either that his ego was not slightly tattered as a result. Or, furthermore, that he could get Elizabeth Darrell out of his mind. She was all around him, in the violet haze that tinted the shafts of sunlight through the wisteria as he walked through the narrow arbor to his door, and in the squirming wound his pride was suffering that it wouldn’t be suffering if he hadn’t been trying to show her how wise and good he was. She was probably putting him down as a pompous self-righteous ass.

  He came out from under the wisteria where the corner of the wing made an angle with his front door, and stopped abruptly. A man was sitting on the steps. How long he had been there Jonas had no way of telling, but he gave the impression of being prepared to remain indefinitely if necessary. He had an air of ease and competent authority.