Double for Death

Chapter 22

A man, with brown cheeks almost smoothly shaven and wearing a blue denim shirt still fairly clean because it was milking time Monday afternoon, was chaperoning his herd of Jerseys across the paved road from the pasture side to the barn side. He saw a car coming and cussed. With any driver whatever the car would make his cows nervous; and if bad luck made it a certain kind of weekend driver from New York there was no telling what might happen. He stood in the middle of the road and glared at the approaching demon, then felt easier as he saw it slowing down and still easier when it crept, circling for a six-foot clearance past Jennifer’s indifferent rump. But two other cows rendered the démarche futile, and the car surrendered and came to a full stop directly alongside the man; and, glancing at the two occupants, he recognized the pretty girl who, a week previously, had momentarily taken his mind off of cows. The driver, beside her, was a citified male at least ten years her senior.

She smiled at him through the open window. “Hello! Nice cows.”

He squinted at her; she certainly was a promising heifer. “You don’t look as mad as you did last time,” he observed.

“I wasn’t mad, I was worried.”

“You don’t look worried.”

“I’m not any more.”

The road was clear and the car moved forward. In two minutes, having covered another mile of highway, it turned in at the entrance to the Fox place, known locally as The Zoo, and was guided by the curving lane over the little brook and on to the sweeping circle around the house, ending at the broad graveled space which was bounded in the rear by the enormous old barn which had been converted into a garage. From the right came the sound of voices. As the man and girl climbed out three dogs converged upon them for inspection. A man appeared at a small door at the far corner of the barn, decided in one brief glance that he wasn’t interested and vanished.

Andrew Grant said to his niece, “They’re pitching horseshoes. I didn’t know Thorpe and his sister were to be here.”

“Neither did I,” said Nancy with spots on her cheeks.

Tecumseh Fox, a pair of horseshoes in his left hand, came to greet them, and behind him Jeffrey and Miranda. Dan Pavey returned their salutation from his distance, turned as if to leave the festive scene, then changed his mind and stayed. As Nancy gave Fox her hand she remarked in a tone polite enough but faintly disparaging:

“Oh, I didn’t know it was a party.”

“It isn’t,” Fox declared. “Mr. Thorpe dropped in to negotiate for that photograph and I told him you folks were coming for dinner, and Mrs. Pemberton invited me to dine with her at my house instead of hers.”

Nancy was frowning. “You don’t mean my photograph?”

“That’s the one.”

“He can’t negotiate that from you. It’s mine.”

“He says it is part of his father’s estate. He lays claim to it.”

“Look here, Miss Grant.” Jeffrey was there facing her, looking resolute. “Has your uncle told you about the talk we had yesterday?”

She nodded reluctantly. “He has.”

“Then you know there’s going to be a publishing firm called Grant and Thorpe?”

“I do.”

“Well. Are you going to hamper the firm’s prospects by perpetuating a feud between the junior partner and the senior partner’s niece?”

“Our personal relations have nothing to do—”

“You’ll see whether they have or not. Have you ever pitched horseshoes?”

“Yes.”

“Do you know how hard it is to throw a ringer?”

“It isn’t hard, it’s impossible.”

“That’s right. I have a proposition to make. If I throw a ringer with one toss with this shoe, that photograph is mine, you and I become reconciled immediately and you get kissed. What about it?”

Nancy looked contemptuous. “You mean a ringer on the first toss?”

“Yes.”

She laughed sneeringly. “Go ahead. It will be you perpetuating the feud, not me.”

“Do you accept my proposition?”

“Certainly, why not?”

Jeffrey turned on his heel, marched to the nearest clay box, took position, set his jaw, clutched the horseshoe, glued his eyes to the iron peg forty feet away and let fly. Instead of sailing professionally, the shoe hurtled drunkenly through the air, twisting and wobbling, hit the clay at the extreme corner of the opposite box, staggered across crazily, performed a feeble spin near the center and lazily toppled over into an embrace of the iron peg with its iron arms.

“By God,” Jeffrey muttered in incredulous awe, staring at it, “it’s fate!” Then he whirled and leaped for Nancy.

She leaped too. It was not a frantic panic-stricken scuttle away from peril, but a purposeful and well-aimed dash for a selected sanctuary; and was so unexpected that its force nearly toppled the sanctuary, which was the brawny form of Dan Pavey, to the ground. He staggered and regained balance. Nancy hung to him and on him, her arms around his neck and told his ear:

“Don’t let him!”

Dan’s arms, around her, held her there. Jeffrey Thorpe, confronting him, demanded:

“Put her down! Turn her loose! I ask you because I can’t make you. You’re wounded.”

“Oh,” cried Nancy, “I forgot! Your arm!” She wriggled.

“My arm’s all right,” Dan rumbled. “Quit squirming. You can’t squirm out of your agreement, either. Don’t be a welcher. The deal was that if he threw a ringer you got kissed and you’re going to. Are you going to let him kiss you?”

“No.”

“Okay, then I’ll have to do it myself.”

He did so, standing there with her in his arms oblivious to the audience, full on her lips. Ten seconds later he said:

“That was intended to make an impression. Did it?”

“Yes,” said Nancy. She got her breath. “Put me down so I can look at your arm.”

Tecumseh Fox pitched a horseshoe.