A dram of poison (22 page)

"Judge not! Hey?" said the bus driver. "The biter bit. A bitter bite."

Jeanie had run for the door in a streak, a moment ago (now-he recalled), yelling, "I'll tell Grandma." And Paul, who had been hugging her, in his joy, now hugged Rosemary. (Anybody. Any soft huggable body. Mr. Gibson understood perfectly.)

He hugged the bowl and thought, Now who could predict such a scene as this? He felt delighted.

But he did not contemplate it long. Hanging onto the bowl, he plunged into the celebration, himself, in person.

A police car had slipped into the drive; now a cop got out.

He was young, and not too sure what he'd been sent here for. He approached the door of the cottage. Before he could ring, it was swinging in before him with a tremendous welcoming verve, pulled by a small, compact man with dancing eyes. This man had a slight, brown-haired, merry-eyed woman tucked under his other arm. She was smiling too, and she helped balance, between them, what looked to be a wooden bowl full of spaghetti. These two stepped back in unison, like a pair of dancers, bowing him inward.

In the small foyer, a big handsome gent was crooning into the telephone. "It's O.K., dear. It really is! Everything is wonderful and I'll be home soon." (The cop had no way of knowing he was talking to his mother-in-law.)

In the living room, a wiry old gentleman in a pink shirt whistling tunelessly through his teeth, and with his thin legs prancing, was enthusiastically steering the majestic

bulk of a beige-and-white-clad matron in the waltz. She stepped lightly.

Another man, in a leather jacket, crouched for the purpose of kissing the not unwilling lips of a cool little Nordic blonde who was sitting on the floor. From a tiny glass in her limp hand, something trickled on the back of his neck. He wasn't minding.

The cop's eye assessed all this. He was here, he supposed, to ask questions. "I dunno much about this," he confessed, lookmg at the plain-faced, middle-aged woman who sat in the midst of all the hilarity, stricken and still, staring at the carpet (as if she'd been shook, all right, he thought). "Is she the one," he said aside with pity, "who got careless with some poison?"

The man at the door hesitated. Then he said, "No, it was I. But mercifully . . . Come in. Gome in," said Mr. Gibson cordially. 'Tm all right now"

THE END