American Gun Mystery (5 page)

“Glad to see you again, Inspector. Oh, Mr. Queen!” He sat down, his small eyes roving about the vast scene as if he felt the necessity of keeping a vigilant eye on all details at once. “Well, it’s a new thrill for old Broadway, hey?”

The Inspector took snuff. “I’d say,” he remarked benevolently, “for Brooklyn, the Bronx, Staten Island, Westchester, and every place
but
Broadway.”

“Judging by the provincial manners of your audience, Mr. Mars,” grinned Ellery. For the vendors were already busy hawking, and the characteristic sound of cracking peanut-shells filled the amphitheatre.

“You’ll get plenty of Broadway wisenheimers here tonight,” said Mars. “I know my crowds. Broadway’s filled with a hard-boiled bunch, an’ all that; but they’re all saps an’ suckers at heart, and they’ll come an’ chew goobers an’ raise hell just for the kick they’ll get out of actin’ like hicks. Ever watch a morning crowd of hard guys at the State when they put on an old-time Western? They whistle an’ stamp their feet an’ all that, and they love it so much they’d cry if you took it away from ’em. Old Buck Horne’ll get a good hand tonight.”

At the magic name Djuna’s prominent ears twitched, and he turned and slowly surveyed Tony Mars with a kindling respect.

“Buck Horne,” said the Inspector with a dreamy smile. “The old galoot! Thought he was dead and buried long ago. Good stunt getting him here, all right.”

“Ain’t a stunt, Inspector. It’s a build-up.”

“Eh?”

“Well, y’see,” said Mars reflectively, “Buck’s been out of pictures for nine-ten years. Did a movie three years ago, but it didn’t pan out so well. But now with the talkies goin’ full blast. …He an’ Wild Bill Grant are buddies. Grant’s a good business man to boot. Now the pay-off is this: if Buck goes over in the big time here, if his appearance makes a splash in New York, it’s—well, rumored that he’ll make a screen come-back next season.”

“With Grant, I suppose, backin’ him?”

The promoter looked at his house. “Well I ain’t sayin’ I’m not interested in the proposition myself.”

The Inspector settled more comfortably in his seat. “How’s the big fight coming along?”

“Fight? Oh, the fight! Swell, Inspector, swell. Advance sales are way beyond my expectations. I think—”

There was a little flurry at the rear of the box. They all turned, and then rose. A very lovely and feminine creature in a black evening gown and ermine wrap stood smiling there. A press of young men with hard eyes and cocked snap-brims were behind her, talking fast; some of them held cameras. She entered the box, and Tony Mars gallantly handed her to a front seat. There were introductions. Djuna, who had turned back to devour the arena once more after a single brief look at the newcomer, suddenly shuddered.

“Miss Horne—Inspector Queen, Mr. Ellery Queen. …”

Djuna kicked his chair aside, his lean face working. “You,” he gasped to the astonished young woman, “you
Kit
Horne?”

“Why—yes, of course.”

“Oh,” said Djuna in a trembling voice, and retreated until his back pressed against the rail. “Oh,” he said again, and his eyes grew enormous. Then he licked his lips and croaked: “But where—where’s your six-shooter, ma’am, an’ your—your bronc, ma’am?”

“Djuna,” said the Inspector weakly; but Kit Horne smiled and then said in a very serious tone: “I’m frightfully sorry, but I had to leave them home. They wouldn’t have let me in, you see.”

“Gee,” said Djuna, and spent five minutes staring at her radiant profile in fierce concentration. Poor Djuna! It was almost too much, this proximity to an idol. The great Kit Horne had spoken to him, to Djuna the Magnificent, by—by Buffalo Bill! That lovely wraith who had flitted over an impersonal screen, riding like a Valkyrie, shooting like a man, roping the dastardly villain. …And then he blinked and slowly, reluctantly, turned his head toward the rear of the box.

It was Tommy Black.

There were two others with him—another radiant vision, to whom all the males instantly deferred, Mara Gay; and Julian Hunter, impeccably dressed—but Djuna forgot everything, even the great Kit Horne, as he gulped the bubbling, incredible elixir so casually offered to him.
Tommy Black!
Tommy Black the fighter! Cripes! He retreated to his feet, overwhelmed by shyness; but from that moment no one in Tony Mars’s box existed for him but the beetle-browed giant who shook hands all around and then, with easy possessiveness, slipped into the chair next to Mara Gay’s and began to talk softly to her.

To Ellery it was faintly amusing. The reporters buzzing about; Djuna’s speechless worship; the cool self-possession of Kit Horne and Mara Gay’s supercilious condescension toward her; Julian Hunter’s smiling silence and tight lips; Mars’s nervous watch on the jammed bowl; Black’s fluid movements and snaky gestures—as usual when a group of personalities gathered, Ellery reflected, there were undercurrents and crosscurrents; and he wondered what made Hunter smile so tightly and what made Kit Horne so suddenly silent. But most of all he wondered what was the matter with Mara Gay. This darling of Hollywood, one of the most highly paid screen personalities in the world, was something less than the pure and glamorous beauty she appeared on the magic screen. Yes, she was daringly dressed, as usual, and her eyes were also as extraordinarily bright as they always seemed in her films; but there was a thinness, an emaciation about her features that he had never been conscious of before; and her large eyes did not seem quite so large. Besides, here—where her gestures where unschooled by a watchful director—she was vividly nervous, almost quicksilver-ish. A thought came to him, and he studied her without seeming to do so.

There was polite conversation.

And Djuna, his heart big in his throat, jerked his head from side to side as the celebrities gathered in surrounding boxes. And then, of course, things began to happen in the arena; and from that instant he was insensible to the coarser realities and devoted his whole earnest attention to the spectacle below.

The bowl was packed with a boisterous, good-natured crowd. Society was out
en masse,
rimming the rail above the arena with an oval panel studded with glittering jewels. In the arena there was flashing activity; from the smaller entrances horsemen had appeared, each a whirling smear of color—red bandanas, leathery chaps, fancy vests, dun sombreros, checkered shirts, silvery spurs. There was roping and thunderous riding, and the steady crackle of pistol-shots. The cameramen were busy on their platform. The whole bowl was filled with a prodigious drumming of horses’ hooves on the tanbark. …A tall slender young man gayly caparisoned in cowboy regalia stood in the center of the arena. The overhead arcs gleamed on his curly hair. Little puffs of smoke surrounded him. He operated a catapult with his foot and with nonchalant skill caused little glass balls to disappear as he twirled his long-barreled revolver. A shout went up. “That’s Curly Grant!” He bowed, doffed his Stetson, caught a brown horse, vaulted lightly into the saddle, and began to trot across the arena toward the Mars box.

Ellery had moved his chair closer to Kit Horne, leaving Mara Gay with Tommy Black, while Hunter sat quietly by himself in the rear of the box. Mars had vanished.

“You’re fond of your father, I take it,” murmured Ellery as he noted her eyes roving about the arena.

“He’s so darned—Oh, it’s hard to explain those things.” She smiled, and her straight brows came together in a solemn way. “My affection for him is—well, perhaps greater because he’s not really my father, you know; he adopted me when I was a kid-orphan. He’s been everything the best father could be to me—”

“Oh! I beg your pardon. I didn’t know—”

“You needn’t be apologetic, Mr. Queen. You’ve committed no social error. I’m really very proud. Perhaps,” she sighed, “I haven’t been the best daughter in the world. I see Buck so very seldom these days. The rodeo is bringing us together for the first time in more than a year—closely, I mean.”

“Naturally, with you in Hollywood and Mr. Horne on his ranch—”

“It’s not easy. I’ve been busy on location in California almost without let-up, and with Buck secluded up in Wyoming. …I haven’t been able to visit him for more than a day or so every few months. He’s been a lonely man.”

“But why,” asked Ellery, “doesn’t he move to California?”

Kit’s brown little hands tightened. “Oh, I’ve tried to make him. But three years ago he tried a screen comeback and—well, they just don’t come back, it seems, in the movies any more than the prize-fighting game. He took it rather hard and insisted on shutting himself up on his ranch, like a hermit.”

“And you,” said Ellery softly, “the apple of his eye, to be more than slightly horticultural.”

“Yes. He has no family or relatives at all. He leads a horribly lonely life. Except for his yellow cook-boy and a few old-timers who punch the small herd he’s got, he’s alone. Really, his only visitors are myself and Mr. Grant.”

“Ah, the colorful Wild Bill,” murmured Ellery.

She regarded him rather queerly. “Yes, the colorful Wild Bill. Occasionally he stops over at the ranch to spend a few days between rodeo shows. I
have
been remiss in my duty to Buck! He’s not been well for years now—nothing really wrong with him. I guess it’s just old age. But he’s been losing weight, and—”

“Hi, Kit!”

She flushed, and leaned forward with eagerness. Ellery through half-closed eyes saw Mara Gay’s lips tighten, and her voice faltered the merest trifle as she saw what was happening. The curly head of the glass-ball exterminator was grinning at them from below the rail. Curly Grant had with an easy leap left the saddle, caught the rail, and now hung suspended over the arena. The horse waited philosophically below.

“Why, Curly,” said Kit, “you’ll—Get down this instant!”

“And you a lady acrobat,” grinned Curly. “No, ma’am. Kit, I want to explain—”

Ellery mercifully turned his attention elsewhere.

There was another diversion. The short military figure of Major Kirby appeared at the entrance to the box by the side of Tony Mars, who now seemed in the ultimate heaven of nervousness. He greeted Curly’s disembodied face with a smile, and bowed with a precise little click of his heels to the ladies, shaking hands quietly with the men.

“You know young Grant?” asked the Inspector, as the curly head disappeared below the box and Kit sat back with a flushed smile.

“Yes, indeed,” replied the Major. “He’s one of those fortunate young devils who makes friends everywhere. I met him on the other side.”

“In service, eh?”

“Yes. He was attached to my command.” Major Kirby sighed, and smoothed his little black mustache with an immaculate fingernail. “Ah, the War. …A peculiarly rotten brand of delicatessen, if I may say so,” he added. “But Curly—well, he was sixteen, I believe, at the time the great war to end wars called; enlisted under false colors, and very nearly lost his damn fool life at St. Mihiel when he tried to break up a machine-gun nest single-handed. These youngsters were—rash.”

“But heroes,” said Kit softly.

The Major shrugged, and Ellery suppressed a smile. It was evident that Major Kirby, who had probably acquitted himself with distinction in the War, had very few illusions about the glories of battle and the privilege of laying down one’s life for the doubtful importance of wresting two yards more of torn earth from the enemy. “I’m in a bigger war right now,” he said grimly. “You don’t know what competition is until you try to score a scoop on some photographic story. I’m in charge of the newsreel unit here tonight, you know. We’ve got an exclusive.”

“I—” began Ellery with some eagerness.

“But I must be getting back to my men,” continued Major Kirby evenly. “See you later, Tony.” He bowed again, and quickly left the box.

“Great little guy,” muttered Tony Mars. “You wouldn’t believe it to look at him, but he’s one of the crack pistol-shots of the U.S. Army. Used to be, I mean. In the Infantry during the big scrap. Some kind of expert, he’s turned out to be. Newsreels!” He sniffed, and nervously eyed the arena as he fumbled for his watch. Then a vast intensity came over his rather blurred features, and he sat down with the suddenness of a dog coming to point. They all turned their attention to the arena.

It was emptying. Cowboys, cowgirls were riding briskly toward the exits. In a short time there was nothing left to see but the deserted track, the hoof-pocked dirt core of the oval, and the men on the newsreel platform. Major Kirby’s erect little figure appeared, half-running, from one of the side doors; it closed behind him; he bounded across the arena, clambered like a monkey up the wooden ladder, and took his place on the platform among the sound and cameramen.

The crowd hushed.

Djuna drew a curiously musical breath.

Then from the big western gate came small sounds, and a uniformed man swung back the large leaves of the gate, and a lone man on horseback rode forth. He was a squat powerful man dressed in tattered old corduroys and a rather aged Stetson. At his right side hung a holstered revolver. He galloped recklessly across the track to the very center of the dirt oval, brought his horse to a sliding stop in a cloud of flying clods, stood erect in his stirrups, took off his hat with his left hand, waved it once, put it back on his head, and stood there that way, smiling.

Thunderous applause! Stamping feet! One Djuna’s feet particularly.

“Wild Bill,” whispered Tony Mars. His face was pale.

“What the devil you so nervous about, Tony?” asked Tommy Black with a deep chuckle.

“I’m always twitchy as a snow-bird at these damn openings,” growled the promoter. “Shh!”

The man on horseback shifted his grip on the reins to his left hand, with his right jerking the revolver out of his holster. It had a long dulled-blue barrel which winked wickedly under the arcs. He flung his arm roofward and the gun kicked back, exploding with a roar. And he opened his heavy old mouth and screamed:
“Yooooowwww!”
with such a sustained wolfish quality that the echoes slithered off the rafters and startled the crowd into silence.

The revolver was hammered back into the holster. And Wild Bill, sinking down into his saddle, put one hand affectionately on his saddle-horn and opened his mouth again.