The Dragon’s Teeth (10 page)

She trudged along the track to the siding. Outside the stable car she stopped short, frowning. Some one was in the car.

She approached the open door quietly and looked in.

Again!

She couldn't see his face; but his wide back was unmistakable. He was squatting on his heels before
Panjandrum,
doing something quickly and powerfully, as if haste were imperative, to the mare's left forefoot. Bandages and packing were strewn about the car's floor.

Kerrie watched in a storm of breathlessness.
What was he up to now?

Beau grunted with satisfaction and straightened up, and she saw what he had been doing. He had removed the mare's left foreshoe.

He examined it hastily, then thrust shoe and loosened nails into the bulging pocket of his baggy sack-coat. And he bent over again to replace the packing and bandages. The mare lay still, and his big hands worked with rapidity.

Kerrie leaned against the side of the car, miserable. Of course. Margo must have loosened the nails of the left foreshoe as well as of the right. Just to make sure, she thought bitterly. No one had thought to examine it except … And how could he have known unless Margo had told him?

Removing the evidence of her guilt again!

Kerrie took command of herself. At least she had one card up her sleeve. He—she—they didn't know she knew. She had passed her fall off as an accident. They thought she didn't suspect. Let them! That was her only protection now.

She stole off a few yards and then approached the car noisily. And she called out in a voice she tried to make unconcerned: “Dr. Pickens! Is that you in the car?”

Beau appeared in the doorway instantly.

“Oh! Hello,” said Kerrie. “I thought it was the veterinary in there. What are you doing?”

He jumped to the ground. “I heard about your accident and—”

“Came to pay your respects to the horse?”

He said abruptly: “You all right?”

“Never better, thank you.”

“Well.” He stood frowning at the ground. “I guess I'll amble along. Hope the mare can be saved.”

He strode away. Kerrie did not look after him. She went into the stable car. From there, she looked. He was pacing up and down behind the station—near her car!

She said goodbye to
Panjandrum
a dozen times. Finally, Henry appeared, and Dr. Pickens. They seemed to think her expression of alarm was caused by anxiety over the mare, and kept reassuring her that
Panjandrum
would be all right.

And finally the eleven-fifty rolled in, and she had to get out of the stable car. But she remained to watch the coupling of the car to the northbound train.

When the train pulled out and there was no longer any excuse for lingering on the spur, she trudged back to the platform, trying to appear preoccupied.

“Oh, are you still here?” she said. “I thought—”

He seized her arms. “Kerrie! Listen to me—”

“You're hurting me!”

“You know what happened the other night,” he said in a low, hurried voice. “You've got to be—”

“Let—me—go,” panted Kerrie. She wriggled out of his grasp and slapped him, hard, on his blue-stubbled cheek. All the bitterness of weeks found expression in that pitiful act of violence. “You're used to manhandling females, I don't doubt,” she cried, “but that doesn't mean you can manhandle me!”

His voice was oddly soft. “Kerrie, I just wanted to warn you to be careful. That's all.”

“Careful?” Careful. He wanted her to be
carefull

The miracle of his solicitude, after all her fears, filled Kerrie with joy. Then it wasn't true! He wasn't Margo's confederate after all!

“I mean,” he went on, and something in his tone smothered her joy, killing it with a sort of contempt, “you've got one hell of a way of getting into trouble. You're a nuisance!”

Kerrie jumped into her roadster and drove off blindly. She did not therefore see how his shoulders sagged and the lines of his face deepened. She drove into the city.

When the police permit and revolver came, she felt grimly better.” It was a pearl-handled .22 of beautiful workmanship, and the ammunition was slick and deadly-looking.

VIII.
Woman-Trap

The genuine Mr. Ellery Queen set down the horseshoe and the twisted nails gently.

“Kerrie's got the finger on her,” said Beau.

The tone made Mr. Queen look up. Then Mr. Queen looked down, mercifully. He picked up a nail and turned it this way and that between his fingers.

“Deadly,” he remarked. “And a little terrifying. A woman in the grip of a homicidal mania, induced by jealousy and greed, doesn't usually try to commit murder so subtly. Loosening the shoes of a horse!”

“Damn her.” Beau turned away.

“A murderess capable of that kind of plot can't be reached through the customary channels. She's probably immune to fear, because she's too far gone in pure cussedness. I'd rather she had tried poison. There's something realistic about poison. This—it's fantastic.” He stared at the nail and then flung it aside.

“Just the same,” said Beau in his lifeless voice, “I'm not taking that chance, either. I've got an ex-policewoman in the kitchen as assistant to the chef.”

“You're convinced it's Margo Cole?”

“I found out from the groom that Margo had managed to be alone in the stable with the mare before Kerrie went riding. It was Margo, all right.”

Beau lay down on the sofa and turned his face to the wall.

“How about the other night?” Mr. Queen regarded him with pity. Really an impossible position, he thought. And the girl—

“We'd been in town, the beautiful Miss Cole and I,” said Beau without turning. “Having fun. You know, just a couple of innocent kids out on a tear?”

He sat up suddenly. Mr. Queen let him talk.

“We sat on the terrace and hoisted a few, and she got very, very chummy. I guess I wasn't feeling so palsy that night. I tried not to show it, but she's … smart.”

His eyes were bloodshot, Mr. Queen remarked. And he had a habit these days of working his jaws, as if he were hungry.

“I knew from the way she looked at me that she spotted my trouble. She knew Kerrie was bothering me. From the way she smiled … she gave me the shivers,” Beau said hoarsely. “I should have known then. But I never thought … She said good night as if everything was all right. I sat up a while and then went to bed. I couldn't sleep. When the poor kid let out that awful yell—”

“Yes?” said Mr. Queen gently.

Beau smiled, and there was something cruel and naked in his smile. “De Carlos could hardly have climbed that wall. He was faking when I went in to look him over. Wasn't asleep at all. But he was potted, too. He'd have tumbled to the terrace and broken his damn' neck if he'd tried to climb to Kerrie's room.

“But Margo …” He jumped off the sofa and began walking around. “She sleeps in the opposite wing, but it gives out on the terrace, too, and it would have been a cinch for her to slip down at that time of night and climb the vines and trellis. She's an athletic bitch.… Maybe what she saw in my eyes that night made up her mind.”

Mr. Queen sighed. “How does it feel to be fifty percent of the motive in an attempted homicide?”

“That's not the worst of it, although God knows it's a lousy enough spot for a man to be in!” cried Beau. “It's what I'm forced to do to Kerrie that hurts. Every time I show a spark of interest, her eyes start shining like electric bulbs. She looks like a kid under a Christmas tree. She … And then I've got to douse the lights by deliberately acting like a heel. She'll wind up hating my guts, if she doesn't hate 'em already.”

“That's what you want, isn't it?” queried Mr. Queen. But he was thinking of something else.

“Yes,” said Beau quietly. “That's what I want,” he burst out, “but it's more than that, too! She thinks I'm signed up with Margo to put her out of the way!”

“Very natural. The appearance of requited passion, the attempt at murder … very natural for her to think so.”

“It's easy for you to be calm about it,” said Beau bitterly. “You're not in love with her.”

“I'm sorry, Beau,” said Mr. Queen in a gentle voice. “My specialty is murder, not romance.”

“What the devil can I do? I've got to find a way out of this mess somehow!”

Mr. Queen was silent.

“Hell, you're not even paying attention!”

Mr. Queen looked up. “With half a brain. The other half is excogitating a great befuddlement. Beau, what's the connection between these attacks on Kerrie Shawn and the events that preceded and accompanied Cole's death?”

“All I know is that Margo Cole is out for Kerrie's blood. Kerrie's standing between her and me—
she
thinks—but, more important, Kerrie's death means doubling her-income. Knowing Margo, I'd say the money motive was the stronger of the two. Not that it makes any difference to a corpse
why
he's been bumped off.”

“You think the root of these attempts goes back into the past? The development of a plan made months ago?”

“I think,” said Beau savagely, “Margo was responsible for Cole's death!”

Mr. Queen raised his eyebrows. “You believe she was on the
Argonaut?”

“Why not?” Then Beau growled: “Or she wasn't, and De Carlos did the dirty work for her. It's not impossible those two are working together. They keep away from each other—De Carlos is concentrating on Kerrie, the damn' chaser!—but that doesn't necessarily mean anything. It might be a cover-up.”

Mr. Queen looked dissatisfied. “There's so much we don't
know,”
he complained. “Heard anything on the crew and Angus?”

“I had a report this morning. One of my men picked up the trail of three of the crew and the wireless operator. They shipped on a freighter, and they're on the other side of the world by now. Nothing on the others, nothing on Angus. It's just as if—”

“Just as if?” echoed Mr. Queen.

Their eyes met.

“They were dead,” said Beau.

Mr. Queen picked up his hat. “Keep watching your light-o'-love. And don't let your suspicions of Margo make you blind to … other possibilities.”

“What's that supposed to mean?” snapped Beau.

“Merely what it said. There's only one thing about this case I feel sure of. And that is that it's far less simple than it seems. In fact, I've the feeling it's a case of complicated and subtle cross-purposes. You'll have to be very careful, Beau, and I'll help all I can from under cover. Keep your eyes open—to the four points of the compass. The break may come from the least-expected quarter.”

“I don't know what you're talking about!”

“That's not strange,” said Mr. Queen with a shrug, “since I scarcely know myself.”

VI pleaded with Kerrie to run away. “If that she-devil doesn't kill you,” she cried, “the suspense will. Kerrie, you're such a—a fool I could shake you. Do you really love him that much? Or this money? A fat lot of good it's doing you! You look like God's wrath. Give it up and let's get out of here—while we can!”

“No,” said Kerrie stiffly. “I won't. I won't. They won't drive me away. I won't give in. They'll have to kill me first.”

“They will!”

Kerrie trembled. “It's something stronger than I am. It won't let me go. Maybe it's plain stubbornness. I'm scared too—I'm scared, Vi, but I'm more scared of what I don't know. I've got to find out. I've got to.”

Vi looked at her with a sort of horror.

“I suppose you think I've gone dotty,” said Kerrie with a weak smile. “Maybe I have … I
hate
him!”

So it
was
that. Vi shook her head.

And then the enemy struck a third time.

It was a Sunday, and when Kerrie opened her eyes that morning she saw it would be a day of sun and cloudless skies.

“Vi, let's have an old-fashioned picnic, just the two of us!” she cried. “We'll drive into the country somewhere, and camp, and eat pickles and shoo bugs away and swim raw if we can find a stream!”

They found their stream, and gorged themselves on the good things the chef had packed in the bursting hamper, and for the first time in weeks Vi heard her friend's unclouded laughter.

By the time they drove through the gateway to the estate it was dusk, and rapidly growing dark.

Vi yawned. “It's the fresh air. Kerrie, I'm flopping right into bed.”

“Sleepy? With such beautiful stars beginning to come out? Here, I'll let you out at the house and you can flop into your old bed if you want to. I'll put the car away.”

Vi got out under the porte-cochère and Sir Scram, as she called the butler, opened the front door for her. She disappeared. The butler took the hamper from the car and went back into the house.

Kerrie sat still behind the wheel for a while, mooning up at the darkening sky, her thoughts dream-woven, afloat in a great peace. But soon the brightening stars made her think of what a lovely night it was, and the loveliness of the night led naturally to thoughts of romance, and romance …

She drove off abruptly, headed for the garage.

The garage, located behind the stables, was really six garages under one roof. It was a wide shallow brick building with six double-doors, and each car-compartment was separated from its neighbors by brick and plaster walls, making the individual sections complete in themselves.

Kerrie housed her roadster in the second compartment from the right, between the one where the station-wagon was kept and the one reserved for De Carlos's powerful limousine.

In the glare of the roadster's headlights the four double-doors to the left were closed; the two on the right stood open.