The Dragon’s Teeth (12 page)

“What happened today?”

“Miss Shawn and Miss Day left early this mornin' on a picnic, just the two of them. Drove out in Miss Shawn's roadster. I handed the chef the eatables meself. No chance for a slip-up, Mr. Rummell.”

“Driving off into the country alone!” Beau frowned. “How about Miss Cole? Mr. De Carlos?”

“Miss Cole didn't leave the grounds all day. She entertained a party of newspaper people on the lawn. They left before dark and she had dinner alone and went up to her room. She called your number in the City just after dinner.”

“I know, I know. How about De Carlos?”

“Mr. De Carlos threw a water-party in the pool for Mr. and Mrs. Goossens and some free-gin lappers in the afternoon. He got drunk on absinthe at four-thirty and had to be helped to his quarters.”

“When did the girls get back from their picnic?”

“Less than an hour ago. Miss Day went right to bed. Miss Shawn drove her roadster round to the garage; butler told me. I guess she's gone on up to her rooms.”

Beau drove back to the house. He went upstairs and knocked on Kerrie's door.

He knocked again, listening; then he tried the door and found it unlocked. He pushed it open, went in, snapped on the light, and looked around.

Not there.

He was about to cross to the boudoir door when it opened and Violet Day, in a mauve satin négligé, her hair in two blonde braids down her back, her eyes half-closed in the light, as if she had been in darkness for some time, stood in the doorway.

There was a snub-nosed automatic in her left hand, and it was pointed at Beau's breast.

“Oh, it's you,” said Vi. But she did not lower the automatic. “What do you think you're doing, pussyfooting around in Kerrie's bedroom?”

“Where is she?”

“Kerrie? Isn't she here?” A shadow passed over Vi's face; she looked quickly about. “But I thought—”

“Put that pea-shooter down before you hurt somebody!” Vi's arm sank. “Now where is she?”

“I came up here and she drove around to the garage to put the car away.”

“When?”

“Almost an hour ago. I was just dozing off when you—”

But Beau was gone.

He drove towards the garage. As he approached, he saw the unmoving shine of two headlights. He jumped out and ran over to Kerrie's roadster. It was backed against a big beech tree, and it was empty.

Puzzled, Beau followed the parallel lines of the roadster's headlights. Then he saw the broken door of the second garage compartment. He ran over and examined it. There was no lock on the fallen door. He rose, sniffing. Exhaust smell. But he could hear no sound of a running motor; and all five of the other garage stalls were closed and silent.

He sprinted back to the roadster. “Kerrie! Kerrie Shawn!”

There was no answer, and he began to circle the roadster. With a flashlight he examined the rear of the car; it was battered, its bumper hanging crazily. Then he went on and saw Kerrie lying still in the grass.

Flying feet made a noise behind him. “Kerrie! Is she—is she—
dead?”
Violet Day stood panting there. She had slipped a squirrel coat over her négligé. Her hair was disordered and her eyes big with fear.

“No. Breathing very fast. Heart's racing. Kerrie!” Beau shook the limp body.

“But—but what—”

“Looks as if she was caught in the garage and had to fight her way out. Kerrie!” He slapped her pale right cheek, his left arm supporting her head. “Kerrie! Wake up. It's—”

Her eyelids fluttered. Her eyes were dull, her brow furrowed, her mouth open to the night air.

“I'm—dizzy,” she said with a groan. “Who—I can't see—well—”

“It's … Ellery Queen,” said Beau, but Vi flung herself beside Kerrie and cried: “It's Vi, hon! What happened? What was it this time?”

“Garage—carbon monoxide—” Kerrie fainted again.

“Carbon monoxide!” Beau shouted: “Get a lot of black coffee!”

Vi flew off.

Beau turned Kerrie over in the grass and straddled her. Her mouth and nose were sucking in the air. His big hands gripped her ribs; his torso worked up and down in a slow rhythm.

She was just coming to again when Vi, accompanied by Margo Cole and half the household, ran up. Vi carried a pitcher of steaming coffee and a glass.

“Vi says—” cried Margo; she was half-dressed. “Vi says Kerrie—Monoxide poisoning—”

Beau did not look at her. He seized the pitcher, poured a glass of coffee, sat Kerrie up and forced her to swallow. She cried out weakly, shaking her head. His fingers clamped the back of her neck; he exerted pressure, and she drank, tears streaming down her dusty cheeks.

When she had swallowed one glassful, he forced her to swallow another. A trace of color began to show in her cheeks.

“Drink it. Breathe in—hard. And drink.”

She drank and drank, while the silent group stood about.

“All right,” said Beau. “It's as much as we can do now. Anybody call a doctor?”

“I did, sir,” said the butler. “Dr. Murphy of Tarrytown.”

“All we can do till the doctor comes is put her to bed. Kerrie!”

Her head was against his shoulder, resting heavily.

“Kerrie. Put your arm around my neck. Hang on, now.”

“What?” said Kerrie. She raised her eyes; they were still dull with pain.

“Never mind.” He picked her up; and after a moment her arm crept about his neck and clung.

KERRIE opened her eyes with a confused recollection of a nightmare. Garage—smell—fight—car—crash—a lot of people and … him … holding on to him and feeling, through her nausea, through the fog … feeling at peace.

And then the scene shifted to her room, like a movie. Windows thrown wide, Vi undressing her and getting her into bed … she was sick then … and later he was telling her not to mind, not to mind, just close her eyes, breathe deeply, try to rest, to sleep … then a strange man injecting something that stung for an instant—the air, the fresh clean sweet air—sleep.…

Kerrie opened her eyes and in the hot light of morning saw Beau's face, inches from her own.

She pulled him down to her, sobbing.

“All right. It's all right now, Kerrie,” Beau kept mumbling. “You're okay. There's nothing to be afraid of now.”

“It was horrible,” sobbed Kerrie. “The garage—some one locked me in—I couldn't get out—turned the motor on in the next garage—the fumes came through the radiator-grille—I got sick and dizzy—my tools were stolen, my revolver—I couldn't get out.…”

Beau's arms tightened about her. When he had found Kerrie last night the lock was gone from the broken garage door; the motor of the car in the next garage had been turned off. Whoever had tried to kill Kerrie had stolen back, removed the lock, turned off the engine of the station-wagon, and gone away. Had Kerrie not managed to escape from the garage, had she died there like a mouse in a trap, it would have looked like the usual garage accident: the running motor of her own car, the doctors might have said—she fainted and was overcome. There would have been no evidence of a crime. An accident—like the “accident” on the bridle-path.

Kerrie's tears were warm on his cheek. “I thought—
you
were in with her. Please. I was mad. I know you couldn't. Oh, I love you. I do. I've been so miserable. I couldn't leave here and let—her have you. I love you!”

“I know, funny-face. Me, too.…”

“Darling.” She placed her palms on his cheeks and held his face off, smiling incredulously. Then she hugged him. “Oh, you do!”

The Tarrytown doctor came in and said: “I beg your pardon. Would you mind—?”

Beau stumbled out.

MARGO kept him waiting fifteen minutes. When her maid finally admitted him, Margo was lying graceful-armed on a chaise-longue, her body draped in a dramatic morning gown, every hair in place, and her dead-white cheeks carefully made up.

“How nice,” she smiled at him, and then said rapidly to her maid:
“Bêtise! Va t'en!”
and the maid fled. As soon as the door closed Margo slipped off the couch and went to him.

He took her in his arms. She put her hands on his chest after a while. “Sit down here with me. You've kept me waiting so long.”

“Couldn't get here sooner.”

“Oh. Kerrie? It would be.” She said it lightly. But she pushed him away a little.

“Sure it would be!”

“And how is the little mousy darling? I suppose you've sat up with her all night?”

“I had to put on an act, didn't I? Somebody had to.” Beau made his tone annoyed, even truculent. But he was careful to draw her close to him again.

“You—it was you found her last night, wasn't it?” murmured Margo.

“Lucky for you I did, gorgeous.”

“What do you mean?” She opened her Egyptian eyes wide, staring in the innocent-little-girl way she affected.

“You know what I mean.”

“But I don't. I was shocked to hear about Kerrie's latest adventure with the fates. She has such foul luck with horses and garages, hasn't she? Is she all right this morning?” Margo sat down on the chaise-longue and patted it invitingly.

“No thanks to you.” Beau laughed, stretching out beside her. She leaned on him, chin propped on her long hands, eyes on his face. “Don't you think that was a little raw, baby?”

“Raw?” She looked blank.

“This last stunt of yours.” His tone said he was amused.

“This last—” She wrinkled her nose in perplexity. Then she laughed. “You think
I
locked Kerrie in that garage and tried to kill her? I?”

“That's what I mean.”

She stopped laughing. “I don't like that!”

“Neither do I. That's why I'm giving you a little friendly advice.”

“That,
chéri,”
she said softly, “is a very dangerous thing to say. I might sue you for slander—if I didn't like you so much.”

“I wouldn't be wasting my time if I didn't have your interests at heart.”

“Heart! What do you know about hearts? You're a lump, a stone!”

He grinned at her. “Yeah. Like coal. Hard and black and cold. Till you light a fire under it.”

“You're a cinder!”

“Try me and see.”

She rose suddenly and went to the window to stare out at the gardens.

“Come here,” said Beau lazily.

She turned with reluctance. Then she went back to him, and sat down again, and he took her hands.

“You don't believe me, do you?”

“In what way?”

He put his arms about her. “Don't you know, deep inside, that you're safe with me, baby?”

“Safe?”

“Don't you know you and I can go places together? The only thing is—you're a little foolish.”

“What a charming compliment!”

“You're foolish because you take foolish chances. You've let yourself be swept away by your feelings. That's why women's crimes are so easy to spot. For one thing, you think I'm in love with Kerrie Shawn.”

“Aren't you?” she asked through her strong white teeth.

“That skinny little thing? When I'm a sucker for your type?”

“Just my
type?”
She was growing arch now.

“For you, damn you! You know it, only you're too damn' suspicious. Does this feel phony?”

He pulled her over until she lay in his arms.

“Does it?” He kissed her.

She closed her eyes, responding slowly. But it was the creep of a rising flood.

“Wait. Wait,” she gasped, pushing him away. “You say you don't love her. How do I know? The way you've looked at her. And last night—”

“I tell you she doesn't mean a thing to me!” snarled Beau. “But I'm smarter than you, baby. I put on an act. And you'd be a hell of a lot smarter to put on an act, too, instead of running your neck into a noose!”

“I don't—know what you mean.”

“You want her dough, don't you?” said Beau in a brutal tone. “All right. How do you try to get your hands on it? By putting her out of the way. Dangerous, you fool! It takes finesse. You can get what you want a whole lot more safely.”

She did not answer in words. She pulled him down to her and put her lips to his ear.

“You can get it, and me, too,” growled Beau.

She whispered.

“But we split, see?”

She kissed a trail from his ear to his lips.

Later, when Beau left her, he went into a bathroom and spent three minutes rinsing his mouth.

BEAU left the grounds early that morning; he was back by the afternoon.

Kerrie was waiting on the terrace. For him. He knew it was for him. By the way she started when she saw him. By the glad look in her eyes—glad, and anxious, too, as if she couldn't make up her mind whether what had happened was a dream or an actuality.

He stooped and kissed her.

The book slipped off her lap. “Then it's true!” And she jumped up and kissed him fiercely. “Let's go somewhere!”

“Where's Vi?” asked Beau slowly.

“She had an appointment in town with the hairdresser. Darling. You do love me?”

He held her close.

“That's all I wanted to know.” She shivered with joy. “I don't care about anything else.”

“Let's take a walk,” said Beau.

They strolled into the sweet-smelling woods, his arm about her.

There was something unreal about the afternoon; the sunlight filtering through the leaves had a red cast, so that they seemed to be walking in a place not of earth.

“It isn't,” said Kerrie, “as if the future were altogether rosy. It isn't. There are so many things I don't understand. About you, darling. And
about
the future. But I've made up my mind not to look ahead.… Isn't it lovely here?”

Beau sat down on a weatherbeaten stump. Kerrie sank to the ground and rested her cheek on his knee.