The Dragon’s Teeth (16 page)

“Yours!” Beau took a forward step, and stopped. “But if it was stolen—”

She looked up at him in a dumb way. “Hand. Or fingers. Threw it from that window. In here. Right after the shots.” She looked down at her own hand in the same way, the hand which still gripped the pearl-handled .22.

Beau jumped at her. Her head flapped on her shoulders as he shook her.

“Don't you see?” he cried. “It's a frame-up! Someone shot her and is trying to frame you with the gun! Get up! We're getting out of here.”

“What?” She didn't understand. She was trying to, her face twisted with the effort.

He lifted her to her feet, slapped her cheeks hard. “Kerrie! For God's sake get a grip on yourself! I've got to get you out of here before—”

“Stand still”

Beau stood still, Kerrie limp in his arms, the revolver dangling from her fingers.

Hadn't even taken the gun out of her hand. Couldn't do anything now. Her gun-hand was in full view of the doorway. You dope. You damned dope. Hadn't even shut the door.

“I've got you covered.”

They were blocking the doorway. One was the hotel manager—Beau recognized him by the tuxedo, the aster, and the half-moon sacs under his eyes. Suspicious-looking guy. Husky. The other was the house dick. Big boy with an iron hat and a .38 in his fist.

No dice. Think of something else.

The windows.… Seventeen floors from the street. Escape. Screwy idea, anyway. They were registered. Think. You've been a prize poop so far. Think this through.

The house detective came in on a straight line, his eyes on the revolver in Kerrie's hand. His right hand trained the cannon on them, his left went into his pocket and came out with a handkerchief.

He knew his business. He didn't try to take the gun from her himself.

“Drop that heater.”

Kerrie looked blank.

“Drop it,” said Beau in her ear. “The gun.”

“Oh.” She dropped it.

“You. Big guy.” The detective shifted his eyes from Kerrie's hand to Beau's hands now. “Just push it with your toe. Gentle, Mister. In my direction.”

Beau pushed it. It slid three feet across the rug and stopped by the detective's large feet. He stooped without looking at it and spread the handkerchief over it, fumbling.

Beau whispered in Kerrie's ear: “Kerrie, you listening?”

Her head against his breast stirred slightly. She held on to him.

“I'm going to make a break for it. Understand?”

Her arms tightened about him in a convulsive rebellion.

“Say nothing. Not a syllable. Whatever they ask you, say you don't know. The cops'll be here in a few minutes. But you don't know anything till I come back and say it's all right to talk. Savvy?”

He felt her head wag over his heart, faintly.

“What you two whisperin' about?” demanded the detective. He was on his feet again, the .22 swathed in his handkerchief.

“Is it all right to move now, Commissioner?” asked Beau. “I'm getting stiff standing still like this.”

“Come here. Leggo the dame. Hold your hands up.” Shrugging, Beau obeyed. Kerrie stumbled over to the armchair and fell into it. The hotel manager moved over quickly and shut the window beside her; he stood there looking down at her.

The house detective slapped Beau all over, grunted. “Okay. Stand over there and be a good boy.”

He dropped to his knees beside Margo's body and put his ear to her chest. “I guess she's dead, Mr. O'Brien. You better 'phone Police Headquarters while I—”

The door to the hall slammed. Both men whirled. Beau was gone.

The detective cursed and leaped for the door, while the manager put his hands on Kerrie's shoulders and held her down with all his strength, as if he expected her to try to escape, too.

“Please,” said Kerrie. “You're hurting me.”

The manager looked abashed. He grabbed the telephone and shouted a description of Beau to the hotel operator.

“Don't let that man get out of the hotel!”

Kerrie hugged herself. She felt cold and hungry.

BEAU took the emergency stairway four steps at a stride, going up. They would expect him to go down.

He scaled his hat into a corner of the twentieth floor landing and slipped into the main corridor. No one in sight. He walked over to the nearest elevator and pressed the
Down
button. The operators coming down couldn't have heard the alarm.

An elevator stopped, and he got in. There were three passengers in the car, looking sleepy. The operator paid no attention to him.

He got off at the mezzanine floor.

From the balcony he could see the lobby seething. The house detective was down there yelling to a patrolman. The cop looked startled and ran out into the street.

Beau slipped into a telephone booth and dialed a number.

“Yes?” said a sleepy voice.

“Ellery! This is Beau.”

“Well?” Mr. Queen's voice became alert.

“Can't talk. I'm at the
Villanoy,
with the whole hotel on my tail.”

“Why? What's the trouble?”

“Murder—”

“Murder!”

“Margo's been shot to death.”

“Margo?” Mr. Queen was speechless, but only for an instant. “But how did she—Who shot her?”

“Don't know.” Tersely Beau recounted the story of the evening, and how he had found Kerrie, and what Kerrie had told him before they were interrupted by the manager and the detective.

Mr. Queen muttered: “Where's Kerrie now?”

“Upstairs in 1724. In a daze. El, you've got to come over.”

“Of course.”

“Nobody knows about that other room except you, Kerrie, me, and the killer. And I told Kerrie to keep her mouth shut. We've got to search that room before the cops!”

“What's the number of the room?”

“It's just around the corner of 1724, in the transverse corridor. I think it's 1726. Can you get into the hotel without being collared?”

“I'll try.”

“Step on it. I think they're searching the mezzanine now—”

“How are you and Kerrie registered?”

“As Mr. and Mrs. Ellery Queen.”

Mr. Queen the First groaned. “Do you realize that an old gent by the name of Queen is going to have to take charge of this homicide?”

“My God,” said Beau. He hung up slowly.

After a moment he stepped out of the booth and strolled over to the marble railing, lighting a cigaret. The house detective and the patrolman Beau had seen dart out of the lobby were hurrying from writing desk to writing desk, scanning the startled features of the correspondents. They were on the opposite side of the mezzanine.

Beau sauntered towards them and said: “Can I be of service, gentlemen?”

The detective's heavy jaw dropped. He screeched: “That's him, Fogarty!” and the two men jumped on Beau.

He stiff-armed the policeman and caught the house man's gun-hand at the wrist. “Why the rough stuff? I gave myself up, didn't I?”

They looked baffled. A crowd had collected and Beau stood there grinning at them in an apologetic way.

“All right, wise guy,” panted the detective, shaking his hand free. “What was the idea of lamming?”

“Who, me?” said Beau. “Come on, boys. We mustn't keep the lady waiting.”

“Who're you? What's your name?”

“Queen. Ellery Queen. Want to make something of it?”

“Queen!” The policeman gaped at him. “Did you say Ellery Queen?”

“That's the ticket, Officer.”

Fogarty looked awed. “Sam, you know who this is? Son of Inspector Queen of the Homicide Squad!”

“Mistakes will happen, boys,” said Beau grandly. “And now, shall we return to the scene of the crime?”

“Inspector Queen's your old man?” demanded Sam.

“You heard Fogarty.”

“Well, I don't give a damn,” said Sam doggedly. “Fogarty, this is the guy was in 1724 with the dame when O'Brien and me busted in. She was holdin' the rod, but how do we know he ain't a, now, accomplice?”

“Inspector Queen will identify me,” said Beau.

“Suppose he does? Suppose he does?” said the house detective hotly. “I don't care who you are, Mister; you were caught in that room—”

“What's the argument about?” asked Beau. “Sam, you're making a spectacle of yourself. Wow, look at those laws pour in! Come on upstairs before the press gives you the razz. Are you coming, or do I have to go up alone?”

“Don't worry,” said Sam, taking a fresh grip on his .38. “I'm with you, baby.”

They took a special elevator up to the seventeenth floor. Outside Room 1724 a policeman held back a crowd of pushing people. Inside, there were two radio-car officers and a detective from the West Forty-seventh Street precinct. They were all asking questions at the same time.

Kerrie was still seated in the armchair, in the same position.

“This him?” said the precinct man.

“Yeah,” said Sam. “In person.”

“Well, the girl gives him an out. She says he wasn't even here when the shots were fired. He came in right after.”

“Kerrie,” growled Beau. She had answered questions. He had told her not to.

She glanced at him in a calm, remote way.

“She admit givin' the other dame the business?” asked Sam eagerly.

“She don't admit nothin'.”

Beau shook his head warningly at Kerrie. She placed her hands, palms up, in her lap and stared out the window.

“Lucky stiff,” said Sam to Beau with a scowl.

“Yeah,” said Beau, looking steadily at Kerrie's profile. “Am I lucky.”

WHEN the call came from Centre Street, Inspector Richard Queen was in Doc Prouty's office playing a hot game of two-handed
klabiatsch
with Sergeant Velie. He was waiting for the Medical Examiner's autopsy report on Hunk Carnucci, the nation-wide search for whom had ended that very evening at the bottom of the East River.

“What?”
said the Inspector into the telephone; and Sergeant Velie saw his superior's gray mustache quiver and his little bird-like face blanch. “Yes. Yes. All right. Now listen. No reporter gets into that room, see? Grab the registration card, too. I'll have your scalp if there's a leak.… Right away!”

He hung up, looking ill.

“What's the matter?” asked the Sergeant.

“Plenty.” Inspector Queen rose. “A woman's been knocked off at the
Villanoy.”

The Sergeant looked puzzled. “So what?”

In the squad car, rushing towards Times Square with the siren screaming, the Inspector told him so what.

“I don't believe it,” protested Velie. “It's a gag.”

“They're registered as Mr. and Mrs. Ellery Queen, I tell you!” snarled the old man.

“But who's the dame? And the one that was shot?”

“I don't know. Nobody knows yet.”

“When'd you see Ellery last?”

“This morning. He didn't say anything to me about his getting married. I thought he acted funny, though.” The Inspector gnawed his mustache. “To do a thing like this to me! Step on her, will you?”

“Boy, the papers,” groaned Velie.

“Maybe there's a chance to keep it quiet,” said the old man feverishly. “Step on it, you baboon!”

The Sergeant looked at him pityingly.

At the
Villanoy
the Inspector shook off reporters, had the lobby cleared, listened to several reports, nodded to one of his squad, who was waving a registration card, and commandeered an elevator.

In the elevator he surreptitiously examined the fateful card. “Mr. and Mrs. Ellery Queen.” His eyes narrowed even as he sighed with relief. The handwriting was not Ellery's. But it was almost as bad—it was Beau Rummell's.

“What's the bad news?” whispered Sergeant Velie.

“Stand by, Thomas,” muttered the old man. “There's something queer going on. It's Beau Rummell, not Ellery; he's using Ellery's name.”

“The nervy sprout!”

“We'll play along for a while. Pass the word along to the squad. No cracks about who Beau is.”

The instant Inspector Queen entered 1724 Beau seized his hand. “'Lo, dad! How's the old man? I'll bet you never expected to find sonny-boy in a spot like this!” He winked.

The Inspector deliberately took a pinch of snuff. He glanced at the body, and then at Kerrie, and then at Beau.

“I'll bet I didn't,” he said dryly, and turned to one of the precinct men. “All right, Lieutenant. Clear the room. Witnesses outside till I call.” Then he took Beau by the arm and steered him into the bedroom.

“Thanks, pop!” said Beau, grinning. “That was fast thinking. Thanks a million. Now look, I've got to scram out of here—”

“You do?” The Inspector eyed him coldly. “What's the idea of using Ellery's name and who's the brunette?”

“It's a long story. Too long to tell now. She's my wife—”

“Your
what!”
gasped the old man. “I thought that ‘Mr. and Mrs.' business was—”

“With her? Say, we were married late this evening. There was a reason—I mean, why I couldn't use my own name.”

“Ellery know?” snapped the old man.

“Yes.”

He was silent.

“I've got to get out of here for a half-hour, pop!”

“Where do you think you're going?”

“I won't leave the hotel.”

“Beau.” The Inspector looked him in the eye. “Did you have anything to do with that woman's murder in there?”

Beau looked back and said simply: “No, pop.”

“Did your wife?”

“No.”

“How d'ye know?” asked the old man in a flash. “I'm told you walked in on her after the murder—your wife said so herself.”

“I can't tell you how I know,” muttered Beau. “For Pete's sake, pop, let me go now, will you? It's important!”