The Dragon’s Teeth (22 page)

After that, things became confused, like a motion picture run wild. A cameraman managed to pierce the cordon outside, and bulbs began to flash, and detectives shouted, and reporters wormed through, and there was almost a free-for-all. In the tumult Vi got Kerrie into her hat and a light camel's-hair coat, and Sergeant Velie said Vi couldn't go along, and Vi clung to Kerrie, weeping, until Kerrie said sharply: “Don't act like a baby, Vi!” and kissed her goodbye; and after a while Vi found herself almost alone in 1724, in the midst of bulbs and newspapers and articles of Kerrie's wardrobe, and she sat down on the floor and cried for the benefit of the two female reporters who had remained behind for sinister purposes of their own.

They even helped Vi, when she gathered strength enough to stand up, to get Kerrie's things together in the suitcases, asking questions all the way like two jabbering jays until Vi swore at them and threatened weepily to bang their sleek heads together.

Finally she managed to escape with Kerrie's bag and the aid of a policeman. One of the two newspaper-women said: “Nuts,” with disgust, and they followed the course of empire southward, to Centre Street.

Vi reached her hotel with her hat over one ear. When she walked through the lobby she thought two men looked at her in a hard, suspicious way. She locked herself in her room.

Then the telephone began ringing. After a half-hour she told the operator not to ring her at all. So people began knocking at her door. She rang the hotel operator again and threatened to call the police if the pests didn't stop knocking.

The operator said: “Yes, Madam—hold on a minute,” and then said: “Sorry, Madam—it
is
the police,” and Vi opened the door, and one of the two men who had looked at her hard and suspiciously said not to try any funny stuff but just stay put, sister, see?

“Stay put?” screamed Vi. “You think you're hanging that rap around my neck, too, you wall-eyed flatties?”

“We're not sayin' nothin',” said the other man. “Just take a little friendly advice, see, blondie?”

Vi slammed the door, locked it.

After that, her telephone did not ring and her door was not knocked upon. And she stayed put.

BEAU burst into Inspector Queen's office at Police Headquarters, roaring mad.

“What the hell's the idea, pop! What was I picked up for?” Then he saw Kerrie. He said slowly: “What's this?”

Kerrie looked at him with eyes of liquid pain.

“I wanted to talk to you,” said Inspector Queen. He seemed a little shrunken through his spare, wiry body. “As for Miss Shawn, we've decided to hold her for—well, technically as a material witness. But we all know what for.”

There were three other men present. Beau recognized them all. One was a stenographer. The other two were assistants of District Attorney Sampson's.

“She's innocent,” said Beau. “She told you how it really happened. The real killer was in 1726. He shot Margo through the window across the angle of the court, then tossed in the roscoe. Kerrie picked it up; she was dazed.”

“Is that all you've got to say?” asked the Inspector in a queer tone.

“Isn't the truth enough for you?” snarled Beau.

“One moment.” Kerrie's voice was calm, low-pitched. “Inspector Queen, you've accused me of murdering my cousin, and I admit the circumstances—”

“Don't admit anything!” yelled Beau. “Let me handle—”

. “Please.” She looked at him, and he turned away. “I admit the circumstances are against me. But if I shot Margo, I must have had a motive. What was my motive?”

“We know your motive,” said the Inspector.

“I couldn't possibly have any! You mean I hated her, I was—jealous of her on account of … my husband? But if I were, wouldn't I have shot her
before
I was married? I had nothing to be jealous about, Inspector. We were married. Would I have waited until after my marriage to kill her?”

The Inspector did not reply. The stenographer was quietly recording the conversation, and the two men from the District Attorney's office were listening in a strained silence.

“Or you might say,” Kerrie went on, “that I wanted to put Margo out of the way in order to gain financially. But that can't be so, either, you see, because my marriage cut me out of Uncle Cadmus's will. I couldn't possibly inherit Margo's share; in fact, I'd even forfeited my own. So don't you see how silly this charge is? There isn't a reason in the world why I should have wanted to kill Margo!”

“But there is,” said the Inspector in a flat tone.

“What could it possibly be?”

“Something like twenty-five hundred dollars a week for life.”

“But I just told you,” said Kerrie, bewildered. “Mr. Goossens—Mr. De Carlos will confirm—the will—”

“Yeah,” mumbled Beau. “What's the matter with you, pop?”

“It's true,” said the Inspector in a tired voice, “that this girl has no gain-motive if she were married at the time of the murder.” He paused, then repeated:
“If
she were married.”

Kerrie sprang to her feet. “What do you mean?”

“It won't do you the least good to put on an act,” replied the old man gruffly.

“Ellery!” Kerrie ran to Beau, shook him. “What is your father talking about? Tell me!”

Beau said nothing. But Kerrie saw his eyes, and let go of him with a sudden gesture of revulsion. She stood still where she was, the last drop of color draining from her face.

“I received a wire this afternoon,” said the Inspector, “which amounted to an anonymous tip. We weren't able to trace the tipster, because the message had been telephoned into the telegraph office from a midtown pay-station. But the tipster wasn't nearly as important as the tip. We followed that up right away, and it was right. Miss Shawn—”

“Miss Shawn?” whispered Kerrie.

“Miss Shawn, you weren't married last night. The marriage was a fake. It was an attempt to lay a clever smoke-screen down so that it would look as if you had no motive to kill your cousin Margo. You
still
share in your uncle's estate; you still take over Margo's share. What do you say now?”

“Not married last night.… Why, that's simply—that's simply not true! We were. In Connecticut. Near Greenwich. By a Justice of the Peace named—named Johnston. Weren't we?
Ellery, weren't we?”

A frenzy took possession of her. She seized Beau's arm, shaking him, her eyes wild and wide with horror.

“And that isn't all!” shouted the Inspector suddenly, growing crimson. “This man
isn't
my son—his name's
not
Ellery! It isn't even Queen! His name is Beau Rummell, and he's my son's partner in a confounded private detective agency!”

“Beau—Rummell?” whispered Kerrie. She stumbled back to her chair and sat down, fumbling in her bag for a handkerchief. She remained that way, her eyes on her bag, her fingers fumbling inside aimlessly.

“For God's sake, pop,” said Beau in a small voice.

“It's no use, Beau! There's no record of a marriage license. There's no record or trace of the Justice of the Peace who's supposed to have married you. If there is—let's have it. Produce him! And let's see your license and your marriage certificate! Why, even the address is a phony—it's a house that was just rented for one night! Otherwise it hasn't been occupied for years!”

Scenes flashed across Kerrie's brain … the ramshackle building, the weeds, the dust, the odd Mr. Johnston.…

Beau said miserably: “All right, it's true! We weren't married. It was an absolute phony. But Kerrie didn't know anything about that, pop! She thought it was on the level. I rigged the whole thing up myself, I tell you!”

She should have known; if she hadn't been such a blind, trusting fool.… The marriage license. She hadn't signed. “Pull,” he had said. He hadn't shown it to her. In that house, the “Justice” was going to marry—marry!—them without a second witness. The whole thing, the whole sickening …

Kerrie's stomach began to churn. There was a wry twist to her mouth.

“Yes?” said the Inspector flatly.

“You've got to believe me, pop! This thing is all a mess now. Margo Cole tried three times to kill Kerrie. She hated Kerrie because she—well, she'd taken a shine to me herself. And she was spending more dough than was coming in, and she wanted Kerrie's share of the income. She told me so herself! I'll swear to that on the witness-stand! I played along, figuring that was the best way to protect Kerrie; we didn't have anything on Margo in the way of evidence, so there was no use pulling the law into it. Ellery knows all about this. He'll back me up.”

“Don't bring Ellery into it!” thundered the Inspector.

“I've got to, pop. Even if I didn't, he'd come to bat—”

“Does he know these things of his own knowledge?” demanded the old man quickly.

“No. I told him. But it's true, I tell you! I planned the fake marriage because, with Kerrie apparently married, Margo would temporarily get Kerrie's share, or expect to get it soon, so half her motive against Kerrie would be satisfied. The other half—well,” and Beau threw back his shoulders defiantly, “I made a deal with her. I pretended to be her accomplice, saying I was marrying Kerrie to give Margo the extra income, so she and I could split. I told her I loved her, not Kerrie—that the marriage wouldn't mean a thing. She fell for it. Last night, like the she-devil she was, she couldn't resist coming down to crow over Kerrie after the damage, as she thought, was done.”

“You expect me to believe this girl here didn't know that marriage was a phony?”

“Do you think she's the kind—” began Beau; then he made a gesture of futility. “I didn't marry her on the level because I didn't want to see her lose that legacy. I didn't tell her the marriage was a fake because, if I had, she wouldn't have gone through with it. You don't know her, I tell you!”

The two Assistant District Attorneys whispered together. Then one of them beckoned the Inspector, and the three of them whispered some more. Finally the Inspector, very pale, said to Beau: “Just where did you go last night, Beau, when you left this girl in that hotel room after you'd checked in?”

Kerrie raised her head at that; her eyes looked hurt, misty, dull.

“For one thing I'm not a skunk!” snarled Beau. “I was in a tough spot. She thought we were married, I knew we weren't.… I made some rotten excuse, said I was coming back, and blew. When I got outside I thought of something. There were two people who had to be notified that the marriage wasn't on the up and up—they were the trustees of the Cole estate.

“I went back to my Times Square office and wrote out two letters—one to Goossens, one to De Carlos. They were identical. They said the marriage was a phony, and I was notifying them because the legal question of the passing of Kerrie's share to Margo was a factor; I didn't want Kerrie to lose even a week's income. I said Margo was after Kerrie's scalp, and I wanted them to play ball with me, stall along for a while, until I could pin those murder attempts on Margo. Then I sealed the letters, put special-delivery stamps on them, and mailed them in the lobby slot. The night man in my building let me in and let me out. Then I went back to the
Villanoy.”

“The check-up will be made, of course.” The Inspector turned away, stonily.

Beau ran over to Kerrie. “Kerrie, I want you to believe me! I want you to know I love you, and that everything I've done so far was because—damn it, Kerrie, I'd cut off my right arm before I'd pull a dirty trick like that!”

The Inspector and the two lawyers were conferring in whispers again. The attorneys were demanding something, and the Inspector was arguing fiercely against them.

“I think I know who killed Margo,” whispered Beau in Kerrie's ear. “It's just come to me—just since last night. I mean since early this morning. All I need is a little time, darling. Kerrie, say something. At least tell me you don't think I'm a murdering heel!”

She turned slowly at that, raising her eyes and fixing them on his. In their hurt, misty way, they were troubled searchlights, probing the darkness.

And suddenly she put her arms about him and pulled him down to her. He closed his eyes gratefully. He felt the straining of her arms, the beating of her heart.

A man tapped her on the shoulder, shoving Beau aside. Beau did not protest.

He watched them lead her away—to the Tombs, as he knew, to go through the whole ghastly and scarifying process of being booked, fingerprinted, locked in a cell.… She walked in a dream, seeing nothing.

Beau glanced at the Inspector, who waved his hand.

“Don't leave the city.” Inspector Queen's voice was dry; he did not look up from his desk, where he was fussing with some papers.

“Sure, pop,” said Beau gently. “And—thanks.”

The Inspector started, then went back to his papers.

Beau left quickly. He knew that he would be followed. He thought it very possible, from the Inspector's peculiar expression and the glances of the two men from the District Attorney's office, that before twenty-four hours had passed he might be lodged, with Kerrie, in the Tombs on an accomplice charge.

In fact, he was sure that only the Inspector's insistence had kept the two attorneys from having him taken into custody on the spot.

BEAU walked the streets of downtown New York half the night. He analyzed his case over and over, mercilessly, picking, probing, digging for flaws. And finally, with a grunt of satisfaction, he said to himself: “It's in the groove,” and sent Ellery a telegram to meet him at the office at nine o'clock in the morning.

Then Beau went home and to sleep.

At nine they met, and Mr. Queen's haggard appearance said that he knew of Kerrie's arrest, and moreover that he had had no sleep since learning of it.