The Dragon’s Teeth (9 page)

Kerrie lay beside the path in a heap.

Gargantua
drummed up and began to nose
Panjandrum
as Vi scrambled off his back and flung herself on Kerrie.

“Kerrie! Open your eyes! Oh, Kerrie, please—”

Kerrie moaned. She sat up, dazed.

“Are you all right, Kerrie? You don't feel—as if—anything's bro …”

“I'm all right,” and Kerrie in a sick voice. “I think I am, anyway.”

“What happened, Kerrie? Tell me!”

“Panjandrum
threw me. It wasn't her fault. She was galloping, and stumbled suddenly. I flew right over her head. Vi, it was a miracle. I mean, ordinarily I'd have broken my neck. But I happened to land in this heap of leaves, and they softened my fall. How is she? …
Vi!”

She saw the mare, writhing in pain on the path.

“Vi! She's broken her leg!”

Kerrie ran over to the mare, sank to her knees, stroked the rigid neck, forced herself to look at the snapped foreleg. The steel shoe dangled from the motionless hoof.

“Vi,” said Kerrie in a horrified voice. “Look—at—this.”

“What's the matter?”

“The shoe on her broken leg. It's … But it can't be. I watched Jeff Crombie in the smithy only this morning. He shod her fresh—all four—a few hours ago!”

“I don't get you,” said Vi slowly.

On hands and knees Kerrie began a feverish examination of the path, pushing leaves aside, flipping twigs away.

“Four of the nails are missing!”

“You mean some one—”

“Here!” Kerrie sat cross-legged on the path, fiercely examining two horseshoe nails. They were bent and scratched.

“Somebody,” said Kerrie grimly, “loosened these nails and pried them partly out of
Panjandrum's
hoof with a pair of pliers.” And she sat very still, staring at the nails.

“You mean some one loosened the shoe,” said Vi, aghast, “so that it would flop free in a gallop and make
Panjandrum
stumble?”

“Except for the miracle of those leaves, Vi, I'd be lying over there with a broken neck this minute, and it would have been put down as an—accident.”

Kerrie smoothed the corded, silken neck with her palm. The mare lay more quietly now, her big eyes on Kerrie's face.

Then Kerrie said in a hard voice: “Ride back to the stables and tell them to come for
Panjandrum,
Vi. I'll stay here with her.”

“But, Kerrie, you can't! Suppose some one—I won't leave you alone here!”

“Please, Vi. And don't say anything about the nails.”

There was something so coldly final in Kerrie's tone that Vi gulped and mounted
Gargantua
and lumbered off.

AFTER dinner that evening Kerrie, on the plea of feeling ill after her accident, excused herself and glanced pointedly at her friend.

Vi followed several minutes later; and Kerrie locked all the doors of her rooms.

“Well, Kerrie? What do you think?”

Kerrie was pale. “I'm the only one who rides
Panjandrum,
and the horseshoe nails were loosened deliberately. Somebody tried to kill me today. The same one who tried to kill me the other night.”

“Kerrie. Why don't you call the—police?”

“There'd be no way to prove our suspicions. We've got to
prove
… some one did it—the one who did.”

“Or Ellery Queen. He's a detective. He—”

“No! He's … I just couldn't. I won't crawl to him for help, Vi.” Kerrie sat down on her bed and smoothed the spread. “There's only one person in this world who would benefit from my death, Vi.” Her voice trembled. “And that's Margo! She's so terribly extravagant. Her weekly checks are mortgaged for months ahead; Mr. Goossens told me yesterday when I—I asked. She wants my share, and if I died, she'd get it. And then—she hates me because of …
him.
It's Margo, Vi—Margo who climbed into my room the other night, Margo who loosened those nails this morning!”

“Let's get out of here,” whispered her friend. “Give it up, Kerrie. You haven't been happy here, anyway, with all that money. Kerrie, let's go—go back to Hollywood.”

Kerrie's mouth set stubbornly. “I won't be chased away.”

“It's not the money!” cried Vi. “It's this big he-man of a chippy-chaser who looks like Bob Taylor! Don't tell me!”

Kerrie looked away.

“You're in love with him! And because you are, you're proposing to keep living in the same house with a—a blonde swivel-hips who's tried twice to kill you and won't stop till she has!”

“She won't drive me away,” said Kerrie in a low voice.

VII.
Encounter on a Siding

Before Vi awoke the next morning, Kerrie stole out of the house and hurried down to the stables.

Jeff Crombie, Tarrytown blacksmith, was just getting out of his runabout.

“Oh, Miss Shawn.” He removed his hat, twisting it in his permanently blackened fingers. “I was just comin' up to see you. I hear you had a fall yesterday.”

“It was nothing, Jeff,” smiled Kerrie.

“I sorta feel responsible, Miss Shawn,” said the smith. “Your groom told me on the phone the right foreshoe come almost off. I just shod the mare yesterday mornin' with my own hands, and I can't see how—”

“Now, Jeff, it wasn't your fault. Forget it.”

“But I'd like to have a look at that shoe, Miss Shawn.”

“Such a bother about a little accident!
Panjandrum
must have caught her right forefoot in the cleft of a buried rock, and at the speed she was making the shoe was wrenched almost completely away from the hoof.”

“Oh,” said the smith. “I didn't want you thinkin' it was any carelessness o' mine, Miss Shawn. You feeling all right?”

“Right as rain, Jeff.”

“Sorry about the mare. She was a daisy—”

“Is, Jeff.”

The blacksmith was astonished. “Ain't you shot her yet? I'd be thinkin' she'd be better off, poor thing, out of her misery—”

“Dr. Pickens told me about a certain veterinary in Canada who's supposed to be able to mend horses' broken legs. Some new method that gets them over the bad period and makes them good as new. So I'm shipping
Panjandrum
North today.”

The smith touched his eyebrow with two soiled fingers and drove off, shaking his head.

Kerrie went into the stable. The mare lay in soft straw, a temporary splint holding her broken foreleg stiff. Dr. Pickens, the local veterinary, had also padded and swathed her other legs from hoof and pastern to above the knees.
Panjandrum's
great moist eyes looked dull and unhappy.

“How is she?” Kerrie asked the groom.

“So-so, Miss. Hasn't done much kickin'. Doc Pickens was here again this mornin' and gave her somethin' to quiet her. But I don't know how long she'll stay that way.”

“Poor darling.” Kerrie knelt in the straw and stroked the glossy neck. “I'm having that stable car up from the New York yards just as quickly as possible. They'll have it on the Tarrytown siding at eleven o'clock.”

“Doc says he's goin' along, Miss.”

“Yes, and I want you to go, too, Henry. We've got to save her life.”

“Yes, Miss.” Henry did not seem too sanguine.

Kerrie rose, brushing her knees. She said casually: “By the way, Henry, have you seen Miss Cole this morning? I wanted to ask her—”

“Why, no, Miss. She told me yesterday, after she brought
Lord Barhurst
in, that she wouldn't ride today.”

“Oh, Miss Cole rode yesterday?” murmured Kerrie. “About what time, Henry? I didn't see her on the path.”

“She rode before you did, Miss Shawn. Reg'lar horsewoman, Miss Cole is. Even unsaddled
Lord Barhurst
herself when she came in—wouldn't let me touch him.”

“Yes,” smiled Kerrie, “she's quite an enthusiast. How is she as a groom—any good?”

Henry scratched his head. “To tell the truth, Miss, I didn't see. She sent me on down into town in her car for something—a new kind of saddle soap. When I got back—that was just before you and Miss Day came down for
Panjandrum
and the stallion—
Lord Barhurst
was unsaddled, right proper, and Miss Cole was gone.”

Kerrie's heart leaped. So Margo had been in the stable, alone, before … There were plenty of tools about, and she was a powerful woman. It wouldn't have been hard for her to loosen most of the nails in
Panjandrum's
shoe.… It
had
been Margo!

“Henry.” Kerrie tried to keep her voice from betraying her. “I shouldn't want Miss Cole to think I'd been—well, you know, checking up on her. You know how women are about things like that.” She smiled at him. “So don't mention that I'd been asking you questions about her; eh?”

“No, Miss,” said Henry, looking puzzled. “Not if you don't want me to. Only it's funny you should tell me that, just after Mr. Queen told me the same thing.”

“Mr. Queen?” said Kerrie, sharply. “He's been here this morning? Asking questions, too?”

“Yes, Miss, and about Miss Cole, too. He said not to say anything to her, or to—” Henry stopped, stricken.

“Or to me?”

“Well—yes, Miss. I didn't mean to, but it sort of slipped out.” Henry's grip on the five-dollar bill Beau had given him tightened in the pocket of his jodhpurs.

“I'm sure you didn't. Where is Mr. Queen how?”

“He had me saddle
Duke
for him and rode up the path.”

Kerrie sauntered out of the stables. She glanced casually over her shoulder after a few yards to see if the groom were watching her. When she saw he was not, she ran like a doe.

KERRIE sped up the bridle-path, her sports shoes making no sound in the soft earth.

So he was spying! He had heard about her accident!

The only one who could have told him was Margo. He hadn't been at the house yesterday, but just before dinner last evening Margo had had a telephone call, and from her dulcet tone and coy air the caller could only have been … Kerrie tried not to think his name. Margo had murmured something about calling him back—later. She must have told him then.

And here he was. Furtively.

When Kerrie came to the turn in the path beyond which she had been thrown the previous morning, she stopped, warned by
Duke's
distinctive whinny.

She stole into the woods paralleling the bridle-path and noiselessly made her way to a screen of trees and bushes near the spot where
Panjandrum
had fallen. She peered out through the leaves of a clump of wild blueberry bushes.

Duke
was moving slowly along, nosing in the grass and bushes beside the path for succulent tidbits.

And he … he was on his hands and knees in the path, nosing, too. Like a bloodhound. He was skimming the surface of the ground with his palms, brushing grains of dirt aside. He knelt sidewise to her, his eyes intent on the earth.

Was it possible he suspected? But how could he? Of course! He knew about the first attempt in her bedroom. That was it. And, learning about her “accident,” he suspected at once that it might have been no accident at all. Or else … But Kerrie shut her mind to “or else.” There
was
a horrid possibility—

He growled exultantly, startling her. He was hunched over the path now, examining two pieces of twisted metal. The other two horseshoe nails—he'd found them!

He jumped to his feet and glanced suspiciously around. Kerrie shrank. Then he slipped the two nails into his pocket, leaped onto
Duke's
back, and galloped off toward the stables.

Or else …

Kerrie came slowly out of the bushes. Or else he knew it was no accident. Or else … he was Margo's confederate and had sneaked down here early in the morning to get hold of the telltale evidence of those wrenched nails, to dispose of … to dispose of the evidence!

Kerrie stood still in the path. It couldn't be. He just couldn't be that … But he and Margo were thick as—yes, thieves! Why not
murderers?
She had seen him kiss Margo that morning in the garden. They were always together. They were always whispering, running off into dark corners, hours of it.… And later, Margo would look like a tigress after a full meal. All purrs and claws. Her white cheeks pink with an inner excitement. That hateful glitter of triumph in her slanted Egyptian eyes. And
he
…

He thought money was everything. He had said so, in a moment of what must have been unusual honesty for him. Kerrie thought she understood. There had been a time when money seemed all-important to her, too. He didn't have much himself. Kerrie was sure of that. It wouldn't be so unusual for a poor man under the spell of a ruthless, beautiful woman like Margo to help her plan the—death—of …

Kerrie cried out: “No!”

The sound of her own voice brought her to her senses. She became conscious of the woods, and that she was alone in them.

She started back for the house at once. First she went slowly. Then her stride lengthened. Then she began to trot. And then to run. And finally she was sprinting along the path between the sentinel walls of the woods like a frightened rabbit pursued by a pack of hounds in full cry.

KERRIE drove her roadster up to the station at a few minutes past eleven. The stable car she had ordered was lying on the spur beyond the station. Henry, the groom, was on the platform talking to the agent.

“Is
Panjandrum
all right, Henry? Did you get her into the car without any trouble?”

“She's lyin' in there snug as a bug, Miss Shawn.”

“Where's Dr. Pickens?”

“He'll be along in a few minutes. There's still plenty of time for the eleven-fifty. Don't worry about the mare, Miss.”

“I think I'll sort of say goodbye to her,” said Kerrie slowly. “No, don't bother, Henry,”