The Dragon’s Teeth (15 page)

She flung herself backward on the bed and stretched luxuriously, yawning and smiling. But it was a yawn of excitement, not sleepiness.

KERRIE undressed quickly, washed in icy cold water, recombed her hair, made up again, and then put on a different dress—the one with the wide red leather belt and the peasant blouse with blue stripes that flattered her eyes so, and heightened her complexion.

It was still early. Perhaps they'd take a walk on Broadway after supper, before returning to the hotel. She'd wear the little straight-brimmed straw with the coque feather.…

She unpacked her bags. Her dresses were so wrinkled. But they'd hang out in the closet by morning. As she draped them on hangers she suddenly thought that
he
didn't have a bag at all. It had happened so quickly—their running away, their marriage …

She flushed and finished unpacking, stowing her powders and finishing creams and deodorants and perfumes and toilet waters in the bathroom cabinet.
Not
on the vanity. Women ought to keep the machinery of beauty hidden—especially married women. And he wouldn't see her—ever—with her face creamed up and her hair in an unsightly tight net. She'd always be fresh-looking … make him wonder …

Silly. Childish. She wasn't really herself. What difference did it make? If he loved her. They said it did make a difference. She didn't really believe that. Never had. Then why these absurd defensive thoughts? Was it because, deep down, she wasn't absolutely certain he loved her?

When she was unpacked, and all her things had been laid away, and her most beautiful nightgown lay at the foot of one of the twin beds, with her nicest mules, Kerrie realized that it was almost eleven o'clock. He'd been gone over two hours!

She lit a cigaret and sat down in the sitting room by one of the open windows, frowning. After a moment, she took up the telephone.

“This is Mrs. Queen,” said Kerrie, thrilling despite herself to the shape of the name on her lips. “Has there been a call, or a message, for me in the past hour, from Mr. Queen?”

“No, Madam.”

“Thank you.”

She replaced the receiver softly and stared out the window.

The short lace curtains were fluttering in a breeze. Outside, there was a U-shaped court. Their two rooms lay along the right side of the U. The windows on the opposite side were dark. But the room nearest Kerrie's window on the connecting wall of the court was illuminated. The outer wall of that room and of Kerrie's sitting room met in one of the right angles of the court; the adjacent windows of the two rooms were only eight feet apart along the hypotenuse of vision.

Some one was in that room, Kerrie thought idly; the window was open and she could see on the drawn blind the formless shadow of some one crossing the room.

But then the light went out, and after an instant Kerrie noticed the blind flutter.

No use fooling herself longer. He hadn't gone for flowers. He could have bought a whole greenhouse in the time he'd been away. He was up to something else. But what could it be? That made sense? Oh, she could cheerfully strangle him!

But perhaps he was hurt. Perhaps he
had
gone down for flowers, or to arrange for a surprise blow-out, and had been struck by a cab, or had slipped and broken his leg, or—or—

No. That couldn't be it. She'd know if that had happened. Even if nobody notified her, she'd know. It wasn't that kind of accident. It wasn't
any
accident. He had gone away; he was staying away deliberately.

The truth was that he had proposed to her, rushed her to a crummy Justice of the Peace, married her like a—like a Saturday night binge, driven her secretly into New York for a “honeymoon,” parked her in a hotel room as if she were a piece of—of luggage, and disappeared.

KERRIE caught up the lace curtains on both sides so that the night air might cool her hot face.

Vi … She could call Vi.

No. She'd rather die than do that. Not tonight. Not tonight. Not if she had to sit here by this window like a dressed-up dummy all night, alone! …

At midnight Kerrie telephoned the hotel desk. There was no message. She had known there would be none. But it was something to do.

She went into the bathroom to brush her teeth and rinse her mouth; it felt dry and tasted bitter.

As she was coming out of the bathroom there was a knock on the door.

Her heart jumped. He was back! What difference did it make why he had gone away, or where he had been, or to see whom? He was back!

She ran to the sitting-room door and pulled it open.

Margo Cole smiled at her across the threshold.

“MAY I come in?”

Kerrie said: “Go away.”

“Now is that nice, Mrs. Queen? Surely you wouldn't keep me out in the passage?”

“Go away, or I'll have the hotel people put you out!”

Margo crossed the threshold and gently closed the door behind her.

“I don't believe you'd fancy a scene just now.”

“What do you want?”

“Are you really married?”

“Yes! Will you go now, please?”

“As soon as I've said my little piece.”

“If you don't go,” cried Kerrie, “I'll call my—my husband!”

“Do that,” smiled Margo.

They faced each other in a keen, hostile silence.

Then Kerrie said: “You knew,” in a shocked, faint voice.

“Of course I knew, darling! And since the groom isn't here, I thought I'd console the bride.”

“Where is he?” whispered Kerrie.

Margo walked past her, stalking about the room, staring insolently at the stylized furniture, the cheap prints on the walls, the tinny decorations.

“How did you know he left me? How did you know we were in New York? How did you know we were at this hotel?”

“It was all arranged, my dear,” drawled Margo.

Kerrie went over to the armchair by the window and sat down, fumbling for another cigaret.

“I suppose,” she said calmly, “this is another of your little jokes.” The room was whirling.

“Poor dear,” sighed her cousin. “So brave. Such a good show. Just the same, darling, you're an ass! You
actually
married him. I didn't think even you would be ass enough to do that. But his plan worked!”

Kerrie choked over the smoke and flung her cigaret out the window. “His—plan?”

“Oh, you didn't know that. Such a pity. Why, yes, dear, it was. Do you recall last night? After your little accident in the garage? When he found you and took you to your room? He remained with you all night—he's so very clever. But this morning, when your doctor came, your husband-to-be came to see … me.”

“That's not true!”

“Ask him. He came to see me, and it was his plan you've been following today.” Margo laughed. “I knew about your marriage and where you would stop on your ‘honeymoon' before you did!”

“Get out of here!”

“Not yet, dearest.” Margo rested her gloved hands on the back of Kerrie's chair. Kerrie could hear her breathing, but she did not look up and around. “Not until I've made you see just how
big
a fool you've been. That's my revenge, darling. You were willing to give up a fortune because you love him. And so you married him. But why do you think he married
you?
Because he loves
me!”

“No,” said Kerrie with a rising nausea. “No …”

“Then where is he on your wedding night?”

“He had to go out somewhere—he'll be back soon—”

“He didn't have to go out. I told him to. Men are weak,” Margo smiled, “and I wasn't taking a chance on your husband's showing weakness at the wrong moment. You
are
attractive in a wishy-washy sort of way, you know. So I made him promise he'd marry you and ditch you—yes, the very first night; and he has, you see.”

“I don't believe—a single word,” whispered Kerrie.

“All the rest was his idea—to marry you so that you forfeited your share of Uncle Cadmus's estate and it would pass to me. As it has. So you've nothing at all, darling—no money, no husband. The money is his and mine now, and you may get a divorce if you like. Not that it will do you the least good—you've forfeited your inheritance by marrying! Don't you agree you've been a fool? Such an empty-headed, trusting, ridiculous fool?”

And Margo's voice sharpened until it hissed through the ache in Kerrie's head, and without looking up Kerrie knew that her cousin's white face and Egyptian eyes were hateful with triumph.

And Kerrie said: “I want you to stay here, Margo. I shan't let you go. You'll stay here until Ellery gets back—”

“He won't be back,” drawled Margo. “You may as well pack up and get out.”

“I want to see your face when he denies your lies. I want you to stay—”

“I'd be glad to, my dear, except that I've more important things to do, and it would all be so useless, wouldn't it?”

“If—that were—true,” said Kerrie in a remote voice, “I think—I'd kill him.”

“That
would
be gratitude!” laughed Margo. “Kill him! You ought to thank him. Don't you know you owe him your silly life?”

Kerrie barely heard the mocking words.

“You're a lucky miss. He's saved you that by marrying you. And if you hadn't been lucky, you'd have been a dead pigeon long before this. Or didn't you know that, either?”

What was she saying? thought Kerrie dully.

“Do you think that little visit to your room was a joke? Or that your mare stumbled by accident? Or that what happened in the garage last night happened by chance, or some one's blunder? Do you?”

“No!” cried Kerrie. “I knew! All along. I knew it was you. You. You!”

“You did?” Margo laughed again. “Clever girl! But it wasn't only I who planned those attacks. You didn't know that, did you? It was I—and somebody else.”

“Somebody else!” cried Kerrie, sitting up straight in the armchair.

“I and—”

The world exploded over Kerrie's head. She fell back in the chair, half-deafened, half-blinded by three incredible flicks of fire.

Behind her she heard a gasp, a gurgling cry, and then the sound of a sliding, slipping body. And finally a hollow thud on the carpet.

Kerrie gripped the arms of the chair and blinked into the moonlit court, and saw the flutter of the blind in that window diagonally across from where she was sitting, only eight feet away, and a hand … a hand, reaching out, holding something, making an odd tossing motion … and something hurtled past her head and landed with another thud on the floor.

And Kerrie got out of the chair and stumbled over Margo's body lying still on the floor, and mechanically picked up the object, turning it over and over and over.

It was a little pearl-handled 22, and smoke was still curling from its muzzle.

Her revolver. Hers. The one that had been stolen from the pocket of her roadster. Smoking …

Only then did eyes and brain coordinate—only then, as she knelt beside Margo, holding the .22 in a cold clutch, holding it and staring down at the mushroomed splash of red at Margo's throat, at the red ruin of Margo's left eye, at the red crease across Margo's right cheek.

Margo was still. Margo was dead.

Some one had shot Margo three times across the angle of the court from that room with the fluttering blind. Margo was dead.

There was a sound at the door.

Kerrie turned, still on her knees, the revolver still in her hand.

Margo was dead.

And there was her husband in the doorway. So purple-eyed and haggard. Staring at the bloody dead woman on the floor. At the revolver in his wife's hand.

PART FOUR

XII.
Silence, Please

But Kerrie did not see him. She was still blind from the brilliance of those three red flashes slashing over her head into the throat and eye and cheek of Margo. Blind, deaf, stunned with the three sounds of a world tumbling.

“She's dead,” Kerrie said in a clear voice. “Margo's dead. Her eye is dead. Blood on her neck. She has one eye. See how funny she looks. See how funny—”

Beau stood in the doorway trying to speak.

“One moment she was alive. Then she was dead. She died over my head. I heard her gurgle her life away. I heard her die behind me.” Kerrie began to laugh.

Beau stumbled in. “Kerrie!”

He dropped beside her. He could think of nothing to do but put his arms about her and press her face against his chest. He couldn't bear to look at her face. It was white, fixed, a plaster-of-Paris mask made by a crude workman. Her eyes were shiny with something not fear, not panic, not horror; something inscrutable and dead, like the eyes of a wax-works figure.

At his touch she stopped laughing. “She came to laugh at me. Said you and she had planned the whole thing. Our elopement. Marriage. She said you told her where you were taking me. That's how she knew where to find me. Your plan. You didn't love me, she said. You loved her, she said. This was your scheme to get hold of the money Uncle Cadmus left me. To share it with her. The two of you.…”

“Kerrie, stop.”

“She began to talk about the attacks. She admitted she had made them. She and some one else—”

“Some one else!” muttered Beau. “Who?”

“She didn't get a chance to tell me. She began to. But then the three shots from the window …”

The window. Beau got to his feet, walked stiff-legged to the window by the armchair. Open. The blind blowing. Kerrie in the chair, Margo standing behind the chair—direct line of fire—in the throat, the eye … Revolver.

“Revolver,” he said hoarsely. “What happened?”

“It's mine,” said Kerrie, as in a dream. “Mine. I bought it. When you—warned me to be careful. It was stolen from the pocket of my car. Must have been some time yesterday, because I missed it when I was locked in the garage.”