“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,”
She trudged along the track to the siding. Outside the stable car she stopped short, frowning. Some one was in the car.
She approached the open door quietly and looked in.
Again!
She couldn’t see his face; but his wide back was unmistakable. He was squatting on his heels before Panjandrum, doing something quickly and powerfully, as if haste were imperative, to the mare’s left forefoot. Bandages and packing were strewn about the car’s floor.