Kerrie watched in a storm of breathlessness. What was he up to now?
Beau grunted with satisfaction and straightened up, and she saw what he had been doing. He had removed the mare’s left foreshoe.
He examined it hastily, then thrust shoe and loosened nails into the bulging pocket of his baggy sack-coat. And he bent over again to replace the packing and bandages. The mare lay still, and his big hands worked with rapidity.
Kerrie leaned against the side of the car, miserable. Of course. Margo must have loosened the nails of the left foreshoe as well as of the right. Just to make sure, she thought bitterly. No one had thought to examine it except... And how could he have known unless Margo had told him?
Removing the evidence of her guilt again!
Kerrie took command of herself. At least she had one card up her sleeve. He — she — they didn’t know she knew. She had passed her fall off as an accident. They thought she didn’t suspect. Let them! That was her only protection now.
She stole off a few yards and then approached the car noisily. And she called out in a voice she tried to make unconcerned: “Dr. Pickens! Is that you in the car?”
Beau appeared in the doorway instantly.
“Oh! Hello,” said Kerrie. “I thought it was the veterinary in there. What are you doing?”
He jumped to the ground. “I heard about your accident and—”
“Came to pay your respects to the horse?”
He said abruptly: “You all right?”
“Never better, thank you.”
“Well.” He stood frowning at the ground. “I guess I’ll amble along. Hope the mare can be saved.”
He strode away. Kerrie did not look after him. She went into the stable car. From there, she looked. He was pacing up and down behind the station — near her car!
She said goodbye to Panjandrum a dozen times. Finally, Henry appeared, and Dr. Pickens. They seemed to think her expression of alarm was caused by anxiety over the mare, and kept reassuring her that Panjandrum would be all right.
And finally the eleven-fifty rolled in, and she had to get out of the stable car. But she remained to watch the coupling of the car to the northbound train.
When the train pulled out and there was no longer any excuse for lingering on the spur, she trudged back to the platform, trying to appear preoccupied.
“Oh, are you still here?” she said. “I thought—”
He seized her arms. “Kerrie! Listen to me—”
“You’re hurting me!”
“You know what happened the other night,” he said in a low, hurried voice. “You’ve got to be—”
“Let — me — go,” panted Kerrie. She wriggled out of his grasp and slapped him, hard, on his blue-stubbled cheek. All the bitterness of weeks found expression in that pitiful act of violence. “You’re used to manhandling females, I don’t doubt,” she cried, “but that doesn’t mean you can manhandle me!”
His voice was oddly soft. “Kerrie, I just wanted to warn you to be careful. That’s all.”
“Careful?” Careful. He wanted her to be carefull.
The miracle of his solicitude, after all her fears, filled Kerrie with joy. Then it wasn’t true! He wasn’t Margo’s confederate after all!
“I mean,” he went on, and something in his tone smothered her joy, killing it with a sort of contempt, “you’ve got one hell of a way of getting into trouble. You’re a nuisance!”
Kerrie jumped into her roadster and drove off blindly. She did not therefore see how his shoulders sagged and the lines of his face deepened. She drove into the city.
When the police permit and revolver came, she felt grimly better.” It was a pearl-handled .22 of beautiful workmanship, and the ammunition was slick and deadly-looking.
VIII. Woman-Trap
The genuine Mr. Ellery Queen set down the horseshoe and the twisted nails gently.
“Kerrie’s got the finger on her,” said Beau.
The tone made Mr. Queen look up. Then Mr. Queen looked down, mercifully. He picked up a nail and turned it this way and that between his fingers.
“Deadly,” he remarked. “And a little terrifying. A woman in the grip of a homicidal mania, induced by jealousy and greed, doesn’t usually try to commit murder so subtly. Loosening the shoes of a horse!”
“Damn her.” Beau turned away.
“A murderess capable of that kind of plot can’t be reached through the customary channels. She’s probably immune to fear, because she’s too far gone in pure cussedness. I’d rather she had tried poison. There’s something realistic about poison. This — it’s fantastic.” He stared at the nail and then flung it aside.
“Just the same,” said Beau in his lifeless voice, “I’m not taking that chance, either. I’ve got an ex-policewoman in the kitchen as assistant to the chef.”
“You’re convinced it’s Margo Cole?”
“I found out from the groom that Margo had managed to be alone in the stable with the mare before Kerrie went riding. It was Margo, all right.”
Beau lay down on the sofa and turned his face to the wall.
“How about the other night?” Mr. Queen regarded him with pity. Really an impossible position, he thought. And the girl—
“We’d been in town, the beautiful Miss Cole and I,” said Beau without turning. “Having fun. You know, just a couple of innocent kids out on a tear?”
He sat up suddenly. Mr. Queen let him talk.
“We sat on the terrace and hoisted a few, and she got very, very chummy. I guess I wasn’t feeling so palsy that night. I tried not to show it, but she’s... smart.”
His eyes were bloodshot, Mr. Queen remarked. And he had a habit these days of working his jaws, as if he were hungry.
“I knew from the way she looked at me that she spotted my trouble. She knew Kerrie was bothering me. From the way she smiled... she gave me the shivers,” Beau said hoarsely. “I should have known then. But I never thought... She said good night as if everything was all right. I sat up a while and then went to bed. I couldn’t sleep. When the poor kid let out that awful yell—”
“Yes?” said Mr. Queen gently.
Beau smiled, and there was something cruel and naked in his smile. “De Carlos could hardly have climbed that wall. He was faking when I went in to look him over. Wasn’t asleep at all. But he was potted, too. He’d have tumbled to the terrace and broken his damn’ neck if he’d tried to climb to Kerrie’s room.
“But Margo...” He jumped off the sofa and began walking around. “She sleeps in the opposite wing, but it gives out on the terrace, too, and it would have been a cinch for her to slip down at that time of night and climb the vines and trellis. She’s an athletic bitch... Maybe what she saw in my eyes that night made up her mind.”
Mr. Queen sighed. “How does it feel to be fifty percent of the motive in an attempted homicide?”
“That’s not the worst of it, although God knows it’s a lousy enough spot for a man to be in!” cried Beau. “It’s what I’m forced to do to Kerrie that hurts. Every time I show a spark of interest, her eyes start shining like electric bulbs. She looks like a kid under a Christmas tree. She... And then I’ve got to douse the lights by deliberately acting like a heel. She’ll wind up hating my guts, if she doesn’t hate ’em already.”
“That’s what you want, isn’t it?” queried Mr. Queen. But he was thinking of something else.
“Yes,” said Beau quietly. “That’s what I want,” he burst out, “but it’s more than that, too! She thinks I’m signed up with Margo to put her out of the way!”