Flying feet made a noise behind him. “Kerrie! Is she... is she... dead?” Violet Day stood panting there. She had slipped a squirrel coat over her négligé. Her hair was disordered and her eyes big with fear.
“No. Breathing very fast. Heart’s racing. Kerrie!” Beau shook the limp body.
“But... but what—”
“Looks as if she was caught in the garage and had to fight her way out. Kerrie!” He slapped her pale right cheek, his left arm supporting her head. “Kerrie! Wake up. It’s—”
Her eyelids fluttered. Her eyes were dull, her brow furrowed, her mouth open to the night air.
“I’m — dizzy,” she said with a groan. “Who — I can’t see — well—”
“It’s... Ellery Queen,” said Beau, but Vi flung herself beside Kerrie and cried: “It’s Vi, hon! What happened? What was it this time?”
“Garage — carbon monoxide—” Kerrie fainted again.
“Carbon monoxide!” Beau shouted: “Get a lot of black coffee!”
Vi flew off.
Beau turned Kerrie over in the grass and straddled her. Her mouth and nose were sucking in the air. His big hands gripped her ribs; his torso worked up and down in a slow rhythm.
She was just coming to again when Vi, accompanied by Margo Cole and half the household, ran up. Vi carried a pitcher of steaming coffee and a glass.
“Vi says—” cried Margo; she was half-dressed. “Vi says Kerrie — Monoxide poisoning—”
Beau did not look at her. He seized the pitcher, poured a glass of coffee, sat Kerrie up and forced her to swallow. She cried out weakly, shaking her head. His fingers clamped the back of her neck; he exerted pressure, and she drank, tears streaming down her dusty cheeks.
When she had swallowed one glassful, he forced her to swallow another. A trace of color began to show in her cheeks.
“Drink it. Breathe in — hard. And drink.”
She drank and drank, while the silent group stood about.
“All right,” said Beau. “It’s as much as we can do now. Anybody call a doctor?”
“I did, sir,” said the butler. “Dr. Murphy of Tarrytown.”
“All we can do till the doctor comes is put her to bed. Kerrie!”
Her head was against his shoulder, resting heavily.
“Kerrie. Put your arm around my neck. Hang on, now.”
“What?” said Kerrie. She raised her eyes; they were still dull with pain.
“Never mind.” He picked her up; and after a moment her arm crept about his neck and clung.
Kerrie opened her eyes with a confused recollection of a nightmare. Garage — smell — fight — car — crash — a lot of people and... him... holding on to him and feeling, through her nausea, through the fog... feeling at peace.
And then the scene shifted to her room, like a movie. Windows thrown wide, Vi undressing her and getting her into bed... she was sick then... and later he was telling her not to mind, not to mind, just close her eyes, breathe deeply, try to rest, to sleep... then a strange man injecting something that stung for an instant — the air, the fresh clean sweet air — sleep...
Kerrie opened her eyes and in the hot light of morning saw Beau’s face, inches from her own.
She pulled him down to her, sobbing.
“All right. It’s all right now, Kerrie,” Beau kept mumbling. “You’re okay. There’s nothing to be afraid of now.”
“It was horrible,” sobbed Kerrie. “The garage — some one locked me in — I couldn’t get out — turned the motor on in the next garage — the fumes came through the radiator-grille — I got sick and dizzy — my tools were stolen, my revolver — I couldn’t get out...”
Beau’s arms tightened about her. When he had found Kerrie last night the lock was gone from the broken garage door; the motor of the car in the next garage had been turned off. Whoever had tried to kill Kerrie had stolen back, removed the lock, turned off the engine of the station-wagon, and gone away. Had Kerrie not managed to escape from the garage, had she died there like a mouse in a trap, it would have looked like the usual garage accident: the running motor of her own car, the doctors might have said — she fainted and was overcome. There would have been no evidence of a crime. An accident — like the “accident” on the bridle-path.
Kerrie’s tears were warm on his cheek. “I thought — you were in with her. Please. I was mad. I know you couldn’t. Oh, I love you. I do. I’ve been so miserable. I couldn’t leave here and let — her have you. I love you!”
“I know, funny-face. Me, too...”
“Darling.” She placed her palms on his cheeks and held his face off, smiling incredulously. Then she hugged him. “Oh, you do!”
The Tarrytown doctor came in and said: “I beg your pardon. Would you mind—?”
Beau stumbled out.
Margo kept him waiting fifteen minutes. When her maid finally admitted him, Margo was lying graceful-armed on a chaise-longue, her body draped in a dramatic morning gown, every hair in place, and her dead-white cheeks carefully made up.
“How nice,” she smiled at him, and then said rapidly to her maid: “Bêtise! Va t’en!” and the maid fled. As soon as the door closed Margo slipped off the couch and went to him.
He took her in his arms. She put her hands on his chest after a while. “Sit down here with me. You’ve kept me waiting so long.”
“Couldn’t get here sooner.”
“Oh. Kerrie? It would be.” She said it lightly. But she pushed him away a little.
“Sure it would be!”
“And how is the little mousy darling? I suppose you’ve sat up with her all night?”
“I had to put on an act, didn’t I? Somebody had to.” Beau made his tone annoyed, even truculent. But he was careful to draw her close to him again.
“You — it was you found her last night, wasn’t it?” murmured Margo.
“Lucky for you I did, gorgeous.”
“What do you mean?” She opened her Egyptian eyes wide, staring in the innocent-little-girl way she affected.
“You know what I mean.”
“But I don’t. I was shocked to hear about Kerrie’s latest adventure with the fates. She has such foul luck with horses and garages, hasn’t she? Is she all right this morning?” Margo sat down on the chaise-longue and patted it invitingly.
“No thanks to you.” Beau laughed, stretching out beside her. She leaned on him, chin propped on her long hands, eyes on his face. “Don’t you think that was a little raw, baby?”
“Raw?” She looked blank.
“This last stunt of yours.” His tone said he was amused.
“This last—” She wrinkled her nose in perplexity. Then she laughed. “You think I locked Kerrie in that garage and tried to kill her? I?”
“That’s what I mean.”
She stopped laughing. “I don’t like that!”
“Neither do I. That’s why I’m giving you a little friendly advice.”
“That, chéri,” she said softly, “is a very dangerous thing to say. I might sue you for slander — if I didn’t like you so much.”
“I wouldn’t be wasting my time if I didn’t have your interests at heart.”
“Heart! What do you know about hearts? You’re a lump, a stone!”
He grinned at her. “Yeah. Like coal. Hard and black and cold. Till you light a fire under it.”
“You’re a cinder!”
“Try me and see.”
She rose suddenly and went to the window to stare out at the gardens.
“Come here,” said Beau lazily.
She turned with reluctance. Then she went back to him, and sat down again, and he took her hands.
“You don’t believe me, do you?”
“In what way?”