He put his arms about her. “Don’t you know, deep inside, that you’re safe with me, baby?”
“Safe?”
“Don’t you know you and I can go places together? The only thing is — you’re a little foolish.”
“What a charming compliment!”
“You’re foolish because you take foolish chances. You’ve let yourself be swept away by your feelings. That’s why women’s crimes are so easy to spot. For one thing, you think I’m in love with Kerrie Shawn.”
“Aren’t you?” she asked through her strong white teeth.
“That skinny little thing? When I’m a sucker for your type?”
“Just my type?” She was growing arch now.
“For you, damn you! You know it, only you’re too damn’ suspicious. Does this feel phony?”
He pulled her over until she lay in his arms.
“Does it?” He kissed her.
She closed her eyes, responding slowly. But it was the creep of a rising flood.
“Wait. Wait,” she gasped, pushing him away. “You say you don’t love her. How do I know? The way you’ve looked at her. And last night—”
“I tell you she doesn’t mean a thing to me!” snarled Beau. “But I’m smarter than you, baby. I put on an act. And you’d be a hell of a lot smarter to put on an act, too, instead of running your neck into a noose!”
“I don’t — know what you mean.”
“You want her dough, don’t you?” said Beau in a brutal tone. “All right. How do you try to get your hands on it? By putting her out of the way. Dangerous, you fool! It takes finesse. You can get what you want a whole lot more safely.”
She did not answer in words. She pulled him down to her and put her lips to his ear.
“You can get it, and me, too,” growled Beau.
She whispered.
“But we split, see?”
She kissed a trail from his ear to his lips.
Later, when Beau left her, he went into a bathroom and spent three minutes rinsing his mouth.
Beau left the grounds early that morning; he was back by the afternoon.
Kerrie was waiting on the terrace. For him. He knew it was for him. By the way she started when she saw him. By the glad look in her eyes — glad, and anxious, too, as if she couldn’t make up her mind whether what had happened was a dream or an actuality.
He stooped and kissed her.
The book slipped off her lap. “Then it’s true!” And she jumped up and kissed him fiercely. “Let’s go somewhere!”
“Where’s Vi?” asked Beau slowly.
“She had an appointment in town with the hairdresser. Darling. You do love me?”
He held her close.
“That’s all I wanted to know.” She shivered with joy. “I don’t care about anything else.”
“Let’s take a walk,” said Beau.
They strolled into the sweet-smelling woods, his arm about her.
There was something unreal about the afternoon; the sunlight filtering through the leaves had a red cast, so that they seemed to be walking in a place not of earth.
“It isn’t,” said Kerrie, “as if the future were altogether rosy. It isn’t. There are so many things I don’t understand. About you, darling. And about the future. But I’ve made up my mind not to look ahead... Isn’t it lovely here?”
Beau sat down on a weatherbeaten stump. Kerrie sank to the ground and rested her cheek on his knee.
“What’s the matter, dear? You look — funny.”
Beau hurled a twig away. “Kerrie, we’ve got to face the facts. You’re on the spot.”
“Please. Let’s not talk about that.”
“We’ve got to. You’re on the spot, and we’ve got to do something about it.”
She was silent.
“Your uncle paid me to find his heirs. I should have bowed out when I located you and Margo showed up. I’ve only brought you a peck of trouble.” He scowled.
“I’m glad you didn’t bow out.” She pressed his knee.
“I didn’t because — well, I had reason to believe your uncle Cadmus was murdered. I still believe it.”
The red light of the sky on her pallor gave her face an eerie violet cast.
She stammered: “But I don’t... I don’t understand.”
“Neither do I.” He pulled her up and sat her on his knee, staring at the sky. “Anyway, I’ve been hanging around trying to find out what it’s all about. And who’s behind it.”
“Margo,” whispered Kerrie. “Margo! She’s tried to kill me, Ellery. But how could she — Uncle was at sea—”
“There’s plenty we don’t know. Anyway, funny-face, maybe now you’ll realize why I’ve been paying so much attention to your cousin Margo.”
“Darling, why didn’t you tell me?” Kerrie sprang off his lap. “Can’t we expose her?”
“No proof. She’s cute as hell, Kerrie. She’s covered her tracks too well. And if we force her hand now, she may become desperate.” Beau paused, then said quietly: “Sooner or later, no matter how many precautions we take, one of these little ‘accidents’ won’t fail.”
“The police—”
“They’d laugh at you, and you won’t have anything to offer them but suspicions. Then the cat will be out of the bag and you’ll be worse off than now.”
“What do you want me to do, Ellery?” asked Kerrie simply.
“Get married.”
Kerrie was silent. And when she did speak, it was in an unsteady voice. “Who would marry me, even if I should be silly enough to give up twenty-five hundred dollars a week for him?”
“I would,” muttered Beau.
“Darling!” She flew to him. “If you’d said anything else I’d have killed myself!”
“You’ll have to kiss the dough goodbye, Kerrie,” he said gently.
“I don’t care!”
“Funny kid.” He stroked her hair. “I’d have asked you to marry me in Hollywood, but I couldn’t bring myself to — not when it meant depriving you of everything money could give you. But now it’s different. It’s no longer a choice between money and me... it’s a choice between money and—” He drew her closer.
“The money doesn’t mean a thing to me,” cried Kerrie. “The only one I’m sorry for is Vi. Poor Vi will have to go back—”
“You would think of her,” grinned Beau. “Think of yourself for a change! With you married, Margo gets your share of the income automatically. So she won’t have to kill you, and you’ll be safe.”
“But, Ellery.” She looked troubled. “She likes you. I know. She likes you a lot. If you marry me, she won’t — I mean, a woman can act awfully nasty in a case like that.”
“There won’t be any trouble with Margo,” said Beau quickly.
“But—”
“Kerrie, are you going to trust me, or aren’t you?”
She laughed tremulously. “Yes — if you marry me now, today!”
She could hold him against any woman, she thought — once they were married. She had so much love to give. So much more than a woman like Margo could possibly offer, much less feel.
“Is this a proposal?”
“I couldn’t make it any clearer, could I? Oh, but I’m delirious, I guess, darling. How can you marry me today? We haven’t even a license.”
“Didn’t I say to leave everything to me?” Beau grinned again. “I took out a Connecticut license last week.”
“Ellery! You didn’t!”
Kerrie ran all the way back to the house. Beau followed more slowly. Following, with her eyes no longer on him, he stopped grinning. In the deepening crimson light, his face was ghastly, too.
X. The Ring and the Book
Kerrie was furiously hurling things into three bags when Vi returned. Beau was pacing the terrace downstairs in the dusk; Kerrie could hear the slap of his steps. She was grateful for them, because they kept him near her. She felt the need for his nearness when Vi came in, and that was strange, for Kerrie had never required a defense against Vi before.