“Pop, I can’t,” said Beau hoarsely. “Pop... did you tell Kerrie?”
“Your wife?” The Inspector’s eyes narrowed. “Do you mean to stand there and tell me your own wife doesn’t know who you are?”
“She thinks I’m Ellery Queen,” confessed Beau. “Ellery knows about it. In fact, it was his idea.”
Inspector Queen stared at him; then, shaking his head, he went to the bedroom door.
Kerrie lay on one of the twin beds holding on to Violet Day’s hand. A nurse and a doctor stood by. There was a pungent odor of ammonium carbonate in the air. Leaning against the wall was Sergeant Velie.
Kerrie was the first to move. Her head swivelled, froze. But a moment later she sat up eagerly.
“Darling, you were so long.” She sounded tired.
Beau started for the bed, but the Inspector touched his arm. “No.”
Kerrie remained in a sitting position.
“Doc, would you mind waiting in the next room?” said the Inspector. “You, too, Nurse.”
They left the bedroom, Sergeant Velie carefully closing the door behind them.
“Well, I’m waiting,” said Inspector Queen.
Kerrie moistened her dry lips.
“It’s all right, Kerrie,” said Beau in a low voice. “It’s all right to talk now. Tell just what happened.”
Her glance was grateful. Vi took her hand again. Inspector Queen nodded to the Sergeant, who took a notebook and pencil out and prepared to write.
Kerrie told simply of the attempts to murder her, her suspicions of Margo, her purchase of the revolver, her discovery in the garage when she was trapped that the revolver had been stolen from the pocket of her roadster. She told of Beau’s proposal, and of their elopement.
“One moment.” The Inspector glanced at Beau. “You thought the Cole woman was behind these attacks, too?”
“I know she was.”
“How do you know?”
“She told me so.”
“What!” The Inspector was incredulous.
“I made love to her,” said Beau flatly. “I pretended to be on her side... for a price. I told her I was going to marry Kerrie, so that Kerrie’s share of the estate would be lost and would revert to Margo. We made a deal in which Margo was to kick back a certain part of Kerrie’s share to me.”
“Why?” demanded the old man. “Why’d you do this?”
“Because my chief concern was to save Kerrie’s life. Margo hated her, because of me and because of the money. If I could put the dough in her hands and convince her I loved her, not Kerrie, Kerrie’s life would be safe.”
Kerrie’s eyes were on his lips.
“The only thing I didn’t know,” continued Beau, “was that Margo was working with some one else. Go on, Kerrie.”
Kerrie went on. She told about their arrival at the Villanoy, how Beau left her, and how Margo came.
“I was sitting in the armchair by the window and she came over and stood behind me, still gloating over the trick she said she and Ellery” — the Inspector winced — “had played on me. Somehow she got round to talking about the attacks on my life—”
“Yes? What did she say, exactly?”
“As far as I remember, she said Ellery saved my life by marrying me. ‘If you hadn’t been lucky,’ she said, ‘you’d have been dead long before now.’ And she went on to say that the visit to my room that night, the accident to my horse, my being locked in the garage and nearly gassed, were not accidents at all. When I said I suspected all along she was responsible, she laughed and said: ‘But it wasn’t only I who planned those attacks. It was I — and somebody else.’ And just as she was about to tell me who the other one was — the shots...”
She stopped, her chin quivering.
“Ah, the shots,” said the Inspector politely. “But I thought you two were alone in the sitting room.”
“We were,” she said in a faint voice. “The shots came across the court, through my window, over my head, striking Margo who was standing behind my chair. That other window, my window, I, Margo, were all in one straight line.”
The Inspector glanced pityingly at Beau. But Beau was lighting a cigaret with shaking hands.
“Suppose you show me just how it happened,” the old man sighed.
Beau jumped forward to help Kerrie off the bed. Her fingers coiled tightly in his. The inspector looked away, and Sergeant Velie opened the door for them. They all went into the sitting room.
Inspector Queen spent some time over Kerrie’s story. He had her sit in the armchair as she claimed to have sat at the moment of the shooting. He checked the position of the body. He made Kerrie retell her story four times.
“A hand threw the gun in through my window, I tell you!” moaned Kerrie. “Why won’t you believe me?”
“But you don’t seem to know whether the hand was a man’s or a woman’s.”
“I was in the light, and the court and that room there were in darkness. I could hardly see. But I made out the flash of a hand. How could I tell whether it was a man’s or a woman’s?”
The Inspector grunted. The doctor gave him a warning look and insisted on Kerrie’s returning to the bedroom to lie down again. The old man nodded and, glancing at Sergeant Velie, who winked, went outside without explanation.
But Beau knew he had gone to examine Room 1726. He went back into the bedroom with Kerrie and sat down on the bed, and she curled up in his arms and closed her eyes. Neither said anything.
Lloyd Goossens arrived shortly after the Inspector went out, and considerably later, Edmund De Carlos marched in.
Goossens was smoking his pipe with nervous embarrassment, rubbing his unshaven cheeks; he had apparently, been roused from his bed by the Inspector’s summons. De Carlos’s skin was leaden, his beard gaunt. But there was a queer sparkle in the wide eyes behind his spectacles.
The Sergeant kept them in the sitting room, where they occupied themselves chiefly in endeavoring to avoid the blood-stained spot on the rug as they paced in aimless circles.
Beau came out of the bedroom and the two men bombarded him with questions. He told them what had happened and then took Goossens aside, to De Carlos’s annoyance. “What do you think?”
Goossens shook his head. “It looks bad, Mr. Queen. A hard story to believe. Especially without evidence to confirm it. If I were you, I’d engage the best lawyer in New York. In fact, if you’d like me to suggest counsel for Mrs. Queen—”
“Thanks. Don’t you think it’s a bit premature?” said Beau curtly.
When the Inspector returned, he conferred with De Carlos and the lawyer for some time in the sitting room. Finally they all went into the bedroom.
It was a bad moment, De Carlos and Goossens hanging back, avoiding Kerrie’s staring eyes. But the Inspector was brisk.
“I’ll be frank with you,” he said to Kerrie and Beau. “There’s no evidence of 1726 having been occupied tonight except a cigaret butt, a burnt match-stick, and some ashes. The maid on duty says she prepared the room late this evening, and there’s a record of a wired reservation. But the maid isn’t sure she mightn’t have overlooked the cigaret, and there’s a clear record that no one showed up tonight to occupy the room. Beau.”
“Well?”
“There was a light in 1726 this evening. Is that where you went? Is that your cigaret butt in there?”