Pauline laughed, a high, nervous laugh, but one that also had relief in it.
“So that’s it! All right. Take your story to the cops. Send them to me. But they won’t thank you for troubling them. There won’t be any investigation, Mac. It won’t be necessary. Merlini’s theory is so much moonshine!”
“Oh?” Merlini said softly. “Why?” There was a faint undertone in his voice that sent a chill up my spine. I had an impression of a trap, beneath camouflage, its jaws open and waiting.
“Because,” Pauline answered coldly, “I came in here with my father. There was no one else here!”
The snap of the trap’s sharp jaws as they closed was distinctly audible. But, for a moment, Pauline appeared not to have heard them. Only the sudden and lasting silence that fell over the rest of us made her look around uneasily and then suddenly realize…
“It’s hard to believe that,” Merlini said. “Just a moment ago you told us that you saw your father last at dinner. How do we know which—”
“Damn you!” she said, her eyes throwing sparks. “I know that. I lied. I didn’t see that it was any of your business, but if you are going to accuse …”
“I didn’t make any accusation. But you seem to be trying the shoe on. You’ve made two flatly contradictory statements. One must be false. Both might be. Your motive for saying that you came in with the Major is obviously the stronger.”
Now what was he getting at? Keith had said that he saw Pauline with her father. Were there more concealed traps?
“But if you did come, as you say, with the Major,” Merlini went on calmly, “my theory is pretty well shattered. I’ll have to discard it in favor of the other — the one that concerns the bull-hook which you carried in your hand when you came in.”
Pauline’s face looked haggard — ten years older. “Then you knew all the time. Someone saw us… ”
Merlini nodded. “Yes. I’m sorry. I only wanted to find out what had happened. You wouldn’t answer questions. I had to trick you. You’ve admitted too much now. You’d better tell us just what happened.”
“You — you won’t believe me.” Pauline’s fear was evident. “Nothing happened. We talked together for less than five minutes. I left. I forgot the bull-hook when I went. That’s all.”
“The hook is Irma King’s. Why did you have it?”
“She had left it behind in my trailer this afternoon. I was returning it when I remembered something I wanted to see Dad about.”
“What was that?”
“I can’t tell you.” Her chin came out stubbornly at this.
Merlini left it at that. “Where did you go then, after leaving him?”
“To my trailer. I went to bed.”
“Did you meet or speak to anyone on the way?”
“I— No, I—” She stopped, her jaw clenched. The muscles at either side of her forehead stood out in rigid lines. With an effort she stood straight. “I’ve heard enough,” she said grimly. “There’s just one thing to be done. But first I want to know one more thing. Is this everything? What else do you have?”
Before Merlini could answer someone rapped sharply on the outer door again. “Miss Hannum,” a voice called. “Perch act on next.”
“Tell him I’m coming, Mac,” she said, and then waited for Merlini’s reply.
“There’s one more thing,” he said. “A question. Who is the Headless Lady?”
Pauline’s eyes held a defeated look. But she made no answer. She turned to Mac. “Get the Sheriff. Take him to my trailer. And wait there until I finish this next act.”
Mac didn’t like the way the wind was blowing at all. “But … but …” he started to object.
“Do as I say, Mac! Get going now. Tell the Sheriff his name will be in every paper in the country tomorrow morning. I’m afraid Dad was murdered after all. But I’m not taking the rap. This show moves in the morning, and there’ll be no investigation. It won’t be necessary by then.”
Mac’s face was dark with conflicting emotions. He shrugged helplessly, ducked his head, and went out through the door.
Pauline gazed after him thoughtfully for a moment; then without looking at us she gathered her cape around her and followed after him.
Keith, puzzled, frowned and asked of no one in particular, “Now what does all that mean? “It’s those fireworks I mentioned,” Merlini replied. “Put your fingers in your cars. The fuse is sputtering merrily and rapidly. We have started something now. But I’d like it lots better if I knew just what sort of shooting stars were going to burst.”
Merlini flipped a fifty-cent piece meditatively in his hand, made it vanish and reappear once or twice in an absent-minded way; and then went to the wardrobe where Joy had hidden and started to examine its floor.
I watched him for a moment with a vague uneasiness, a subtle, uncomfortable feeling that I couldn’t quite define. I rather thought, from his actions, that Merlini was similarly disturbed. He got to his feet after a moment, frowned at a smallish piece of dried mud he had scraped from the wardrobe floor, and then wandered to the rear of the trailer, where he stopped to look again at the odd prints on the windowpane.
Suddenly, in my mind, a skyrocket rose and flared brightly. I knew what was wrong.
“Merlini,” I said at once, “I don’t like this. And I know why. It’s too familiar. I’ve read it all before. The chief suspect, cornered, announces like a damned fool that she knows all and is going to tell—later. And, while the Great Detective and all the forces of law and order sit quietly around twiddling their thumbs — the murderer promptly goes to work again! Bang! Chapter ending! And this suspect … ”
Merlini’s half-dollar fell from his fingers to the floor and rolled across the linoleum, “—is going to climb up on top of a tall pole and stand on her head! Ross—” His voice stopped with startling abruptness.
Through the open door, as he spoke, I could hear the big-top band playing a smoothly flowing waltz; but now, strangely, the tempo stumbled, the whole structure of the music seemed to break apart, coming to a ragged, slurring halt as if the instruments had ceased not all together, but one by one.
The interval was short, and when the music came again it was a frantic, uneven march in double-quick time.
Merlini moved as quickly as I have ever seen him do. As he flew through the doorway, he said:
“Ross, you’ve called it!”
Chapter Seven
Center Ring
“… The zenith in deft and daring high perch accomplishments. The lovely Miss Pauline Hannum high above the center ring, revolving at breakneck speed atop the dizzy pinnacle of a thirty-foot pole … ”
The muzzle velocities of Hugo and Mario Zacchini, fired from their mammoth cannon, were never any greater than the speed with which we left that trailer. Merlini took three lightning strides, ducked low, and shot through the doorway. I projected myself after him, springing outward from the doorsill to hit the ground, running. I heard Atterbury move behind me.