Burke cut his siren as we approached the turn leading up to Young’s cabin. I leaned far out, straining my eyes up the slope, hoping against hope that we were in time.
We weren’t.
I knew we were too late when I saw Laura’s car parked in front of the cabin.
I hit the ground running when Burke slammed on brakes. It took me seconds to go up the path and through the front door... to see Myra Young stretched out on the floor with Laura Yates bending over her... and there was the gleam of steel in Laura’s right hand.
I yelled and lunged forward, hitting Laura with my shoulder as Burke came into the room with a .38 in his hand.
Laura tumbled back and her pistol went spinning. I scrambled for it, came up with it in my hand. It was an ugly little .32.
Laura was on her hands and knees facing me when I stood up with her pistol in my hand. She sank back on her haunches and said coolly:
“Nice to see you again. Keep her covered while you’re being heroic.”
She jerked her head sideways and I followed the gesture to see Michaela O’Toole standing against the wall with folded arms and a set smile on her perfect lips.
I backed away, menacing them with Laura’s stubby .32. I muttered, “Stand back... both of you,” and over my shoulder I choked out to Burke: “How... is she?”
“She’s still breathing.” Burke came up off his knees from beside the inanimate form of Leslie Young’s widow. “Keep both those hell-cats covered, Asa. I’ll get a pan of water.”
I took another backward step while he trotted to the kitchen for water. Glancing sideways, I could see Myra’s face, white as death. Could see her nude torso the color of old ivory where her blouse had been savagely ripped aside... and I shuddered as I saw blood flowing from a long scratch leading downward from the bottom of her breasts to her navel... with two shorter scratches right-angled across near the top of the vertical one...
The deadly symbol of the double-cross cruelly marked on her still-living flesh!
I saw all that in one swift glance, then I didn’t look any more. I turned back to face Laura and Michaela as Burke came hurrying back with a pan of water.
Michaela hadn’t moved from her position against the wall, and the smile hadn’t left her lips. Laura had sunk into a chair and was fumbling in her handbag. I started forward with an exclamation which died to a mumble as she calmly brought forth a pack of cigarettes and a book of matches.
“You’re being frightfully melodramatic,” she murmured with a puff of smoke. “Wouldn’t you just as leave point that thing away from me? It’s loaded, you know.”
There was a splash behind me as Burke dumped the water in Myra’s face. The splash was followed by gurgling and watery gasps, and Burke’s voice soothingly telling her to take it easy.
I began breathing again. Perhaps my stupidity hadn’t resulted in a third murder after all.
I took another backward step and saw Myra sitting up on the floor with Burke’s arm supporting her. She was staring around wildly, making funny noises, ineffectually pulling at the torn front of her dress.
“Everything’s all right,” Burke was assuring her. “No one is going to harm you. Just get your breath and tell us all about it.”
“I can tell you,” came Laura’s cool voice. “Miss O’Toole was in the act of ripping her open when I busted in and spoiled the party.”
“You lie!” the O’Toole lips hissed. “I came and found her on the floor like that. When I would have aided her you ran in and pushed me away with your pistol. You were hiding outside where you fled when you heard me coming... before you could finish your work.”
Jerry Burke was rocked back in his heels looking from one to the other as they contradicted each other. “Hold everything,” he growled. “We’ll get the straight of it when Mrs. Young gets her breath back enough to talk.”
There were angry sparks in Michaela’s incredibly blue eyes, and a contemptuous twist to Laura’s too-red lips, but both were silent as Burke leaned over Myra and asked:
“Do you feel well enough to tell us exactly what happened?”
She looked up at him with a shudder. “I... I don’t know. She,” nodding toward Laura, “had phoned me that you were ready to arrest Les’s murderer and were coming out to ask me just one question that would settle the case and she wanted to come first and hide where she could listen so she could get the story to print in her paper and scoop the others. I told her all right and I was sitting here waiting for you when... when something hit me on the head from behind and that’s all... all I know.”
Burke’s fingers touched the top of her head. He nodded. “You got a good bump. But haven’t you any idea who attacked you? Didn’t you hear or see anything?”
Myra gulped and shook her head. “No, I... I didn’t.” Then, faintly: “I... don’t feel very well.”
“No wonder.” Burke slipped his arm about her waist and helped her to the lounge, where she collapsed.
Turning away from her, Burke confronted the two girls and said: “I’ll have the straight of this now. Which one of you got here first?”
Simultaneously, they pointed at each other and said: “She.”
Folding his arms grimly, Jerry Burke walked close to Michaela. “All right. One at a time. Let’s hear your version of it. How did you escape from the Dwight estate in the first place?”
“Those gringo policemen,” she told him scornfully, “are fools. When Mrs. Young telephoned me and said you were coming and she would tell them a secret she knew, I...”
“I didn’t telephone you,” came chokingly from Myra behind us. “There’s some mistake.”
“I phoned Miss O’Toole and said I was Myra Young,” Laura admitted with twisted lips. “I had the bright idea that she would tip her hand by rushing over here to shut up Myra’s mouth if she was the murderer. Well, she did just what I expected... so I guess she is.”
My knees got too weak to hold me any more and I sank down into a chair. I’ll be damned if it didn’t look as though Laura was going to be able to lie herself out of that mess.
“I came to talk to Mrs. Young, not to hurt her,” came the indignant denial from Michaela. “I know now I heard someone running when I came to the back door and knocked. There was no answer and I came in and found her... Mrs. Young... lying on the floor just like when you came. When I tried to help her, she came in with her pistol and pushed me away.”
Laura Yates swung lithely to her feet as Burke shook his head in bafflement. She moved toward Michaela, saying between clenched teeth:
“This might as well be the showdown. I wanted to pull it off for myself and get the jump on all of you, but...”
She lunged forward without warning and her clawed fingers caught the top of Michaela’s gown, ripping it downward before Burke could interfere.
Michaela shrilled out a Mexican curse and her hand darted to her garter with the speed of light. A thin-bladed dagger gleamed in her hand as it came away.
Burke leaped forward and caught her wrist, bent it back cruelly; straightening her and bending her back so that the torn edges of her gown fell apart... revealing a two-barred cross tattooed into the white flesh beneath.
“There you are,” panted Laura Yates. “The secret symbol of the cult of the Double-cross. Try to deny that, you murdering Irish-Mayan. Though I still don’t know why you shot Leslie Young.”
Michaela backed away against the wall as Burke took the deadly little garter-knife from her fingers. She seemed contemptuously unaware of her exposed flesh and of the incriminating symbol just beneath. There was a fanatical flame in her eyes, but her features held the composure and stolidity of an Indian’s.