The Dragon’s Teeth by Ellery Queen Page A

Something wet and cold had touched the back of her neck. But it was only a friendly, night-prowling Schnauzer investigating her scent.
    Beau’s arms tightened about her. She clung to him, her head falling back. Her lips were parted.
    â€œKerrie.” Beau failed to recognize his own voice. “Don’t leave Hollywood. Stay here. Give up the money.”
    Their lips almost touched as they stared into each other’s eyes. He was going to propose. He was! He didn’t want her to go East! That could only be because the money stood between him and her. Oh, she didn’t care about it! She didn’t. She just wanted him. Never to let go. If that was love, she was in love. He was going to propose … Oh, ask me, ask me!
    He let go of her and got up so suddenly that she cried out again and the Schnauzer whined in alarm and ran away.
    â€œYou’d” throw away twenty-five hundred bucks a week?”
    â€œMaybe,” whispered Kerrie, “I would.”
    â€œThen you’re an idiot!”
    She closed her eyes, all jumpy and sick inside.
    â€œIf it happened to me,” he shouted, “do you think I’d give it up? Like hell I would! You ought to be examined by Freud!”
    â€œBut—but you asked me—told me—”
    Beau glared down at her as she crouched, hugging her knees, staring up at him. He was furious with himself, and with her for having made him lose his head. The plea had slipped out under the pressure of her arms, the warmth of her breathing, the joyful yearning and hope in her eyes. He saw her hungry, tramping from studio to studio, one of the thousands of starched, frayed, and fixedly smiling Hollywood job-hunters.…
    So he sneered: “You dames are all alike. I thought maybe you were different. But you’re a pushover like the rest of ’em!”
    Kerrie jumped up and ran away.
    Just before they left the rooming house for the station the next day, Beau received two telegrams.
    One was from Lloyd Goossens.
    â€œ MARGO COLE FOUND IN FRANCE ”
    The other was from Mr. Ellery Queen, and it said:
    â€œ MARGO FOUND STOP MORE CONVINCED THAN EVER MURDER IN THIS CASE STOP JOB JUST BEGUN FOR THE LOVE OF MIKE GET BACK ON IT WILL YOU ”
    Beau glanced at Kerrie Shawn, his eyes a little red, two deep lines running from his nostrils to the corners of his mouth.
    But Kerrie sailed past him with Vi as if he didn’t exist.
    He grinned wryly.

PART TWO

V. Fists Across the Sea
    The instant Kerrie gazed into her cousin Margo’s eyes, she knew they would be enemies.
    In the midst of the hurly-burly of presenting her proofs of identity to Lloyd Goossens and Edmund De Carlos, whom Kerrie immediately disliked, of moving into and exploring the Tarrytown mansion and its broad acres, complete with woods and bridle-paths and hidden streams and unexpected arbors, of selecting personal servants and cars and of refurnishing her own suite of rooms, turning them from gloomy chambers into bright and chintzy places, of shopping and granting press interviews and the whole feverish process of settling down to her new life in the East … in the midst of all this, Kerrie had looked forward to her cousin’s arrival from France.
    It was a peculiar anticipation, touched with sadness, for Kerrie felt as if she had lost something, and she wanted to make up her loss in another way.
    But when she saw Margo Cole, she knew she had wished for the moon.
    They all went down the bay in a cutter to meet the Normandie in quarantine—Kerrie, Vi, Goossens, De Carlos, and Beau. Goossens, brief-case in hand, boarded the liner to meet Margo; they appeared a short time later and descended the ladder to the motor-launch, which ferried them to the cutter.
    Margo Cole stepped aboard in a swirl of furs and scent, followed by a pert French maid and a mountain of luggage. She kept chattering gaily with Goossens as her eyes flickered over Vi indifferently, paused on Kerrie,