Louderback raised suffering eyes ceilingward and said into the telephone: “I’m sorry, Miss Stuart, but Mr. Royle—”
“Who?” yelled Ty. “Wait. I’ll take it!”
“Ty,” said Bonnie in a voice so odd a cold wave swept over him. “You’ve got to come over at once.”
“What the devil’s the matter, Bonnie?”
“Please. Hurry. It’s — frightfully important.”
“Give me three minutes to change my clothes.”
When Ty reached Bonnie’s house he found Clotilde weeping at the foot of the hall staircase.
“Clotilde, where’s Miss Stuart? What’s the trouble?”
Clotilde wrung her fat hands. “Oh, M’sieu’ Royle, is it truly you? Of a surety Ma’m’selle has become demented! She is up the stairs demolishing! I desired to telephone M’sieu’ Butch-erre, but Ma’m’selle menaces me... Elle est une tempête!”
Ty took the stairs three at a time and found Bonnie, her mauve crepe negligee flying, snatching things out of drawers like a madwoman. The boudoir, her mother’s, looked as if it had been struck by lightning.
“They aren’t here!” screamed Bonnie. “Or I can’t find them, which is the same thing. Oh, I’m such a fool!”
She collapsed on her mother’s bed. Her hair was bound loosely by a gold ribbon and cascaded like molten honey down her back where the sun caught it.
Ty twisted his hat in his hands, looking away. Then he looked at her again. “Bonnie, why did you call me?”
“Oh, because I suddenly remembered... And then when I looked through the mail...”
“Why didn’t you call Butch? Clotilde says you didn’t want Butch. Why... me, Bonnie?”
She sat very still then and drew the negligee about her. And she looked away from the burn in his eyes.
Ty went to her and hauled her to her feet and put his arms about her roughly. “Shall I tell you why?”
“Ty... You look so strange. Don’t.”
“I feel strange. I don’t know what I’m doing. This is the nuttiest thing of all. But seeing you there on the bed, alone, scared, like a lost kid... Bonnie, why did you think of me first, when you had something important to tell some one?”
“Ty, please. Let go of me.”
“We’re supposed to hate each other.”
She struggled away from him then, not very strongly. “Please, Ty. You can’t. You... mustn’t.”
“But I don’t hate you,” said Ty in a wondering voice. His arms tightened. “I just found that out. I don’t hate you at all. I love you.”
“Ty! No!”
He held her fast and close to him with one arm, and with the other hand he tilted her chin and made her look up at him. “And you love me. You’ve always loved me. You know that’s true.”
“Ty,” she whispered. “Let me go.”
“Nothing doing.”
Her body trembled against him in its rigidity, like a piece of glass struck a heavy blow; and then all at once the rigidity shivered away and her softness gave itself to him utterly.
They stood there clinging to each other, their eyes closed against the hard, unyielding vision of the disordered room.
A long time later Bonnie whispered: “This is insane. You said so yourself.”
“Then I don’t want ever to be sane.”
“We’re both weak now. We feel lost and— That horrible funeral...”
“We’re both ourselves now. Bonnie, if their deaths did nothing else—”
She hid her face in his coat. “It’s like a dream. I felt naked. Oh, it is good to be close to you this way, when I know you and I, of all the people in the world, are—”
“Kiss me, Bonnie. Christ, I’ve wanted to...” His lips touched her forehead, her eyelids, her lashes.
Bonnie pushed away from him suddenly and sat down on the chaise longue. “How about Butch?” she said in an empty voice.
“Oh,” said Ty. The hunger and the gladness drained out of his haggard face very quickly. “I forgot Butch.” And then he cried angrily. “To hell with Butch! To hell with everybody. I’ve been deprived of you long enough. You’ve been my whole life, the wrong way — we’ve got to make up for that. What I thought was hate — it’s been with me, you’ve been with me, night and day since I was a kid in knee-pants. I’ve thought more of you and about you and around you... I’ve more right to you than Butch has!”
“I couldn’t hurt him, Ty,” said Bonnie tonelessly. “He’s the grandest person in the world.”
“You don’t love him,” said Ty with scorn.
Her eyes fell. “I’m... I can’t think clearly now. It’s happened so suddenly. He loves me.”
“You’ve been my whole life, Bonnie.” He tried to take her in his arms again, seeking her mouth.
“No, Ty. I want some... time. Oh, it does sound corny! But you can’t expect... I’ve got to get used to so much.”
“I’ll never let go of you.”
“No, Ty. Not now. You’ve got to promise me you won’t say anything... about this to anyone. I don’t want Butch to know yet. Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe... You’ve got to promise.”
“Don’t think of any one but me, Bonnie.”
She shivered. “The only thing that’s really emerged these last three days has been to see mother avenged. Oh, you simply can’t say real things without sounding — dramatic! But I do want that... badly. She was the sweetest, most harmless darling in the world. Whoever killed her is a monster. He can’t be human.” Her mouth hardened. “If I knew who it was I’d kill him myself, just the way I’d put a mad dog out of the way.”
“Let me hold you, darling—”
She went on fiercely: “Anybody — anybody who was in any way involved... I’d hate him just as much as I’d hate the one who poisoned her.” She took his hand. “So you see, Ty, why all this... why we have to wait.”
He did not reply.
“Don’t you want to find your father’s murderer?”
“Do you have to ask me that?” he said in a low voice.
“Then let’s search together. It’s true — I see it now — we’ve always had at least one thing in common... Ty, look at me.” He looked at her. “I’m not refusing you, darling,” she whispered, close to him. “When all this happened... I admit it, the only one I could think of was you. Ty, they — they died and left us alone!” Her chin began to quiver.
Ty sighed, and kissed it, and led her to the bed and sat her down. “All right, partner; we’re partners. A little private war on a little private crime.” He said cheerfully: “Let’s have it.”
“Oh, Ty!”
“What’s all the excitement about?”
Bonnie gazed up at him through tears, smiling back. And then the smile chilled to a bleak determination, and she withdrew an envelope from her bosom.
“For some time,” Bonnie said, sniffling away the last tear, “mother’d been receiving certain letters. I thought it was the usual crank mail and didn’t pay any attention to them. Now... I don’t know.”
“Threatening letters?” said Ty swiftly. “Let’s see that.”
“Wait. Do you know anybody who sends cards in the mail? Do cards mean anything to you? Did Jack ever get any?”
“No. Cards? You mean playing-cards?”
“Yes, from the Horseshoe Club.”
“Alessandro again, eh?” muttered Ty.
“I’ve been searching for those other envelopes, the ones that came before the — accident. But they’re gone. When I got back from the funeral I began going through a heap of letters and telegrams of condolence and found — this. That’s what made me remember the others.”