“I’m not going to fight with you, Bonnie,” said Ty in a low voice.
“Enemies... two enemies! Well, why not? You and your father! The neat little love scene yesterday... oh, you think you’re clever, too. You know he killed my mother and you’re trying to cover him up. For all I know you may have helped him plan it — you murderer!”
Ty made two fists and then opened them. He rubbed the back of one hand for a moment as if it itched, or pained, him. Then without a word he walked out of the office.
Bonnie flew, weeping, into Butcher’s arms.
But later, when she got home and Clotilde let her in, and she crept up to her room and without undressing lay down on her bed, Bonnie wondered at herself in a dark corner of her aching head. Was it really true? Could it really be? Had he been acting yesterday when he said he loved her? Suspicions were horrible. She could have sworn... And yet there it was. The facts were all against him. Who could have told Paula Paris about their reconciliation? Only Ty. And after she had begged him not to! And then, finding that sheet... You couldn’t wipe out years and years of hatred just by uttering three one-syllable words.
Oh, Ty, you monster!
Bonnie remained in her room, shut against the world, sleepless, sick, and empty. The night passed, and it was a long night peopled with so many shadows that at three o’clock in the morning, railing at her nerves and yet twitchy with morbid thoughts, she got up and switched on all the lights. She did not close her eyes the whole night.
At eight she admitted Clotilde, who was frantic.
“Oh, Bonnie, you shall make yourself ill! See, I have brought p’tit déjeuner. Galettes et marmelade—”
“No, thanks, ‘Tilde,” said Bonnie wearily. “More letters?”
She dipped into the heap of envelopes on the tray. “Dear Bonnie Stuart: My heart goes out to you in your grief, and I want to tell you how much I feel for you...” Words. Why couldn’t people let her alone? And yet that was ungrateful. They were dears, and they had loved Blythe so...
Her heart stopped.
There was an envelope — it looked so horribly familiar... She tore an end off with shaking fingers. But no, it couldn’t be. This one was addressed in typewriting, sloppily. But the envelope, the Hollywood postmark...
A blue playing-card dropped out. The seven of spades.
Nothing more.
Clotilde stared at her open-mouthed. “Mais chérie, il semble que tu—”
Bonnie breathed: “Go away, ‘Tilde.”
The seven of spades. Again... “An Enemy”...
Bonnie dropped the card and envelope as if they were foul, slimy things. And for the first time in her life, as she crouched in her tumbled bed with Clotilde gaping at her, she felt weak with pure fright.
An enemy. Ty... Ty was her only enemy.
Before Ellery left the Magna lot he went on impulse, still toting Jack Royle’s typewriter, to the studio street where the stars’ stone bungalows were and quietly let himself into Blythe Stuart’s dressing-room.
And there, as he had half-expected, he found a carbon copy on yellow paper of the “Meaning of the Cards.” In a drawer, hidden away.
So Blythe had known what the cards meant! Ellery had been positive her too casual dismissal of the letters had covered a frightened knowledge.
He slipped out and made for the nearest public telephone.
“Paula? Ellery Queen.”
“How nice! And so soon, too.” Her voice was happy.
“I suppose,” said Ellery abruptly, “it’s useless for me to ask where you learned about Ty and Bonnie.”
“Quite useless, Sir Snoop.”
“I imagine it was that Clotilde — it couldn’t have been any one else. There’s loyal service for you!”
“You won’t pump me, my dear Mr. Queen,” she said; but from something defensive in her tone Ellery knew he had guessed the truth.
“Or why you didn’t tell me this morning when I saw you. However, this is all beside the point. Paula, would you say Jack Royle killed Blythe Stuart — that his change of heart, the engagement, the wedding, were all part of a careful, murderous scheme to take his revenge on her?”
“That,” said Paula crisply, “is the silliest theory of the crime I’ve heard yet. Why, Jack couldn’t possibly... Is it yours?”
“Bonnie Stuart’s.”
“Oh.” She sighed. “The poor child gave me Hail Columbia over the phone a few moments ago. I suppose running that yarn was a rotten trick, so soon after the funeral. But that’s the trouble with newspaper work. You can’t be nice, and efficient, too.”
“Look, Paula. Will you do me one enormous favor? Print that retraction of the reconciliation story Bonnie demanded. Right away.”
“Why?” Her voice was instantly curious.
“Because I ask you to.”
“Ouch! You are possessive, aren’t you?”
“Forget personalities or your job. This is — vital. Do you know the derivation of that word? Paula, you must. Swing back into the old line — their furious feud from childhood, how they detest each other, how the death of their parents has driven them farther apart. Feed them raw meat. Keep them fighting.”
Paula said slowly: “Just why do you want to keep those poor mixed-up kids apart?”
“Because,” said Ellery, “they’re in love.”
“How logical you are! Or are you a misogamist with a mission in the world? Keep them apart because they’re in love? Why?”
“Because,” replied Ellery grimly, “it happens to be very, very dangerous for them to be in love.”
“Oh.” Then Paula said with a catch in her voice. “Aren’t we all?” and hung up.
Part Three
Chapter 12
International Mailers, Inc
Ellery, Sam Vix, and Lew Bascom were having breakfast Friday morning in the Magna commissary when Alan Clark strolled in, sat down beside them on a stool, and said to the aged waitress behind the counter: “Coffee, beautiful.”
“Oh, Alan.”
“Here I am. What’s on your mind?”
“I’ve been wondering,” said Ellery. “Just what is my status now in the studio?”
“Status?” The agent stared. “What d’ye mean? You’re on the payroll, aren’t you?”
“His conscience is havin’ an attack of the shakes,” grinned Lew. “I never saw such a guy for virtue. Like the little studio steno I was out with last night. I says to her—”
“I know,” protested Ellery, “but I was hired to work on the Royle-Stuart picture, and there is no Royle-Stuart picture any more.”
“Isn’t that too bad?” said Clark, shaking his head over the coffee. “My heart bleeds for you.”
“But what am I supposed to do, Alan? After all, I’m drawing fifteen hundred a week!”
The three men shook their heads in unison. “He’s drawing fifteen hundred a week,” said Sam Vix pityingly. “Now that’s what I call a stinking shame.”
“Look, Queen,” sighed the agent. “Was it your fault Jack Royle and Blythe got themselves purged?”
“I don’t see what that has to do with it.”
“Say, whose side are you on, anyway — labor or capital?” demanded Lew. “We writers got some rights!”
“Your contract wasn’t drawn up, if I may say so,” said Clark modestly, “by a cluck. You’ve got little Alan in there batting for you all the time, remember that. You contracted to work on a Royle-Stuart picture, and there’s nothing in that immortal document about murders.”