There was a little uncomfortable interval, and then Glücke said: “It sounds screwy as the devil, but it might work, it might work. What do you say, you two?”
“I say, yes,” said Bonnie quickly, as if she were afraid that if she hesitated she might not say yes at all. “What do you say, darling?”
And Ty kissed her and said, “I love you, Pug Nose.” Then he said to Ellery in an altogether different tone of voice: “But if anything goes wrong, Queen, I swear I’ll strangle you with my bare hands. If it’s the last thing I do.”
“It probably will be,” muttered Ellery. “Because Egbert’s plan will undoubtedly be to stage a second St. Valentine’s Day massacre in that plane with his popgun and then bail out, leaving the plane to crash in the desert somewhere.”
Chapter 20
Castle in the Air
Time, which had been floating by, suddenly took on weight and speed. Ellery kept looking at his wristwatch in despair as he went into the details of his plan, instructing Ty and Bonnie over and over in their roles.
“Remember, Ty, you’ll have to handle all the arrangements; Glücke and I can’t possibly appear in this. In fact, we’ll stay as far away from you as we can until tomorrow. Have you a gun?”
“No.”
“Glücke, give him yours.” The Inspector handed his automatic over to Ty, who examined it expertly and dropped it into his jacket pocket. “Now what’s your story to the press?”
“Bonnie has received a warning to break our engagement, but we both agree it’s the work of some crank and intend to be married at once. I show the cards.”
“Right. Not a word about our real plans to any one. In a half-hour call Erminius and engage him to perform the ceremony. Bonnie.”
Bonnie peeped out from the cradle of Ty’s arms.
“You’re all right?”
“I’m feeling fine,” said Bonnie.
“Good girl! Now do a little of that acting Butch pays you for. You’re happy — just the proper combination of happiness and grief. You’re marrying Ty because you love him, and you also know that Blythe and Jack must be happy somewhere knowing what you’re about to do. The feud is over, never to be resurrected. You’ve got all that?”
“Yes,” said Bonnie in a shaky little voice.
“By George, I feel like a director!” Ellery grinned with a confidence he did not feel and stuck his hand out to Ty. “Good luck. By this time tomorrow night the nightmare will be over.”
“Don’t worry about us, Queen,” said Ty, shaking hands soberly. “We’ll come through. Only — get into that plane!”
Glücke said abruptly: “Stay here. Send for your duds, Ty. Don’t leave this house. It’s surrounded right now, but I’ll send two men in here to watch from a hiding-place — just in case. Don’t do anything foolish, like those heroes you play in the movies. At the first suspicion of trouble, yell like the devil.”
“I’ll take care of that part of it,” said Bonnie with a grimace; then she tried to smile, and they shook hands all around, and Ellery and the Inspector slipped out by the back way.
The next twelve hours were mad on the surface and madder underneath. The necessity for boring from within was a bother; Ellery was constantly answering telephone calls in his hotel apartment and giving cautious instructions. He could only pray that Ty and Bonnie were carrying off their end successfully.
The first assayable results came booming in via radio late that night. Towards the end of an expensive Saturday-night program a studio announcer interrupted with the detailed news of the projected wedding. Apparently Sam Vix had sailed into his assignment with his customary energy. Within two hours four of the largest radio stations on the Pacific Coast had broadcast the announcement of the Sunday airplane wedding of Tyler Royle and Bonnie Stuart. A famous female studio commentator climbed panting on the air to give the palpitating public the intimate details of the plan, as transmitted directly from the mouths of the lovers themselves. The interview, reported this lady, had been too, too sweet. Somebody, she said sternly, had had the bad taste to “warn” Bonnie against marriage. This was, it seemed, a frank and brutal case of lese majesté. Those two, poor, sorrowing children! panted the lady. She hoped every friend Ty and Bonnie had within driving distance of Griffith Park airport would be on hand Sunday to show Ty and Bonnie what the world thought of their coming union.
The newspapers erupted with the news late Saturday night, chasing a scarehead concerning the Japanese war in China off the front page.
And so on, interminably, far into the night.
Ellery and the Inspector met secretly at Police Headquarters at two o’clock in the morning to discuss developments. So far, so good. Dr. Erminius had been duly, and unsuspectingly, engaged to perform the unique ceremony. Dr. Erminius was delighted, it appeared, at this heaven-sent opportunity to join two fresh young souls in holy wedlock with God’s pure ether as a background, although he fervently prayed to the Lord that there would be no repetition of the ghastly aftermath of the first Royle-Stuart wedding at which he had officiated.
The pilot had also been engaged; he had been selected without his knowledge more for his character than for his skill as an aviator. He was known to have a healthy respect for firearms.
In his office at Headquarters Glücke had several photographs of the eminent divine ready for Ellery, who came down with a make-up box stolen from one of the Magna dressing-rooms; and the two men spent several anxious hours making Ellery up and comparing him with Dr. Erminius’s photographs. They agreed finally that a bundling, muffling overcoat with a beaver collar, such as Dr. Erminius affected in brisk weather, would help; and parted with plans to meet early in the morning.
Ellery returned to Hollywood, snatched three hours of uneasy sleep, and at eight Sunday morning met the Inspector and two detectives outside Dr. Erminius’s expensive house in Inglewood. They went in; and when they came out they were minus the two detectives and richer by a fur-collared coat. The good man howled ungodly imprecations from within.
Several telephone calls, a final check-up... Ellery crossed his fingers. “Nothing more for us to do,” he sighed. “Well, so long, Glücke. See you in the Troc or in hell.”
At noon Sunday the parking spaces about the Griffith Park airport were almost filled. At one o’clock there was a jam over which a hundred policemen sweated and cursed. At one-fifteen all cars were halted at the intersection of Los Feliz and Griffith Park boulevards and detoured; and at one-thirty it seemed as if every automobile-owner in the State of California had come to see Ty and Bonnie married.
Ty’s red-and-gold plane stood in a cleared area considerably larger than the area in which it had stood a week before. But the jam threatened to burst the ropes on the field, and the police heaved against them, shouting. When Dr. Erminius’s royal-blue limousine rolled onto the field under motorcycle escort and the good dominie descended, complete with shiny black whiskers and beaver-collared coat, muffled to the ears — the doctor had a bad cold, it appeared — a cheer shook the heavens. And when Ty and Bonnie arrived, pale but smiling, the din frightened a flock of pigeons into swooping for cover.
Cameras were leveled, reporters yelled themselves hoarse, and Ty and Bonnie and Dr. Erminius were photographed from every conceivable angle and in every position commensurate with the moral tone of the family newspaper.