Free The Dragon’s Teeth by Ellery Queen

about it. Vi!” Kerrie clutched her friend. “You don’t think she’s trying to … drive me away?”
    â€œI wouldn’t put it past her,” said Vi grimly. “She’s the type. I s’pose if you lived somewhere else this year you’d be cut out of the will and she’d get your share?”
    Kerrie’s eyes snapped. “So that’s what she’s up to! Isn’t satisfied with twenty-five hundred a week and wants mine, too!”
    â€œTwenty-five hundred a week don’t go very far when you’re trying to corner the mink and sable markets, the way she’s doing.”
    â€œWell, she won’t chase me away! I’ll fight her!”
    â€œAtta girl,” said Vi enthusiastically. “Only let me get in a sock once in a while, will you, hon?”
    After that, it was interesting. Kerrie no longer fled. She was careful to join them whenever they began to whisper. At other times she permitted herself to be cultivated by Mr. Edmund De Carlos, who had been quietly pursuing her ever since she had moved in. Mr. De Carlos began to glow with a hot, somehow sinister, light. He became insistent. She must go out with him—often. He had discovered New York. He would show it to her. They must be great friends. Once, she accepted—that was the night when Beau, squirming in tropical tails, escorted the beautiful Miss Cole to the summer theatre.
    Everything went smoothly, and dully, until they were on their way home in De Carlos’s limousine. Then something happened. And after that Kerrie refused Mr. De Carlos’s invitations. In fact, she tried to ignore him, finding herself beginning to be terrified.
    But Mr. De Carlos’s light glowed hotter and more sinister. His wild and reckless excursions into New York’s night life almost ceased. He spent most of his time on the estate—watching Kerrie. When she went riding, he followed. When she went boating, he followed. When she swam, there he was on the edge of the pool, a little tense. She stopped tramping in the woods.
    Kerrie was thoroughly frightened. Vi suggested slipping poison into his soup, but Kerrie was not to be cheered by jests.
    â€œThen why don’t you talk to Ellery about it?” asked Vi. “He’s a man, and a detective, besides.”
    â€œI’d rather die! Oh, Vi, it isn’t just the way De Carlos looks at me. I’ve handled men with that kind of look before. It’s—something else.” She shivered. “I don’t quite know myself.”
    â€œIt’s your imagination. Why don’t you make a few friends? You’ve been here weeks and weeks and you don’t know a soul.”
    Kerrie nodded miserably.
    Vi sought out Beau. “Listen, you. I don’t like your taste in women, but I used to think you were a pretty decent guy once. If you’re any part a man, you’ll keep your eye on this bedbug De Carlos. He’s got what they call ‘designs’ on Kerrie, and I don’t mean the kind of designs they put on doilies.”
    â€œSeems to me,” said Beau indifferently, “she’s sort of egged him on.”
    â€œHow quaint!” said Margo, slipping the strap of her bathing suit back over her magnificent shoulder.
    â€œI wasn’t talking to you, grandma!”
    â€œWell,” said Beau hastily, “I’ll keep my eye peeled.”
    After that, Beau came even more frequently.

VI. The Knife and the Horseshoe
    Someone struck by night.
    Kerrie lay in her four-poster. It was warm, and she was covered only to the hips by a thin silk quilt. She was reading Emily Dickinson, absorbed in the lovely, piercing cries of ecstasy.
    Kerrie’s suite lay in an ell of the mansion, one story above the terrace which encircled the house. There were strong vines and trellises of roses on the walls outside her windows.
    The windows were open, and through the still curtains the gardens below sounded drowsy with