American Gun Mystery by Ellery Queen Read Free Book Online Page B

chorus of assorted bellows, roars, thunders, screams, and shrieks was one Djuna Queen, yelling himself a lovely olive-green in the face.
    Ellery grinned and glanced at Kit Horne. She was sitting tensely forward, an anxious expression on her soft brown features, watching the eastern gate of the arena with eyes of troubled gray-blue.
    A uniformed attendant, very small and puny at this distance, manipulated the doors, they swung back, and out into the glare of the amphitheatre galloped a magnificent horse, a powerful animal with shining tight flanks and proudly tossing head. On his back sat a man.
    “Buck!”
    “Buck Horne!”
    “Ride ’im, cowboy!”
    Horne leaned forward in his saddle, riding with fluent ease, the gallant old buckaroo. In a roped-off section of the box-tier a band struck up. There was an unearthly din. It was like opening night of the circus in Kankakee, or West Tannerville, Ohio. Djuna was banging his palms together madly. Kit had sunk back with a smile.
    Ellery leaned forward and tapped her knee. She turned, startled. “Nice animal he’s riding!” shouted Ellery.
    She threw back her head and laughed from a full throat. “He certainly ought to be, Mr. Queen! He cost five thousand dollars.”
    “Phew! A horse?”
    “A horse. That’s Rawhide, my favorite, my gorgeous pet. Buck wanted most especially to ride Rawhide tonight. Said it would bring him luck.”
    Ellery sat back, smiling vaguely. The man on horseback had doffed his splendid black ten-gallon hat, bowing right and left, and had urged his animal forward with his knees until they pulled up near the eastern turn of the oval after almost a complete circuit of the track, below and a little to the right of the guest-box in which the Mars party sat. He sat astride like an old god, with perfect ease; the brilliant lights caught the metal and leather glints on his rich Western regalia, the glints on his white hair where it blanketed his neck below his hat-brim. The horse posed like a model, proudly, his sleek right forefoot delicately extended before him.
    Kit rose, a smartly gowned young woman, filled her deep chest with air, opened her red mouth, and gave vent to a long ululating cry which raised the short hair on Ellery’s nape and brought him, blinking, to his feet. The Inspector grasped the arms of his chair. Djuna jumped a foot. Then Kit quietly sat down, grinning. In the din the man on horseback half-turned his head as if searching for someone.
    Someone behind Ellery said venomously: “Slut!”
    Ellery said hastily to Kit: “The call of the wild, eh?”
    Her grin had vanished. She nodded pleasantly, but her little brown jaw tightened and her back was soldier-stiff.
    Ellery turned casually. Big Tommy Black was sitting forward, elbows resting on his knees. He was whispering to Mara Gay. Julian Hunter smoked a cigar silently in the background. Tony Mars was staring as if hypnotized at the arena.
    Wild Bill was roaring frantically against the surge of noise. The band played: “Ta-ra!” several times, fortissimo, its uniformed conductor waving his baton desperately. Then Horne himself held up his hand for silence, and it came with a gradual subsidence of sound after the lapse of mere seconds, like a thunderous sea receding swiftly from a deck.
    “La-dees and Gentle-men,” shouted Wild Bill. “I want to thank ya, an’ Buck wants to thank ya, one an’ all, for this Won-der-ful Rrrrecep-shun! Now the first e-vent will be a Rrrrip-Snortin’ Ride aroun’ the A-re-nah, with Buck leadin’ Forrrty Rrrri-ders in a Hell-Bent-fer-Leather Chase! Just the way he used to lead th’ posses after the Dirrrt-y Vill-’ins in his movin’ pitchers! That’s just a starter, an’ then Buck’ll get down to bus’-ness, per-formin’ In-div-id-u-al Feats of Horrrse-man-ship an’ Sharrrp-shoot-in’!”
    Buck Horne pulled his hat firmly down on his forehead. Wild Bill hefted his revolver from the holster, pointed it at the roof, and once more pulled the