Rex Stout by The Mountain Cat Read Free Book Online Page B

with all her heart meant, to use that gun for the retaliation of the Brand family to the evil malignity which had murdered her father and driven her mother to suicide. She had so intended. Her teeth clenched harder. She had, she had!
    What Ty Dillon had said. What Uncle Quin had said. About her getting a cramp in her trigger finger. They were dead wrong.
    But she had left that bag, with that gun in it, on the seat of the car parked in the street and hadn’t gone back after it. Wasn’t anyone who would do that either a brainless fool or a cheap fraud?
    And now what? Her father’s gun, her chosen weapon, was gone. Now what? It was to have been tonight. That had been irrevocably decided. Now what? Her jaw, aching from the clenching of her teeth,began to quiver. Now what? Her head fell forward to the steering wheel, her face against her crossed forearms, and she began to cry. She hadn’t cried since her mother’s death. She cried quietly, not convulsively, but every minute or so her shoulders heaved as her indignant lungs issued the ultimatum, oxygen or death. She might, in the despair and dolor of that moment there at the roadside, while passing cars decelerated for the prolongation of curious glances, have preferred death, but nature requires something stronger than a mere passing preference to enforce that decision.
    When finally she straightened up, her face and forearms were wet. She disregarded them. She had not answered the question, now what, as to the ultimate retaliation she had designed, but she was going on, at least, with the immediate job. She released the brake and shifted the gear and the car shot forward.
    Ten miles farther on she slowed down again and turned right into a graveled and well-kept drive. At the edge of the public domain it passed under an enormous stone arch across the top of which was chiseled:
Cockatoo Ranch
. The Cockatoo had been the name of the lunchroom in Cheyenne where Lemuel Sammis had found Evelina long ago and when, in his opulence, he had bought a thousand of the most desirable acres in this valley and built a mansion thereon, he had named it Cockatoo Ranch; some whispers said to remind his wife of her lowly origin, but that was not true. Lem Sammis was a man of enduring sentiment. It was true that he had shouldered aside many men on his march up the hill, had broken not a few and never put scruple on his payroll, but it was undeniable that he had sentiment.
    Flowers were blooming, sprinklers were going, and the lawn was clipped and green. Delia left the car onthe gravel a hundred feet from the mansion and started across. Three or four dogs came running at her. A woman with three chins who weighed two hundred pounds stopped trying to reach a lilac twig and yelled at the dogs. Delia went and shook hands with her.
    It was Evelina. “I haven’t seen you for a coon’s age,” she declared, looking Delia over. “What you been crying about?”
    “Nothing. I came to see Mr. Sammis.”
    “First we’ll have some tea. If you’ve been crying you need it. Come over on the veranda. Oh, come on. One of the few things I like in all this damn business of putting on dog is this idea of afternoon tea. We’ll have some turkey sandwiches and potato salad.” She yelled at the top of her voice, “Pete!” and a Chinese appeared.
    Delia, to her own surprise, ate. The sandwiches and salad were excellent. Lemuel Sammis himself came out of the house and joined them, accompanied by a tired-looking man whom Delia recognized as the State Commissioner of Public Works. The fact that Mrs. Sammis did a lot of talking seemed not to interfere with her eating. It began to appear to Delia that tea threatened to have a collision with dinner.
    At length Sammis finished his third highball and arose. “You want to see me, Dellie? Come on in the house.”
    Delia followed him. He was the only person who had ever called her Dellie besides her father. In a room with, among other things, an ornate desk, a wall lined