The Dragon’s Teeth by Ellery Queen Read Free Book Online

have been easy for another girl. But Kerrie wasn’t the sort who could take, and give, love except the right way. With her it would be one or the other—the money or her happiness.
    He knew what she was thinking. She wasn’t in love with any one now. Perhaps she’d never been in love. With her figure, with her face, there must have been men, though—plenty of men, and all the wrong kind. She would be a little cynical about men. So what was she throwing away? Something that didn’t exist, probably, for something that you could turn instantly into the delicious good things of life, which she had never had.
    Kerrie laughed—a funny, quaking little laugh. “All right, Uncle Cadmus, you win. I die a virgin. Other women have. Maybe I’ll become a saint. Wouldn’t that be a scream, Ellery? Saint Kerrie. And all the other virgins would put up candles for me, and pray at my shrine!”
    Beau was silent.
    Kerrie said fiercely: “I can’t turn all that money down. I can’t! No one could. Could you?”
    â€œIt wouldn’t be a problem with me,” said Beau gruffly.
    She looked him in the eye. “It won’t be with me, either. But I think we’re talking about different things.”
    â€œCongratulations,” said Beau.
    It had to be. And of course she was right. He knew what it meant to go hungry, to be pushed around, to peer up at life from under the eight-ball.
    Kerrie smiled and got out of her chair suddenly and came round the table. She leaned over him, so close he smelled her skin. It smelled like clover—Beau had smelled a clover once.
    â€œMind if I kiss you for being such a swell Santa?”
    She kissed his lips. Lightly, in the shadows. He kept his lips deliberately tight, cold, hard.
    But his voice was thick. “You shouldn’t have done that, Kerrie. Damn it, you shouldn’t!”
    â€œOh, then you’re the keeper of my conscience, too?” She kissed him again, laughing. “Don’t worry, grandpa. I shan’t fall in love with you!”
    Beau got up from the chair so suddenly it fell over with a clatter and Kerrie stared at him with startled eyes.
    â€œCome on, Miss Millionbucks,” he growled. “Let’s go tell the good news to your girl friend. I bet she’ll die.”

IV. Goodbye to All That
    Kerrie and Vi wound their arms about each other in the dingy bedroom and cried and cried and cried, while Beau sat gloomily in the one good chair and helped himself freely to the contents of a brandy bottle he had thought to buy on the way home.
    Kerrie acted like a hysterical child. She threw her wardrobe, one poor dress at a time, all over the room as if they were confetti. Several times she ran over and kissed Beau, and he grinned back at her and offered her a drink.
    But she refused. “I’m drunk on good luck. Vi, I’m rich!”
    The landlady came up to investigate the noise, but Kerrie poured out the news in a burst, rattling on like a machine-gun, and a cunning look came into the landlady’s faded eyes.
    â€œImagine that!” she said, smacking her lips. “Imagine that—a real heiress! My!”
    Beau got rid of her.
    â€œShe’ll have every reporter in town here by morning,” he said. “Kerrie, pipe down. They’ll tear you to pieces.”
    â€œLet ’em! I love ’em all! I love the whole world!”
    â€œWet blanket!” shrieked Vi. “Kerrie, he’s just jealous!”
    â€œEllery, you aren’t!”
    â€œI guess I am,” said Beau. “That’s it—jealous. Of the income on half of fifteen million simoleons.”
    â€œOh, darling, don’t be! You’ll always be Santa Claus to me—isn’t he a handsome Santa, Vi? Darling, I won’t forget what you’ve—”
    â€œDamn it,” snarled Beau, “don’t patronize me!”
    â€œBut I’m not. It’s just that I want