Read Online The Four of Hearts by Ellery Queen - Free Book Online Page B

Vix, and he scrambled out.
    â€˜Pardon the small still voice,’ said Ellery, ‘but aren’t you boys being a little optimistic? Suppose our friends the lovebirds refuse to be exploited? Suppose Ty Royle frowns on his eminent father’s hatchet-burying ritual?’
    â€˜Leave the details to me,’ said Butcher soothingly. ‘It’s my job to worry. Yours is to whip that story into shape. I want an adaptation okayed by the time they get back; if possible, the first sequence of the script ready. Get going.’
    â€˜You’re the boss,’ grinned Ellery. ‘Coming, Lew?’
    Lew waved the bottle. ‘Can’t you see I’m celebratin’ the nup-chu-als?’
    So Ellery set out on his quest alone.
    After a few telephone calls he headed his rented coupé towards Beverly Hills. He found the Royle estate near the grounds of the Los Angeles Country Club – an enormous castellated pile in the medieval English manner, faithful even unto the moat.
    The portals gaped, and flunkeys seemed non-existent; so Ellery followed his ears and soon came to an upper hall from which the raucous noises of a small but brisk riot were emanating. There he found the missing servants, grouped at a door in various attitudes of excited and pleasurable eavesdropping.
    Ellery tapped an emaciated English gentleman on the shoulder. ‘Since this seems to be a public performance,’ he drawled, ‘do you think there would be any objection to my going in?’
    A man gasped, and the Englishman coloured, and they all backed guiltily away. ‘I beg pawdon. Mr. Royle –’
    â€˜Ah, Louderback,’ said Ellery. ‘You are Louderback?’
    â€˜I am, sir,’ said Louderback stiffly.
    â€˜I am happy to note,’ said Ellery, ‘that your mastiff quality of loyalty is leavened by the human trait of curiosity. Louderback, stand aside.’
    Ellery entered a baronial room, prepared for anything. Nevertheless, he was slightly startled. Bonnie Stuart sat camp-fire fashion on top of a grand piano, gazing tragically into her mother’s calm face. On the other side of the room Jack Royle sat sipping a cocktail while his son raced up and down the hearthstone flapping his arms like an agitated penguin.
    â€˜â€“ won’t stand for it,’ moaned Bonnie to her mother.
    â€˜Darling, you won’t stand for it?’
    â€˜â€“ hell of a note,’ said Ty. ‘Dad, are you out of your mind? It’s – it’s treason!’
    â€˜Just coming to my senses, Ty. Blythe, I love you.’
    â€˜I love you, Jack.’
    â€˜Mother!’
    â€˜Dad!’
    â€˜Oh, it’s impossible!’
    â€˜â€“ even make me set foot in this house,’ cried Bonnie. Blythe rose from the piano bench and drifted dreamy-eyed towards her fiancé. Bonnie jumped down and began to follow her. ‘Even that’s a concession. Oh, mother darling. But I wouldn’t, only Clotilde said you’d come here to visit that – that man, and –’
    â€˜Do you have to marry her?’ pleaded Ty. ‘After so many years? Look at all the women you could have had!’
    â€˜Blythe dear.’ Jack Royle rose, too, and his son began a second chase. Ellery, watching unobserved and wide-eyed, thought they would soon need someone to direct traffic. They were weaving in and out without hand-signals, and it was a miracle no collisions occurred.
    â€˜â€“ old enough to lead my own life, Ty!’
    â€˜Of all the women in the world –’
    â€˜The only one for me.’ Jack took Blythe in his arms. ‘Two against the world, eh, darling?’
    â€˜Jack, I’m so happy.’
    â€˜Oh, my God.’
    â€˜â€“ after all the things you said about him, mother, I should think you’d be ashamed –’
    â€˜Bonnie, Bonnie. We’ve made up our minds. We’ve been fools –’
    â€˜Been?’ Bonnie appealed to the