“Very wise of you, dear,” Cassie said. “What prompted you to come back?”
Leslie Horn said feelingly that she wished she knew.
“Anyway, I got the job, and had dinner and went to the movies, and then I went back to my apartment. And there in the entrance hall stood Chard—”
“Chard? What was she doing there?” Leonidas demanded.
“She was so excited, it was hard for me to get the jist of things. Seemed she’d taken a plane over after me, and she wanted me to come back at once, by plane, with her.”
“Why?”
Leslie Horn lighted a cigarette.
“It was all so frenzied, I never thought till later that Chard hadn’t actually given me any reason. I got the impression that Medora’d been taken ill, and wanted me, though I must admit Chard didn’t say so. And they’d never found my note. I’d told the butler about it—”
“But the deaf old thing never understood you, of course,” Cassie said.
“Apparently not. Anyway, the snowstorm grounded the plane Chard planned to take, so we took the midnight instead. And I still thought I was being noble, and going on an errand of mercy to mother’s old friend, until I waked up in the night and found Chard going through my pocketbook, and fingering the hundred- dollar bill I’d got from my agent as an advance.”
“What?” Cassie didn’t exactly scream, but the effect was the same. “What did you do?”
“Told her coldly she had my pocketbook by mistake, and she dropped it like a hot cake, and looked so completely terrified I didn’t pursue the subject. I felt sorry for her. Some people pry, without meaning any harm, and I decided she was just a prying, meddlesome little thing. So I went back to sleep. I thought I’d squelched her. But when I woke up later, around dawn, she was gone. And I discovered she’d been in my briefcase, and taken—”
“The gun and the handcuffs,” Leonidas said gently. “M’yes.”
“How did you know?”
“I saw them. Er—why a gun, and handcuffs?”
“I don’t know,” Leslie said. “I don’t know what goes on in the mind of a mouth-wash and tooth-paste company! All I know is that they’re willing to pay me handsomely for a picture of a gun and a pair of handcuffs against a background of spring flowers.”
Leslie tossed her half-smoked cigarette into the fireplace.
“They’d given me that gun and the handcuffs for models,” she went on, “and I couldn’t afford to have anyone swipe ‘em. I didn’t intend anyone should. So I dressed and waited for Chard to come back. I knew she’d have to, because all her clothes and things were there. And when she scuttled in, I grabbed her and shook her till her teeth clattered. I had to threaten her with every known form of torture before she finally broke down and told me that she’d wrapped up the gun and the handcuffs and thrown ‘em away! And just as I started for the water cooler, she stopped blubbering long enough to announce that Shakespeare saw her do it. At that point, I decided that the woman wasn’t just a harmless, meddlesome busybody. I decided she was stark mad.”
“M’yes. Let us,” Leonidas said, “hear the rest.”
“Suddenly,” Leslie said, “I began to realize that Chard had given me no real reason for rushing back to Dalton. I didn’t really know Medora was sick. There was no telling what Chard might be up to. I began to get worried. Then I thought, suppose someone really saw her throw that package away, and had picked it up—after all, a gun and handcuffs aren’t things you can explain in any offhand manner. I’d taken them for granted. They were models. But someone else might look on them very differently.”
“M’yes,” Leonidas said. “They are not standard accessories for the average young woman. So that’s why you planted the lipstick, and arranged the lipstick hunt?”
“I had to get that package. I couldn’t go back and tell old Blotz that I’d lost his gun and handcuffs. He’d give the job to someone else. And I didn’t want to have to try to explain to a lot of cops. Of course, the gun wasn’t loaded, and the handcuffs were locked, and I didn’t have the key. But even so!”
Leonidas nodded.
“I noticed that they were quite harmless, but, as you say, even so.”
“Shakespeare, you did look! You took it out, and looked, and put it back before I came! Oh, I should have known! I wondered about you. You were so bland. But when you didn’t say anything, or follow me, I thought I was just imagining things. And I thought that maybe I’d been harsh on Chard. After all, you do look like Shakespeare. Anyway, I took the package, and walked to the club car, and then back to our drawing room, and—”
“And Chard hit you over the head!” Cassie said. “We guessed that. Bill’s marvelous at figuring things out. Go on, dear. She hit you. How did you ever let that happen?”
“I never expected it! I told you, after I saw Shakespeare, I thought I’d misjudged Chard. I thought she was just meddlesome, and queer. And after I’d shaken her teeth out, and threatened her to boot, I never suspected that she’d up and biff me with the heel of a ground gripper shoe!”
“Why should she?” Cassie demanded.
“I suppose it was the only thing she had at hand. Oh, you mean why she hit me? I don’t know. I don’t know
