The Amethyst Spectacles by Frances Crane

Author:Frances Crane
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: MysteriousPress.com/Open Road
Published: 2022-02-15T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 14

I fell asleep on Patrick’s shoulder soon after leaving Santa Fe. I had told him what Edwina had said as soon as we were on our way. He wouldn’t listen in the restaurant, because we had only a little time to dance and have fun.

When I woke, the car was making a hollow noise as it rolled across the bridge over the Silver River three miles or so south of the place where the road past the Ames place branched off.

The moonlight shone through a thin skim of gloomy-looking clouds. Its light lay pallid on the earth. The mountains looked gray and dreamlike. The canyon in this pallor did not exist. Desert plants near the highway had a ghostly character, their shadows darker ghosts.

I shivered and moved closer to Patrick, and Pancho, who was curled under my coat on my lap, squirmed and grunted, hating to be disturbed. For some reason a motor-car ride always exhausted the dog.

Patrick asked, “Have a good nap?”

“I guess so,” I said. The headlights caught a glint of eyes. “See that cat, darling?”

“Too wide apart for a housecat.”

I sat stiff.

“Do you think it’s a wildcat?” There were supposed to be wildcats in our valley but I had never seen one. I had never seen one anywhere outside of a zoo. I hadn’t even heard one. Once in Yellowstone at night I had heard something screaming horridly like a woman being murdered but they told me next morning that it had been a moose. I never had quite believed that a melancholy, stupid-looking moose could emit such a neurotic scream. AH of which is irrelevant except that later we learned that Bee Chandler had taken her gun along that night, when she drove out to sit up with Maurice while the nurse slept, because a wildcat had been seen hanging around the Ames ranch. It was the calving season, and Bee thought—or said she thought—that she had hoped to get the cat before it killed and devoured another calf.

Anyway, riding along, I looked up and felt a little excited as I noted how extra determined was Patrick’s profile.

I kissed his sleeve. “What’s the matter, darling?”

“Lots of things. I didn’t tell you, but that was Karen’s thumbprint on the lens of those spectacles.”

I felt a sinking. “Then she did leave them in Ray’s study? So she did go there? She must have forgotten them.… I expect they dropped behind the files and she forgot them, or had to run away in a hurry without picking them up. She must have come back for them and was lurking in the garage while we were there. Then it was Karen that choked me!”

Patrick said, “Her fingerprints were also on the revolver. I also didn’t tell you, Jeanie, but I found that bullet which was fired through the window at me the other night after we were out and prowled about The Rock. It’s the type used in Bee Chandler’s rifle.”

“Oh, darling!” I said. It was so horrible. “But

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