“Me!” yelled Roger Priam.
“No, it’s me she shot at.” Delia Priam’s voice was listless. “She’s wrong, but I understand how you can bring yourself to do a thing like this when you’ve lost somebody you’ve loved. I wish I had Laurel’s spunk. Crowe, stop looking like a dead carp. I hope you’re not going to be stuffy about this and let Laurel down. It’s probably taken her weeks to work herself up to this, and at that she had to get drunk to do it. She’s a good girl, Crowe. She needs you. And I know you’re in love with her.”
Laurel’s bones all seemed to melt at once. She sighed, and then she was silent.
“I think,” murmured Ellery, “that the good girl has passed out.”
Macgowan came to life. He snatched Laurel’s limp figure from Ellery’s arms, looked around wildly, and then ran with her. The door opened before him; Wallace stood there, smiling.
“She’ll be all right.” Delia Priam walked out of the room. “I’ll take care of her.”
They watched her go up the stairs behind her son, back straight, head high, hips swinging.
Chapter Fourteen
By the night of July thirteenth all the reports were in.
“If I’m a detective,” Keats said unhappily to Ellery, “then you’ve got second sight. I’m still not sure how you doped this without inside information.”