The Four of Hearts by Ellery Queen

dark and unmoving against the stars.
    â€˜Bonnie. Darling,’ said Butcher thickly.
    â€˜Butch.’ Bonnie sighed. ‘They’re – they’re not … ?’
    â€˜They’re both dead.’
    The sky was so close.

PART TWO

CHAPTER 6
    CHOCOLATE MOUNTAIN
    The sky was so close. Because it was falling down. Down the chute of a trillion miles. Down through the pin-hole stars. Down to the gorse-covered plateau. Down on Bonnie’s head.
    She pressed her palms to her eyes. ‘I don’t believe it. I don’t believe it.’
    â€˜Bonnie,’ said Jacques Butcher.
    â€˜But it can’t be. Not Blythe. Not mother.’
    â€˜Bonnie. Darling. Please.’
    â€˜She always said she’d never grow old. She always said she’d live a million, million years.’
    â€˜Bonnie, let me take you away from here.’
    â€˜She didn’t want to die. She was afraid of death. Sometimes in the middle of the night she’d start to cry in her sleep, and I’d crawl into bed with her and she’d snuggle up to me like a baby.’
    â€˜I’ll get one of these Army pilots to fly you back to Los Angeles –’
    Bonnie dropped her hands. ‘It’s a horrid joke of some kind,’ she said slowly. ‘You’re all in a conspiracy.’
    Tyler Royle came stalking back, his face blank against the pale background of the flares.
    As he passed he said: ‘Come on, Bonnie,’ as if only he and Bonnie existed in a dark dead world.
    And Bonnie turned from Butch and followed Ty with something of the other-worldly stiffness of a Zombie.
    Lew Bascom came up to Butcher, who was standing still, and said hoarsely: ‘For gossakes, how do you get outa here?’
    â€˜You grow a pair of wings.’
    â€˜Nah,’ said Lew. ‘I’m – pooped.’ He stuck his fat face out over the gorse and made a sickish, retching sound. ‘Butch, I gotta get off this damn table-top. I need a drink. I need a lot o’ drinks.’
    â€˜Don’t bother me.’
    â€˜I never could stand a stiff. Are they – are they –’
    Butcher walked away. Ty and Bonnie seemed to be floating in the weird aura of mingled flarelight and starshine. They merged with and were lost in the black figures about the resting plane.
    Lew sank to the harsh grass, clutching his belly and shivering in the wind. After a moment he struggled to his feet and waddled towards an Army plane, its propeller roaring for a take-off.
    â€˜You gettin’ outa here?’ he shrieked.
    The pilot nodded, and Lew scrambled into the rear cockpit. His hat flew off in the backwash of air. He sank low in the cockpit, trembling. The plane trundled off.
    In the red-and-gold monoplane a man in flying togs was saying: ‘Hijacked by a pilot who made pretty sure he wouldn’t be recognized – and then this. It looks funny, Mr. Queen.’
    â€˜Funny?’ scowled Ellery. ‘The Greeks had another word for it, Lieutenant.’
    John Royle and Blythe Stuart half-sat, half-lay in upholstered swivel chairs in the cabin, across the aisle from each other. Their luggage, baskets of flowers, the wicker hamper were in the aisle between them. The lid of the hamper stood open. On the floor under Royle’s slack left hand lay the half-eaten remains of a ham sandwich. One of the thermos bottles from the hamper stood beside it. The empty cap-cup of the bottle was wedged between his thighs. His handsome features were composed. He looked as if he had fallen asleep.
    The second thermos bottle had obviously fallen from Blythe’s right hand: it lay, mouth tilted up, among the bruised blossoms of a rose-basket beside her. A wad of crumpled waxed paper, the wrappings of a consumed sandwich, was in her lap. The cup of the other thermos bottle had fallen to the floor between her feet. And she, too, eyes closed, serene of face, seemed asleep.
    â€˜It’s awfully queer,’ remarked