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+The Project Gutenberg eBook, Murder at Bridge, by Anne Austin
+
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+
+
+
+Title: Murder at Bridge
+
+
+Author: Anne Austin
+
+
+
+Release Date: September 28, 2006  [eBook #19403]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)
+
+
+***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MURDER AT BRIDGE***
+
+
+E-text prepared by Mark C. Orton, Mary Meehan, and the Project Gutenberg
+Online Distributed Proofreading Team (https://www.pgdp.net/)
+
+
+
+Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this
+      file which includes the original illustration.
+      See 19403-h.htm or 19403-h.zip:
+      (https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/9/4/0/19403/19403-h/19403-h.htm)
+      or
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+
+
+
+
+
+MURDER AT BRIDGE
+
+A Mystery Novel
+
+by
+
+ANNE AUSTIN
+
+Author of "Murder Backstairs"
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Grosset & Dunlap Publishers New York
+Set up and electrotyped. Published February, 1931. Reprinted March,
+April, 1931; February, 1932.
+Printed in the United States of America
+
+
+
+
+For ARLINE AND F. HUGH HERBERT
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: Ground-floor plan of Nita Selim's house in Primrose
+Meadows, showing the bedroom in which the murder was committed.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER ONE
+
+
+Bonnie Dundee stretched out a long and rather fine pair of legs,
+regarding the pattern of his dark-blue socks with distinct satisfaction;
+then he rested his black head against the rich upholstery of an armchair
+not at all intended for his use.
+
+His cheerful blue eyes turned at last--but not too long a last--to the
+small, upright figure seated at a typewriter desk in the corner of the
+office.
+
+"Good morning, Penny," he called out lazily, and good-humoredly waited
+for the storm to break.
+
+"Miss Crain--to _you_!" The flying fingers did not stop an instant, but
+Dundee noticed with glee that the slim back stiffened even more rigidly
+and that there was a decided toss of the brown bobbed head.
+
+"But Penny is so much more like you," Dundee protested, unruffled. "And
+why should I be forced always to think of you as a long-legged bird,
+when even our mutual boss, District Attorney William S. Sanderson, has
+the privilege of calling you what you are--a bright and shining new
+penny?"
+
+"I've known Bill Sanderson since I was born," the unseen lips informed
+him truculently, even as the unseen fingers continued their fiercely
+staccato typing.
+
+"Ah! That explains a lot!" Dundee conceded handsomely. "I just wondered,
+amidst all this bonhommie of 'Bill' and 'Penny,' why I--"
+
+"I only call Mr. Sanderson 'Bill' when I forget!" the small creature
+defended herself sharply. "Goodness knows I _try_ to be an efficient
+private secretary! And I could be a lot more efficient if lazy strangers
+didn't plump themselves down in our best visitors' chair, and try to
+flirt with me. I don't flirt! Do you hear?--_I don't flirt with
+anybody!_"
+
+"Flirt with you, you funny little Penny?" Dundee's voice was a little
+sad, the voice of a man who finds himself grievously misunderstood. "I
+only want you to like me, if you can, and be a little nice to me, for
+after all I--"
+
+"Oh, I know!" Penny Crain jerked the finished letter from her typewriter
+and spun about on her narrow-backed swivel chair to face him. "I know
+you are 'Mr. James F. Dundee, Special Investigator attached to the
+office of the District Attorney,' and that you have a right to drive me
+crazy if you want to."
+
+"_Crazy?_" Dundee was genuinely amazed, contrite. "I beg your pardon
+most humbly, Miss Crain. I'll go back to my cell--"
+
+"Your office is almost as big and nice as this one," Penny retorted, but
+her sharp, bright brown eyes--really almost the color of a new
+penny--softened until they took on a velvety depth.
+
+Dundee did not fail to notice the softening, nor did the little
+heart-shaped face, with its low widow's-peak, its straight, short nose,
+and its pointed little chin, made almost childish by the deep cleft
+which cut through its obvious effort to look mature and determined, fail
+to please him any more acutely than on the other days of the one short
+week he had been privileged at intervals to gaze upon it.
+
+"But the files, and--other things--are in this office," he told her, his
+blue eyes twinkling happily once more.
+
+"Don't you _dare_ touch my files again!" Penny cried, springing to her
+feet and running toward the wall which was completely concealed by
+drawers, cabinets and shelves, filled with the records of which she was
+the proud custodian. "That's why I said just now that you were driving
+me crazy. Thursday you took a whole folder of correspondence out of the
+letter files and put it back under the wrong initial. I had to hunt for
+it for two hours, with Bill--I mean, Mr. Sanderson--gnawing his nails
+with impatience. He thought I had filed it wrong, and you might have
+made me lose my job."
+
+Unconsciously her slightly husky contralto voice had sunk lower and
+trembled audibly.
+
+"I'm awfully sorry. I shan't touch your files again, Miss Crain."
+
+"Oh--go on and call me Penny," she conceded impatiently. "What do you
+want now?... And you can get anything you need out of the files if
+you'll just put the folder in the bottom drawer of my desk, so that I
+can file it myself--correctly!"
+
+"Thank you, Penny," Bonnie Dundee said gravely. "I'd like awfully to
+have the complete transcript of 'The State versus Maginty.' Mr.
+Sanderson is determined to get a conviction where our former district
+attorney most ingloriously failed. The new trial comes up in two weeks,
+and he wants me to try to uncover a missing link of evidence."
+
+"I know," she nodded, and stretched her short, slender body to pull down
+the two heavy volumes he required.
+
+Without a by-your-leave, Special Investigator Dundee resumed his
+comfortable seat, and laid the first of the volumes open upon his knees.
+But he did not seem to take a great deal of interest in the impanelling
+of jurors in the case of one Rufus Maginty, who had won the temporary
+triumph of a "hung jury" under the handling of the state's case by
+District Attorney Sherwood, deposed in November's election.
+
+Rather, his eyes followed the small, brisk figure of Miss Penelope
+Crain, as it moved about the room, and his ears listened to the somehow
+charming though emphatic tapping of her French heels.... French heels!
+Hadn't she been wearing sensible, Cuban-heeled Oxfords all other days of
+this first week of his "attachment" to the district attorney's
+office?... Cunning little thing, for all her thorniness and her
+sharpness with him, which he now saw that he had deserved.... Pretty,
+too.... Damned pretty!... What color was that dress of hers?... Ummm,
+let's see ... Chartreuse, didn't they call it? Chartreuse with big brown
+dots in it. Bet it was sleeveless under that short little jacket of
+golden-brown chiffon velvet.... By Jove--and Dundee lapsed into one of
+the Englishisms he had picked up during his six months' work in England
+as a tyro in the records department of Scotland Yard, before he had come
+to Hamilton to make a humble beginning as a cub detective on the
+Homicide Squad--yes, by Jove, she was all dressed up, for some reason or
+other.
+
+"Of course! Because it's Saturday and you have the afternoon off!"
+Dundee finished his reverie aloud, to the astonishment of the small
+person trying to reach a file drawer just a little too high for her. "I
+mean," he hastened to explain, "that I've just noticed how beautiful
+your costume is, and found a reason for it."
+
+There was sudden color in the creamy face. The French heels tapped an
+angry progress across the big office, and Penny sat down abruptly in her
+swivel chair, reached across the immaculate desk, snatched up a morning
+paper and tossed it, without a glance, in the general direction of her
+tormentor.
+
+"Page three, column two, first item," she informed him ungraciously, and
+then began to search with a funny sort of desperation for more work to
+consume her extraordinary energy.
+
+Bonnie Dundee grinned indulgently as he opened _The Hamilton Morning
+News_ and turned to the specified page and column.
+
+"Ah! My old friend, the 'society editress,' in her very best style," he
+commented as he began to read aloud:
+
+"'Mrs. Juanita Selim, new and charming member, is entertaining the
+Forsyte Alumnae Bridge Club this afternoon, luncheon to be served at the
+exclusive new Breakaway Inn on Sheridan Road--'"
+
+"I've read it--and I'm busy, so shut up!" Penny commanded, as she
+gathered up pencils to sharpen.
+
+Quite meekly, Bonnie Dundee subsided into silent perusal of an item he
+was sure could have no possible interest for himself, in either a
+personal or professional capacity, unless Penny's name was in it
+somewhere:
+
+"--after which the jolly party of young matrons and maids will adjourn
+to Mrs. Selim's delightful home in the Primrose Meadows Addition." He
+chuckled, and dared to interrupt the high importance of pointing-up
+pencils. "I say, that's funny, isn't it?... 'Primrose Meadows
+Addition'!"
+
+"I don't think it's funny," Penny retorted coldly. "It so happens that
+my mother named it, that my father went into bankruptcy trying to make a
+go of it, and that 'Mrs. Selim's delightful home' was built to be our
+home, and in which we were fortunate enough to live only two months
+before the crash came."
+
+"Oh!" Dundee groaned. "Penny, Penny! I'm dreadfully sorry."
+
+"Shut up!" she ordered, but her voice was huskier than ever with tears.
+
+Dundee's now thoroughly interested eyes raced down the absurdly written
+paragraphs:
+
+"Although not an alumna of that famous and select school for girls,
+Forsyte-on-the-Hudson, graduation from which places any Hamilton girl in
+the very inner circle of Hamilton society, Mrs. Selim has been closely
+identified with the school, having for the past two years directed and
+staged Forsyte's annual play which ushers in the Easter vacation.
+
+"Indeed it was Mrs. Selim's remarkable success with this year's play
+which caused Mrs. Peter Dunlap, long interested in a Little Theater for
+Hamilton, to induce the beautiful and charming young directress to come
+to Hamilton with her. Plans for the Little Theater are growing apace,
+and it is safe to conjecture that not all the conversation flying thick
+and fast about 'Nita's' bridge tables this afternoon will be concerned
+with contract 'conventions,' scores, and finesses which failed.
+
+"Lovely 'Nita' was elected to membership a fortnight ago, when a vacancy
+occurred, due to the resignation of Miss Alice Humphrey, who has gone
+abroad for a year's study in the Sorbonne. The two-table club now
+includes: Mesdames Hugo Marshall, Tracey A. Miles, Peter Dunlap, John C.
+Drake, Juanita Selim, and Misses Polly Beale, Janet Raymond, and
+Penelope Crain."
+
+Dundee lowered the paper and stared at the profile of District Attorney
+Sanderson's private secretary. So she was a "society girl," a "Forsyte"
+girl! Was that the reason, perhaps, why she had been so thorny with him,
+a mere "dick"? Well, he wasn't just a dick any longer. He was a Special
+Investigator ... A society girl, playing at work....
+
+But there was more, and he read on: "As is well known, the 'girls' have
+their 'hen-fight' bridge-luncheon every Saturday afternoon from the
+first of October to the first of June, and a bridge-dinner, in which
+mere men are graciously included, every other Wednesday evening during
+the season. Mr. and Mrs. Tracey A. Miles are scheduled as next
+Wednesday's host and hostess."
+
+"I take off my hat to your 'society editress'," Dundee commented with
+false cheerfulness, when he had laid the paper back upon Penny's desk.
+"She makes half a column of this one item in what must be a meager
+Saturday bunch of 'Society Notes,' then writes it all over again, in the
+past tense, for an equally meager Monday column.... Like bridge, Miss
+Crain?"
+
+Penny snatched up the paper and crushed it into her wastebasket. "I do!
+And I like my old friends, even if I am not able, financially, to keep
+up with them.... If that's why you've suddenly decided to stop
+being--comrades--"
+
+"Please forgive me again, Penny," he begged gently.
+
+"I was born into that crowd, and I still belong to it, because all of
+them are my real friends, but get this into your thick Scotch-Irish
+head, Mr. Dundee--I'm working because I have to, and--and because I love
+it, too, and because I want to earn enough before I'm many years older
+to give Mother some of the things she's missing so dreadfully
+since--since my father failed and--and ran away."
+
+"Ran away?" Dundee echoed incredulously. How could any man desert a
+daughter like this!
+
+"Yes! Ran away!" she repeated fiercely. "I might as well tell you
+myself. Plenty of others will be willing to, as soon as they know you
+are--my friend.... As I told you, my father"--her voice broke--"my
+father went bankrupt, but before the courts knew it he had sent some
+securities to a--to a _woman_ in New York, and when he--left us, he went
+to her, because he left Mother a note saying so. His defrauded creditors
+here have tried to--to catch him, but they haven't--yet--"
+
+Very gently Bonnie Dundee took the small hand that was distractedly
+rumpling the brown waves which swept back from the widow's-peak. It lay
+fluttering in his bigger palm for a moment, then snatched itself away.
+
+"I won't have you feeling sorry for me!" she cried angrily.
+
+"Who owns your--the Primrose Meadows house now?--Mrs. Selim?" he asked.
+
+"The 'lovely Nita'?" Her voice was scornful. "No. She rents it from
+Judge Hugo Marshall--or is supposed to pay him rent," she added with a
+trace of malice. "Hugo is an old darling, but he is fearfully weak where
+pretty women are concerned. Nita Selim had known Hugo in New
+York--somehow--and as soon as Lois--Mrs. Dunlap, I mean--had got Nita
+off the train, the stranger in our midst hied herself to Hugo's office
+and he's been tagging after her ever since.... Though most of the men in
+our crowd are as bad as or worse than poor old Hugo. How Karen keeps on
+looking so blissfully happy--"
+
+"Karen?" Dundee interrupted.
+
+"Mrs. Hugo Marshall," she explained impatiently. "Karen Plummer made her
+debut a year ago this last winter--a darling of a girl. Judge
+Marshall--retired judge, you know--had been proposing to the prettiest
+girl in each season's crop of debs for the last twenty years, and Hugo
+must have been the most nonplussed 'perennial bachelor' who ever led a
+grand march when Karen snapped him up.... Loved him--actually! And it
+seems to have worked out marvelously.... A baby boy three months old,"
+she concluded in her laconic style. Then, ashamed; "I don't know why I'm
+gossiping like this!"
+
+"Because you can't find another blessed scrap of work to do, you little
+efficiency fiend," Dundee laughed, "Come on! Gossip some more. My
+Maginty case will wait till afternoon, to be mulled over while you're
+losing your hard-earned salary at bridge with rich women."
+
+"We don't play for high stakes," she corrected him. "Just a twentieth of
+a cent a point, though contract can run into money even at that. The
+winnings all go to the Forsyte Scholarship Fund. On Wednesday evenings
+the crowd plays for higher stakes--a tenth--and winners keepers.
+Therefore I can't afford to go, unless I sink so low as to let my escort
+pay my losses--which I sometimes do," she confessed, her brown head low
+for a moment.
+
+"Is this Mrs. Peter Dunlap a deep-bosomed club woman, who starts
+Movements?" he asked, more to bring her out of her depression than
+anything else. "Bigger and Better Babies Movements, and Homes for Fallen
+Girls, and Little Theater Movements?"
+
+The brown head flung itself up sharply, and the brown eyes hardened into
+bright pennies again. "Lois Dunlap is the sweetest, finest, most
+_comfortable_ woman in Hamilton, and I adore her--as does everyone else,
+Peter Dunlap hardly more than the rest of us. She _is_ interested in a
+Little Theater for Hamilton, but she won't manage it. That's why she got
+hold of Nita Selim. Lois will simply put up barrels of money, without
+missing them, and give a grand job to a little Broadway gold-digger.
+Funny thing is, she really delights in Nita. Thinks she's sweet and has
+never had a real chance."
+
+"And what do you think?" Dundee asked softly.
+
+"Oh--I suppose I'm a cat, but I can see through her so clearly. Not that
+she's bad; she's simply an opportunist. She's awfully sweet and
+deferential and 'frank' with women, but with men--well, she simply tucks
+her head so that her shoulder-length black curls fall forward
+enchantingly, gives them one wistful smile out of her big eyes that are
+like black pansies and--the clink of slave chains!... Now go on and
+think I'm catty, which I suppose I am!"
+
+Bonnie Dundee grinned at her reassuringly. Not for him to explain that
+practically all women and many men found themselves "gossiping" when he
+led them on adroitly, for reasons of his own. Which of course helped
+make him the excellent detective he was.
+
+"So all the men in your crowd have fallen for Nita Selim, have they?"
+
+"Practically all, in varying degrees, except Peter Dunlap, who has never
+looked at another woman since he was lucky enough to get Lois, and Clive
+Hammond, who's engaged to Polly Beale," Penny answered reluctantly, her
+color high.
+
+"Including _your_ young man?"
+
+"I haven't a 'young man,' in the sense of being engaged," Penny
+retorted, then added honestly: "I _have_ been letting Ralph
+Hammond--that's Clive's brother, you know--take me about a good
+deal.... Ralph and Clive have plenty of money," she defended herself
+hastily. "They are architects, Clive being the head of the firm and
+Ralph, who hasn't been out of college so very long, a junior partner.
+It was the Hammond firm that drew up the plans for Dad's--I mean, my
+father's--Primrose Meadows Addition houses. He had our house built as a
+sort of show-place, you know, so that prospective builders out there
+could see how artistic a home could be put up for a moderate sum of
+money. But he didn't quite finish even that--left half the gabled top
+story unfinished, and Nita has been teasing Hugo to finish it up for
+her. It looks," she added with a shrug, "as if Nita will get what she
+wants--as usual."
+
+"And Ralph has acquired a set of slave chains?" Dundee suggested, with
+just the slightest note of sympathy.
+
+"_And how!_" Penny assured him, grimly. "A simile as out-of-date as my
+clothes are going to be if I don't get some new ones soon. Not that the
+crowd minds what I wear," she added loyally. "I could dress up in a
+window drape--"
+
+"And be just as charming as you are in that grand new party dress you
+have on now," Dundee finished for her gallantly.
+
+"_New!_" Penny snorted and turned back to her desk in a futile effort to
+find something left undone.
+
+Dundee ignored the rebuff. "How many suckers--I mean, how many gentlemen
+with moderate incomes actually built in Primrose Meadows?"
+
+"You are inquisitive, aren't you?... None! Our house, or rather the one
+Nita Selim is living in now, is the only house on what used to be a big
+farm.... Why?"
+
+"I was just wondering," Dundee said softly, almost absent-mindedly,
+"why the 'lovely Nita' chose so isolated a place in which to live,
+when Hamilton has rather a large number of 'For Rent' signs out just
+now.... By the way, know what time it is now?... Twenty to one! Get your
+hat on, young woman. I'm going to drive you out to Breakaway Inn."
+
+"You're not! I'm going to take a bus. One runs from the Square right
+past the Inn," she told him firmly.
+
+And just as firmly Dundee escorted her out of the almost deserted,
+rather dirty old courthouse to where his brand-new sports
+roadster--bought "on time"--was awaiting them in the parking space
+devoted to the motors of those who officially served Hamilton County.
+
+"I know why you want to drive me out to the Inn," Penny told him
+suddenly, as the proud owner maneuvered his car through Saturday noon
+traffic. "You want to see Nita Selim. Clank! Clank! I can hear the
+padlocks snapping on the slave chains right now."
+
+"Meow!" Dundee retorted, then grinned down at her with as much comradely
+affection as if they had been friends for years instead of for a couple
+of hours. "Is Nita very small?" he added.
+
+"Little enough to tuck herself under the arm of a man a lot shorter than
+you," Penny assured him with curious vehemence. "And if Penelope Crain
+is no mean prophet, that's exactly what she'll do within five minutes
+after she meets you--just as she is wistfully inviting you to join the
+other men for the cocktail party which is scheduled to break up the
+bridge game at 5:30. Then, of course, you'll be urged to join us all at
+the dinner-dance at the Country Club tonight."
+
+"Will she?" Dundee pretended to be vastly intrigued, which caused the
+remainder of the drive to be a rather silent one, due to Penny's
+unresponsiveness.
+
+Breakaway Inn was intensely Spanish in architecture and transplanted
+shrubbery, but its stucco walls were of a rather more violent raspberry
+color than is considered quite esthetic in Spain or Mexico.
+
+"There's Lois Dunlap's car just driving up," Penny cried, her face
+softening with the adoration she had freely professed for her friend.
+But it clouded again almost instantly. "And Nita Selim. I suppose Nita
+was a little ashamed to drive up in her own Ford coupe."
+
+As Dundee helped his new friend to alight his eyes were upon the two
+women being assisted by a uniformed chauffeur from Lois Dunlap's
+limousine.
+
+In a moment the four were a laughing, exclamatory group.
+
+"Oh, what a tall, grand man you've got yourself, Penny darling!" the
+tiny, beautiful creature who could only be Mrs. Selim cried out happily.
+"_May_ I meet him?"
+
+"I shouldn't let you," Penny answered frankly, "but I will.... Mrs.
+Selim, Mr. Dundee.... And Mrs. Dunlap, Mr. Dundee.... How are you, Lois?
+And Peter and the brats?"
+
+"All well, Penny. Petey's off on a week-end fishing trip, and not one of
+the brats has measles, scarlet fever or hay fever, thank God," Dundee
+heard Mrs. Dunlap say in the comfortable, affectionate voice that went
+with her comfortable, pleasant face and body.... Nice woman!
+
+But his eyes were of necessity upon Nita Selim, for that miniature Venus
+was, as Penny had predicted, almost tucked under his arm by this time,
+her black-pansy eyes wide and wistful, her soft black curls falling
+forward as she coaxed:
+
+"You'll come to the cocktail party at my house at 5:30, won't you, Mr.
+Dundee?"
+
+"Afraid I can't make it," Dundee smiled down at her. "I'm a busy man,
+Mrs. Selim.... You see, I'm Special Investigator attached to the
+District Attorney's office," he explained very deliberately.
+
+"O-o-oh!" Nita Selim breathed. Than, step by step, she withdrew, so that
+he was no longer submitted to the temptation to put his arm about her
+too intriguing little body. And as she retreated, Dundee's keen eyes
+noted a hardening of the black-pansy eyes, the sudden throbbing of a
+pulse in her very white neck....
+
+"No, don't mind about calling for me," Penny protested a moment later.
+"Ralph has already volunteered.... Thanks awfully!"
+
+As Dundee backed out of the driveway his last glance was for a very
+small figure in a brown silk summer coat and palest yellow chiffon
+frock, slowly rejoining Penelope Crain and Lois Dunlap. What the devil
+had frightened her so? For she had been almost terrified.... Of course
+she might be one of those silly women who shudder at the sight of a
+detective, because they've smuggled in a diamond from Paris or a bottle
+of Bacardi from Havana....
+
+But long before his car made the distance back to the city Dundee had
+shrugged off the riddle and was concentrating on all the facts he knew
+regarding the Maginty case. It was his first real assignment from
+Sanderson, and he was determined to make good.
+
+Four hours later he was interrupted in his careful reading of the trial
+of Rufus Maginty by the ringing of the telephone bell. That made four
+times he had had to snap out the fact that District Attorney Sanderson
+was playing some well-earned golf on the Country Club links, Dundee
+reflected angrily, as he picked up the receiver.
+
+But the call was for Dundee himself, and the voice on the other end of
+the wire was Penny Crain's, although almost unrecognizable.
+
+"Speak more slowly, Penny!" Dundee urged. "What's that again.... Good
+Lord! You say that Nita Selim...."
+
+After a minute of listening, and a promise of instant obedience, Dundee
+hung up the receiver.
+
+"My God!" he said slowly, blankly. "Of all things--_murder at bridge_!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER TWO
+
+
+As Special Investigator Dundee drove through the city of Hamilton at a
+speed of sixty miles an hour, his way being cleared by traffic policemen
+warned by the shrill official siren which served him as a horn, he had
+little time to think connectedly of the fact that Nita Selim had been
+murdered during a bridge game in her rented home in Primrose Meadows.
+
+Even after the broad sleekness of Sheridan Road stretched before him he
+could do little more than try to realize the shock which had numbed
+him.... "Lovely Nita," as the society editor of _The Morning News_ had
+called her, was--_dead_! How, why, he did not know. He had asked no
+details of Penny Crain.... Funny, thorny little Penny! Loyal little
+Penny!
+
+"Judge Marshall has telephoned Police Headquarters," she had told him
+breathlessly over the telephone, "but I made him let me call you as soon
+as he had hung up. I wanted _our_ office to be in on this right from the
+first."
+
+Beautiful, seductive Nita Selim, almost cuddling under his arm within
+three minutes of meeting him--_dead_! A vision of her black-pansy eyes,
+so wide and luminous and wistful as they had looked sideways and upward
+to his, pleading for him to join her after-bridge cocktail party, nearly
+made him crash into a lumbering furniture van. Those eyes were luminous
+no longer, could never again snap the padlocks of slave chains upon any
+man--as Penny had expressed it.... Dead! And she had been so warmly
+alive, even as she had retreated from him at his mention of the fact
+that he was attached to the office of the district attorney as a special
+investigator. What had she feared then? Was her death a payment for some
+recent or long-standing crime? Or had she simply been withdrawing from
+contamination with a "flat-foot"?... No! She had been _afraid_--horribly
+afraid of some ulterior purpose behind his innocent courtesy in driving
+Penelope Crain to Breakaway Inn.
+
+Well, speculation now was idle, he told himself, as he noted that his
+speedometer had dropped from sixty to thirty in his preoccupation. He
+speeded again, but was soon forced to stop and ask his way into Primrose
+Meadows. The vague directions of a farmer's son lost him nearly eight
+precious minutes, during which his friend, Captain Strawn of the
+Homicide Squad, might be bungling things rather badly. But at last he
+found the ornate pair of pillars spanned by the painted legend,
+"Primrose Meadows," and drove through them into what soon became a
+rutted lane. Almost a quarter of a mile from the entrance he found the
+isolated house, unmistakable because of the line-up of private cars
+parked before the short stretch of paved sidewalk, and the added
+presence of police cars and motorcycles.
+
+Dundee turned his own car into the driveway leading from the street
+along the right side of the house toward the two-car garage in the rear.
+Ahead of his roadster were two other cars, and a glance toward the open
+garage showed that a Ford coupe was housed there.
+
+As he was descending Captain Strawn's voice hailed him from an open
+window of the room nearest the garage.
+
+"Hello, Bonnie! Been expecting you.... Damnedest business you ever
+saw.... There's a door from this room onto the porch. Hop up and come on
+in."
+
+Dundee obeyed. Driving in he had noted that a wide porch, upheld by
+round white pillars, stretched across the front of the gabled brick
+house and extended halfway along its right side, past a room which was
+obviously a solarium, with its continuous windows, gay awnings,
+and--visible through the glittering panes--orange-and-black wicker
+furniture.
+
+It was easy to swing himself up to the floor of the porch. Strawn flung
+open the door which led into the back room, remarking with a grin:
+
+"Don't be afraid I'm gumming up any fingerprints. Carraway has already
+been over the room.... The Selim woman's bedroom," he explained. "The
+room she was killed in."
+
+"You _have_ been on the job," Dundee complimented his former chief.
+
+"Sure!" Strawn acknowledged proudly. "Can't be too quick on our stumps
+when it's one of these 'high sassiety' murders. Dr. Price will be here
+any minute now, and my men have been all over the premises, basement to
+attic. Of course it was an outside job--plain as the nose on your
+face--and we haven't found a trace of the murderer."
+
+Although Mrs. Selim had taken the house furnished, it was obvious that
+this big bedroom of hers was not exactly as the Crain family had left
+it. A little too pretty, a little too aggressively feminine, with its
+chaise longue heaped with silk and lace pillows, its superfluity of big
+and little lamps, its bed draped with golden-yellow taffeta, its
+dressing table--
+
+But he could not let critical eyes linger on the triple-mirrored vanity
+dresser. For on the bench before it sat a tiny figure, the head bowed so
+low that some of the black curls had fallen into a large open bowl of
+powder. She was no longer wearing the brown silk summer coat whose open
+front had given him a glimpse of pale yellow chiffon.
+
+He saw the dress now, a low-cut, sleeveless, fluffy affair, but he
+really had eyes only for the brownish-red hole on the left side of the
+back of the bodice, about halfway between shoulder and waist--a waist so
+small he could have spanned it with his two hands, including its band of
+fuchsia velvet ribbon. There also had been a bow of fuchsia velvet
+ribbon on the lace and straw hat she had swung so charmingly less than
+five hours ago.
+
+"Shot through the heart, I guess," Strawn commented. "Took a good
+marksman to find her heart, shooting her through the back.... Funny
+thing, too. Nobody heard the shot--leastways none of that crowd penned
+up in the living room will admit they did. They'll all hang together,
+and lie like sixty to keep us from finding out anything that might point
+to one of _their_ precious bunch! But if a gun with a Maxim silencer
+_was_ used, as it must have been if that whole crew ain't lying, the
+gunman musta been _good_, because you can't sight with a Maxim screwed
+onto a rod, you know."
+
+"Have your men found the gun?" Dundee asked.
+
+"Of course not, or I'd know whether it had a Maxim on it or not," Strawn
+retorted. "My theory is," he added impressively, "that somebody with a
+grudge against this dame hired a gunman to hang around till he got her
+dead to rights, then--plop!" and he imitated the soft, thudding sound
+made by the discharge of a bullet from a gun equipped with a silencer.
+
+"Doesn't it seem rather strange that a professional gunman should have
+chosen such a time--with men arriving in cars, and the house full of
+women who might wander into this room at any minute--to bump off his
+victim?" Dundee asked.
+
+"Well, there ain't no other explanation," Captain Strawn contended.
+"Outside of the fact that my men have gone over the whole house and
+grounds without finding the gun, I've got other evidence it was an
+outside job.... Look!"
+
+Dundee followed the Chief of the Homicide Squad to one of the two
+windows that looked out upon the driveway. Both were open, since the May
+day was exceptionally warm, even for the Middle West. The unscreened
+window from which he obediently leaned was almost directly in line with
+the vanity dressing-table across the room.
+
+"Look! See how them vines have been torn," Strawn directed, pointing to
+a rambler rose which hugged the outside frame of the window. "And look
+hard enough at the flower bed down below and you'll see his
+footprints.... Of course we've measured them and Cain, as you see, is
+guarding them till my man comes to make plaster casts of them.... Yes,
+sir, he hoisted himself up to the window ledge, aimed as best he could,
+then slipped down and beat it across the meadow."
+
+"Then," Dundee began slowly, "I wonder why Mrs. Selim didn't see that
+figure crouched in the window, since she must have been powdering her
+face and looking into the middle of the three mirrors--the one which
+reflects this very window?"
+
+"How do you know she was powdering her face, not looking for something
+in a drawer?" Strawn demanded truculently.
+
+"For three reasons," Dundee answered almost apologetically. "First: her
+powder puff, as I'm sure you noticed, is still clutched in her right
+hand; second: there is no drawer open, and no drawer _was_ open, unless
+someone has closed it since the murder, whereas on the other hand her
+powder box _is_ open; third: the left side of her face is unevenly
+coated with powder, while the other is heavily but _evenly_ powdered.
+Therefore I can't see why she didn't scream, or turn around when she
+heard your gunman clambering up to her window, or even when he had
+crouched in it. I don't see how she could _help_ seeing him!"
+
+"Well--what do _you_ think?" Strawn asked sourly, after he had tested
+the visibility of the window from the dressing-table mirror.
+
+"I'm afraid, Captain Strawn, that there are only two explanations
+possible. The first, of course, is that Nita Selim was quite deaf or
+very nearsighted. I happen to know from having met her today--"
+
+"_You_ met her today?" Strawn interrupted incredulously.
+
+Dundee explained briefly, then went on: "As I was saying I have good
+reason to know she was not deaf, but I can't say as to her being
+nearsighted, except that it is my observation that people who are
+extremely nearsighted do not have very wide eyes and no creases between
+the brows. I am fairly sure she did not wear glasses at all, because
+glasses worn even a few hours a day leave a mark across the nose or show
+pinched red spots on each side of the bridge of the nose."
+
+"You must have had a good hard look at her," Strawn gibed, his grey eyes
+twinkling, and his harsh, thin-lipped mouth pulling down at one corner
+in what he thought was a genial smile.
+
+"I did," Dundee retorted. "Well, conceding that she was neither deaf nor
+half-blind, she would necessarily have heard and seen her assailant
+before he shot her."
+
+"What's the other explanation?" Strawn was becoming impatient.
+
+"That the person who killed her was so well known to her, and his--or
+her--presence in this room so natural a thing that she paid no attention
+to his or her movements and was concentrating on the job of powdering
+her very pretty face."
+
+"You mean--one of that gang of society folks in there?" and Strawn
+jerked a thumb toward the left side of the house.
+
+"Very probably," Dundee agreed.
+
+"But where's the gun?" Strawn argued. "I tell you my men--"
+
+"This was a premeditated murder, of course," Dundee interrupted. "The
+Maxim silencer--unless they are all lying about not hearing a
+shot--proves that. Silencers are damned hard to get hold of, but people
+with plenty of money can manage most things. And since the murder was
+premeditated, it is better to count on the fact that the murderer--or
+murderess--had planned a pretty safe hiding place for the gun and the
+silencer.... Oh, not necessarily in the house or even near the house,"
+he hastened to assure Strawn, who was trying to break in.... "By the
+way, how long after Mrs. Selim was killed was her death discovered? Or
+do you know?"
+
+"I haven't been able to get much out of that bunch in there--not even
+out of Penelope Crain, who ought to be willing to help, seeing as how
+she works for the district attorney. But I guess she's waiting to spill
+it all to you, if she knows anything, so you and Sanderson will get all
+the credit."
+
+"Now, look here, chief," Dundee protested, laying a hand on Strawn's
+shoulder as he reverted to the name by which he had addressed the head
+of the Homicide Squad for nearly a year, "we're going to be friends,
+aren't we? Same as always? We know pretty well how to work together,
+don't we? No use to begin pulling against each other."
+
+"Guess so," Strawn growled, but he was obviously pleased and relieved.
+"Maybe you'd better have a crack at that crowd yourself. I hear Doc
+Price's car--always has a bum spark plug. I'll stick around with him
+until he gets going good on his job; then, if you'll excuse me for
+butting in, I'll join your party in the living room.... And good luck to
+you, Bonnie!"
+
+Dundee took the door he knew must lead into the central hall, but found
+himself in an enclosed section of it--a small foyer between the main
+hall and Nita Selim's bedroom. There was room for a telephone table and
+its chair, as well as for a small sofa, large enough for two to sit upon
+comfortably. He paused to open the door across from the telephone table
+and found that it opened into a closet, whose hangers and hat forms now
+held the outdoor clothing belonging to Nita's guests. Nice clothes--the
+smart but unostentatious hats and coats of moneyed people of good taste,
+he observed a little enviously, before he opened the door which led into
+the main hall which bisected the main floor of the house until it
+reached Nita's room.
+
+Another door in the section behind the staircase leading to the gabled
+second story next claimed his attention. Opening it, he discovered a
+beautifully fitted guests' lavatory. There was even a fully appointed
+dressing-table for women's use, so that none of her guests had had the
+slightest excuse to invade the privacy of Mrs. Selim's bedroom and bath,
+unless specifically invited to do so. Rather a well planned house, this,
+Dundee concluded, as he closed the door upon the green porcelain
+fixtures, and walked slowly toward the wide archway that led from the
+hall into a large living room.
+
+He had a curious reluctance to intrude upon that assembled and guarded
+company of Hamilton's "real society." They were all Penny's friends, and
+Penny was _his_ friend....
+
+But his first swift, all-seeing glance about the room reassured him. No
+hysterics here. These people brought race and breeding even into the
+presence of death. Whatever emotions had torn them when Nita Selim's
+body was discovered were almost unguessable now. A stout, short woman of
+about thirty was tapping a foot nervously, as she talked to the man who
+was bending over her chair. John C. Drake, that was. Dundee had met him,
+knew him to be a vice president of the Hamilton National Bank, in charge
+of the trust department. Penelope Crain was occupying half of a
+"love-seat" with Lois Dunlap, the hands of the girl and of the woman
+clinging together for mutual comfort. That tall, thin, oldish man, with
+the waxed grey mustache, must be Judge Hugo Marshall, and the pretty
+girl leaning trustingly against his shoulder must be his wife--Karen
+Marshall, who had jumped at her first proposal during her first season.
+
+"Yes, well-bred people," he concluded, as his eyes swept on, and then
+stopped, a little bewildered. Who was _that_ man? He didn't belong
+somehow, and his hands trembled visibly as he tried to light a
+cigarette. Leaning--not nonchalantly, but actually for support--against
+the brocaded coral silk drapes of a pair of wide, long windows set in
+the east wall. Suddenly Dundee had it.... Broadway! This was no
+Hamiltonian, no comfortably rich and socially secure Middle-westerner.
+Broadway in every line of his too-well-tailored clothes, in the polished
+smoothness of his dark hair....
+
+"Why, it's Mr. Dundee at last!" Penny cried, turning in the S-shaped
+seat before he had time to finish his mental inventory of the room's
+occupants.
+
+She jumped to her feet and threaded a swift way over Oriental rugs and
+between the two bridge tables, still occupying the center of the big
+room, still cluttered with score pads, tally cards, and playing cards.
+
+"I've been wondering if you had stopped to have dinner first," she
+taunted him. Then, laying a hand on his arm, she faced the living room
+eagerly. "This is Mr. Dundee, folks--special investigator attached to
+the district attorney's office, and a grand detective. He solved the
+Hogarth murder case, you know, and the Hillcrest murder. And he's _my_
+friend, so I want you all to trust him--and tell him things without
+being afraid of him."
+
+Then, rather ceremoniously but swiftly, she presented her friends--Judge
+and Mrs. Hugo Marshall, Mr. and Mrs. Tracey Miles, Mr. and Mrs. John C.
+Drake, Mrs. Dunlap, Janet Raymond, Polly Beale, Clive Hammond, and--
+
+At that point Penny hesitated, then rather stiffly included the
+"Broadway" man, as "Mr. Dexter Sprague--of New York."
+
+"Thank you, Miss Crain," Dundee said. "Now will you please tell me, if
+you know, whether all those invited to both the bridge party and the
+cocktail party are here?"
+
+Penny's face flamed. "Ralph Hammond, Clive's brother, hasn't come
+yet.... I--I rather imagine I've been 'stood up,'" she confessed, with a
+faint attempt at gayety.
+
+And Ralph Hammond was the man who had once belonged rather exclusively
+to Penny, and who, according to her own confession, had succumbed most
+completely to Nita Selim's charms!--Dundee noted, filing the reflection
+for further reference.
+
+"Please, Mr. Dundee, won't you detain us as short a time as possible?"
+Lois Dunlap asked, as she advanced toward him. "Mr. Dunlap is away on a
+fishing trip, and I don't like to leave my three youngsters too long.
+They are really too much of a handful for the governess, over a period
+of hours."
+
+"I shall detain all of you no longer than is absolutely necessary,"
+Dundee told her gently, "but I am afraid I must warn you that I can't
+let you go home very soon--unless one or more of you has something of
+vital importance to tell--something which will clear up or materially
+help to clear up this bad business."
+
+He paused a long half-minute, then asked curtly: "I am to conclude that
+no one has anything at all to volunteer?"
+
+There was no answer, other than a barely perceptible drawing together in
+self-defence of the minds and hearts of those who had been friends for
+so long.
+
+"Very well," Dundee conceded abruptly. "Then I must put all of you
+through a routine examination, since every one of you is, of course, a
+possible suspect."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER THREE
+
+
+"Good-by, dinner!" groaned the plump, blond little man who had been
+introduced as Tracey Miles, as he sorrowfully patted his rather
+prominent stomach.
+
+"Don't worry, darling," begged the dark, neurotic-looking woman who was
+Flora Miles, his wife. "I'm sure Mr. Dundee will ask Lydia--poor Nita's
+maid, you know--" she explained in an aside to Dundee, "--to prepare a
+light supper for us if he really needs to detain us long--which I am
+sure he won't."
+
+"How can you think of food now?" Polly Beale, the tall, sturdy girl with
+an almost masculine bob and a quite masculine tweed suit, demanded
+brusquely. Her voice had an unfeminine lack of modulation, but when
+Dundee saw her glance toward Clive Hammond he realized that she was
+wholly feminine where he was concerned, at least.
+
+"Of course, we are all _dreadfully_ cut up over poor Nita's--death,"
+gasped a rather pretty girl, whose most distinguishing feature was her
+crop of crinkly, light-red hair.
+
+"I assume that to be true, Miss Raymond," Dundee answered. "But we must
+lose no more time getting at the facts. Just when was Mrs. Selim
+murdered?"
+
+At the brutal use of the word a shudder rippled over the small crowd.
+Dexter Sprague, "of New York," dropped his lighted cigarette where it
+would have burned a hole in a fine Persian rug, if Sergeant Turner, on
+guard over the room for Captain Strawn, had not slouched from his corner
+to plant a big foot upon it.
+
+"We don't know exactly when it happened," Penny volunteered. "We were
+playing bridge, the last hand of the last rubber, because the men were
+arriving for cocktails, when Nita became dummy and went to her bedroom
+to--"
+
+"To make herself 'pretty-pretty' for the men," Mrs. Drake mimicked;
+then, realizing the possible effect of her cattiness on Dundee, she
+defended herself volubly: "Of course I _liked_ Nita, but she _did_ think
+so terribly much about her effect on men--and all that, and was always
+fixing her make-up, and besides--you _can't_ suspect me, because I was
+playing against Karen and Nita--"
+
+"Thank you, Mrs. Drake," Dundee cut in. "Does anyone know the exact time
+Mrs. Selim left the room, when she became dummy?"
+
+"I can tell you, because I had just arrived--the first of the men to get
+here," Tracey Miles volunteered, obviously glad of the chance to talk--a
+characteristic of the man, Dundee decided. "I looked at my watch just
+after I stepped out of my car, because I like to be on time to the dot,
+and Nita--Mrs. Selim--had said 5:30.... Well, it was exactly 5:25, so I
+had five minutes to spare."
+
+"Yes?" Dundee speeded him up impatiently.
+
+"Well, I came right into the hall, and hung my hat in the closet out
+there, and then came in here. It must have been about 5:27 by that
+time," he explained, with the meticulousness of a man on the witness
+stand. "I shouted, 'Hello, everybody! How's tricks?...' That's a joke,
+you know. 'How's tricks?'--meaning tricks in bridge--"
+
+"Yes, yes," Dundee admitted, frowning, but the rest of the company
+exchanged indulgent smiles, and Flora Miles patted her husband's hand
+fondly.
+
+"Well, Nita jumped up from the bridge table--that one right there,"
+Miles pointed to the table nearer the arched doorway, "and she said,
+'Good heavens! Is it half past five already? I've got to run and make
+myself 'pretty-pretty' for just such great big men as you, Tracey--"
+
+"'Tracey, darling'!" Judge Marshall corrected, with a chuckle that
+sounded odd in the tensely silent room.
+
+Tracey Miles flushed a salmon pink, and his wife's fingers clutched at
+his hand warningly. "Oh, Nita called everybody 'darling,' and didn't
+mean anything by it, I guess," he explained uneasily. "Just one of her
+cute little ways--. Well, anyway, she came up to me and straightened
+my necktie--another one of her funny little ways--and said, 'Tracey,
+my _own_ lamb, won't you shake up the cocktails for poor little
+Nita?...' You know, a sort of way she had of coaxing people--"
+
+"Yes, I know," Dundee agreed, with a trace of a grin. "Go on as rapidly
+as you can, please."
+
+"I thought you wanted to know everything!" Miles was a little peevish;
+he had evidently been enjoying himself. "Of course I said I'd make the
+cocktails--she said everything was ready on the sideboard. That's the
+dining room right behind this room," he explained unnecessarily, since
+the French doors were open. "Well, Nita blew me a kiss from her
+fingertips, and ran out of the room.... Now, let's see," he ruminated,
+creasing his sunburned forehead beneath his carefully combed blond hair,
+"that must have been at exactly 5:30 that she left the room. I went on
+into the dining room, and Lois--I mean, Mrs. Dunlap came with me,
+because she said she was simply dying for a caviar sandwich and a nip
+of--of--"
+
+"Of Scotch, Tracey," Lois Dunlap cut in, grinning. "I'm sure Mr. Dundee
+won't think I'm a confirmed tippler, so you might as well tell the
+truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.... Poor Tracey has a
+deadly fear that we are all going to lose the last shred of our
+reputations in this deplorable affair, Mr. Dundee," she added in a
+rather shaky version of the comfortable, rich voice he had heard earlier
+in the day.
+
+"I'm not going to pry into cellars," Dundee assured her in the same
+spirit. "What else, Mr. Miles?"
+
+"Nothing much," Tracey Miles confessed, with apparent regret. "I was
+still mixing--no, I'd begun to shake the cocktails--when I heard a
+scream--"
+
+"Whose scream?" Dundee demanded, looking about the room, and dismissing
+Miles thankfully.
+
+"It was--I," Judge Marshall's fair-haired, blue-eyed little bride
+volunteered in a voice that threatened to rise to hysteria.
+
+"Tell me all about it," Dundee urged gently.
+
+"Yes, sir," she quavered, while her husband's arm encircled her
+shoulders in courtly fashion. "As Tracey told you, Nita was dummy, and I
+was declarer--that is, I got the bid, and played the hand. It--it was
+quite an exciting end for me to the afternoon of bridge, for I'm not
+usually awfully lucky, so when Penny had figured up the score, because
+I'm not good at arithmetic, and I knew Nita and I had rolled up an
+awfully big score, I jumped up and ran into her room to tell her the
+good news, because she hadn't come back. And--and--there she was--all
+bowed over her dressing-table, and she--she was--was--"
+
+"She was dead when you reached her?" Dundee assisted her.
+
+"Yes," Karen Marshall answered faintly, and turned to hide her face
+against her elderly husband's breast.
+
+Dundee's swift eyes took in the varying degrees of whiteness and sick
+horror that claimed every face in the room as surely as if all present
+had not already heard Karen tell her story to Captain Strawn. Tracey
+Miles looked as if he would have no immediate craving for his dinner,
+and Judge Marshall's fine, thin face no longer looked so
+"well-preserved" as he prided himself that it did. As for Dexter
+Sprague, he almost folded up against the coral brocade draperies. It was
+the women, oddly enough, who kept the better control over their
+emotions.
+
+"Of course you all rushed in when Mrs. Marshall screamed?" he asked
+casually.
+
+Twelve heads nodded mutely.
+
+"Did any or all of you touch the body, or things in the room?"
+
+"Mr. Sprague touched her hair, and--and lifted one of her hands," Penny
+contributed quietly. "But you know how it must have been! We can't any
+of us tell _exactly_ every move we made, but there was some rushing
+about. The men, mostly, looking for--for whoever did it--"
+
+"Mrs. Marshall, did you see anyone--_anyone at all_--in or near that
+room when you entered it?"
+
+The white-faced young wife lifted her head, and looked at him dazedly
+with drowned blue eyes. "There wasn't anyone in--in that room, I know,"
+she faltered. "It felt horrible--being in there with--with _her_--all
+alone--"
+
+"But near the room? In the main hall or in the little foyer where the
+telephone is?" Dundee persisted.
+
+"I--don't think so ... I can't--remember--seeing _anyone_.... Oh, Hugo!"
+and again she crouched against her husband, who soothed her with
+trembling hands that looked incongruously old against her childish fair
+hair and face.
+
+"Where were the rest of you--_exactly_ where, I mean?" Dundee demanded,
+conscious that Captain Strawn had entered the room and was standing
+slightly behind him.
+
+There was such a babel of answers, given and then hastily corrected,
+that Dundee broke in suddenly:
+
+"I want a connected story of 'the events leading up to the tragedy.' And
+I want someone to tell it who hasn't lost his--or her--head at all." He
+looked about the company, as if speculatively, but his mind was already
+made up. "Miss Crain, will you tell the story, beginning with the moment
+I left you and Mrs. Dunlap and Mrs. Selim today?"
+
+Penny nodded miserably and was about to begin.
+
+"Just a minute, before you begin, Miss Crain," Dundee requested. "I'd
+like to make notes on your story," and he drew from a coat pocket a
+shorthand book, hastily filched from Penny's own tidy desk. "Yes," he
+answered the girl's frank stare of amazement, "I can write shorthand--of
+a sort, and pretty fast, at that, though no other human being, I am
+afraid, could read it but myself.... As for you folks," he addressed the
+uneasy, silent group of men and women in dead Nita's living room, "I
+shall ask you not to interrupt Miss Crain unless you are very sure that
+her memory is at fault."
+
+Penelope Crain was about to begin for the second time, when again Dundee
+interrupted. "Another half second, please."
+
+On the first sheet of the new shorthand notebook Dundee scribbled:
+"Suggest you try to locate Ralph Hammond immediately. Very much in love
+with Mrs. Selim. Invited to cocktail party; did not show up." Tearing
+the sheet from the notebook, he passed it to Captain Strawn, who read
+it, frowning, and then nodded.
+
+"Doc Price has done all he can here," Strawn whispered huskily. "Wants
+to know if you'd like to speak to him before he takes the body to the
+morgue."
+
+"Certainly," Dundee answered as he grinned apologetically to the girl
+who was waiting, white-faced but patiently, to tell the story of the
+afternoon.
+
+Quickly suppressed shudders and low exclamations of horror followed him
+and the chief of the Homicide Squad from the room.
+
+"Well, Bonnie boy, we meet again, for the usual reason," old Dr. Price
+greeted the district attorney's new special investigator. "Another
+shocking affair--that.... A nice clean wound, one of the neatest jobs I
+ever saw. Shot entered the back, and penetrated the heart.... _Very_
+nicely calculated. If the bullet had struck a quarter of an inch higher,
+it would have been deflected by the--"
+
+"But the _path_ of the bullet, doctor!" Dundee broke in. "Have you made
+any calculations as to the place and distance at which the shot was
+fired?"
+
+"Roughly speaking--yes," the coroner answered. "The gun was fired at a
+distance, probably, of ten or fifteen feet--perhaps closer, but I don't
+think so," he amended meticulously. "As for the path of the bullet, I
+have fixed it, judging from the position of the body, which I am assured
+had not been moved before my arrival, as coming from a point somewhere
+along a straight line drawn from the wound, with the body upright, of
+course, to--here!"
+
+Dundee and Strawn followed the brisk little white-haired old doctor
+across the bedroom to a window opening upon the drive--the one nearest
+the door leading out upon the porch.
+
+"I've marked the end of the line here," Dr. Price went on, pointing to a
+faint pencil mark made upon the window frame--the pale-green strip of
+woodwork near the chaise longue, which was set between the two windows.
+
+"I told you she was shot from the window!" Strawn reminded Dundee
+triumphantly. "You see, doc, it's my theory that the murderer climbed up
+to the sill of this window, which was open as it is now, crouched in it,
+and shot her while she sat there powdering her face."
+
+"Not necessarily, Captain, not necessarily," Dr. Price deprecated. "I
+merely say that this pencil mark indicated the _end_ of the line showing
+the path of the bullet. Certainly she was not shot _through_ the frame
+of the window, but she might have been shot by anyone stationed just in
+front of it, or anywhere along the line, up to, say, within ten feet of
+the woman.... Now, if that's all, Captain, I'll be getting this corpse
+into the morgue for an autopsy. And I'll send you both a copy of my
+findings."
+
+"Just a minute, Dr. Price," Dundee detained him. "How old would you say
+Mrs. Selim was?"
+
+The little doctor pursed his wrinkled lips and considered for a moment,
+eyeing the body stretched upon the chaise longue speculatively.
+
+"We-ell, between thirty and thirty-four years old," he answered finally.
+"Of course, you understand that that estimate is unofficial, and must
+remain so, until I have completed the autopsy--"
+
+Dundee stared down at the upturned face of the dead woman with startled
+incredulity. Between thirty and thirty-four years old! That tiny,
+lovely--But she was not quite so lovely in death, in spite of the
+serenity it had brought to those once-vivacious features. Peering more
+closely, he could see--without those luminous, wide eyes to center his
+attention--numerous fine lines on the waxen face, the slackness of a
+little pouch of soft flesh beneath her round chin, an occasional white
+hair among the shoulder-length dark curls.... Dundee sighed. How easy it
+was for a beautiful woman to deceive men with a pair of wide, velvety
+black eyes! But he'd bet the women had not been quite so thoroughly
+taken in by her cuddly childishness, her odd mixture of demureness and
+youthful impudence!
+
+Back in the living room, whose occupants stopped whispering and grew
+taut with suspense, Dundee seated himself at a little red-lacquer table,
+notebook spread, while Strawn settled himself heavily in the nearest
+overstuffed armchair.
+
+"Now, Miss Crain, I am quite ready, if you will forgive me for having
+kept you waiting."
+
+In a very quiet voice--slightly husky, as always--Penny began her story:
+
+"I think it lacked two or three minutes of one o'clock when you drove
+away. Nita, Lois--do you mind if I use the names I am most accustomed
+to?... Thank you!--and I went immediately into the lounge of Breakaway
+Inn, where we found Carolyn Drake and Flora Miles waiting for us. Nita
+soon left us to see about the arrangement of the table, and while she
+was away the rest of the girls arrived."
+
+"Except--" a woman's voice broke in.
+
+"I was going to say all eight of us were ready for lunch except Polly
+Beale. She hadn't come," Penny went on, her husky voice a little sharp
+with annoyance. "When Nita came to ask us into the private dining room,
+one of the Inn's employees came and told her there was a call for her
+and showed her to the private booth in the lounge. In a minute Nita
+returned and told us that Polly wasn't coming to the luncheon, but would
+join us later for bridge here."
+
+"Why don't you tell him how funny Nita acted?" Janet Raymond prompted.
+
+Penny flushed, but she accepted the prompting. "I think any of us might
+have been a little--annoyed," she said steadily, as if striving to be
+utterly truthful. "Nita told us--" she turned to Dundee, whose pencil
+was flying, "that Polly had made no excuse at all; in fact, she quoted
+Polly exactly: 'Sorry, Nita. Can't make it for lunch. I'll show up at
+your place at 2:30 for bridge.'"
+
+"Nita couldn't bear the least hint of being slighted," Janet Raymond
+explained, with a malicious gleam in her pale blue eyes. "If it hadn't
+been for Lois and Hugo--Judge Marshall, I mean--Nita Selim would never
+have been included in any of our affairs--and she _knew_ it! The Dunlaps
+can do anything they please, because they're--"
+
+"Please, Janet!" Lois Dunlap cut in, her usually placid voice becoming
+quite sharp. "You must know by this time that I make friends wherever I
+please, and that I liked--yes, I was _extremely_ fond of poor little
+Nita. In fact, I am forced to believe that, of all the women she met in
+this town, I was her only real friend."
+
+There was a flush of anger on her lovably plain face as her grey eyes
+challenged first one and then another of the "Forsyte girls." One or two
+looked a little ashamed, but there was not a single voice to contradict
+Lois Dunlap's flat assertion.
+
+"Will you please go on, Pen--Miss Crain?" Dundee urged, but he had
+missed nothing of the little by-play.
+
+"I wish you would call me Penny so I'd feel more like a person than a
+witness," Penny retorted thornily. "Where was I?... Oh, yes! Nita cooled
+right off when Lois reminded her that Polly was always abrupt like
+that--" and here Penny paused to grin apologetically at the girl with
+the masculine-looking haircut, "and then we all went into the private
+dining room, where Nita had ordered a perfectly gorgeous lunch, with a
+heavenly centerpiece of green-striped yellow orchids--Well, I don't
+suppose you're interested in what we ate and things like that--" she
+hesitated.
+
+"Was there anything unusual in the conversation--anything like a
+quarrel?" Dundee prompted.
+
+"Oh, no!" Penny protested. "Nothing happened out of the ordinary at
+all--No, wait! Nita received a letter by messenger--or rather a note,
+when we were about half through luncheon--"
+
+There was a low, strangled-in-the-throat cry from someone. Who had
+uttered it Dundee could not be sure, since his eyes had been on his
+notebook. But what had really interrupted Penny Crain was a crash.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER FOUR
+
+
+"Pardon! Awfully sorry," Clive Hammond muttered, as he bent to pick up
+the fragments of a colored pottery ashtray which he and his fiancee,
+Polly Beale, had been sharing.
+
+"Don't worry--about picking it up," Polly commanded in her brusque
+voice, but Dundee, listening acutely, was sure of a very slight pause
+between the two parts of her sentence.
+
+He glanced at the couple--the tall, masculine-looking girl, lounging
+deep in an armchair, Clive Hammond, rather unusually good-looking with
+his dark-red hair, brown eyes, and a face and body as compactly and
+symmetrically designed as one of the buildings which had been pointed
+out to Dundee as the product of the young architect's genius, now
+resuming his seat upon the arm of the chair. His chief concern seemed
+to be for another ashtray, which Sergeant Turner, with a grin,
+produced from one of the many little tables with which the room was
+provided.... Rather strange that those two should be engaged, Dundee
+mused....
+
+"Go on, Miss Crain," the detective urged, as if he were impatient of the
+delay. "About that note or letter--"
+
+"It was in a blue-grey envelope, with printing or engraving in the upper
+left-hand corner," Penny went on, half closing her eyes to recapture the
+scene in its entirety. "Like business firms use," she amended. "I
+couldn't help seeing, since I sat so near Nita. She seemed startled--or,
+well maybe I'd better say surprised and a little sore, but she tore it
+open and read it at a glance almost, which is why I say it must have
+been only a note. But while she was reading it she frowned, then smiled,
+as if something had amused or--or--"
+
+"She smiled like any woman reading a love letter," Carolyn Drake
+interrupted positively. "I myself was sure that one of her _many_
+admirers had broken an engagement, but had signed himself, 'With all my
+love, darling--your own So-and-so!'"
+
+Dundee wondered if even Carolyn Drake's husband, the carefully groomed
+and dignified John C. Drake, bank vice-president, had ever sent _her_
+such a note, but he did not let his pencil slow down, for Penny was
+talking again:
+
+"I think you are assuming a little too much, Carolyn.... But let that
+pass. At any rate, Nita didn't say a word about the contents of the note
+and naturally no one asked a question. She simply tucked it into the
+pocket of her silk summer coat, which was draped over the back of her
+chair, and the luncheon went on. Then we all drove over here, and found
+Polly waiting in her own coupe, in the road in front of the house. She
+told Nita she had rung the bell, but the maid, Lydia, didn't answer, so
+she had just waited.
+
+"Nita didn't seem surprised; said she had a key, if Lydia hadn't come
+back yet.... You see," she interrupted herself to explain to Dundee,
+"Nita had already told us at luncheon that 'poor, darling Lydia,' as she
+called her, had had to go in to town to get an abscessed tooth
+extracted, and was to wait in the dentist's office until she felt equal
+to driving herself home again in Nita's coupe.... Yes, Nita had taken
+her in herself," she answered the beginning of a question from Dundee.
+
+"At what time?" Dundee queried.
+
+"I don't know exactly, but Nita said she'd had to dash away at an
+ungodly hour, so that Lydia could make her ten o'clock dentist's
+appointment, and so that she herself could get a manicure and a shampoo
+and have her hair dressed, so I imagine she must have left not later
+than fifteen or twenty minutes to ten."
+
+"How did Mrs. Selim get out to Breakaway Inn, if she left her own car
+with the maid?"
+
+"You saw her arrive with Lois," Penny reminded him.
+
+"Nita had told us all about Lydia's dentist's appointment when she was
+at my house for dinner Wednesday night," Lois Dunlap contributed. "I
+offered to call for her anywhere she said, and take her out to Breakaway
+Inn in my car today. I met her, at her suggestion, in the French hat
+salon of the shop where she got her shampoo and manicure--Redmond's
+department store."
+
+"A large dinner party, Mrs. Dunlap?" Dundee asked.
+
+"Not large at all.... Just twelve of us--the crowd here except for Mr.
+Sprague, Penny and Janet."
+
+"Who was Mrs. Selim's dinner partner?" Dundee asked.
+
+"That's right! He _isn't_ here!" Lois Dunlap corrected herself. "Ralph
+Hammond brought her and was her dinner partner."
+
+"Thank you.... Now, Penny. You were saying the maid had not returned."
+
+"Oh, but she had!" Penny answered impatiently. "If I'm going to be
+interrupted so much--. Well, Nita rang the bell and Lydia came, tying on
+her apron. Nita kissed her on the cheek that wasn't swollen, and asked
+her why she hadn't let Polly in. And Lydia said she hadn't heard the
+bell, because she had dropped asleep in her room in the basement--dopey
+from the local anesthetic, you know," she explained to Dundee.
+
+"I--see," Dundee acknowledged, and underlined heavily another note in
+his scrawled shorthand.
+
+"So Lydia took our hats and summer coats and put them in the hall
+closet, and then followed Nita, who was calling to her, on into Nita's
+bedroom. We thought she either wanted to give directions about the
+makings for the cocktails and the sandwiches, or to console poor Lydia
+for the awful pain she had had at the dentist's, so we didn't intrude.
+We made a dive for the bridge tables, found our places, and were ready
+to play when Nita joined us. Nita and Karen--"
+
+"Just a minute, Penny.... Did any of you, then or later, until Mrs.
+Marshall discovered the tragedy, go into Mrs. Selim's bedroom?"
+
+"There was no need for us to," Penny told him. "There's a lavatory with
+a dressing-table right behind the staircase. I, for one, didn't go into
+Nita's room until after Karen screamed."
+
+There was a chorus of similar denials on the part of every woman
+present. At Dundee's significant pressing of the same question upon the
+men, he was met with either laconic negatives or sharply indignant ones.
+
+"All right, Penny. Go ahead, please."
+
+"I was going to tell you how we were seated for bridge, if that
+interests you," Penny said, rather tartly.
+
+"It interests me intensely," Dundee assured her, smiling.
+
+"Then it was this way," began Penny, thawing instantly. "Karen and Nita,
+Carolyn and I were at this table," and she pointed to the table nearer
+the hall. "Flora, Polly, Janet and Lois were at the other. We played at
+those tables all afternoon. We simply pivoted at our own table after the
+end of each rubber. When Nita became dummy--"
+
+"Forgive me," Dundee begged, as he interrupted her again. "I'd like to
+ask a question ... Mrs. Dunlap, since you were at the other table,
+perhaps you will tell me what your partner and opponents were doing just
+before Mrs. Selim became dummy."
+
+Lois Dunlap pressed her fingertips into her temples, as if in an effort
+to remember clearly.
+
+"It's--rather hard to think of bridge now, Mr. Dundee," she said at
+last. "But--yes, of course I remember! We had finished a rubber and had
+decided there would be no time for another, since it was so near 5:30--"
+
+"That last rubber, please, Mrs. Dunlap," Dundee suggested. "Who were
+partners, and just when was it finished?"
+
+"Flora--" Lois turned toward Mrs. Miles, who had sat with her hands
+tightly locked and her great haggard dark eyes roving tensely from one
+to another--"you and I were partners, weren't we?... Of course! Remember
+you were dummy and I played the hand? You went out to telephone, didn't
+you?... That's right! I remember clearly now! Flora said she had to
+telephone the house to ask how her two babies--six and four years old,
+they are, Mr. Dundee, and the rosiest dumplings--. Well, anyway, Flora
+went to telephone--"
+
+"In the little foyer between the main hall and Mrs. Selim's room?"
+
+"Yes, of course," Lois Dunlap answered, but Dundee's eyes were upon
+Flora Miles, and he saw her naturally sallow face go yellow under its
+too-thick rouge. "I played the hand and made my bid, although Flora and
+I had gone down 400 on the hand before," Lois continued, with a rueful
+twinkle of her pleasant grey eyes. "When the score was totted up, I
+found I'd won a bit after all. Our winnings go to the Forsyte Alumnae
+Scholarship Fund," she explained.
+
+"Yes, I know," Dundee nodded. "And then--?"
+
+"Polly asked the other table how they stood, and Nita said, 'One game to
+go on this rubber, provided we make it....' Karen was dealing the cards
+then, and Nita was looking very happy--she'd been winning pretty
+steadily, I think--"
+
+"Pardon, Mrs. Dunlap.... How did the players at your table dispose of
+themselves then--that is, immediately after you had finished playing the
+last hand, and Mrs. Marshall was dealing at the other table?"
+
+Lois screwed up her forehead. "Let me think--I know what _I_ did. I went
+over to watch the game at the other table, and stayed there till
+Tracey--Mr. Miles--came in for cocktails. I can't tell you exactly what
+the other three did."
+
+There was a strained silence. Dundee saw Polly Scale's hand tighten
+convulsively on Clive Hammond's, saw Janet Raymond flush scarlet,
+watched a muscle jerk in Flora Miles' otherwise rigid face.
+
+Suddenly he sprang to his feet. "I am going to make what will seem an
+absurd request," he said tensely. "I am going to ask you all--the women,
+I mean--to take your places at the bridge tables. And then--" he paused
+for an instant, his blue eyes hard: "I want to see the death hand played
+exactly as it was played while Nita Selim was being murdered!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER FIVE
+
+
+"Shame on you, Bonnie Dundee!" cried Penny Crain, her small fists
+clenched belligerently. "'Death hand', indeed! You talk like a New York
+tabloid! And if you don't realize that all of us have stood pretty
+nearly as much as we can without having to play the hand at bridge--the
+_very_ hand we played while Nita Selim was being murdered!--then you
+haven't the decency and human feelings I've credited you with!"
+
+A murmur of indignant approval accompanied her tirade and buzzed on for
+a moment after she had finished, but it ceased abruptly as Dundee spoke:
+
+"Who's conducting this investigation, Penny Crain--you or I? You will
+kindly let me do it in my own fashion, and try to be content when I tell
+you that, in my humble opinion, what I propose is absolutely necessary
+to the solution of this case!"
+
+Bickering--Dundee grinned to himself--exactly as if they had known each
+other always, had quarreled and made up with fierce intensity for years.
+
+"Really, Mr. Dundee," Judge Hugo Marshall began pompously, embracing his
+young wife protectingly, "I must say that I agree with Miss Crain. This
+is an outrage, sir--an outrage to all of us, and particularly to this
+frail little wife of mine, already half-hysterical over the ordeal she
+has endured."
+
+"Take your places!" Dundee ordered curtly. After all, there was a limit
+to the careful courtesy one must show to Hamilton's "inmost circle of
+society."
+
+Penny led the way to the bridge tables, the very waves of her brown bob
+seeming to bristle with futile anger. But she obeyed, Dundee exulted.
+The way to tame this blessed little shrew had been solved by old Bill
+Shakespeare centuries ago....
+
+As the women took their places at the two tables, arguing a bit among
+themselves, with semi-hysterical edges to their voices, Dundee watched
+the men, but all of them, with the exception of Dexter Sprague--that
+typical son of Broadway, so out of place in this company--had managed at
+least a fine surface control, their lips tight, their eyes hard,
+narrowed and watchful. Sprague slumped into a vacated chair and closed
+his eyes, revealing finely-wrinkled, yellowish lids.
+
+"Where shall we begin?" Polly Beale demanded brusquely. "Remember this
+table had finished playing when Karen began to deal what you call the
+'death hand,'" she reminded him scornfully. "And Flora wasn't here at
+all--she had been dummy for our last hand--"
+
+"And had gone out to telephone," Dundee interrupted. "Mrs. Miles, will
+you please leave the room, and return exactly when you did return--or as
+nearly so as you can remember?"
+
+Dundee was sure that Mrs. Miles' sallow face took on a greyish tinge as
+she staggered to her feet and wound an uncertain way toward the hall.
+Tracey Miles sprang to his wife's assistance, but Sergeant Turner took
+it upon himself to lay a detaining hand on the too-anxious husband's
+arm. With no more than the lifting of an eyebrow, Dundee made Captain
+Strawn understand that Flora Miles' movements were to be kept under
+strict observation, and the chief of the Homicide Squad as unobtrusively
+conveyed the order to a plainclothesman loitering interestedly in the
+wide doorway.
+
+"Now," he was answering Polly Beale's question, "I should like the
+remaining three of you to behave exactly as you did when your last hand
+was finished. Did you keep individual score, as is customary in
+contract?--or were you playing auction?"
+
+"Contract," Polly Beale answered curtly. "And when we're playing among
+ourselves like this, one at each table is usually elected to keep score.
+Janet was score-keeper for us this afternoon, but we all waited, after
+our last hand was played, for Janet to give us the result for our tally
+cards."
+
+Dundee drew near the table, picked up the three tally cards--ornamental
+little affairs, and rather expensive--glanced over the points recorded,
+then asked abruptly:
+
+"Where is Mrs. Miles' tally? I don't see it here."
+
+There was no answer to be had, so he let the matter drop, temporarily,
+though his shorthand notebook received another deeply underlined series
+of pothooks.
+
+"Go on, please, at both tables," Dundee commanded. "Your table--" he
+nodded toward Penny, who was already over her flare of temper, "will
+please select the cards each held at the conclusion of Mrs. Marshall's
+deal."
+
+"Oooh, I'd never remember _all_ my cards in the world," Carolyn Drake
+wailed. "I know I had five Clubs--Ace, King, Queen--"
+
+"You had the Jack, not the Queen, for I held it myself," Penny
+contradicted her crisply.
+
+"Until this matter of who held which cards after Mrs. Marshall's deal is
+settled, I shall have to ask you all to remain as you are now," Dundee
+said to the players seated at the other table.
+
+At last it was threshed out, largely between Penny Crain and Karen
+Marshall, the latter proving to have a better memory than Dundee had
+expected. At last even Carolyn Drake's querulous fussiness was
+satisfied, or trampled down.
+
+Both Judge Marshall and John Drake started forward to inspect the cards,
+which none of the players was trying to conceal, but Dundee waved them
+back.
+
+"Please--I want you men--all of you, to take your places outside, and
+return to this room in the order of your arrival this afternoon. Try to
+imagine that it is now--if I can trust Mr. Miles' apparently excellent
+memory--exactly 5:25--"
+
+"Pretty hard to do, considering it's now a quarter past seven and
+there's still no dinner in sight," Tracey Miles grumbled, then
+brightened: "I can come right back in then--at 5:27, can't I?"
+
+That point settled, and the men sent away, to be watched by several
+pairs of apparently indolent police eyes, Dundee turned to the bridge
+table, Nita's leaving of which had provided her murderer with his
+opportunity.
+
+"The cards are 'dealt'," Penny reminded him.
+
+"Now I want you other three to scatter exactly as you did before,"
+Dundee commanded, hurry and excitement in his voice.
+
+Lois Dunlap rose, laid down her tally card, and strolled over to the
+remaining table. After a moment's hesitation, Polly Beale strode
+mannishly out of the room, straight into the hall. Dundee, watching as
+the bridge players earlier that afternoon certainly had not, was amazed
+to see Clive Hammond beckoning to her from the open door of the
+solarium.
+
+So Clive Hammond had arrived ahead of Tracey Miles! Had somehow entered
+the solarium unnoticed, and had managed to beckon his fiancee to join
+him there! Prearranged?... And why had Clive Hammond failed to enter and
+greet his hostess first? Moreover, _how_ had he entered the solarium?
+
+But things were happening in the living room. Janet Raymond, flushing so
+that her sunburned face outdid her red hair for vividness, was slowly
+leaving the room also. Through a window opening upon the wide front
+porch Dundee saw the girl take her position against a pillar, then--a
+thing she had not done before very probably--press her handkerchief to
+her trembling lips.
+
+But the bidding was going on, Karen Marshall piping in her childish
+treble: "Three spades!"
+
+Dundee took his place behind her chair, then silently beckoned to Penny
+to shift from her own chair opposite Carolyn Drake to the chair Nita
+Selim had left to go to her death. She nodded understandingly.
+
+"Double!" quavered Carolyn Drake, next on the left to the dealer, and
+managed to raise her eyebrows meaningly to Penny, her partner, who had
+not yet changed places.
+
+Penny, throwing herself into the spirit of the thing, scowled warningly.
+No exchanging of illicit signals for Penny Crain! But the instant she
+slipped into Nita Selim's chair her whole face and body took on a
+different manner, underwent almost a physical change. She _was_ Nita
+Selim now! She tucked her head, considered her cards, laughed a little
+breathless note, then cried triumphantly:
+
+"And I say--_five spades_! What do you think of _that_, partner?"
+
+Then the girl who was giving an amazing imitation of Nita Selim changed
+as suddenly into her own character as she changed chairs.
+
+"Nita, I don't think it's quite Hoyle to be so jubilant about the
+strength of your hand," she commented tartly. "I pass."
+
+Karen Marshall pretended to study her hand for a frowning instant, then,
+under Penny's spell, announced with a pretty air of bravado:
+
+"Six spades!... Your raise to five makes a little slam obligatory,
+doesn't it, Nita?"
+
+Carolyn Drake flushed and looked uneasily toward Penny, a bit of by-play
+which Dundee could see had not figured in the original game. But she
+bridled and shifted her plump body in her chair, as she must have done
+before.
+
+"I double a little slam!" she declared. Then, still acting the role she
+had played in earnest that afternoon, she explained importantly: "I
+always double a little slam on principle!"
+
+Penny, in the role of Nita, redoubled with an exultant laugh, then, as
+herself, said, "Pass!" with a murderous glance at Mrs. Drake.
+
+"Let's see your hand, partner," Karen quavered, addressing a woman who
+had been dead nearly two hours; then she shuddered: "Oh, this is too
+horrible!" as Penny Crain again slipped into Nita Selim's chair and
+prepared to lay down the dummy hand.
+
+And it _was_ horrible--even if vitally necessary--for these three to
+have to go through the farce of playing a bridge hand while one of the
+original players was lying on a marble slab at the morgue, her cold
+flesh insensible to the coroner's expert knife.
+
+But Dundee said nothing, for Tracey Miles was already hovering in the
+doorway, ready for his cue to enter.
+
+Penny, or rather "Nita," was saying:
+
+"How's _this_, Karen darling?" as she laid down the Ace and deuce of
+Spades, Karen's trumps.
+
+"I hope you remember _you_ are vulnerable, as well as we," Carolyn
+remarked in a sorry imitation of her original cocksureness, as she
+opened the play by leading the Ace of Clubs.
+
+"And how's _this_, partner?... A singleton in Clubs!" Nita's imitator
+demanded triumphantly, as she continued to lay down her dummy hand,
+slapping the lone nine of Clubs down beside trumps; "and this little
+collection of Hearts!" as she displayed and arranged the King, Jack,
+eight and four of Hearts; "_and_ this!" as a length of Diamonds--Ace,
+Jack, ten, eight, seven and six slithered down the glossy linen cover of
+the bridge table toward Karen Marshall. "Now if you don't make your
+little slam, infant, don't dare say I shouldn't have jumped you to
+five!... I figured you for a blank or a singleton in Diamonds, and at
+least the Ace of Hearts, or you--cautious as you are--wouldn't have made
+an original three Spade bid without the Ace.... Hop to it, darling!"
+
+"This is where I enter," Tracey Miles whispered to Dundee, and, at a nod
+from the young detective, the pudgy little blond man strode jauntily
+into the living room, proud of himself in the role of actor.
+
+"Hello, everybody! How's tricks?" he called genially, but there was a
+quiver of horror in his voice under its blitheness.
+
+Penny was quite pale when she sprang from her chair, but her voice
+seemed to be Nita's very own, as she sang out:
+
+"It _can't_ be 5:30 already!... Thank heaven I'm dummy, and can run away
+and make myself pretty-pretty for you and all the other great big men,
+Tracey darling!"
+
+Dundee's keen memory registered the slight difference in the wording of
+the greeting as reported by this pseudo-Nita and the man she was running
+to meet. But Penny, as Nita, was already straightening Tracey Miles'
+necktie with possessive, coquettish fingers, was coaxing, with head
+tucked alluringly:
+
+"Tracey, my ownest lamb, won't you shake up the cocktails for Nita? The
+makings are all on the sideboard, or I don't know my precious old
+Lydia--even if her poor jaw does ache most horribly."
+
+Then Penny, as Nita, was on her way, pausing in the doorway to blow a
+kiss from her fingertips to the fatuously grinning but now quite pale
+Tracey Miles. She was out of sight for only an instant, then reappeared
+and very quietly retraced her steps to the bridge table.
+
+Unobtrusively, Dundee drew his watch from his pocket, palmed it as he
+noted the exact minute, then commanded curtly: "On with the game!"
+
+As Tracey Miles passed the first bridge table Lois Dunlap linked her arm
+in his, saying in a voice she tried to make gay and natural:
+
+"I'm trailing along, Tracey. Simply dying for a nip of Scotch! Nita's is
+the real stuff--which is more than my fussy old Pete can get half the
+time!--and you know I loathe cocktails."
+
+The two passed on into the dining room, the players scarcely raising
+their eyes from their cards, which they held as if the game were real.
+
+Dundee, his watch still in his hand, advanced to the bridge table.
+Strolling from player to player he made mental photographs of each hand,
+then took his stand behind Penny's chair to observe the horribly
+farcical playing of it. Poor little Penny! he reflected. She hadn't had
+a chance against that dumb-bell across the table from her. Fancy
+anyone's doubling a little slam bid on a hand like Carolyn Drake's--or
+even calling an informatory double in the first place! Why hadn't she
+bid four Clubs after Karen's original three Spade bid, if she simply
+wanted to give her partner information?... Not that she really had a
+bid--
+
+Karen's hand trembled as she drew the lone nine of Clubs from the dummy,
+to place beside Carolyn's Ace, but Penny's fingers were quite steady as
+she followed with the deuce of Clubs, to which Karen added, with a trace
+of characteristic uncertainty, the eight.
+
+"There's our book!" Carolyn Drake exulted obediently, but she cast an
+apologetic glance toward Penny. "If we take one more trick we set them."
+
+"Fat chance!" Penny obligingly responded, and Dundee, relieved, knew
+that the farcical game would now be played almost exactly, and with the
+same comments, as it had been played while Nita Selim was being
+murdered. Thanks to Penny Crain!
+
+With a shamefaced glance upward at Dundee, Carolyn Drake then led the
+deuce of Diamonds, committing the gross tactical error of leading from
+the Queen. Karen added the Jack from the dummy, and Penny shruggingly
+contributed her King, to find the trick, as she had suspected in the
+original game, trumped by the five of Spades, since Karen had no
+Diamonds.
+
+"So _that_ settles _us_, Carolyn!" Penny commented acidly.
+
+Her partner rose to the role she was playing. "Well, as I said, I always
+double a little slam on principle. Besides, how could I know they would
+have a chance for cross-ruffing in _both_ Clubs and Diamonds? I thought
+you would at least hold the Ace of Diamonds and that Karen would
+certainly have one, as I only had four--"
+
+Penny shrugged. "Oh, well! Let's play bridge!" for Karen was staring at
+her cards helplessly. "Sorry, Karen! I realize a post mortem is usually
+held after the playing of a hand--not before."
+
+"I--I guess I'd better get my trumps out," Karen--now almost a genuine
+actress, too--breathed tremulously. "I _do_ wish Nita were playing this
+hand. I know I'll muff it somehow--"
+
+"Good kid!" Dundee commented silently, and allowed himself the liberty
+of patting Karen on her slim shoulder.
+
+The girl threw an upward glance of gratitude through misty eyes, then
+led the six of Spades, Mrs. Drake contributing the four, dummy taking
+the trick with the Ace, and Penny relinquishing the three.
+
+"Let's see--that makes five of 'em in, since I trumped one trick," Karen
+said, as she reached across the table to lead from dummy.
+
+As if the words were a cue--which they probably were--Judge Marshall
+entered the room at that moment, making a great effort to be as jaunty,
+debonair, and "young for his age" as he must have thought he looked when
+he made his entrance when the real game was being played.
+
+At his step Karen lifted her head and greeted her elderly husband with a
+curious mixture of childlike joy and womanly tenderness:
+
+"Hullo, darling!... I'm trying to make a little slam I may have been
+foolish to bid, but Nita jumped me from three to five Spades--"
+
+"Let's have a look, sweetheart," the retired judge suggested pompously,
+and Dundee gave way to make room for him behind Karen's chair.
+
+But before Judge Marshall looked at his wife's cards he bent and kissed
+her on her flushed cheek, and Karen raised a trembling hand to tweak his
+grey mustache. Dundee, with uplifted eyebrow, queried Penny, who nodded
+shortly, conveying the information that this was the way the scene had
+really been played when there was no question of acting.
+
+"I'm getting out my trumps, darling," Karen confided sweetly, as she
+reached for the deuce of Spades--the only remaining trump in the dummy.
+
+"What's your hurry, child?" her husband asked indulgently. "Lead this!"
+and he pointed toward the six of Diamonds.
+
+"I wish you'd got a puncture, Hugo, so you couldn't have butted in
+before this hand was played," Carolyn Drake spluttered. "Remember this
+is a little slam bid, doubled and redoubled--"
+
+"I should think _you_ would like to forget that, Carolyn!" Penny
+commented bitingly. "But I agree with Carolyn, Hugo, that Karen is quite
+capable of making her little slam without your assistance."
+
+"Please don't mind," Karen begged. "Hugo just wanted to help me, because
+I'm such a dub at bridge--"
+
+"The finest little player in town!" Judge Marshall encouraged her
+gallantly, but with a jaunty wink at the belligerent Penny.
+
+Smiling adoringly at him again, Karen took his suggestion and led the
+six of Diamonds from the dummy; Penny covered it with the nine; Karen
+ruffed with the seven of Spades from her own hand, and Mrs. Drake
+lugubriously contributed the four of Diamonds.
+
+"I can get my trumps out now, can't I, Hugo?" Karen asked deprecatingly,
+and at her husband's smiling permission, she led the King of Spades,
+Carolyn had to give up the Jack, which she must have foolishly thought
+would take a trick; the dummy contributed the deuce, and Penny followed
+with her own last trump--the eight.
+
+Karen counted on her fingers, her eyes on the remaining trumps in her
+hand, then smiled triumphantly up at her husband.
+
+"Why not simply tell us, Karen, that the rest of the trumps are in your
+own hand?" Penny suggested caustically.
+
+"I--I didn't mean to do anything wrong," Karen pleaded, as she led now
+with the ten of Hearts, which drew in Carolyn's Queen to cover--Carolyn
+murmuring religiously: "Always cover an honor with an honor--or should I
+have played second hand low, Penny?"--topped by the King in the dummy,
+the trick being completed by Penny's three of Hearts.
+
+At that point John C. Drake marched into the room, strode straight to
+Dundee, and spoke with cold anger:
+
+"Enough of this nonsense! I, for one, refuse to act like a puppet for
+your amusement! If you are so vitally interested in contract bridge, I
+should advise you to take lessons from an expert, not from three
+terrified women who are rather poor players at best. I also advise you
+to get about the business you are supposed to be here for--the finding
+of a murderer!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER SIX
+
+
+Before Drake had reached his side, his purpose plain upon his stern,
+rather ascetic features, Dundee had taken a hasty glance at the watch
+cupped in his palm and noted the exact minute and second of the
+interruption. Time out!
+
+"One moment, Mr. Drake," he said calmly. "I quite agree with you--from
+your viewpoint. What mine is, you can't be expected to know. But believe
+me when I say that I consider it of vital importance to the
+investigation of the murder of Mrs. Selim that this particular bridge
+hand, with all its attending remarks, the usual bickering, and its
+interruptions of arriving guests for cocktails, be played out, exactly
+as it was this afternoon. I thought I had made myself clear before. If
+you don't wish me to believe that _you have something to conceal_ by
+refusing to take part in a rather grisly game--"
+
+"Certainly I have nothing to conceal!" John C. Drake snorted angrily.
+
+"Then please bow as gracefully as possible to necessity," Dundee urged
+without rancor. "And may I ask, before we go on, if you made your
+entrance at this time, and the facts of your arrival?"
+
+Drake considered a moment, gnawing a thin upper lip. Beads of sweat
+stood on his high, narrow forehead.
+
+"I walked over from the Country Club, after eighteen holes of golf with
+your _superior_, the district attorney," Drake answered, with nasty
+emphasis. "I left the clubhouse at 5:10, calculating that it would take
+me about twenty minutes for the walk of--of about a mile."
+
+Dundee made a mental note to find out exactly how far from this lonely
+house in Primrose Meadows the Country Club actually was, but his next
+question was along another line:
+
+"You _walked_, Mr. Drake?--after eighteen holes of golf on a warm day?"
+
+Drake flushed. "My wife had the car. I had driven out with Mr.
+Sanderson, but he was called away by a long distance message. I lingered
+at the club for a while, chatting and--er--having a cool drink or two,
+then I set out afoot."
+
+"No one offered you a lift?" Dundee inquired suavely.
+
+"No. I presume my fellow-members thought I had my car with me, and I
+asked no one for a lift, for I rather fancied the idea of a walk across
+the meadows."
+
+"I see," said Dundee thoughtfully. "Now as to your arrival here--"
+
+"I walked in. The door had been left on the latch, as it usually is,
+when a party is on," Drake explained coldly. "And I was just entering
+the room when I heard my wife make the remark about covering an honor
+with an honor, and then her question of Penny as to whether she should
+have played second hand low."
+
+"So you entered this time at the correct moment," said Dundee. "Now, Mr.
+Drake, I am going to ask you to re-enter the room and do exactly as you
+did upon your arrival at approximately 5:33. I am sure you would not
+willingly hamper me--or _my superior_--in this investigation."
+
+Drake wheeled, ungraciously, and returned to the doorway, while Dundee
+again consulted his watch, mentally subtracting the minutes which had
+been wasted upon this interruption, from the time he had marked upon his
+memory as the moment at which Drake had interfered. But an undercurrent
+of skepticism nagged at his mind. Why had Drake chosen to _walk_? And
+why had it taken him from 5:10 to approximately 5:33 to walk a mile or
+less? The average walker, and especially one accustomed to playing golf,
+could easily have covered a mile in fifteen minutes, instead of the
+twenty-three minutes Drake had admitted to.... If it _was_ a
+mile!... Was it possible that the banker loved wildflowers?
+
+With head up aggressively, Drake was undoubtedly making an effort to
+throw himself into the role--or perhaps into a role chosen on the spot!
+
+"Where's everybody?" he called from the doorway. "Am I early?"
+
+"Don't interrupt, please, dear," Carolyn Drake answered, her voice
+trembling now, where before it must have been sharp and querulous.
+
+Silently Drake took his place behind his wife's chair, laying a hand
+affectionately upon her shoulder. Dundee, watching closely, saw Penny's
+eyes widen with something like shocked surprise. So Drake _was_ trying
+to deceive him, counting on the oneness of this group, his closest
+friends!
+
+Karen, obviously flustered, too, reached to the dummy for the Ace of
+Diamonds, to which Penny played the three, Karen herself discarding the
+ten of Clubs, and Mrs. Drake the five of Diamonds.
+
+"You asked no questions, Mr. Drake?" Dundee interpolated.
+
+The banker flushed again. "I--yes, I believe I did. Carolyn--Mrs.
+Drake--explained that Karen was playing for a little slam in Spades, and
+that she had doubled--'on principle'," he added acidly--a voice which
+Mrs. Drake must be very well accustomed to, Dundee surmised.
+
+"And when I told you that Nita had redoubled and it looked as if she was
+going to make it," Carolyn Drake whimpered and shifted her short, stout
+body in the little bridge chair, "you said--why not tell the truth?--you
+said it was just like me and I might as well take to tatting at bridge
+parties."
+
+"That was said jokingly, my dear," Drake retorted, with a coldness that
+tried to be affectionate warmth.
+
+"Play bridge!" Dundee commanded, sure that the approximate length of the
+previous dispute had now been taken up, whatever retort Carolyn Drake
+had made. Then he checked himself, again looking at his watch: "And just
+what did you answer to your husband's little joke, Mrs. Drake?"
+
+"I--I--" The woman looked helplessly around the table, her slate-colored
+eyes reddened with tears, then she plunged recklessly, after a fearful
+glance at Dundee's implacable face. "I said that if it was Nita he was
+talking to, he wouldn't speak in that tone; that she could make all the
+foolish mistakes of over-bidding or revoking or doubling that she wanted
+to, and he wouldn't say a word except to praise her--"
+
+"Then I may as well confess," Drake said acidly, "that I answered
+substantially as follows: 'Nita is an _intelligent_ bridge player as
+well as a charming woman, my dear!...' Now make the most of that little
+family tiff, sir--and be damned to you!"
+
+"Did that end the scene, Mrs. Drake?" Dundee asked gently.
+
+"I--I said something about all the men thinking Nita was perfect," Mrs.
+Drake confessed, "and I cried a little, but we went on with the hand.
+And Johnny--Mr. Drake went away, walking up and down the room, waiting
+for Nita to come back, I suppose!"
+
+"Then go on with the game," Dundee ordered.
+
+Silently now, as silently as the real game must have been played,
+because of the embarrassing scene between husband and wife, the sinister
+game was carried to its conclusion. Karen led the Jack of Hearts from
+the dummy, Penny played her seven, Karen contributed her own deuce, and
+Mrs. Drake followed suit with the five.
+
+Again Karen led from the dummy, with the four of Hearts, followed by
+Penny's nine, taking it with her own Ace, Mrs. Drake throwing off the
+five of Clubs. Karen then led the six of Hearts, Carolyn Drake discarded
+the six of Clubs, dummy took the trick with the eight of Hearts, and
+Penny sloughed the three of Clubs.
+
+With a faint imitation of the triumph with which she had played the hand
+the first time, Karen threw down her remaining three trumps.
+
+"I've made it--a little slam!" she tried to sound very triumphant.
+"Doubled and redoubled!... How much did I--did Nita and I make, Penny?"
+
+"Plenty!" But before putting pencil to score pad, Penny cupped her chin
+in her hands and stared at Carolyn Drake. "I'd like to know, Carolyn, if
+it isn't one of your most cherished secrets, _what_ possessed you to
+double in the first place?"
+
+Carolyn Drake flushed scarlet as she protested feebly: "I thought of
+course I could take two Club tricks with my Ace and King.... That's why
+I doubled the little slam, of course. And my first double simply meant
+that I had one good suit.... I thought if you could bid at all that my
+two doubletons--"
+
+"Oh, what's the use?" Penny groaned. "But may I remind you that it is
+_not_ bridge to lead from a Queen?... You led the deuce of Diamonds,
+when of course the play, since you had seen the Ace in the dummy, was to
+lead your Queen, forcing the Ace and leaving my King guarded to take a
+trick later."
+
+"But Karen didn't have any Diamonds at all," Carolyn defended herself.
+
+"A secret you weren't in on when you led from your Queen," Penny
+reminded her. "Oh, well! We'll pay up and shut up!" and she made a
+pretense of totting up the score, while Karen, who had risen, stood over
+her like a bird poised for flight.
+
+At that instant Dexter Sprague began to advance into the room, Janet
+Raymond at his side, her face flaming.
+
+"Behave exactly as you did before!" Dundee commanded in a harsh whisper.
+No time for coddling these people now!
+
+Dexter Sprague's face took on a yellower tinge, but he obeyed.
+
+"Greetings!" he called in the jaunty, over-cordial tones of a man who
+knows himself not too welcome. "Where's Nita--and everybody? Isn't that
+the cocktail shaker I hear?"
+
+Having received no answer from anyone present, Sprague strolled through
+the living room and on into the dining room, Janet following. Judge
+Marshall had nodded stiffly, and John C. Drake had muttered the
+semblance of a greeting.... Were they all overdoing it a bit--this
+reacting of their hostility to the sole remaining outsider of their
+compact little group?... Dundee stroked his chin thoughtfully.
+
+But Penny was saying in her abrupt, husky voice: "Above the line, 1250;
+below the line 720, making a total of 1970 on this hand, Karen."
+
+"Won't Nita be glad?" Karen gasped, then began to run totteringly,
+calling: "Nita! Nita!" But in the hall she collapsed, shuddering, crying
+in a child's whimper: "No, no! I--can't--go in there--again!"
+
+It was Dundee who reached her first--Dundee and not her outraged and
+excited old husband.
+
+"Mrs. Marshall--listen, please," he begged in a low voice, as he lifted
+her so that her head rested against his arm. "You have been
+splendid--wonderful! Please believe that I am truly sorry to distress
+you so, and that very soon, I hope, you may go home and rest."
+
+"I--can't bear any--more," Karen whimpered.
+
+Ignoring Judge Marshall's blustering, Dundee continued softly: "You
+don't want the wrong person to be accused of this terrible crime, do
+you, Mrs. Marshall?... Of course not! And you _do_ want to help us all
+you can to discover who really killed Mrs. Selim?"
+
+"I--I suppose so," Karen conceded, on a sob.
+
+"Then I'll help you. I'll go to the bedroom with you," Dundee promised
+her with a sigh of relief. To the others he spoke sharply:
+
+"Go back to the exact positions in living room and dining room and
+solarium, that you occupied when Mrs. Marshall ran from the room."
+
+"I think you're overdoing it, Bonnie," Captain Strawn protested.
+"But--sure I'll see that they mind you."
+
+With Karen Marshall clinging to his arm, Dundee walked down the hall,
+beyond the staircase to an open door on his left--a door guarded by a
+lounging plainclothesman. Seated at the dressing-table of the guests'
+lavatory was Flora Miles, her sallow dark face so ravaged that she
+looked ten years older than when he had first seen her an hour before.
+
+"So you were in here when you heard Mrs. Marshall scream, Mrs. Miles?"
+Dundee paused to ask.
+
+"Yes--yes!" she gasped, rising. "And that horrible man has made me stay
+in here--. Of course, the door was closed--before. I telephoned home to
+ask about my children, and then I came in here to--to do my face over--"
+
+"You didn't hear your husband arrive?"
+
+"No,--I didn't hear him arrive," Flora Miles faltered, her handkerchief
+dabbing at her trembling, over-rouged lips.
+
+"I--see," Dundee said slowly.
+
+He stepped into the little room, leaving Karen to stand weakly against
+the door frame. Without a word to Mrs. Miles he looked closely at the
+top of the dressing-table and into the small wastebasket that stood
+beside it.
+
+"You--you can see that I cold-creamed my face before I put on fresh
+powder and--and rouged," Flora Miles pointed out, with an obvious effort
+at offended dignity. "After I came back, while you were making those
+poor girls play the hand over again, I went through the same
+motions--because you told all of us to behave exactly as we had done
+before--"
+
+"I--see," Dundee agreed.
+
+Pretty clever, in spite of being almost frightened to death, Dundee said
+to himself. But he had been just a shade cleverer than she, for he had
+been in this room ahead of her, and there had been no balls of greasy
+face tissue in the wastebasket then!
+
+He was passing out of the room, offering his arm to Karen, when one of
+his underlined notes thrust itself upon his memory:
+
+"May I see your bridge tally, please, Mrs. Miles?"
+
+"My--bridge tally!" she echoed blankly. "Why--it must be on the table
+where I was playing--"
+
+"It is not," Dundee assured her quietly. "Perhaps it is in your
+handbag?" and he glanced at the rather large raffia bag that lay on the
+table.
+
+She snatched it up, slightly averting her body as she looked hastily
+through its contents.
+
+"It--isn't here.... Oh, I don't know _where_ it is! What does it
+matter?"
+
+Without replying, Dundee escorted the trembling little discoverer of
+Nita Selim's body into the large ornate bedroom, murmuring as he did so:
+
+"Don't be frightened, Mrs. Marshall. The bod--I mean Mrs. Selim isn't
+here now.... And you shan't have to scream. I'll give the signal myself.
+I just want you to go through the same motions you did before." On jerky
+feet the girl advanced to Nita's now deserted vanity dresser.
+
+"I--I was calling to her all the time," she whispered. "I didn't even
+wait to knock, and I--I began to tell her how much we'd made off that
+hand, when I--when she didn't answer.... I didn't touch her, but I
+saw--I saw--" Again she gripped her face with her hands and was about to
+scream.
+
+"I know," Dundee assured her gently. Then he shouted: "Ready!"
+
+Herded by Strawn, the small crowd of men and women came running into the
+room, Judge Marshall leading the way, Penny being second in line. Penny
+_second_! Why not Flora Miles, who had been nearer to that room than any
+of the others, if her story was true--Dundee asked himself. But all had
+crowded into the room, including Polly Beale and Clive Hammond, before
+Mrs. Miles crept in.
+
+"Is this the order of your arrival?" Dundee asked them all.
+
+Penny, who was standing against the wall, just inside the doorway, spoke
+up, staring at Flora with frowning intentness.
+
+"You're sort of mixed up, aren't you, Flora? I was standing right here
+until the worst of it was over--I didn't even go near Nita, and I know
+you didn't pass me. I remember that Tracey stepped away from the--body,
+and called you, and you weren't here. And then almost the next minute I
+saw you coming toward him from--from--_over there_!"
+
+And Penny pointed toward that corner of the room which held, on one
+angle, the door leading to the porch, and on its other angle the window
+from which, or from near which Nita Selim had been shot.
+
+"You're lying, Penny Crain! I did no such thing!" Flora Miles cried
+hysterically. "I came running in--with--with the rest of you, and I
+rushed over there just to see if I could see anybody running away across
+the meadow--"
+
+"My wife is right, sir," Tracey Miles added his word aggressively. "I
+saw what she was doing--the most sensible of all of us--and I ran to
+join her. We looked out of the windows, both the side windows and the
+rear ones, and out onto the porch. But we didn't see anything."
+
+Surprisingly, Dundee abandoned the point.
+
+"And you were the only one to touch her, Sprague?"
+
+"I--believe so," Dexter Sprague answered in a strained voice. "I--laid
+my hand on her--her hair, for an instant, then I picked up her hand to
+see if--if there was any pulse left."
+
+"Yes?"
+
+"She--she was dead."
+
+"And her hand--did it feel cold?"
+
+"Neither cold nor warm--just cool," Sprague answered in a voice that was
+nearly strangled with emotion. "She--she always had cool hands--"
+
+"What did you do, Judge Marshall?" Dundee asked abruptly.
+
+"I took my poor little wife away from this room, laid her on a couch in
+the living room, and then telephoned the police. Miss Crain stood at my
+elbow, urging me to hurry, so that she might ring you--as she did. Your
+line was busy, and she lost about five minutes before getting you."
+
+"And the rest of you?" Dundee asked.
+
+"Nothing spectacular, I'm afraid, Mr. Dundee," Polly Beale answered in
+her brusque, deep voice, now edged with scorn.
+
+Further questioning elicited little more, beyond the fact that Clive
+Hammond had dashed out to circle the house and look over the grounds,
+and that John Drake had been fully occupied with an hysterical wife.
+
+"Better let this bunch go for the present, hadn't we, boy?" Captain
+Strawn whispered uneasily. "Not a thing on any of them--"
+
+"Not quite yet, sir, if you don't mind," Dundee answered in a low voice.
+"Will you take them back into the living room and put them under
+Sergeant Turner's charge for a while? Then there are one or two things
+I'd like to talk over with you."
+
+Mollified by the younger man's deference and persuasiveness, Strawn
+obeyed the suggestion, to return within five minutes, his grey brows
+drawn into a frown.
+
+"I hope you'll be willing to take full credit for that fool bridge game,
+Bonnie," he worried. "_I_ don't want to look a chump in the newspapers!"
+
+"I'll take the blame," Dundee assured him, with a grin. "But that 'fool
+bridge game'--and I admit it was a horrible thing to have to do--told me
+a whole bunch of facts that ought to be very, very useful."
+
+"For instance?" Strawn growled.
+
+"For instance," Dundee answered, "it told me that it took approximately
+eight minutes to play out a little slam bid, when ordinarily it would
+have taken not more than two or three minutes. Not only that, but it
+told me the names of everyone in _this_ party who could have killed Nita
+Selim, and--. Good Lord! Of course!"
+
+And to Captain Strawn's amazement Dundee threw open the door of Nita's
+big clothes closet, jerked on the light, and stooped to the floor.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER SEVEN
+
+
+Almost immediately Special Investigator Dundee rose from his crouching
+position on the floor of Nita Selim's closet, and faced the chief of the
+Homicide Squad of Hamilton's police force.
+
+"I think," he said quietly, for all the excitement that burned in his
+blue eyes, "that we'd better have Mrs. Miles in for a few questions."
+
+"What have you got there--a dance program?" Strawn asked curiously, but
+as Dundee continued to stare silently at the thing he held, the older
+man strode to the door and relayed the order to a plainclothes
+detective.
+
+"I sent for _Mrs._ Miles," Dundee said coldly, when husband and wife
+appeared together, Flora's thin, tense shoulders encircled by Tracey's
+plump arm.
+
+"If you're going to badger my wife further, I intend to be present,
+sir!" Miles retorted, thrusting out his chest.
+
+"Very well!" Dundee conceded curtly. "Mrs. Miles, why didn't you tell me
+in the first place that you were _in this room_ when Nita Selim was
+shot?"
+
+"Because I wasn't--in--in the room," Flora protested, clinging with both
+thin, big-veined hands to her husband's arm.
+
+"Sir, you have no proof of this absurd accusation, and I shall
+personally take this matter up--"
+
+"I have the best of proof," Dundee said quietly, and took his hand from
+his pocket. "You recognize this, Mrs. Miles?... You admit that it is the
+tally card you used while playing bridge this afternoon?"
+
+"No, no! It isn't mine!" Flora cried hysterically, cringing against her
+husband, who began to protest in a voice falsetto with rage.
+
+Dundee ignored his splutterings. "May I point out that it is identical
+with the other tally cards used at Mrs. Selim's party today, and that on
+its face it bears your name, 'Flora'?" and he politely extended the card
+for her inspection.
+
+"I--yes, it _must_ be mine, but I was _not_ in this room when Nita
+was--was shot!"
+
+"But you will admit that you _were_ in her clothes closet at some time
+during the twenty or more minutes that elapsed between your leaving the
+bridge game, when you became dummy, and the moment when Karen Marshall
+screamed?"
+
+As Flora Miles said nothing, staring at him with great, terrified black
+eyes, Dundee went on relentlessly: "Mrs. Miles, when you left the bridge
+game, you did not intend to telephone your house. You came _here_--into
+this room!--and you lay in wait, hiding in her closet until Nita Selim
+appeared, as you knew she would, sooner or later--"
+
+"No, no! That's a lie--a lie, I tell you!" the woman shrilled at him. "I
+_did_ telephone my house, and I talked to Junior, when the maid put him
+up to the phone.... You can ask her yourself, if you don't believe me!"
+
+"But _after_ you telephoned, you stole into this room--"
+
+"No, no! I--I made up my face all fresh, just as I told you--"
+
+Dundee did not bother to tell her how well he knew she was lying, for
+suddenly something knocked on the door of his mind. He strode to the
+closet, searched for a moment among the multitude of garments hanging
+there, then emerged with the brown silk summer coat which Nita Selim had
+worn to Breakaway Inn that noon. Before the terrified woman's eyes he
+thrust a hand first into one deep pocket and then another, finding
+nothing except a handkerchief of fine embroidered linen and a pair of
+brown suede gauntlet gloves.
+
+"Will you let me have the note, please, Mrs. Miles? The note Nita
+received during her luncheon party, and which she thrust, before your
+eyes, into a pocket of this coat?... It is in your handbag, I am sure,
+since you have had no opportunity, unobserved, to destroy it."
+
+"What ghastly nonsense is this, Dundee?" Tracey Miles demanded
+furiously.
+
+But Dundee again ignored him. His implacable eyes held Flora Miles'
+until the woman broke suddenly, piteously. She fumbled in the raffia bag
+which had been hanging from her arm.
+
+"Good God, Flora! What does it all mean?" Tracey Miles collapsed like a
+pricked pink balloon. "That's _my_ stationery--one of my business
+envelopes--"
+
+Flora Miles dropped the bag which she need no longer watch and clutch
+with terror, as she dug her thin fingers into her husband's shoulders
+and looked down at his puzzled face, for she was a little taller than
+he.
+
+"Forgive me, darling! Oh, I knew God would punish me for being jealous!
+I thought _you_ were writing love letters to--to that woman--"
+
+Dundee did not miss the slightest significance of that scene as he
+retrieved the blue-grey envelope she had dropped. It was inscribed, in a
+curious handwriting: "Mrs. Selim, Private Dining Room, Breakaway Inn."
+
+"Let's see, boy," Strawn said, with respect in his harsh voice.
+
+Dundee withdrew the single sheet of business stationery, and obligingly
+held it so that the chief of detectives could read it also.
+
+"Nita, my sweet," the note began, without date-line, "Forgive your bad
+boy for last night's row, but I _must_ warn you again to watch your
+step. You've already gone too far. Of course I love you and understand,
+_but_--Be good, Baby, and you won't be sorry."
+
+The note was signed "Dexy."
+
+Dundee tapped the note for a long minute, while Tracey Miles continued
+to console his wife. A new avenue, he thought--perhaps a long, long
+avenue....
+
+"Mrs. Miles," he began abruptly, and the tear-streaked face turned
+toward him. "You say you thought this letter to Mrs. Selim had been
+written by your husband?"
+
+"Yes!" She gasped. "I'm jealous-natured. I admit it, and when I saw one
+of our own--I mean, one of Tracey's business envelopes--"
+
+"You made up your mind to steal it and read it?"
+
+"Yes, I did! A wife has a right to know what her husband's doing, if
+it's anything--like that--" Her haggard black eyes again implored her
+husband for forgiveness, before she went on: "I _did_ slip into Nita's
+room and go into her closet to see if she had left the letter in her
+coat pocket. I closed the door on myself, thinking I could find the
+light cord, but it was caught in one of the dresses or something, and it
+took me a long time to find it in the dark of the closet, but I did find
+it at last, and was just reading the note--"
+
+"You _read_ it, even after you saw that the handwriting on the envelope
+wasn't your husband's?" Dundee queried in assumed amazement.
+
+Flora's thin body sagged. "I--I thought maybe Tracey had disguised his
+Handwriting.... So I read it, and saw it was from Dexter--"
+
+"Mr. Miles, do you know how some of your business stationery got into
+Sprague's hands?"
+
+"He's had plenty of opportunity to filch stationery or almost anything
+he wants, hanging around my offices, as he does--an idler--"
+
+But Dundee was in a hurry. He wheeled from the garrulity of the husband
+to the tense terror of the wife.
+
+"Mrs. Miles, I want you to tell me exactly what you know, unless you
+prefer to consult a lawyer first--"
+
+"Sir, if you are insinuating that _my wife_--"
+
+"Oh, let me tell him, Tracey," Mrs. Miles capitulated suddenly,
+completely. "I _was_ in the closet when Nita was killed, I suppose, but
+I didn't _know_ she was being killed! _Because I was lying in there on
+the closet floor in a dead faint!_"
+
+Dundee stared at the woman incredulously, then suppressed a groan of
+almost unbearable disappointment. If Flora Miles was telling the truth,
+here went a-flying his only eye-witness, probably, or rather, his only
+ear-witness.
+
+"Just when did you faint, Mrs. Miles?" he asked, struggling for
+patience. "Before or after Nita came into this room?"
+
+"I was just finishing the note, with the light on in the closet, and the
+door shut, when I heard Nita come into the room. I knew it was Nita
+because she was singing one of those Broadway songs she is--was--so
+crazy about. I jerked off the light, and crouched way back in a corner
+of the closet. A velvet evening wrap fell down over my head, and I was
+nearly smothering, but I was afraid to try to dislodge it for fear a
+hanger would fall to the floor and make an awful clatter. And then--and
+then--" She shuddered, and clung to her husband.
+
+"What caused you to faint, Mrs. Miles?"
+
+"Sir, my wife has heart trouble--"
+
+"What did you hear, Mrs. Miles?" Dundee persisted.
+
+"I couldn't hear very well, all tangled up in the coat and 'way back in
+the closet, but I did hear a kind of bang or bump--no, no, not a pistol
+shot!--and because it came from so near me I thought it was Nita or
+Lydia coming to get something out of the closet, and I'd be discovered,
+so I--I fainted--" She drew a deep breath and went on: "When I came to I
+heard Karen scream, and then people running in--. But all the time that
+awful tune was going on and on--"
+
+"Tune?" Dundee gasped. "Do you mean--Nita Selim's--_song_?"
+
+Flora Miles seemed to be dazed by Dundee's vehement question.
+
+"Why, yes--Nita's own tune. That's what she called it--her own tune--"
+
+"But, Mrs. Miles," Dundee protested, ashamed that his scalp was
+prickling with horror, "do you mean to tell me that Nita was not dead
+_then_--when Karen Marshall screamed?"
+
+"Dead?" Flora repeated, more bewildered. "Of course she was, or at
+least, they all said so--. Oh, I know what you mean! And you don't mean
+what I mean at all--"
+
+"Steady, honey-girl!" Tracey Miles urged, putting his arm about his
+wife. "I'd better tell you, Dundee.... When we all came running into the
+room, there was Nita's powder box playing its tune over and over--"
+
+"Oh!" Dundee wiped his forehead. "You mean it's a musical box?"
+
+"Yes, and plays when the lid is off," Tracey answered, obviously
+delighted to have the limelight again. "Well, of course, since Nita
+couldn't put the lid back on, it was still playing.... What was the
+tune, honey?" he asked his wife tenderly. "I haven't much ear for music
+at best, but at a time like that--"
+
+"It was playing _Juanita_," Flora answered wearily. "Over and
+over--_'Nita, Jua-a-n-ita, be my own fair bride_'," she quavered
+obligingly. "Only not the words, of course, just the tune. That's why
+Nita bought the box, I suppose, because it played her namesake song--"
+
+"Maybe one of her beaus gave it to her," Tracey suggested lightly,
+patting his wife's trembling shoulder. "Anyway, Dundee, the thing ran on
+and on, until it ran down, I suppose. I confess I wanted to put the lid
+back on, to stop the damned thing, but Hugo said we mustn't touch
+anything--"
+
+"And quite right!" Dundee cut in. "Now, Mrs. Miles, about that noise you
+heard.... Did you hear anyone enter the room?... No?... Well, then, did
+you hear Nita speak to anyone? You said you thought it might be Lydia,
+coming to get something out of the closet."
+
+"I didn't hear Nita speak a word to anybody, though she might have and I
+wouldn't have heard, all muffled up in that velvet evening wrap and so
+far back in the closet--"
+
+"Did you hear the door onto the porch--it's _quite_ near the closet--"
+
+"The door was open when we came in, Dundee," Tracey interposed. "It must
+have been open all the time."
+
+"I didn't hear it open," Mrs. Miles confirmed him wearily. "I tell you I
+didn't hear _anything_, except Nita's coming in singing, then the powder
+box playing its tune, and that bang or bump I told you about."
+
+"And just where was that?" Dundee persisted.
+
+"_I don't know!_" she shrilled, hysteria rising in her voice again. "I
+told you it sounded fairly near the closet, as if--as if somebody bumped
+into something. That's what it was like! That's exactly what it was
+like. And I was so frightened of being found in the closet that I
+fainted, and didn't come to until Karen screamed--"
+
+She was babbling on, but Dundee was thinking hard. A very convenient
+faint--that! For the murderer, at least! But--why not for Mrs. Miles
+herself? Odd that she should _faint_! Why hadn't she trumped up some
+excuse immediately and left the closet as Nita was entering the room?
+Was it, possibly, because she could think of nothing but the great
+relief of finding that it was Sprague, not her husband, who had been
+writing love letters to Nita Selim?... A jealous woman--
+
+"Miles," he began abruptly, "I think you'd better tell me how your wife
+became so jealous of you and Nita Selim that she could get herself into
+such a false position."
+
+Tracey Miles reddened, but a gesture of one of his sunburned hands
+restrained his wife's passionate defense of him. "It's the truth that
+Flora is jealous-natured. And I suppose--" he faltered a moment, and his
+eyes did not meet his wife's, "--that I liked seeing her a little bit
+jealous of her old man. Sort of makes a man feel--well, big, you know.
+And pretty important to somebody!"
+
+"So you were just having a bit of fun with your wife, so far as Mrs.
+Selim was concerned?" Dundee asked coldly.
+
+The blood flowed through the thinning blond hair. "We-el, not exactly,"
+he admitted frankly. "You see, I _did_ take a shine to Nita, and if I do
+say so myself, she liked me a lot.... Oh, nothing serious! Just a little
+flirtation, like most of our crowd have with each other--"
+
+"Mrs. Miles," Dundee interrupted with sudden harshness, "are you _sure_
+you did not know that that letter was from Dexter Sprague before you
+looked for it?"
+
+"Sir, if you are insinuating that _my wife_ carried on a flirtation
+or--an--an _affair_ with that Sprague insect--" Tracey began to bluster.
+
+But Dundee's eyes were on Flora Miles, and he saw that her sallow skin
+had tightened like greyish silk over her thin cheek bones, and that her
+eyes looked suddenly dead and glassy.
+
+"You _fainted_, you say, Mrs. Miles," Dundee went on inexorably. "Was it
+because, by any chance, this note--" and he tapped the sheet which had
+caused so much trouble--"revealed the fact that Nita Selim and Dexter
+Sprague were sweethearts or--lovers?"
+
+It was a battle between those two now. Both ignored Tracey's red-faced
+rage.
+
+Flora licked her dry lips. "No--no," she whispered. "_No!_ It was
+because I was jealous of Tracey and Nita--"
+
+"Yes, and I'd given her cause to be jealous, too!" Tracey forced himself
+into the conversation. "One night, at the Country Club, Flora saw me and
+Nita stroll off the porch and down onto the grounds, and she had a right
+to be sore at me when I got back, because I'd cut a dance with her--my
+own wife!... And it was only this very morning that I made a point of
+driving--out of my way too--by this house to see Nita. Not that I meant
+any harm, but I was being a little silly about her--and she was about
+me, too! Not that I'd leave my wife and babies for any Broadway beauty
+under the sun--"
+
+"Oh, Tracey! And you weren't going to tell me--" Was there _real_
+jealousy now, or just pretense on Flora's part?
+
+"You understand, don't you, Dundee?" Tracey demanded, man to man. "I was
+just having a little fun on the side--nothing serious, mind you! But of
+course I didn't tell Flora every little thing--. No man does! There've
+been other girls--other women--"
+
+"Tracey isn't worse than the other men!" Flora flamed up. "He's such a
+darling that all the girls pet him, and spoil him--"
+
+Dundee could stand no more of Miles' complacent acceptance of his own
+rakishness. And certainly a girl like Nita Selim would have been able to
+bear precious little of it.... Conceited ass! But Flora Miles was
+another matter--and so was Dexter Sprague!
+
+"You can join me in the living room, if you like," Dundee said shortly,
+as he wheeled and strode toward the door. Was that quick, passionate
+kiss between husband and wife being staged for his benefit?
+
+"Pretty near through, boy?" Strawn, who had been silent and bewildered
+for a long time, asked anxiously, as the two detectives passed into the
+hall.
+
+"Not quite. I've got to know several things yet," Dundee answered
+absently.
+
+But in the living room his mind was wholly upon the business in hand.
+
+"I'll keep you all no longer than is absolutely necessary," he began,
+and again the close-knit group--in which only Dexter Sprague was an
+alien--grew taut with suspense. "From the playing out of the 'death
+hand' at bridge," he went on, using the objectionable phrase again very
+deliberately, "I found that no two of you men arrived together.... Mr.
+Hammond, you were the first to arrive, I believe?"
+
+"It seems that I was!" Clive Hammond answered curtly.
+
+"And yet you did not enter the living room to greet your hostess?"
+
+"I wanted a private word with Polly--Miss Beale--my fiancee," Hammond
+explained briefly.
+
+"How and when did you arrive?"
+
+"I don't know the exact time. Never thought of looking at my watch,"
+Hammond offered. "I came out in my own roadster--that tan Stutz you may
+have noticed in the driveway. As for how I entered the house, I leaped
+upon the porch and opened a door of the solarium. I walked across the
+solarium, saw Polly just finishing with bridge for the afternoon, and
+beckoned to her. She joined me in the solarium, and we stayed there
+until Karen screamed.... That's all."
+
+"Have you been engaged long, Mr. Hammond--you and Miss Beale?" Dundee
+asked, as if quite casually.
+
+"Nearly a year,--if it's any of your business, Dundee!"
+
+"And just when had you seen Miss Beale last, before late this
+afternoon?" Dundee asked.
+
+"I refuse to answer!" Hammond flared. "That at least is none of your
+damned business!"
+
+"I believe I can answer my own question, Mr. Hammond," Dundee said very
+softly.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER EIGHT
+
+
+"Then why ask me?" Hammond shrugged, but his eyes flickered toward Polly
+Beale.
+
+"I thought perhaps you could give me a little additional information,"
+Dundee soothed him. "You see, it happens that I saw you, Miss Beale and
+another young man come into the Stuart House dining room about half past
+one today, just when I was thinking of lunch for myself."
+
+"The mysterious 'other young man' was Clive's brother, Ralph Hammond,"
+Polly Beale cut in brusquely.
+
+"Your decision to lunch with your fiance and his brother was quite a
+sudden one?" Dundee asked courteously. "Just when did you change your
+mind about Mrs. Selim's luncheon party at Breakaway Inn, Miss Beale?"
+
+The tall girl threw up her mannishly cropped, chestnut head. "There is
+nothing at all sinister or even queer about it, Mr. Dundee! I was on my
+way to the luncheon, when I decided to drive past Nita's house, on the
+chance that she might like me to drive her over."
+
+"Then you didn't know that Mrs. Dunlap had already arranged to meet Mrs.
+Selim downtown this morning and to take her to the Inn?" Dundee asked.
+
+"No! I didn't hear of the arrangement," Polly answered decidedly.
+
+"You were a close friend of Mrs. Selim's perhaps?" Dundee prodded.
+
+"Not at all! But that would not keep me from doing my hostess a
+courtesy.... She hated her Ford and liked expensive cars," Polly added
+unemotionally. "It was about a quarter to one when I got here, I should
+say. Nita wasn't here, nor was her maid, but I saw Ralph's car parked in
+front of the house--"
+
+"_Ralph Hammond's car?_" a woman squealed, but Dundee let Polly
+continue.
+
+"I rang and he answered the door. Said he was alone in the house, going
+over the premises at Judge Marshall's request," Polly said evenly.
+
+"That's right--that's right!" Judge Marshall agreed hastily. "Nita--Mrs.
+Selim--wanted the unfinished half of the gabled top story finished up.
+Wanted a maid's room and bath, and a guest room and bath added to the
+living quarters already completed. I gave the commission, for an
+estimate, at least, to the Hammond firm, since they had built the house
+originally for Crain--Penny's father."
+
+"I see," Dundee agreed. "And you sent your brother, Mr. Hammond?"
+
+"He was the natural one to send," Clive Hammond retorted. "Small job.
+All he had to do was to get together an estimate on additional furnace
+lines and radiators, electric wiring, plumbing, plastering, etc."
+
+"Go on, Miss Beale," Dundee directed.
+
+"Thanks!" There was sarcasm in her brusque voice. "But that's really
+about all I have to tell. Ralph complained that he was hungry and
+charged me with giving him too little of my time--the usual thing. I
+picked up Nita's phone, called Clive and made the date for the three of
+us. Then I called Breakaway Inn, cancelled the luncheon part of the
+bridge party with Nita, and Ralph and I drove back to Hamilton."
+
+Dundee studied her strong, clever, almost plain face for a long minute.
+Certainly Polly Beale did not look like a liar--but he would have taken
+his oath that she was lying now. Or rather not revealing the whole truth
+behind the actual facts of her movements that day. For instance, could a
+simple plea of her future brother-in-law make her do so discourteous a
+thing as to break a luncheon appointment, especially when such a course
+would not only disappoint her hostess and her friends but disarrange the
+seating plan of a rather formal party?
+
+Of course the explanation was obvious. She had wanted, first, to see
+Nita and remonstrate privately with her for having so enslaved Ralph
+Hammond, when he was tacitly known to "belong" to Penny Crain--one of
+the sacred crowd. Failing that, she had found Ralph himself, and had not
+expected to find him; had talked with him about Nita, and had quarreled
+a bit with him, perhaps, over his love-sodden behavior. And the crisis
+had become so acute that Polly had arbitrarily called upon Clive Hammond
+and then had forced Ralph to accompany her.
+
+"Do you know, Miss Beale, why Ralph Hammond did not keep _his_
+engagement with Mrs. Selim this afternoon? Or rather, his promise to
+appear for cocktails and to be Miss Crain's partner for the rest of the
+evening--dinner and dancing at the Country Club?"
+
+"I do not!" Polly said crisply.
+
+"Hammond?"
+
+"Neither do I," Hammond retorted angrily.
+
+"Then it was not to discuss Ralph Hammond and his--affairs, that you
+beckoned Miss Beale to meet you in the solarium upon your arrival?"
+
+"It--_was not_!"
+
+A shade too much anger and emphasis, Dundee decided. And he wished
+heartily that Strawn's detectives would not delay much longer in
+bringing the missing young man into this already involved examination.
+
+"You say that you both were in the solarium from the time of your
+arrival, Hammond, until Mrs. Marshall screamed," Dundee continued. "Just
+what did you see and hear?"
+
+Dundee watched their faces keenly, but again they were well-bred,
+expressionless. It was Polly Beale who answered: "Naturally there was
+not absolute silence, but I am afraid we were not listening. We were
+rather engrossed in our conversation. We were seated--near no
+windows--and I for one _saw_ nothing, as well as heard nothing that I
+can recall."
+
+"Hammond?"
+
+"That goes for me, too--absolutely!"
+
+Abruptly abandoning the engaged couple, Dundee returned to Miles. "You
+were the second arrival, then?"
+
+"Yes. I parked my car along the curb in front of the house," Tracey
+answered readily. "And I came right on in, and Nita jumped up--"
+
+"Yes. We've had all that twice before," Dundee interrupted cruelly.
+"Now, Judge Marshall--"
+
+"One of my friends gave me a lift from town," Judge Marshall volunteered
+pompously. "Chap named Sampson. You may have heard of him--fine fellow,
+splendid lawyer. We played billiards together at the Athletic Club, and
+when I was about to call a taxi--my wife having the car here--he offered
+to drop me here on his way to the Country Club.... N-no, I don't
+remember the exact time, did not consult my watch."
+
+"You came directly from the road into the house, Judge Marshall?"
+
+"Certainly, sir!"
+
+"Did you--er, see anyone?"
+
+"You mean, sir, did anyone see _me_?" Judge Marshall demanded with
+pompous indignation. "No, no one, sir! If my word is not good enough for
+you, you can think what you damned please!"
+
+"I think we are all getting a little too tired, Mr. Dundee," Penny Crain
+suggested, almost humble in her weariness.
+
+"I'm truly sorry," the young detective apologized. "But I can't leave
+things like this ... Mr. Drake, you have said you walked over from the
+Country Club. You must have approached the house from the driveway side,
+the side of the house which contains Mrs. Selim's bedroom.... Is that
+right?"
+
+"More or less, except that I skirted the house rather widely and arrived
+from the road, stepping upon the front porch, and walking directly into
+the hall. I saw no one outside or near the house when I arrived," Drake
+answered, with less than his usual nastiness.
+
+"And saw no one running away across the meadows?" Dundee pressed.
+
+"No one at all," Drake retorted. "I wish to God I could truthfully say
+that I saw a gunman, with a mask and a smoking revolver, skulking
+through the wildflowers, but the absolute truth is that I saw no one."
+
+"Thank you, Mr. Drake.... Now--Mr. Sprague, 'of New York'!"
+
+Sprague's nervously twitching face reddened darkly. "I--I took a bus. I
+have no car of my own. I got off the bus on Sheridan Road, at the
+entrance to Primrose Meadows."
+
+"I see. And you walked the quarter of a mile to this house?"
+
+Sprague's hand fumbled with his cravat. "I--of course I did!"
+
+"I see.... Now, Miss Raymond," Dundee pounced unexpectedly, so that the
+red-haired girl went very white beneath her freckles, "you observed Mr.
+Sprague toiling down the rutty road, hot and weary, but romantic in the
+sunset?"
+
+Mrs. Drake let out a nervous giggle, then clapped her hand over her
+mouth.
+
+"I--I wasn't looking that way," Janet Raymond stammered. "I--I just went
+out on the porch for a breath of fresh air--"
+
+"And you were _completely_ surprised when Mr. Sprague came walking up
+the flagstone path?" Dundee persisted, for he knew she was lying, knew
+that she had stationed herself there to watch for Sprague.
+
+"I--yes, I was! He stopped and talked for a while, before we came in and
+joined Tracey and Lois in the dining room, where Tracey was mixing
+cocktails.... But," she flared suddenly, "I don't see why you have to
+badger all of us, when it _must_ have been Lydia, the maid, who killed
+Nita, because--"
+
+"Oh, Janet! Shame on you!" Penny cried furiously.
+
+"Where is the maid now, Captain Strawn?" Dundee asked. "I haven't seen
+her yet--"
+
+"Because she's in her room in the basement, Bonnie," Strawn answered.
+"Sort of forgot about her, didn't you?" and he chuckled at the younger
+man's discomfiture. "But _I_ got her story out of her, you bet! Nothing
+to it, though. One of my boys--Collins, it was--found her in that short,
+dark hall that runs between the Selim woman's bedroom and the kitchen.
+Sicker'n a pup she was; it was a mess. Said she'd--"
+
+"I'd better have her up and question her, if she's well enough," Dundee
+interrupted, as tactfully as possible. "It seems that she had an
+abscessed tooth out today, with gas and a local anesthetic.... Now, Miss
+Raymond, will you tell me exactly what you meant by saying it must have
+been Lydia who killed her mistress?"
+
+"I certainly will!" the red-haired girl cried defiantly. "What I can't
+see is why Tracey and Lois and Dex--Mr. Sprague--didn't think of it,
+too. It's as plain as--"
+
+"Yes, as the nose on my face," Dundee cut in grimly, but with a glance
+at Strawn. "Just stick to the facts, however, Miss Raymond, and maybe we
+can all agree with you."
+
+"Well, when Mr. Sprague and I went into the dining room, there were Lois
+and Tracey cutting up like a couple of children," Janet began,
+determined to take her time. "When they saw us, Lois said: 'Good Lord,
+Tracey! Get busy! Or your job as bartender will be taken away from you,'
+and Tracey began to shake cocktails at the sideboard--"
+
+"Guess I'd better tell it, Janet, for what it's worth," Lois cut in
+impatiently. "It's nothing more nor less than that I had to ring twice
+for poor Lydia before she came," she explained to Dundee. "Tracey is
+full of original ideas about cocktails, and wanted some sort of bitters.
+He was going to shout for Lydia, but I stepped on the button under the
+dining table, and the poor thing--in the basement nursing her jaw,
+probably--didn't hear. Tracey and I got to kidding, as Janet says, and
+had scarcely noticed how long Lydia was in coming. I rang again, and she
+came.... That's all!"
+
+"That isn't all!" Janet denied angrily. "I was there when Lydia came
+in, and she was looking white as a ghost--except for her swollen jaw.
+What's more, she acted so dumb Tracey had to tell her twice what he
+wanted.... And then she said Nita didn't have any of those bitters
+anyway."
+
+"An open-and-shut case against poor Lydia!" Penny Crain broke in
+derisively. "Go pluck daisies, Janet! You'd be of a lot more help!"
+
+"Here's your maid, Bonnie," Captain Strawn announced lazily, as one of
+his plainclothesmen appeared in the arch between dining and living room,
+dragging by the hand a woman who was resisting strangely, her apron
+pressed to her face.
+
+"You are Lydia?" Dundee asked, his voice kinder than it had been for
+many minutes. "Oh, it's Lydia Carr, Captain Strawn? Thank you.... Don't
+be afraid. And I'm sorry about the tooth.... Come along in. I'll not
+keep you long."
+
+The woman's knees seemed about to fail her, but with a sudden effort she
+released the detective's grip on her wrist. Very tall she was, very bony
+in her black cotton dress. Pathetic, too, with her thin, iron-grey hair,
+and that apron concealing the left half of her face. It was odd, Dundee
+thought, that it was not the swollen jaw she chose to cover.
+
+Mrs. Dunlap sprang to her feet and hurried across the room.
+
+"Don't mind, Lydia, please. You must not be so sensitive," she said
+gently, and even more gently pulled down the concealing apron....
+
+"Good God!" Dundee breathed, and Strawn nodded his understanding of the
+younger man's horror.
+
+For the left half of Lydia Carr's face was drawn and puckered and ridged
+almost out of human semblance. Even the eye was ruined--a milky ball
+which the puckered, hairless eyelid could never cover again.
+
+"Poor Lydia is ashamed of her scarred face," Lois Dunlap explained, her
+arm still about the maid's shoulder. "She isn't quite used to it yet,
+but none of _us_ mind--"
+
+"You were burned recently, Lydia?" Dundee asked pityingly.
+
+"That's my business!" the woman astounded him by retorting harshly.
+
+"How did it happen, Lydia?" Dundee persisted, puzzled.
+
+"I had an accident. It was my own fault."
+
+Lois Dunlap's kind grey eyes caught and held Dundee's firmly. "I think,
+if Nita could speak to you now, Mr. Dundee, that she would beg you not
+to try to force Lydia's confidence on this subject. Nita was devoted to
+Lydia--we can all testify to that!--and one of the sweetest things about
+her was her constant effort to protect Lydia from questions and curious
+glances. I, for one, know that Nita often begged Lydia to submit to a
+skin-grafting operation, regardless of expense--"
+
+When that kind voice choked on tears, Dundee abruptly abandoned his
+intention to press the matter further.
+
+"Lydia, your mistress had been married, or was still married, wasn't
+she?"
+
+The woman's single, slate-grey eye stared into his expressionlessly.
+"She had 'Mrs.' in front of her name, to use when she felt like it.
+That's all I know. I never saw her husband--if she had one. I only
+worked for her about five years."
+
+"You say she used her married name 'when she felt like it....' What do
+you mean by that, Lydia?"
+
+"I mean she was an actress, and used her stage name--Juanita
+Leigh--pronounced like it was spelled plain 'Lee'; but she was mostly
+called 'Nita Leigh'."
+
+"An actress, you say?" Dundee repeated thoughtfully. "I had heard of her
+only as director of the Forsyte School plays.... What shows was she in?"
+
+"She was what they call a specialty dancer in musical comedy," Lydia
+answered. "Sometimes she had a real part and sometimes she only danced.
+She was a good hoofer and a good trouper," she added, the Broadway terms
+falling strangely from those austere lips. "And when she wasn't in a
+show she sometimes got a job in the pictures. She never had a real
+chance in the movies, though, because they mostly wanted her to double
+for the star in long shots, where dancing comes into the picture, or in
+close-ups where they just show the legs, you know."
+
+"I see," Dundee agreed gravely. "Where were you during the fifteen
+minutes or so before your mistress was shot, Lydia?"
+
+"I was down in my room in the basement," the woman answered. "Nita--I
+mean Miss Nita was going to get Judge Marshall to build me a room on the
+top floor. She hated for me to have to sleep in the basement, but I
+didn't mind."
+
+"You were not required to be on duty for the party?"
+
+"No," she answered in her harsh, flat voice. "I'd fixed the sandwiches
+and put out the liquors for the cocktails--set them all out on the
+dining table and sideboard, and Miss Nita had told me to go and lie down
+as soon as I was through. So I did. I had an abscessed tooth pulled this
+morning, and I was feeling sick."
+
+"Did you hear the kitchen bell at all?" Dundee went on.
+
+"I dropped off to sleep--that fool dentist had shot me full of dope--but
+I did hear the bell and I come up to answer it. Mrs. Dunlap said she'd
+rung twice, and I said I was sorry--"
+
+"Lydia, did you go into your mistress' bedroom before or after you
+answered that bell?" Dundee asked with sudden sharpness.
+
+"I did not! I didn't even know she was in her bedroom, until I saw her
+sitting at her dressing-table--dead." The harsh voice hesitated over the
+last word, but it did not break.
+
+"And just when did you first see her--after she was dead?"
+
+"I went into the kitchen, thinking something else might be needed. Then
+I heard a scream. It sounded like it come from Nita's--Miss Nita's
+bedroom, and I run along the back hall that leads from the kitchen to
+her bedroom. I heard a lot of people running and yelling. Nobody paid
+any attention to me."
+
+"You came into the room?"
+
+"No, sir, I did not. I stopped in the doorway. I heard Mr. Sprague say
+she was dead. I was sick and dizzy anyway, and I couldn't move for a
+minute. I sort of slipped down to the floor, and I guess I must have
+passed out. And then I was sick to my stomach, and--I didn't seem to
+care if I never moved again."
+
+"Why, Lydia?" Dundee asked gently.
+
+"Because she was the only friend I had in the world, and I couldn't have
+loved her better if she'd been my own child," Lydia answered. And the
+stern voice had broken at last. "I was still there in the back hall when
+a cop come and asked me a lot of questions, and then that man--" she
+pointed to Captain Strawn, "--said I could go and lay down. He helped me
+down the basement stairs."
+
+Dundee tapped his teeth with the long pencil he had kept so busy that
+evening--tapped them long and thoughtfully. Then:
+
+"Lydia, did you see anyone--_anyone at all!_--from your basement room
+window before you answered Mrs. Dunlap's ring?"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER NINE
+
+
+For the first time during the difficult interview Dundee was sure that
+Lydia Carr was lying. For a fraction of a second her single eye wavered,
+the lid flickered, then came her harsh, flat denial:
+
+"I didn't see nobody."
+
+"I presume your basement room has a window looking out upon the back
+garden?" Dundee persisted.
+
+"Yes, it has, but I didn't waste no time looking out of it," Lydia
+answered grimly. "I was laying down, with an ice cap against my jaw."
+
+She _had_ seen someone, Dundee told himself. But the truth would be
+harder to extract from that stern, scar-twisted mouth, than the
+abscessed tooth had been.
+
+Finally, when her lone eye did not again waver under his steady gaze, he
+dismissed her, or rather, returned her to Captain Strawn's custody.
+
+"Well, Janet, I hope you're satisfied!" Penny Crain said bitingly, as
+she dashed unashamed tears from her brown eyes. "If ever a maid was
+absolutely crazy about her mistress--"
+
+"I'm _not_ satisfied!" Janet Raymond retorted furiously. "She's just the
+sort that would harbor a grudge for _years_, and then, all hopped up
+with dope--"
+
+"Stop it, Janet!" Lois Dunlap commanded with a curtness that set oddly
+upon her kind, pleasant face.
+
+"Listen here, Dundee," Tracey Miles broke in, almost humbly. "My wife is
+getting pretty anxious about the kiddies. The nurse quit on us
+yesterday, and--"
+
+"And _my_ little wife is worrying herself sick over our boy--just three
+months old," Judge Marshall joined the protest. "I'm all for assisting
+justice, sir, having served on the bench myself, as you doubtless know,
+but--"
+
+"I'm all right, really, Hugo," Karen Marshall faltered.
+
+"Please be patient a little longer," Dundee urged apologetically. After
+all, only one of these people could be guilty of Nita Selim's murder,
+and it _was_ beastly to have to hold them like this.... _But one was
+guilty!_
+
+"You knew Mrs. Selim in New York, Sprague?" he asked, whirling suddenly
+upon the man with the Broadway stamp.
+
+"I met Nita Leigh, as I always heard her called, when I was assistant
+director in the Altamont Studios, out on Long Island," Sprague answered,
+his black eyes trying to meet Dundee's with an air of complete
+frankness. "Wonderful little girl, and a great dancer ... Screened
+damned well, too. I had hoped to give her a break some day, at something
+better than doubling for stars who can't dance. But it happened that
+Nita, who never forgot even a casual friend, had a chance to give me a
+leg up herself--a chance to show what I can really do with a camera."
+
+"I knew I'd seen your name somewhere!" Dundee exclaimed. "So you're the
+man the Chamber of Commerce is dickering with.... Going to make a movie
+of the founding, growth and beauties of the city of Hamilton, aren't
+you?"
+
+"If I get the contract--yes," Sprague answered with palpably assumed
+modesty. "My plans, naturally, call for a great deal of research work, a
+large expenditure of money, a very careful selection of 'stars'--"
+
+"I see," Dundee interrupted. Then his tone changed, became slow and
+menacing in its terrible emphasis: "_And you really couldn't let even a
+good friend like Nita Selim upset those fine plans of yours, could you,
+Sprague?_"
+
+Even as he put the sinister question, the detective was exulting to
+himself: "Light at last! Now I know why this Broadway bounder was
+received into an exclusive crowd like this! Every last female in the
+bunch hoped to be the star of Sprague's motion picture!"
+
+"I don't know what you're driving at, Dundee!" Sprague was on his feet,
+his black eyes blazing out of a chalky face. "If you're accusing me
+of--of--"
+
+"Of killing Nita Selim?" Dundee asked lazily. "Oh, no! Not--yet,
+Sprague! I was just remembering a rather puzzling note of yours I
+happened to read this afternoon.... That note you sent by special
+messenger to Breakaway Inn this noon, you know."
+
+He had little interest for the sudden crumpling of Dexter Sprague into
+the chair from which he had risen. Instead, as Dundee drew the note from
+his coat pocket, his eyes swept around the room, noted the undisguised
+relief on every face, the almost ghoulish satisfaction with which that
+close-knit group of friends seized upon an outsider as the probable
+murderer of that other outsider whom they had rashly taken into their
+sacred circle. Even Penny Crain, thorny little stickler for fair play
+that she was, relaxed with a tremulous sigh.
+
+"You admit that this note, signed by what I take to be your 'pet name,'
+was written by your hand, Sprague?" Dundee asked matter-of-factly, as he
+extended the sheet of bluish notepaper.
+
+"I--no--yes, I wrote it," Sprague faltered. "But it doesn't mean a
+thing--not a damned thing! Just a little private matter between Nita and
+myself--"
+
+"Rather queer wording for an unimportant message, Sprague," Dundee
+interrupted. "Let me refresh your memory: 'Nita, my sweet,'" he began to
+read slowly, "'Forgive your bad boy for last night's row, but I _must_
+warn you again to watch your step. You've already gone too far. Of
+course I love you and understand, _but_--Be good, Baby, _and you won't
+be sorry_!--Dexy....' Well, Sprague?"
+
+Sprague wiped his perspiring hands on his handkerchief. "I know it
+sounds--odd, under the circumstances," he admitted desperately, "but
+listen, Dundee, and I'll try to make that damned note as clear as
+possible to a man who doesn't know his Broadway.... Why, man, it isn't
+even a love letter! Everybody on Broadway talks and writes to each other
+like that, without meaning a thing!... As I told you, Nita Leigh, or
+Mrs. Selim, remembered some little kindnesses I had done her on the
+Altamont lot, when they got her to take up that Little Theater work Mrs.
+Dunlap is interested in, and found that the Chamber of Commerce was
+interested in putting Hamilton into the movies, in a big booster
+campaign. She wired me and I thought it looked good enough to drop
+everything and come.... Of course Nita and I got to be closer friends,
+but I swear to God we were just friends--"
+
+"And what was the 'friendly' row about last night, Sprague?"
+
+"There wasn't a row, really," Sprague protested with desperate
+earnestness. "It was merely that Nita insisted on my casting her for the
+heroine of the movie--a thing I knew would alienate the whole crowd
+that's been so kind to us--"
+
+"Why--since she was a professional actress?" Dundee demanded.
+
+"Because she isn't a Hamilton girl, of course, and the Chamber of
+Commerce wants the cast to be all local talent," Sprague answered,
+lapsing unconsciously into the present tense.
+
+"And just what were you warning her against?"
+
+"I'd told her before to watch her step," Sprague went on more easily.
+"You see, Dundee, Nita Leigh is--was--a first-class little vamp, and I
+could see she was playing her cards with the men here--" he indicated
+four of Hamilton's most prominent Chamber of Commerce members with a
+wave of his hand--"to get them all so crazy about her that they'd vote
+for her as the star of the picture. I could see her point, all right. It
+would have been a big chance for her to show how she could act.... Well,
+I could see it was dangerous business, and that the girls--" and he
+smiled jerkily at the tense women in the living room, "--were getting
+pretty wrought up over the way Nita was behaving.... All except Mrs.
+Dunlap," he added. "_She_ didn't want to act in the picture, and Nita
+didn't make any headway at all with Peter Dunlap."
+
+"Thanks, Mr. Sprague," Lois Dunlap drawled, with an amused quirk of her
+broad mouth.
+
+"Get along with the row, Sprague!" Dundee commanded impatiently.
+
+"As I said, it wasn't really a row. I just pleaded with Nita last night
+to smooth down the girls' rumpled feathers, and to make it clear to them
+that she didn't want the star part in the picture any more than she
+wanted any other woman's husband or sweetheart.... Just a friendly
+warning--" Sprague drew a deep breath. "And that's all the note
+meant--absolutely!"
+
+"I see," Dundee said quietly, then quoted: _"'Be good, Baby, and you
+won't be sorry!'"_
+
+"That meant, of course," Sprague took him up eagerly, "that I'd see she
+got a real part in a regular movie, after I'd made my hit with the
+Hamilton picture."
+
+Very plausible, very plausible indeed, Dundee reflected. And yet--
+
+Finally he lifted his head and let his eyes dart from face to face.
+
+"All of you have stated, separately and collectively, that you heard no
+shot fired in Nita Selim's bedroom this afternoon," he said sharply. "Is
+that true?"
+
+He was answered by weary nods or sullen affirmations.
+
+"Then," he continued, "I must conclude that you are all lying or that
+Nita Selim was killed with a gun equipped with a Maxim silencer."
+
+Never was a detective more unprepared for the effect of his words upon a
+group of possible suspects than was Special Investigator Dundee....
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER TEN
+
+
+As Dexter Sprague had glibly and plausibly explained away every sinister
+aspect of the note he had written to Nita Selim that day, Special
+Investigator Dundee was recalling with verbatim vividness his argument
+with Captain Strawn of the Homicide Squad immediately after his arrival
+into the house of violent death.
+
+He had said then: "The person who killed Nita Selim, was so well known
+to her, and his--or her--presence in this room so natural a thing that
+she paid no attention to his or her movements and was concentrating on
+the job of powdering her very pretty face."
+
+And he had said further, in face of the disappearance of the gun and in
+explanation of the fact that all twelve of these people had immediately
+protested to Strawn that they had heard no shot:
+
+"This was a premeditated murder, of course. The Maxim silencer--unless
+they are all lying about not hearing a shot--proves that. Silencers are
+damned hard to get hold of, but people with plenty of money can manage
+most things."
+
+And as Dexter Sprague had talked on, more and more glibly, Dundee had
+suddenly found an explanation which fitted his own argument with such
+perfection that he wondered, naively, if he were perhaps gifted with
+clairvoyance.
+
+Of all these twelve people, whom he had questioned so relentlessly, only
+Dexter Sprague could easily have come into possession of a Maxim
+silencer. He had dilated proudly upon the fact that he had been an
+assistant director at the Altamont Studios on Long Island. And the
+Altamont company had recently finished making a series of "underworld"
+motion pictures--crook dramas featuring gunmen with "rods" made eerily
+noiseless by Maxim silencers.
+
+A bit of information he had picked up in a motion picture magazine had
+hurtled into the logical chain of Dundee's reasoning: assistant
+directors were in charge of "props"; it was their business to see that
+no article needed for the production of a picture was lost or missing
+when the director needed it. Dexter Sprague had said that he had
+"dropped everything" to come when Nita Selim wired him of the Chamber of
+Commerce project to make a "booster" movie of Hamilton.
+
+Perhaps he _had_ dropped everything. But--_had he hesitated long enough
+to pick up a Maxim silencer and a blunt-nosed automatic_? And was the
+"row" which Sprague had been so glibly explaining away an ancient one--a
+row so deadly that, when Nita Selim had refused to heed his written
+warning, her murder had become necessary?
+
+It was with all this in mind that Bonnie Dundee flung his challenge: "I
+must conclude that you are all lying or that Nita Selim was killed with
+a gun equipped with a Maxim silencer."
+
+And his eyes, terrible with their command that the weakling should break
+and confess, were upon Dexter Sprague. But Sprague did not break. He
+stared back blankly....
+
+If his eyes and his attention had included the whole group it is
+possible that what happened would not have taken Dundee so completely by
+surprise. He had paid little attention to a sort of concerted gasp, a
+slight movement among the group farthest from him.
+
+But not even his intense concentration upon Sprague could prevent his
+hearing Karen Marshall's childish voice, tremulous with fear:
+
+"No, no, Hugo! Don't--don't!"
+
+He whirled from Sprague in time to see Judge Marshall disengaging his
+arm from his young wife's clinging fingers, to note, with profound
+astonishment, that Drake was stepping hastily aside, so that not even
+his coat sleeve might be brushed by the advancing figure of the elderly,
+retired judge. And before Judge Marshall had time to speak, Dundee saw
+that a blight had touched, at last, the solid friendship of the women;
+that they did not look at each other with that air of standing together
+whatever happened, but that their eyes, not meeting at all, became
+secret, calculating, afraid....
+
+"Sir!" Judge Marshall began pompously, when he had planted himself
+squarely before the young detective, "It shall never be said of me that
+I have tried, even in the slightest way, to hamper the course of
+justice."
+
+"I am sure of that, Judge Marshall," Dundee replied courteously, but his
+pulses were hammering. What, in God's name, did this long-winded old
+fool have to tell him?... "You have some information you believe may be
+valuable, Judge?"
+
+"I do not believe it will be at all valuable, sir. On the contrary!" the
+old man retorted indignantly. "But to suppress the fact at this juncture
+might lead to grave misunderstandings later, when it inevitably comes to
+light. So, sir, it is my duty to inform you that I myself own a Colt's
+.32, as well as a Maxim silencer."
+
+"What!" Dundee exclaimed incredulously. He was conscious that, behind
+him, Captain Strawn was getting to his feet.
+
+"There is no need to get out your handcuffs, Captain Strawn!" Judge
+Marshall warned him majestically. "I assure you that I have not violated
+the law. Every judge, active and retired, is entitled to a permit to
+carry a weapon, and I long ago availed myself of the privilege. Nor am I
+about to make a confession of murder!"
+
+"There ain't no permit, so far as I know, Judge," Strawn growled, "for
+any man, whoever he may be--God A'mighty himself not excepted--to tote a
+gun with a silencer on it."
+
+Karen Marshall was crying now, with the abandoned grief of a petted
+child.
+
+"Granted, Captain!" Judge Marshall snapped. "But it happens that I do
+not 'tote' my gun with the silencer on it. If it interests you, I may as
+well explain that I came by the silencer several years ago, when I was
+on the bench. A notorious Chicago gunman, on trial for murder here, and
+acquitted by a feeble-minded jury, made me a present of the very
+silencer he had used in killing his victim--an ironic gesture, a gesture
+of supreme insolence, but an entirely safe gesture, since he well knew
+that a man once acquitted of a crime cannot again be placed in jeopardy
+for the same offence."
+
+"So you kept the silencer as a curiosity, Judge Marshall?" Dundee
+interrupted the pompous flow of rhetoric.
+
+"For years--yes," the ex-judge answered, then his face went yellow
+and very old. "As I told you just now, I will withhold no fact that
+may be of any relevance whatever.... About two months ago--in March,
+I believe--our little group here took up target-shooting as a fad.
+Several of us became quite expert with revolver and rifle. Mr.
+Drake--" and he nodded toward the banker, who instantly averted his eyes,
+"--conceived the idea of practising the draw-from-the-hip sort of
+revolver-shooting--the kind one sees in Wild West movies, you know--"
+
+"I think you might add, Hugo," Drake cut in angrily, "that I had in mind
+the hope of being able to protect the bank in case of a holdup!"
+
+"And the silencer, Judge Marshall?" Captain Strawn prodded.
+
+Judge Marshall flushed, and fingered the end of a waxed mustache. "The
+silencer, sir, was my wife's idea. You see, sir, we are fortunate enough
+to be the parents of an infant son. He was just a month old when I
+painted a bull's eye upon the brick wall of our back garden and invited
+our friends to indulge their fad as our guests. The shooting awakened
+the baby so frequently that Karen--Mrs. Marshall--dug up the silencer,
+which I had shown her as a memento of my career on the bench. Thereafter
+we confined our practice almost exclusively to drawing from the hip and
+shooting without sighting. It is impossible to sight with a gun equipped
+with a silencer, you know, since the silencer covers the sighter on the
+barrel."
+
+"It sure does," Strawn drawled. "So every last one of you folks had a
+good deal of this sort of practice, I take it?"
+
+Judge Marshall glanced about the room, as if he could not recall the
+face of everyone present.
+
+"Yes, all of us--except Mr. Sprague and--Penny, my dear, did you join us
+at all?"
+
+The girl who had once been in on every sport that this crowd of
+Hamilton's socially elect indulged in, flushed a painful red.
+
+"No, Hugo. I--I have to stay with Mother on Sunday mornings, you know."
+
+"Your target practice was a Sunday morning diversion, then, Judge
+Marshall?" Dundee asked.
+
+"Yes. We usually have an hour of the sport--between eleven and noon, on
+Sundays. We've been having a sort of tournament--quite sharply
+competitive--"
+
+"When did you and your friends practise last?" Dundee asked.
+
+"Last Sunday. Tomorrow was to mark the end of the 'tournament'," the
+Judge answered.
+
+"And when did you last see your gun and silencer?" Dundee persisted.
+
+"Last Sunday, of course.... Why, Good Lord!" Marshall ejaculated. _"It
+was Nita herself who put the gun away!_"
+
+There was a collective gasp of relief. Eyes could meet eyes--now. But it
+was Flora Miles who voiced the thought or hope that seemed apparent on
+every face.
+
+"That's why I didn't hear anyone talking when I was in the closet!" she
+cried, her voice almost hysterical in its vehemence. "_There wasn't
+anybody but Nita in the room!_ She committed suicide! She stole poor
+Hugo's gun and the silencer and committed suicide!"
+
+"At a distance of from ten to fifteen feet?" Dundee asked with
+ill-concealed sarcasm. "And when she was powdering her face? And just
+after entering the room, blithely singing a Broadway hit?"
+
+"Maybe the lady is right, boy," Captain Strawn interposed mildly. "I've
+heard of people rigging up contrivances--"
+
+"Which make the gun and the silencer disappear by magic?" Dundee
+demanded. "No, folks, I'm afraid the suicide theory is no good.... Now,
+Judge Marshall," and he turned again to the creator of the biggest
+sensation since the investigation into Nita Selim's death had got under
+way, "you say that Mrs. Selim herself put the gun away.... Will you
+explain the circumstances?"
+
+The elderly man's face had gone yellowish again. "Certainly! Nita Selim
+and I were the last to leave the back garden. She was particularly poor
+at the sport--never made a bull's eye during the four or five Sunday
+mornings after Lois--Mrs. Dunlap--drew her into our set. She begged for
+a few more shots, and I stayed with her, after the others had gone into
+the house for--er--refreshment. She fired the last bullet in the chamber
+of the Colt's, and together we walked to the house, entering the little
+room at the rear where all sorts of sports equipment are kept--fishing
+rods and tackle, golf clubs, bows and arrows, skis, etc. She was
+carrying the gun, unscrewing the silencer as we walked. It is my habit
+to keep the pistol and the silencer in a drawer in a little corner
+cupboard--"
+
+"Locked, up?" Dundee asked sharply.
+
+"Usually locked, but not always, I am afraid," Judge Marshall answered
+reluctantly.
+
+"And you saw Mrs. Selim place the gun and the silencer in the drawer?"
+
+"I--thought I did, but I was really not watching closely. As a matter of
+fact, I stopped to look over a fishing rod, with a view to trying it out
+the first good fishing weather--"
+
+"Was Mrs. Selim wearing a coat or cloak?" Dundee cut in impatiently.
+
+"Why, I don't know--"
+
+"Yes, she was, Hugo!" Karen cried out eagerly. "It was quite chilly last
+Sunday morning. Remember? We all had on coats or sweaters. Nita wore a
+dark-green leather jacket with big pockets--"
+
+"And she left in a great hurry, without even waiting for a drink," Flora
+Miles contributed triumphantly. "I tell you, she took them away in her
+pockets."
+
+"Your guess may be correct, Mrs. Miles," Dundee agreed, "but I think we
+had better not come to any definite conclusion until we know that Judge
+Marshall's automatic and silencer are really missing.... Is there anyone
+at your house now, Judge, whom you can ask to look for it?"
+
+"Certainly. The butler.... Shall I telephone him?"
+
+Accompanied by Captain Strawn, the ex-judge went to the telephone in the
+little foyer between Nita Selim's bedroom and the main hall. And within
+five minutes he was back, nodding his head gravely.
+
+"Hinson tells me that the Colt's and the silencer are both missing,
+sir.... May I express my profound regret that my possession of--"
+
+"Some other time, Judge Marshall!" Dundee interrupted curtly, and
+hurried from the room, followed by Strawn, who nodded to Sergeant
+Turner, still lounging wearily in a far corner of the living room, to
+stand guard vigilantly.
+
+"Well, Bonnie, here's the devil to pay," Strawn gloomed, but Dundee made
+for the telephone without answering.
+
+He called a number, then curtly demanded: "Dr. Price, please!... Yes, I
+know he's busy on an autopsy. Just tell him that Dundee, of the district
+attorney's office, wants to speak to him."
+
+There was a long pause, then: "Hello, Dr. Price!... Dundee.... What are
+the caliber and type of bullet that killed Nita Selim?... Thanks much,
+doctor.... Anything new?... Fine! Thanks again!"
+
+He hung up the receiver and faced Strawn. "Bullet from a Colt's .32," he
+said grimly. "I suggest you send one of your men around to the Marshall
+home to pick up a bullet that was shot in their damned target practice.
+If you send the two bullets tonight, registered mail, to Wright, the
+ballistics expert in Chicago, he can probably wire you tomorrow morning
+as to whether the same gun was used to fire both."
+
+"Sure, Bonnie," Strawn agreed lugubriously. "I was going to do just
+that.... Say, this town is getting to be worse than Chicago!"
+
+When he re-entered the living room Dundee began upon the judge again,
+regardless of the fact that the elderly husband was murmuring
+consolatory endearments to his young wife.
+
+"Judge Marshall, how many keys are there to the cupboard drawer in which
+your gun and silencer were kept?"
+
+"Just one. I have it with me," the old man answered wearily.
+
+"Then when Hinson, your butler, looked for them, he found the drawer
+unlocked?"
+
+"He did. I confess to almost criminal negligence--"
+
+"Then so far as you know, the gun and silencer could have been removed
+at any time by any guest of yours between noon last Sunday and--today?"
+Dundee went on relentlessly.
+
+"I--suppose so. But these people have been my close friends for years,"
+the judge answered. "Not one of them, sir--"
+
+"After Mrs. Selim's departure last Sunday, did your other guests remain
+for any length of time?"
+
+"For an hour or more, I think. Lois and Peter Dunlap remained for our
+two o'clock Sunday dinner, but the others drifted away to various
+engagements."
+
+"Did any of you return to the room where the gun was kept?"
+
+"I can speak only for myself and Peter--Mr. Dunlap," Judge Marshall
+answered, flushing with indignation. "The two of us went down just
+before dinner was served. I wanted to show him some new flies for trout
+casting."
+
+"Your home is a popular rendezvous for your intimates, is it not?"
+
+"I pride myself that it is, sir!"
+
+"And guests run in and out, having the freedom of the place?"
+
+"Certainly, sir!... And since I am not so stupid as you imagine, I can
+tell you now that I understand the drift of your questions, and can
+forestall them: Yes, all of these people--_my friends_!--have had
+opportunity to take the gun and the silencer from the cupboard since it
+was placed there last Sunday, if it _was_ placed there by Mrs. Selim.
+But may I remind you, sir, that opportunity alone is not sufficient;
+that _motive_--"
+
+"Since Mrs. Selim is dead, murdered by the weapon which was stolen, we
+can assume, Judge Marshall, that someone had motive," Dundee reminded
+him implacably, for in his mind there was no doubt that the ballistics
+expert would bear him out.
+
+There was a heavy, throbbing silence. The group that, with the exception
+of Dexter Sprague, had been so united, so cemented with long-sustained
+friendship, again dissolved visibly before Dundee's eyes into eleven
+individuals, each shrinking into himself, mentally drawing away from any
+possible contamination with a murderer....
+
+"You have said, Judge Marshall," Dundee went on at last, "that Miss
+Crain and Mr. Sprague were not at your home for target practice Sunday.
+Has either of them been in your home during this past week?"
+
+"Penny--Miss Crain--spent an evening with my wife when I was--er--away
+from home on business. That was last Tuesday, I believe--"
+
+"Yes, it was Tuesday, Hugo," Penny Crain interrupted firmly. "And Karen
+can vouch for the fact that I did not go into the gun room."
+
+"Don't be silly, Penny!" Carolyn Drake scolded, as if she had long been
+bursting to speak. "Giving an alibi! As if _any_ of us who were playing
+bridge while that woman was being shot _needs_ any alibi!... But I'll
+tell you what _I_ think, Mr. Detective! I think Nita herself stole the
+gun and the silencer, to kill Dexter Sprague with, and that _he_ stole
+it from her and murdered _her_! Nobody else has the slightest scrap of a
+motive, and that note he wrote her ought to be enough to hang him on!"
+
+Dexter Sprague had struggled to his feet during the woman's hysterical
+attack, his face like chalk, his eyes blazing. But Dundee waved him
+aside peremptorily.
+
+"One more question, Judge Marshall," he said suavely, as if he had not
+heard a word that Carolyn Drake had said. "You knew Mrs. Selim before
+her arrival in Hamilton with Mrs. Dunlap, I believe.... Just when and
+where did you meet her?"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER ELEVEN
+
+
+"You are damned impertinent, sir!" Judge Marshall shouted, the ends of
+his waxed grey mustache trembling with anger.
+
+"Then I take it that you do not wish to divulge the circumstances of
+your friendship with Mrs. Selim?" Dundee asked.
+
+"Friendship!" the old man snorted. "Your implications, sir, are
+dastardly! I met Mrs. Selim, or rather, Nita Leigh, as she was
+introduced to me, only once, several years ago when I was in New York.
+Naturally--"
+
+"Just a moment, Judge. You say she was introduced to you as Nita Leigh.
+Then you knew her as an actress, I presume?"
+
+"I refuse to submit to such a cowardly attack, sir!"
+
+"_Attack_, Judge?" Dundee repeated with assumed astonishment. "I merely
+thought you might be able to shed a little light on the past of the
+woman who has been murdered here today, with a weapon you admit to
+having owned.... However--"
+
+The elderly ex-judge stared at his tormentor for a moment as if murder
+was in his heart. He gasped twice, then suddenly his whole manner
+changed.
+
+"I apologize, Dundee. You must realize how--But that is beside the
+point. I met Nita Leigh at--er--at a social gathering, arranged by some
+New York friends of mine. She was young, attractive, more refined
+than--er--than the average young woman in musical comedy. Naturally I
+told her if she was ever in Hamilton to look me up. And she did."
+
+"And because she was 'more refined than the average young woman in
+musical comedy'--than the average chorus girl, to put it simply," Dundee
+took him up, "you co-operated with Mrs. Dunlap to introduce her to your
+most intimate friends--including your wife?"
+
+"Oh, Hugo! Why didn't you tell me?" Karen Marshall wailed.
+
+"You see, sir, what you are doing!" Judge Marshall stormed.
+
+"I am truly sorry if I have distressed you, Mrs. Marshall," Dundee
+protested sincerely. "But--" He shrugged and turned again to the
+husband. "I understand you were Mrs. Selim's landlord.... May I ask how
+much rent she paid?"
+
+"The house rents for one hundred dollars a month--furnished."
+
+"And did Mrs. Selim pay her rent promptly?" Dundee persisted.
+
+"Since this is the 24th of May, sir, Mrs. Selim's rent for June was not
+yet due."
+
+Not before poor little Karen could Dundee force himself to ask what,
+inevitably, would have been his next question--one which could not have
+been evaded, as the ex-judge had evaded the other two questions: "_Is it
+not true, Judge Marshal, that Nita Leigh Selim paid you no rent at
+all?_" But there were other ways to find out....
+
+"Look here, Dundee!" a brusque voice challenged, and the detective
+whirled to face Polly Beale. It was like her, he thought with a slight
+grin, to address him as one man to another....
+
+"Yes, Miss Beale?"
+
+"I'm no fool, and I don't think any of my friends here are
+either--though two or three of them have acted like it today," the
+masculine-looking girl stated flatly. "You've made it very plain that
+any one of us here, except the Sprague man, could have stolen Hugo's gun
+and silencer.... Has the gun been found?"
+
+"It has not, Miss Beale."
+
+"O. K.!" The queer girl snapped her fingers. "I move that you or
+Captain Strawn search the men for the weapon, and that I search the
+Women.... Wait!" she harshly stopped a flurry of feminine protests. "I'll
+ask you, Dundee, to search me first yourself. I believe the technical
+term is 'frisking,' isn't it?... Then 'frisk' me.... Here is my handbag.
+I wore no coat, except this--" and she pointed to the jacket of her tweed
+suit.
+
+As she strode toward the detective Clive Hammond sprang after her with
+an oath and a sharp command.
+
+"Shut up, Clive! I'm not married to you yet!" she retorted, but her eyes
+were gentler than her voice.
+
+His face burning with embarrassment, Dundee went through the traditional
+gestures of police "frisking"--running his hands rapidly down the girl's
+tall, sturdy body, slapping her pockets. And his fingers fumbled sadly
+as he opened her tooled leather handbag.
+
+"Satisfied?" Polly Beale demanded, and at Dundee's miserable nod, the
+girl faced her friends: "Well, come along, girls!"
+
+"Lord! What a girl!" Dundee muttered to Strawn, as the young Amazon
+herded Flora Miles, Penny Crain, Karen Marshall, Carolyn Drake, Lois
+Dunlap and Janet Raymond into the dining room.
+
+Silently, and almost meekly, as if shamed into submission by Polly
+Beale's example, John Drake, Tracey Miles, Clive Hammond, Judge
+Marshall, and Dexter Sprague permitted Captain Strawn and Sergeant
+Turner to search them.
+
+"How about the guest closet and the cars?" Dundee asked of Strawn in a
+low voice, when the fruitless, unpleasant task was finished.
+
+"Gone over with a fine tooth comb long ago," Strawn assured him
+gloomily. "And not a hiding place in or outside the house that the boys
+haven't poked into--including the meadow as far as anyone could throw
+from the bedroom window."
+
+The women were filing back into the room, some pale, some flushed, but
+all able to look each other in the eye again.
+
+With surprising jauntiness Polly Beale saluted Dundee. "Nothing more
+deadly on any of us than Flora's triple-deck compact."
+
+"I thank you with all my heart, Miss Beale," Dundee said sincerely. "And
+now I think you may all go to your homes.... Of course you understand,"
+he interrupted a chorus of relieved ejaculations, "that all of you will
+be wanted for the inquest, which will probably be held Monday."
+
+"And what's more," Captain Strawn cut in, to show his authority, "I want
+all of you to hold yourselves ready for further questioning at any
+time."
+
+There was a stampede for coats and hats, a rush for cars as if the house
+were on fire, or--Dundee reflected wryly--as if those he had tortured
+were afraid he would change his mind. Rushing away with hatred of him in
+their hearts....
+
+Only Penny Crain held back, maneuvering for a chance to speak with him.
+
+"I don't have to go with the rest, do I?" she begged in a husky whisper.
+
+"And why not?" Dundee grinned at her, but he was glad there was no
+hatred in _her_ eyes.
+
+"I'm 'attached' to the district attorney's office, too, aren't I?"
+
+"Right! And you've been a brick this evening. I don't know what I should
+have done without you--"
+
+"Well, I can't see that you've done much _with_ me," she gibed. "But I'd
+like to stick around, if you're going to do some real Sherlocking--"
+
+"Can't be done, Penny. I want to stay here alone for a while and mull
+things over. But I'd like to have a long talk with you tomorrow."
+
+"Come to Sunday dinner. Mother loves murder mysteries," she suggested.
+Then realization swept over her. Her brown eyes widened, filled with
+terror. "Stop thinking one of us did it! _Stop_, I tell you!"
+
+"Can _you_ stop, Penny?" he asked gently.
+
+But she fled from him, sobbing wildly for the first time that long,
+horrible evening. Dundee, watching from the doorway of the lighted hall,
+saw the chauffeur open the rear door of the Dunlap limousine, saw Penny
+catapult herself into Lois Dunlap's outstretched arms....
+
+"When did the Dunlap chauffeur call for his mistress?" he asked Strawn,
+who stood beside him.
+
+"About ten minutes after you arrived," Strawn answered wearily. "Said
+he'd dropped Mrs. Dunlap and the Selim woman at about 2:30 and had been
+ordered to return around 6:30.... Knows nothing, of course." The chief
+of the Homicide Squad drew a deep breath. "Well, Bonnie, he has nothing
+on me. In spite of all the palaver I don't know nothing either."
+
+"You need some dinner, chief," Dundee suggested. "And the boys must be
+getting hungry, too."
+
+"Somebody's got to guard the house, I suppose," Strawn gloomed. "Not
+that it will do any good.... And what about that maid--that Carr woman?
+Shall I lock her up on general principles?"
+
+"No. I want to have another talk with her, and if she bucks at spending
+the night here, I'll take her to the Rhodes House, and turn her over to
+my old friend, Mother Rhodes. We haven't anything on her, you know."
+
+"No, nor on anybody else, except that old fool, Marshall, and we can't
+clap him into jail--yet," Strawn agreed, his grey eyes twinkling.
+
+"Take your crew on in, chief," Dundee urged. "I'll stick till midnight
+or longer, if you don't mind. You can arrange to have a couple of the
+boys to relieve me about twelve.... And by the way, will you telephone
+me the minute you get hold of Ralph Hammond?"
+
+"Well, maybe not so quick as all that," Strawn drawled. "I'll take the
+first crack at _that_ baby, my lad!... Not so dumb, am I, Bonnie-boy?
+Not so dumb! I can put two and two together as well as the next
+one--pretty near as well as the district attorney's new 'special
+investigator!'"
+
+           *       *       *       *       *
+
+Although Bonnie Dundee had taken Captain Strawn's none-too-gentle
+parting gibe with good grace, it was a very thoughtful young detective
+who set about locking himself into the house in which Nita Selim had
+been murdered.
+
+Captain Strawn had beaten him to the job that evening by at least twenty
+minutes. Had the old detective stumbled upon something which Dundee, for
+all his spectacular thoroughness, had overlooked or had been unable to
+turn up because Strawn had suppressed it?
+
+What if Strawn's parting boast was not an idle one, and he really had
+"the goods" on Ralph Hammond? Had the old chief been laughing up his
+sleeve during the farce of playing out the "death hand at bridge," and
+during the merciless quizzing of old Judge Marshall?
+
+But Dundee's native common sense quickly routed his gloom. Captain
+Strawn was too direct in his methods, too afraid of antagonizing the
+rich and influential, to have permitted even a "special investigator"
+from the district attorney's office to torment those twelve people
+needlessly. Probably Strawn, feeling a little hurt at having played
+second fiddle all evening, had simply wanted to get him fussed, was even
+now chuckling over the effect of his parting boast....
+
+Much cheered, Dundee lingered in the dining room whose windows he had
+made fast against any intrusion, so that his task of guarding the house
+alone might be minimized. As he glanced at the table, with its silver
+plates heaped with tiny sandwiches of caviar and anchovy paste, its
+little silver boats of olives and sweet pickles, he discovered that he
+was very hungry indeed....
+
+As he munched the drying sandwiches and sipped charged water--the
+various liquors for cocktails on the sideboard offered a temptation
+which he sternly resisted--Dundee's thought boiled and churned, throwing
+up picture after picture of Nita Selim, alive and then dead; of Penny
+Crain--bless her!--helping him at the expense of her loyalty to
+life-long friends; of Flora Miles, lying desperately and then confessing
+to a shameful theft; of Karen Marshall gallantly playing out the "death
+hand"; of Karen's stricken, childish face when she learned that her
+elderly husband had met and at least flirted with Nita Selim at a chorus
+girls' party....
+
+At that last picture Dundee flushed so that his skin prickled. Had he
+made a fool of himself, or was he right in his suspicion that Hugo
+Marshall had given Nita Selim this cottage rent free? That point should
+be easily settled, at any rate....
+
+Ruefully reflecting that appetizers do not make a satisfactory meal he
+betook himself to the dead woman's bedroom.... Yes, his memory had
+served him well. Here was her desk--a small feminine affair of rosewood,
+set in the corner of the room nearest the porch door.
+
+The desk was not locked. As Dundee let down the slanting lid, whose
+polish was marred with many fingerprints, he saw that its contents were
+in a hopeless jumble. So Strawn had beaten him to this, too! Had he
+found an all-important clue in one of the many little pigeon-holes and
+drawers, stuffing it into his pocket just before a bumptious young
+"special investigator" had arrived?
+
+But Dundee's returning gloom was instantly dispelled. Here was Nita's
+checkbook, a flutter of filled-in stubs attached to only one remaining
+blank check. So Nita had banked with the Hamilton National Bank, of
+which John C. Drake--who apparently hated his fattish, fussy wife--was a
+vice president! Another tiny fact to be tucked away.... She had opened
+her account, apparently, on April 21, the day of her arrival in
+Hamilton--the guest and employe of Mrs. Peter Dunlap. Probably Lois
+Dunlap had advanced her the two hundred dollars as first payment for her
+prospective work in organizing a Little Theater movement in Hamilton.
+
+Turning rapidly through stubs, Dundee stopped twice, whistling softly
+with amazement each time. For on April 28th, and again on May 5th, Nita
+Selim had deposited $5,000! Where had she got the money? Were the sums
+transfers from accounts in New York banks? But it was hardly likely that
+a little Broadway hanger-on had had so much hard cash on deposit. Then
+where had she got it--$5,000 at a time, here in Hamilton?
+
+_Blackmail!_
+
+Hastily but thoroughly Dundee ran through the remaining check
+stubs.... _No record at all of a check for rent made out to Judge Hugo
+Marshall!_
+
+But there was a stub that interested him. Check No. 17--Nita had spent
+her money lavishly--was filled in as follows, in Nita's pretty backhand:
+
+     No. 17  $9,000
+     _May 9, 1930_
+     To _Trust Dept._
+     For _Investment_
+
+Had John C. Drake, who as vice president in charge of trusts and
+investments had doubtless handled the check, wondered at all where the
+$9,000 had come from?
+
+One other revelation came out of the twenty-three filled-in stubs. On
+every Monday Nita Selim had drawn a check for $40 to her maid, Lydia
+Carr.
+
+Again Dundee whistled. Forty dollars a week was, he wagered to himself,
+more money than any other maid in Hamilton was lucky enough to receive!
+Nita in a new light--an over-generous Nita! Or--_was Nita herself paying
+blackmail on a small scale_?
+
+He reached into a pigeon-hole whose contents--a thick packet of unused
+envelopes--had not been disturbed by Strawn, and was about to remove an
+envelope in which to place the all-important checkbook, when he noticed
+something slightly peculiar. An envelope in the middle of the packet
+looked rather thicker than an empty case should....
+
+_But it was not empty._ And across the face of the expensive,
+cream-colored linen paper was written, in that same pretty, very legible
+backhand:
+
+     TO BE OPENED IN CASE OF MY DEATH
+     --JAUNITA LEIGH SELIM
+
+His heart hammering painfully, and his fingers trembling, Dundee drew
+out the two close-written sheets of creamy notepaper. After all, who had
+better right than he to open it? Was he not the representative of the
+district attorney?... And he hadn't damaged the envelope. It had opened
+very easily indeed--its flap had yielded instantly to his thumb-nail....
+
+Wait! It had been _too easy_! Before unfolding the letter or whatever it
+was, Dundee examined the flap of the envelope.... Yes! He was not the
+first to open it since its original sealing. God grant he hadn't
+destroyed any tell-tale fingerprints in his criminal haste to learn any
+secret that Nita Selim had recorded here!... Perhaps Nita herself had
+unsealed the letter to make an addition or a correction?
+
+Well, whatever damage had been done was done now, and he might as well
+read....
+
+Five minutes later Bonnie Dundee was racing through the dining room,
+pushing open the swinging door that led into the butler's pantry. Where
+the devil were the steps that led down into the basement? A precious
+minute was lost before he discovered that a door in the dark back hall
+opened upon the steep stairs....
+
+An unshaded light, dangling from the ceiling, revealed the furnace in
+one corner of the big basement, laundry equipment in another. He plunged
+on.... That must be the maid's room, behind that closed door.... God!
+What if she had escaped, while he had been munching caviar and anchovy
+sandwiches? A fine guard he'd been!... And it wasn't as if he hadn't had
+a dim suspicion of the truth....
+
+The knob turned easily. He flung open the door. And then his knees
+nearly gave way, so tremendous was his relief. For there, on the thin
+mattress of a white-enameled iron bed, lay the woman he so ardently
+desired to see.
+
+She had apparently been asleep, and the noise he had made had startled
+her into panicky wakefulness. Instinctively her hand flew to the ruined
+left side of her face--that hideous expanse of livid flesh, scarred and
+ridged so that it did not look human....
+
+"What--? Who--?" Lydia Carr gasped, struggling to a sitting position,
+only to fall back as nausea swept over her.
+
+"You remember me?" Dundee panted. "Dundee of the district attorney's
+office. I questioned you this afternoon--"
+
+The woman closed the single eye that had escaped the accident which had
+marred her face so hideously. "I--remember.... I'm sick.... I told you
+all I know--"
+
+"Lydia, why didn't you tell me that it was your mistress, Mrs. Selim who
+did--that?" Dundee demanded sternly, pointing to the woman's sightless
+left eye and ruined cheek.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER TWELVE
+
+
+Lydia Carr, still clothed in the black cotton dress and white apron of
+her maid's uniform, struggled to a sitting position on the edge of her
+basement room bed.
+
+"No, no! That's a lie! It was an accident, I tell you--my own
+fault!... Who dared to say Nita--Miss Nita--did it?"
+
+"Better lie down, Lydia," Dundee suggested gently. "I won't want you
+fainting. You've had a hard day with the abscessed tooth, the dope the
+dentist gave you, and--other things. I don't wonder that you lost your
+head, went a little crazy, perhaps--"
+
+The detective's sinister implication seemed to make no impression at all
+upon the woman with the scarred face.
+
+"I asked you--" she gasped, her single eye glaring at him, "who dared
+say Nita burned me?"
+
+"It was Nita herself who told me," Dundee answered softly. "Just a few
+minutes ago."
+
+"Holy Mother!" the maid gasped, and crossed herself dazedly.
+
+Let her think the dead woman had appeared to him in a vision, Dundee
+told himself. Perhaps her confession would come the quicker--
+
+The maid began to rock her gaunt body, her arms crossed over her flat
+chest. "My poor little girl! Even in death she thinks of me, she's
+sorry--. She sent me a message, didn't she? Tell me! She was always
+trying to comfort me, sir! The poor little thing couldn't believe I'd
+forgiven her as soon as she done it--. Tell me!"
+
+"Yes," Dundee agreed, his eyes watching her keenly. "She sent you a
+message--of a sort.... But I can't give it to you until you have told me
+all about the--accident in which you were burned."
+
+"I'll tell," Lydia promised eagerly. Gone were the harshness and
+secretiveness with which she had met his earlier questioning.... "You
+see, sir, I loved Miss Nita--I called her Nita, if you don't mind, sir.
+I loved her like she was my own child. And she was fond of me, too,
+fonder of me than of anybody in the world, she used to tell me, when
+some man had hurt her bad.... And there was always some man or other,
+she was so sweet and so pretty.... Well, I found her in the bathroom one
+day, just ready to drink carbolic acid, to kill her poor little self--"
+
+"When was that, Lydia?" Dundee interrupted.
+
+"It was in February--Sunday, the ninth of February," Lydia went on,
+still rocking in an agony of grief. "I tried to take the glass out of
+her hands. She'd poured a lot of the stuff out of the bottle.... You
+see, she was already in a fit of hysterics, or she'd never have tried to
+kill herself.... It was my own fault, trying to take the glass away from
+her, like I did--"
+
+"She flung the acid into your face?" Dundee asked, shuddering.
+
+"She didn't know what she was doing!" the woman cried, glaring at him.
+"Nearly went out of her mind, they told me at the hospital, because
+she'd hurt me.... A private room in the best hospital in New York she
+got for me, trained nurses night and day, and so many doctors fussing
+around me I wanted to fire the whole outfit and save some of my poor
+girl's money--which I don't know till this day how she got hold of--"
+
+Dundee let her sob and rock her arms for a while unmolested. In February
+Nita Selim had had to borrow money to pay doctor and hospital bills. Had
+borrowed it or "gold-dug" it.... And in May she had been rich enough to
+have $9,000 to invest!
+
+"Lydia, you never forgave Nita Selim for ruining your life as well as
+your face!" Dundee charged her suddenly.
+
+"You're a liar!" she cried passionately. "I know what I felt. It's _my_
+face and _my_ life, ain't it? I tell you I didn't even bear a grudge
+against her--the poor little thing! Eating her heart out with sorrow for
+what she'd done--till the very day of her death! Always trying to make
+it up to me--paying me too much money for the handful of work I had to
+do, what with her eating out nearly all the time and throwing away
+stockings the minute they got a run in 'em--. Forgive her? I'd have
+crawled from here to New York on my hands and knees for Nita Leigh!"
+
+Dundee studied her horribly scarred face, made more horrible now by what
+looked like genuine grief.
+
+"Lydia, who was the man over whom your mistress wanted to commit
+suicide?"
+
+The single, tear-reddened eye glared at him suspiciously, then became
+wary. "I don't know."
+
+"Was it Dexter Sprague, Lydia?"
+
+"Sprague?" She spat the name out contemptuously. "No! She didn't know
+him then, except to speak to at the moving picture studio."
+
+"When did he become her--lover, Lydia?" Dundee asked casually.
+
+The woman stiffened, became menacingly hostile. "Who says he was her
+lover? You can't trick me, Mr. Detective! I'd cut my tongue out before
+I'd let you make me say one word against my poor girl!"
+
+Dundee shrugged. He knew a stone wall when he ran up against one.
+
+"Lydia," he began again, after a thoughtful pause, "I have proof that
+Nita Selim was sure you had never forgiven her for the injury she did
+you." His fingers touched the letter in his pocket--that incredible
+"Last Will and Testament" which Nita had written the day before she was
+murdered....
+
+"And that's another lie!" the woman cried, shaking with anger. She
+struggled to her feet, stood swaying dizzily a moment. "Come upstairs
+with me to her room, and I'll show _you_ some proof that I had forgiven
+her!... Come along, I tell you!... Trying to make me say _I_ killed my
+poor girl, when I'd have died for her--Come on, I tell you!"
+
+And Dundee, wondering, beginning to doubt his own conviction a
+little--that conviction which had sprung full-grown out of Nita's
+strange, informal will, and which had seemed to explain
+everything--followed Lydia Carr from her basement room to the bedroom in
+which Nita had been murdered....
+
+"See this!" and Lydia Carr snatched up the powder box from the
+dressing-table. Her long, bony fingers busied themselves with frantic
+haste, and suddenly, into the silence of the room came the tinkle of
+music. "_I_ bought her this--for a present, out of my own money, soon as
+I got out of the hospital!" the maid's voice shrilled, over the slow,
+sweet, tinkly notes. "It's playing her name song--_Juanita_. It was
+playing that song when she died. I stood there in the doorway and heard
+it--" and she pointed toward the door leading from Nita's room into the
+back hall. "She loved it and used it all the time, because I gave it to
+her.... And _this_!"
+
+She set the musical powder box upon the dressing-table and rushed across
+the room to one of the several lamps that Dundee had noticed on his
+first survey of the room. It was the largest and gaudiest of the
+collection--a huge bowl of filigreed bronze, set with innumerable
+stones, as large as marbles, or larger. Red, yellow and green stones
+that must have cast a strange radiance over the pretty head that had
+been wont to lie just beneath it, on the heaped lace pillows of the
+chaise lounge, Dundee reflected.
+
+As if Lydia had read his thoughts, she jerked at the little chain which
+hung from the bottom of the big bronze bowl against the heavy metal
+standard.
+
+"I gave her this--saved up for it out of my own money!" she was assuring
+him with savage triumph in proving her point. "And she loved it so she
+brought it with us when we came from New York--It won't light! It was
+working all right last night, because my poor little girl was lying
+there, looking so pretty under the colored lights--"
+
+With strong twists of her big hands Lydia began to unscrew the filigreed
+bronze bowl. As she lifted it off she exclaimed blankly:
+
+"Why, look! The light bulb's--_broke_!"
+
+But Dundee had already seen--not only the broken light bulb but the
+explanation of the queer noise that Flora Miles had described
+hysterically over and over, as "a bang or a bump." The chaise lounge
+stood between the two windows that opened upon the drive. And at the
+head of it stood the big lamp, just a few inches from the wall and only
+a foot from the window frame upon which Dr. Price had pencilled the
+point to indicate the end of the imaginary line along which the shot
+which killed Nita Leigh Selim had traveled.
+
+The "bang or bump" which Flora Miles had heard had been made by the
+knocking of the big lamp against the wall. Undoubtedly the one who had
+bumped into the lamp was Nita's murderer--or murderess--in frantic haste
+to make an escape.
+
+_And that meant that the murderer had fled toward the back hall, not
+through the window in front of which he had stood, not through the door
+leading onto the front porch...._ A little progress, at least!
+
+But Lydia was not through proving that she had forgiven her mistress.
+She was snatching things from Nita's clothes closet--
+
+"See these mules with ostrich feathers?--I give 'em to my girl!... And
+this bed jacket? I embroidered the flowers on it with my own hands--"
+
+Through her flood of proof Dundee heard the whir of a car's engine, then
+the loud banging of a car's door.... Running footsteps on the flagstone
+path.... Dundee reached the front door just as the bell pealed shrilly.
+
+"Hello, Dundee! Awfully glad I caught you before you left.... Is poor
+Lydia still here?"
+
+"Come in, Mr. Miles," Dundee invited, searching with a puzzled frown the
+round, blond face of Tracey Miles. "Yes, Lydia is still here.... Why?"
+
+"Then I'm in luck, and I think Lydia is, too--poor old girl!... You see,
+Dundee," Miles began to explain, as he took off his new straw hat to mop
+his perspiring forehead, "the crowd all ganged up when our various cars
+reached Sheridan Road, and by unanimous vote we elected to drive over to
+the Country Club for a meal in one of the small private dining rooms--to
+escape the questions of the morbidly curious, you know--"
+
+"Yes.... What about it?" Dundee interrupted impatiently.
+
+"Well, I admit we were all pretty hungry, in spite of--well, of course
+we were all fond of Nita, but--"
+
+"What about Lydia?" Dundee cut him short.
+
+"I'm getting to it, old boy," Miles protested, with the injured air of
+an unappreciated small boy. "While we were waiting for our food,
+somebody said, 'Poor Lydia! What's going to become of _her_?' And
+somebody else said that it was harder on her--Nita's death, I mean--than
+on anybody else, because Nita was all she had in the world, and then
+Lois--Lois is always practical, you know--ran to telephone Police
+Headquarters, to see what had been done with Lydia, and to see if it
+would be all right for Flora and me to take her home with us--"
+
+"Just a minute, Miles! Whom did Mrs. Dunlap talk to at Headquarters?"
+
+"Why, Captain Strawn, of course," Miles answered. "He told Lois that you
+were still out here, questioning Lydia again, and that it was all right
+with him, whatever you decided. So as soon as I had finished eating, I
+drove over--"
+
+"Is Mrs. Miles with you?" Dundee interrupted again.
+
+"Well, no," Miles admitted uncomfortably. "You see, the girls felt a
+little squeamish about coming back, even on an errand of mercy--"
+
+Dundee grinned. He had no doubt that Flora Miles had emphatically
+refused the possibility of another gruelling interview.
+
+"Why do you and Mrs. Miles want to take Lydia home with you?" he asked.
+
+"To give her a home and a job," Miles answered promptly. "She knows us,
+we're used to her poor old scarred face, and the youngsters, Tam and
+Betty, are not a bit afraid of her. In fact, Betty pats that scarred
+cheek and says, over and over, 'Poo Lyddy! Poo Lyddy! Betty 'oves
+Lyddy!' and Tam--he's T. A. Miles, junior, you know, and we call him
+Tam, from the initials, because he hates being called Junior and two
+Tracey's are a nuisance--"
+
+"I gather that you want to hire Lydia as a nurse for the children,"
+Dundee interrupted the fond father's verbose explanations.
+
+"Right, old man! You see, our nurse left us yesterday--"
+
+"Wait here, Miles. I'll speak to Lydia. She's in Mrs. Selim's
+bedroom.... By the way, Miles, since you and your wife are kind enough
+to want to take Lydia in and give her a home and a job, I think it only
+fair to tell you that it is highly improbable that Lydia Carr will take
+any job at all."
+
+"You mean--?" Miles gasped, his ruddy face turning pale. "I say, Dundee,
+it's absurd to think for a minute that good old faithful Lydia had a
+thing to do with Nita's murder--"
+
+"I rather think you're right about that, Miles," Dundee interrupted.
+"Now will you excuse me?"
+
+He found Lydia where he had left her--in her dead mistress' bedroom. The
+tall, gaunt woman was crouching beside the chaise longue, her arms
+outstretched to encircle a little pile of the gifts she claimed to have
+given Nita Selim to prove that she bore no grudge for the terrible
+injury her mistress had done her. At Dundee's entrance she flung up her
+head, and the detective saw that tears were streaming from both the
+sightless eye and the unharmed one.
+
+Taking his seat on the chaise longue, Dundee explained gently but
+briefly the offer which Tracey Miles had just made.
+
+"They want--_me_?" she gasped brokenly, incredulously, and her fingers
+faltered to her horrible cheek. "I didn't think anybody but my poor girl
+would have me around--"
+
+"It is true they want you," Dundee assured her. "But you don't have to
+take a job now unless you wish, Lydia."
+
+"What do you mean?" the maid demanded harshly, her good eye hardening
+with suspicion.
+
+"Lydia," the young detective began slowly, and almost praying that he
+was doing the right thing, "when I woke you up tonight to question you,
+I said that Nita herself had just told me that it was she who had burned
+your face.... And you asked me if she had also given you a message--"
+
+"Yes, sir!" the maid interrupted with pitiful eagerness. "And you'll
+tell me now? You don't still think _I_ killed her, do you?"
+
+"No, I don't think you killed your mistress, Lydia, but I think, if you
+would, you could help me find out who did," Dundee assured her gravely.
+"No, wait!" and he drew from his pocket the envelope inscribed: "To Be
+Opened In Case of My Death--Juanita Leigh Selim."
+
+"Do you recognize this handwriting, Lydia?"
+
+"It was wrote by her own hand," the maid answered, her voice husky with
+tears. "Is that the message, sir?"
+
+"You never saw it before?" Dundee asked sharply.
+
+"No, no! I didn't know my poor girl was thinking about death," Lydia
+moaned. "I thought she was happy here. She was tickled to pieces over
+being taken up by all them society people, and on the go day and
+night----"
+
+"Lydia, this is Mrs. Selim's last will and testament," Dundee
+interrupted, withdrawing the sheets slowly and unfolding them. "It was
+written yesterday, and it begins:
+
+"'Knowing that any of us may die any time, and that I, Juanita Leigh
+Selim, have good cause to fear that my own life hangs by a thread that
+may break any minute--'"
+
+"What did my poor girl mean?" Lydia Carr cried out vehemently. "She
+wasn't sick, ever--"
+
+"I think, Lydia, that she feared exactly what happened today--murder!
+And I want you to tell me who it was she feared. _For I believe you
+know!_"
+
+The woman shrank from him, until she was sitting on her lean haunches,
+her hands flattening against her cheeks. For a long minute she did not
+attempt to answer. Her right eye widened enormously, then slowly grew as
+expressionless as the milky left ball.
+
+"I--don't--know," she said dully. Then, with vehement emphasis: "_I
+don't know!_ If I did, I'd kill him with my own hands!"
+
+Dundee had no choice but to take her word.
+
+"You said there was a message for me," Lydia reminded him.
+
+"I'll read you her will first," Dundee said quietly, lifting the sheets
+again: "I am herewith setting down my last will and testament, in my own
+handwriting. I do here and now solemnly will and bequeath to my faithful
+and beloved maid, Lydia Carr, all property, including all moneys, stocks
+and personal belongings of which I die possessed--"
+
+"To--_me_?" Lydia whispered. "To me?"
+
+"To you, Lydia," Dundee assured her gravely.
+
+"Then I can have all her pretty clothes to keep always?"
+
+"And her money, to do as you like with, if the court accepts this will
+for probate--as I think it will, regardless of the fact that it is very
+informal and was not witnessed."
+
+"But--she didn't have any money," Lydia protested. "Nothing but what
+Mrs. Dunlap paid her in advance for the work she was going to do--"
+
+"Lydia, your mistress died possessed of nearly ten thousand dollars!"
+Dundee fixed her bewildered grey eye with his blue ones. "_Ten thousand
+dollars!_ All of which she got right here in Hamilton! And I want you to
+tell me how she got it!"
+
+"But--I don't know! I don't believe she had it!"
+
+Dundee shrugged. Either this woman would perjure her soul to protect her
+mistress' name from scandal, or she really knew nothing.
+
+"That is all of the will itself, Lydia," he went on finally, "except her
+command that her body be cremated without funeral services of any kind,
+and that nobody be allowed to accompany the remains to the crematory
+except yourself and Mrs. Peter Dunlap, in case her death takes place in
+Hamilton--"
+
+"She _did_ love Mrs. Dunlap," Lydia sobbed. "Oh, my poor little girl--"
+
+"And there is also a note for you, which I took the liberty of reading,
+in which Mrs. Selim minutely describes the clothes in which she wishes
+to be cremated, as well as the fashion in which her hair is to be
+dressed--"
+
+"Let me see it!" Lydia plunged forward on her knees and snatched at the
+papers he held. "For God's sake, let me see!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER THIRTEEN
+
+
+"I'll read you the note, Lydia, but I can't let you touch it," Dundee
+said sternly, taking good care that she should not touch either the
+paper on which the note to herself had been written or the sheet which
+contained that strange, informal will. Informal, in spite of the dead
+woman's obvious effort to couch it in legal phraseology....
+
+Was Lydia's frenzy assumed? Did she hope to leave fingerprints now which
+would account for fingerprints she had already left upon it? Was it not
+possible that Lydia's had been the prying fingers which had opened the
+envelope after Nita Selim had sealed it with God only knew what fears in
+her heart? If so, Lydia Carr had found that she was her mistress' sole
+legatee.... _Revenge, coupled with greed...._ What better motive for
+murder could a detective ask? And who had had so good an opportunity as
+Lydia Carr to dispose of the weapon?
+
+The woman crouched back on her haunches, an agony of pleading in her
+single eye.
+
+"Lydia, I think you know already what this note tells you," Dundee said
+slowly.
+
+To his astonishment the maid nodded, the tears starting again. "I asked
+her once what she wanted to keep that old dress for, and she--she said
+I'd find out some day, but I never dreamed she'd want it for a--oh, my
+God!--for a _shroud_!"
+
+For the second time that evening Lydia Carr completely routed Dundee's
+carefully worked-up case against her. It was inconceivable, he told
+himself, that a mind cunning enough to have executed this murder would
+give itself away in such a fashion. If she had indeed pried among her
+mistress' papers and found the will and note, would she not, from the
+most primitive instinct of self-preservation, have pretended total
+ignorance of the note's contents?
+
+"I'll read the note, Lydia," he said gently. "It is addressed: 'My
+precious old Lydia'--"
+
+"She was always calling me that!" the maid sobbed.
+
+"And she writes: 'If you ever read this it will be because I'm dead, and
+you'll know that I've tried to make it up to you the only way I knew. I
+never could believe you really forgave me, but maybe you will now. And
+there is one last thing I want you to do for me, Lydia darling. You
+remember that old royal blue velvet dress of mine that you were always
+sniffing at and either trying to make me give away or have made over?
+And remember that I told you that you'd know some time why I kept it?
+Well, I want you to lay me out in it, Lydia. Such a funny old-fashioned
+shroud, isn't it?... But with dresses long again, maybe it won't look so
+funny, and there'll be nobody but you and Lois to see me in it, because
+I've said so in my will. And I want my hair dressed as it was the only
+time I ever wore the royal blue velvet. A French roll, Lydia, with
+little curls coming out the left side of it and hanging down to the left
+ear. You brush the hair straight up the back of the head, gather it
+together and tie a little bit of black shoestring around it, then you
+twist the hair into a roll and spread it high, pinning it down on each
+side of the head. _And don't forget the little curls on the left side!_
+I hope I have enough hair, but if it hasn't grown long enough, you
+know where those switches are that I had made when I first bobbed my
+hair.... You won't mind touching me when I'm dead, will you, Lydia? I do
+love you.... Nita.'"
+
+Dundee was silent for a minute after he had finished reading the strange
+note and had returned it to the envelope, along with the will. At last,
+speaking against a lump in his throat, he broke in on the desolate
+sobbing of Nita's maid:
+
+"Lydia, how old was your mistress?"
+
+"You won't put it in the papers, will you?" Lydia pleaded. "She--she
+was--thirty-three. But not a soul knew it except me--"
+
+"And will you tell me how old the royal blue velvet dress is?" he
+continued. "Also, how long since girls dressed their hair in a French
+roll?"
+
+"The dress is twelve or thirteen years old," Lydia said, her voice dull
+now with grief. "I know, because I used to do dressmaking during the
+war. And it was during the war that girls wore their hair that way--I
+did mine in a Psyche knot, but the French roll was more stylish."
+
+"Did your mistress ever tell you about the one time she wore the dress?"
+
+Lydia shook her head. "No. She wouldn't talk about it--just said I'd
+know sometime why she kept it.... Royal blue velvet, it is, the skirt
+halfway to the ankles, and sleeves with long pointed ends, lined with
+gold taffeta, and finished off with gold tassels. It's in a dress bag,
+hanging in her closet."
+
+"Do you think it was her wedding dress, Lydia?" Dundee suggested, the
+idea suddenly flashing into his mind.
+
+"I don't know. I didn't ask her that," Lydia denied dully. "Can I take
+it with me--and the switches she had made out of her curls?"
+
+"I'll have to get authority to remove anything from the house, Lydia,"
+Dundee told her. "But I am sure you will be permitted to follow Mrs.
+Selim's instructions.... So you're going to accept the Miles' offer of a
+job as nurse?"
+
+"Yes. I'd rather work. Mr. and Mrs. Miles have always been specially
+nice to me, and I--I could love their children. They're not--afraid of
+me--"
+
+"Perhaps you're wise," Dundee agreed. "By the way, Lydia, did Mrs. Selim
+have a pistol in her possession at any time during the past week?"
+
+The maid shook her head. "Not that I seen. And if she'd got one because
+she was afraid, she'd a-kept it handy and I'd a-been bound to see it."
+
+Convinced of her sincerity, he was about to let her go to pack her bag
+when another belated question occurred to him. "Lydia, will you tell me
+what engagements Mrs. Selim had this last week?"
+
+The woman scowled, fanatically jealous, Dundee guessed, of her mistress'
+reputation, but at last she answered defiantly: "Let me see.... Mr.
+Sprague had Sunday dinner here, and spent the afternoon, but Sunday
+night it was young Mr. Ralph Hammond. He come whenever she'd let
+him.... Monday night?... Oh, yes! She had dinner at the Country Club
+with the Mileses and the Drakes and the Dunlaps. Mr. Miles brought her
+home, because Mr. Sprague wasn't invited.... Tuesday night--let me
+think!... Yes, that's the night Judge Marshall was here. Nita had sent
+for him to talk about finishing up the attic--"
+
+So that was the "business engagement" which Judge Marshall had hemmed
+and hawed over, Dundee reflected triumphantly.
+
+"--and Wednesday night," Lydia was continuing, with a certain pride in
+her mistress' popularity, "she was at a dinner party at the Dunlaps'."
+
+"Did Mr. Peter Dunlap ever call on Mrs. Selim--alone?"
+
+"_Him?_" Lydia was curiously resentful. "He wasn't ever here. Nita said
+to me she wished Mr. Peter liked her as well as Mis' Lois did."
+
+"Thursday night?"
+
+"Mr. Ralph Hammond took her somewhere to dinner, to some other town, I
+think, but I wasn't awake when they got home. Nita never would let me
+set up for her--said I needed my rest. So I always went to bed early."
+
+"And yesterday--Friday?" Dundee demanded tensely. For Friday she had
+been driven to making her last will and testament....
+
+"She was home all day, but about half past four Mr. Drake came," Lydia
+said slowly, as if she too were wondering. "She was awfully restless,
+couldn't set still or eat. I ought to have suspicioned something, but
+she was often like that--lately. Mr. Drake stayed about an hour. I
+didn't see him leave, because I was cooking Nita's dinner.... But little
+good it did, because she didn't eat it, so there was plenty for Mr.
+Sprague when he dropped in about seven."
+
+"Did Sprague spend the evening?"
+
+"I guess so, but I don't know. Nita made me take the Ford and drive into
+town for a picture show. She was in bed when I got back, and--" but she
+checked herself hastily.
+
+"Did Nita seem strange--troubled, excited? Did she look as if she'd been
+crying?" Dundee prodded.
+
+"I didn't see her," the maid acknowledged. "I knocked on her door, but
+she told me to go on to bed, that she wouldn't need me. But now I think
+back, her voice sounded queer.... Maybe she _was_ crying, but I don't
+know--"
+
+"And this morning?"
+
+"She seemed all right--just excited about the party and worried about my
+tooth. Mr. Ralph Hammond come to make the estimates on finishing up the
+top floor, and we left him here--"
+
+"What was her attitude toward Mr. Miles when he dropped in on her this
+morning?" Dundee interrupted.
+
+"Mr. Miles?" Lydia echoed, frowning. "He wasn't here this morning, or if
+he was, it was after Nita and I left for town."
+
+While the maid was packing a bag, which Dundee would examine before she
+was allowed to take it away with her, the detective rejoined Tracey
+Miles, who had made himself as comfortable as possible in the living
+room.
+
+"Lydia's going with you, and is grateful for your wife's kindness,"
+Dundee informed him, and felt his heart warm to the boresome,
+egotistical little cherub of a man when he saw how Miles' face lit up
+with real pleasure. "By the way, Miles, you saw Ralph Hammond when you
+called here this morning, didn't you?"
+
+"Yes," Miles answered with some reluctance. "He answered the door when I
+rang and told me Lydia and Nita had gone into town."
+
+"Mr. Miles," Dundee began slowly, throwing friendliness and persuasion
+into his voice, "I know how all you folks stick together, but I'd
+appreciate it a lot if you'd tell me frankly whether you noticed
+anything unusual in Hammond's manner this morning."
+
+"Unusual?" Miles repeated, frowning. "He was a little short with me
+because he was busy, and, I suspect, a little jealous because I'd come
+calling on Nita--" He broke off abruptly, in obvious distress. "Look
+here, Dundee! I didn't mean to say that, but I suppose you'll find out
+sooner or later.... Well, the fact is, the whole crowd knows Ralph
+Hammond was absolutely mad about Nita Selim. Wanted to marry her, and
+made no secret of it, though we all thought or hoped it would be little
+Penny Crain. He's been devoted to Penny for years, and since Roger Crain
+made a mess of things and skipped out, leaving Penny and her poor mother
+high and dry, we've all done our best to throw Penny and Ralph together.
+But since Nita came to town--"
+
+"Was Nita in love with Ralph?" Dundee cut in, rather curtly, for he had
+a curious distaste for hearing Penny Crain discussed in this manner.
+
+"Sometimes we were sure she was," Miles answered. "She flirted with all
+of us men--had a way with her of making every man she talked to think he
+was the only pebble on the beach. But there was something special in the
+way she looked at Ralph.... Yes, I think she _was_ in love with him! But
+then again," he frowned, "she would treat him like a dog. Seemed to want
+to drive him away from her--but she always called him back--Oh, Lord!"
+he interrupted himself with a groan. "Now I suppose I _have_ put my foot
+in it! You've got the damnedest way of making a chap tell everything he
+would cut his tongue out rather than spill, Dundee! But just because a
+young man's in love, and happens not to show up at a party, is no reason
+to think he sneaked up to the house and killed the woman he loved and
+wanted to marry. For I'm not so dumb that I haven't seen the drift of
+your damnable questions, Dundee!... Do you know Ralph Hammond, by any
+chance?" he concluded, his round face red with anger.
+
+"No--but I should like to meet him," Dundee retorted. "He seems quite
+hard to locate this evening."
+
+"Well, when you do meet him," Tracey Miles began violently, his blue
+eyes blazing with anger, "you'll soon find you've been barking up the
+wrong tree! There's not a cleaner, finer, straighter--"
+
+"In fact, he is a friend of yours, Miles," Dundee answered soothingly,
+"and I respect you for every word you've said.... By the way, did all of
+you go to the Country Club for dinner after you left here?"
+
+Somewhat mollified, Miles answered: "All of us but Clive Hammond. He
+said he was going to have a look around for Ralph himself. Seemed to
+have an idea where he might find him.... And, oh, yes, Sprague
+disappeared in the scramble. He hasn't a car and nobody thought of
+offering him a lift. Guess he took a bus into Hamilton.... Ah! Here's
+Lydia!... Hello, Lydia!" he called heartily to the woman who was
+standing, tall and gaunt, in the doorway. "Mighty glad you're coming to
+look after the kids!"
+
+From behind the black veil which draped her ugly black hat and hid her
+scarred face, Lydia answered in the dull, harsh voice that was
+characteristic of her:
+
+"Thank you, sir. I'll do my best."
+
+She made no protest when Dundee, with a word of embarrassed apology,
+went rapidly through the heavy suitcase she had brought up from the
+basement with her. And when he had finished his fruitless search, she
+knelt and silently smoothed the coarse, utilitarian garments he had
+disarranged.
+
+Five minutes later Dundee was alone in the house where murder had been
+committed under such strange and baffling circumstances that afternoon.
+He was not nervous, but again he made a tour of inspection of the first
+floor and basement, looking into closets, and testing windows to make
+sure they were all locked. Everywhere there were evidences of the
+thoroughness of the police detectives who had searched for the weapon
+with which Nita Selim had been murdered. In the basement, as he had
+subconsciously noted on his headlong dash to question Lydia Carr, the
+furnace doors swung open, and the lids of the laundry tubs had been left
+propped up, after the unavailing search....
+
+He plodded wearily up the basement stairs and on into the kitchen.
+Perhaps the ice-box had something fit to eat in it--the fruit intended
+for Nita's and Lydia's Sunday breakfast. Those caviar and anchovy
+sandwiches had certainly not stuck with him long....
+
+He was making his way toward the electric refrigerator when he stopped
+as suddenly as if he had been shot.
+
+The kitchen door, which he had taken especial pains to assure himself
+was locked, when he had made the rounds immediately after the departure
+of Captain Strawn and his men, was standing slightly ajar!
+
+_Someone had entered this house!_
+
+Dundee stared blankly at the door, which was equipped with a Yale lock.
+Someone with a key.... But why had the door been left ajar? _To make
+escape more noiseless?_
+
+With the toe of his shoe Dundee pushed the door to and heard the click
+of the lock, then, all thought of food routed from his mind, made a
+quick but almost silent dash into the dining room to secure one of the
+pair of tall wax tapers, which, in their silver candlesticks, served as
+ornaments for the sideboard.
+
+If the intruder was still in the house he could be nowhere but in that
+unfinished half of the gabled top story. The nearer stairs were those in
+the back hall, and Dundee took them two at a time, regardless of the
+noise. Who had preceded him stealthily?... By the aid of his lighted
+candle he discovered an electric switch at the head of the stairs,
+flicked it on, and found himself in a wide hall, one wall of which was
+finished with buff-tinted plaster and with three doors, the other of
+rough boards with but a single door.
+
+With his candle held high, so that its light should not blind him, and
+well aware that it made him a perfect target, Dundee opened the
+unpainted door and found himself in the dark, musty-smelling room that
+had served Nita Selim and the Crains before her as a storeroom. From the
+ceiling dangled a green cord ending in a cheap, clear-glass bulb, but
+its light was sufficient to penetrate even the farthest low nooks made
+by the three gables. He blew out his candle and dropped it, as useless
+now.
+
+A quick tour convinced him that nothing human was concealed behind one
+of Nita Selim's empty wardrobe trunks, or behind one of the several
+pieces of heavy old furniture, undoubtedly left behind by the
+dispossessed Crain family.
+
+Big footprints on the thick dust which coated the floor showed him that
+he was being no more thorough than Captain Strawn's brace of
+plainclothes detectives had been much earlier that evening. Two pairs of
+giant footprints....
+
+With an exclamation he discovered a smaller, narrow pair of prints, and
+followed their winding trail all around and across the attic. And then
+he remembered.... Ralph Hammond's footprints, of course, made that
+morning as he went about his legitimate business of measuring and
+estimating for the job of turning the storeroom into bedrooms and
+bathrooms.
+
+Dundee had not realized that he was frightened until he was in the hall
+again, facing one of the three doors in the plastered wall. With
+surprise, and some amusement, he became aware that his hands were
+trembling, and that his knees had a curious tendency to buckle.
+
+The fact that the door directly in front of him was open about two
+inches served, for some odd reason, to steady his nerves. Pushing the
+door wide open with his foot--for he never forgot the possibility of
+incriminating fingerprints which might easily be obliterated, he
+discovered a light switch near the door frame.
+
+The instant illumination from a ceiling cluster revealed a large
+bedroom, and less clearly, another and smaller room beyond it, facing as
+the house faced--toward the south. Knees and hands steady again, he
+investigated the finished portion of the gabled story swiftly. A
+charming layout, he told himself. Had Penny Crain once enjoyed this
+delightful little sitting-room, with its tiny balcony built out upon the
+sloping roof?... And it gave him pleasure to think that this big,
+well-furnished but not fussily feminine bedroom had once been hers, as
+well as the small but perfect bathroom whose high narrow window
+overlooked the back garden. The closets, dresser drawers and highboy
+drawers were completely empty, however, of any traces of her occupancy
+or that of any other....
+
+With these rooms going to waste, why--he suddenly asked himself--had
+Nita Selim coaxed Judge Marshall to have the unfinished half of the
+gabled attic turned into bedrooms and baths? Why couldn't Lydia have
+slept up here, if Nita thought so much of her "faithful and beloved
+maid"?
+
+But even as he asked himself the question Dundee realized that the
+answer to it had been struggling to attract his attention.
+
+_These rooms had not been wasted!_ Someone had been occupying them as
+late as last night! Weaving swiftly through the three rooms, like a
+bloodhound on the scent, Dundee collected the few but sufficient proofs
+to back up his intuitive conviction. A copy of _The Hamilton Evening
+Sun_, dated Friday, May 23, left in an armchair in the sitting-room. All
+windows raised about six inches from the bottom, so that the night
+breeze stirred the hand-blocked linen drapes. And, clinging to these
+drapes, the faint but unmistakable odor of cigarette smoke. Finally,
+with a low cry of triumph, Bonnie Dundee flung back the colored linen
+spread which covered the three-quarter bed and discovered that the
+sheets and pillow cases, though clean, had, beyond the shadow of a
+doubt, been slept upon.
+
+Bending so that his nose almost touched a pillow case he sniffed.
+_Pomade!..._ Who was the man who had slept in this bed last night?
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER FOURTEEN
+
+
+With the thrill of his discovery singing blithely along his nerves,
+Bonnie Dundee, Special Investigator for the District Attorney, had at
+first hugged the intention of following the new trail alone. Hadn't
+Captain Strawn taunted him not too good-naturedly about his ability to
+get along without the younger man's help?
+
+But he was glad, both selfishly and unselfishly, when, half an hour
+later, he threw open the front door of dead Nita's house to the chief of
+the Homicide Squad, Carraway, the fingerprint expert, and the two
+plainclothesmen who had searched the top floor for the missing weapon or
+the murderer himself soon after the murder had been committed. For if
+Strawn needed his help, Dundee needed the expert machinery which Strawn
+captained. And it was good to feel the grip of gratitude in the old
+chief's handclasp and to see the almost shy twinkle of apology in his
+hard old grey eyes....
+
+Dundee led the way up the front stairs to the upper floor, glad to hear
+the heavy tread of official feet behind him.
+
+"I guess you've got it all doped out who the Selim woman's gentleman
+friend was," Strawn commented genially, as he followed Dundee into the
+pleasant, big bedroom.
+
+"I believe I have, but I need Carraway to prove my hunch," Dundee
+acknowledged.
+
+Eagerly, swiftly, he displayed his first tangible finds--the open
+windows, the drapes smelling of cigarette smoke, the evening paper of
+the day before, the faint odor and greasiness of barber's pomade upon
+the pillow case of the bed which had clearly been slept in since the
+linen was changed.
+
+"Now, Collins--Harmon--" Dundee whirled upon the two silent
+plainclothesmen, "I want to know what you saw in these rooms when you
+searched them early this evening that you don't see now. You looked into
+the closets and drawers, of course?"
+
+"Yes, sir," Collins answered. "And they was all empty, Dundee. Me and
+Harmon didn't waste time smelling pillow cases, and I admit we didn't
+pay no attention to that there newspaper--"
+
+"_Empty!_" Dundee echoed. "Are you sure?... You, too, Harmon?"
+
+"What are you driving at, boy?" Captain Strawn asked indulgently.
+
+Briefly, with disappointment flattening his voice, Dundee told of his
+finding the kitchen door ajar, after he had made sure it was locked on
+his first rounds of the house.
+
+"I worked it out this way," he continued, despite Strawn's grin. "Dexter
+Sprague was Nita's lover, as I had thought all along. He was in the
+habit of spending the night here whenever Nita would give him an evening
+of her company. He was here last night, according to the maid, Lydia
+Carr. Nita sent her into Hamilton to a picture show. Nita and Sprague
+quarreled last night, but I am positive he spent the night here anyway.
+Certainly there was no actual rupture, since Sprague worded his note to
+her as he did. I have another strong reason for thinking his belongings
+were here at least until noon today, but that can wait for the moment.
+Furthermore, I am positive that Sprague descended by the backstairs and
+went around the house to join the cocktail party which was to follow the
+hen bridge party."
+
+"How do you make that out, Bonnie?" Strawn asked, his grin wiped away.
+
+"Try to remember how Sprague looked when you first got here," Dundee
+suggested. "I saw him twenty minutes after you did, but--_he was wearing
+an immaculate stiff collar, and there were still traces of talcum powder
+over a close shave_! And you will remember that he said he had made a
+half hour's trip by bus, and had walked the quarter of a mile from the
+bus stop on Sheridan Road to this house. It was a mighty hot afternoon,
+chief!"
+
+"Not conclusive," Strawn growled.
+
+"Then here's another straw to add to the weight of my conclusion,"
+Dundee went on unshaken. "You remember that Janet Raymond was on the
+front porch _watching for Sprague_, while the 'death hand of bridge' was
+being played?... Oh, she tried to protect him.... Wait, I'll read you
+the notes I made when I was questioning her. I looked them up while I
+was waiting for you.... Here! I had said to Miss Raymond: 'You observed
+Mr. Sprague toiling down the rutty road, hot and weary, but romantic in
+the sunset?' And she answered, stammering: 'I--I wasn't looking that
+way....' And I knew she was lying, knew that she had been taken
+completely by surprise when Sprague suddenly appeared _from the rear of
+the house_! What's more, she betrayed herself and him by admitting that
+she was surprised. Then--because the girl is undoubtedly in love with
+Sprague and was mortally afraid he had killed Nita Selim, she tried
+frantically to throw suspicion on Lydia Carr, by telling how Lydia had
+failed to answer Mrs. Dunlap's first ring--Good Lord! Wait a minute! I
+want to think!" he interrupted himself to exclaim.
+
+After a full minute, while he had stood very still, with his fingers
+pressed against his closed eyes, Dundee began slowly:
+
+"I believe that's it.... Listen, boys!" He turned to the two
+plainclothesmen, urgent pleading in his voice. "Would you both take your
+oath that there was no bag--say a small Gladstone overnight
+bag--anywhere in these rooms when you searched them this evening?"
+
+The two detectives glanced at each other, their faces reddening. It was
+Harmon, the older of the pair, who swallowed hard before answering:
+
+"We'd been told to look for a man hiding, and for a gun--" Then he
+squared his shoulders as if to receive the blame like a man. "Yes, sir!
+There was a little black grip on the closet shelf. I went through it
+myself, but there wasn't no gun in it. Just a pair of pajamas and a
+couple of shirts, one of 'em dirty, some socks and collars and a
+shaving-kit--"
+
+Dundee drew a deep breath, and clapped the red-faced detective on the
+back in high good humor.
+
+"There simply _had_ to be a bag somewhere!" he laughed.
+
+"This is the way of it, Strawn.... Nita and Sprague rowed last night.
+Sprague tried to make it up, but Nita must have been through with him.
+Probably told him last night to clear his things out and not come back.
+She thought he had done so; probably he did leave before she got up. At
+any rate she was so sure he was gone and his things with him that she
+and Lydia went to town this morning and left Ralph Hammond here to go
+through the place as freely as he liked, making his estimates on the job
+of finishing up the other half of this floor. And Ralph--but let that
+wait for the moment."
+
+"Got any real proof that it was Sprague who stayed here and not the
+Hammond boy?" Strawn interrupted shrewdly.
+
+"I'm coming to the proof," Dundee assured him, "or rather, the rest of
+the proof that I haven't already given you. You're damned hard to
+convince, chief! But let me go on with my theory, which I think covers
+the facts.... At luncheon, when Nita received that note from Sprague, I
+imagine she got a hunch that he hadn't taken her seriously, that he had
+not removed his belongings. You remember Penny Crain said Nita had Lydia
+follow her into her bedroom, as soon as Nita got home from the
+luncheon?... Well, it's my hunch that Nita asked Lydia if Sprague's
+things were gone when she cleaned these rooms this morning, and that
+Lydia said no. Nita then probably told Lydia to pack them herself, and I
+feel positive that Lydia did so, for she must have felt safe when she
+protested to me that Sprague was not Nita's lover. I also feel sure that
+Sprague arrived at least half an hour before he said he did, by some
+back path across the meadow; that he came up to these rooms that he
+considered his, found his things packed, but went about shaving and
+changing his shirt and collar, regardless. I also feel sure that Lydia
+followed him upstairs to explain and impress upon him that Nita had
+meant what she said. And it is quite likely that she was not through
+picking up after him when he descended by the back stairs and surprised
+Janet Raymond on the front porch. That accounts, of course, for Lydia's
+not hearing the kitchen bell the first time Mrs. Dunlap rang."
+
+"Umm," Strawn grunted. "What about the proofs you're holding back?"
+
+"Come along, chief--you, too, Carraway!" Dundee answered, and led the
+way into the bathroom. "I felt sure these rooms would yield a very
+definite clue, even though Sprague, when he sneaked back tonight to get
+his tell-tale bag, apparently made every effort to wipe his fingerprints
+off the furniture and bathroom fixtures.... Now, Carraway, if you'll
+step upon this little stool and look along the top of this medicine
+cabinet, you'll find what I found--and didn't touch."
+
+The fingerprint expert did as he was told. When he stepped down he was
+holding, between the very tips of his fingers, a safety razor blade.
+
+"No dust on it, you see," Dundee pointed out. "Now if you don't find
+Dexter Sprague's fingerprints on it, my whole theory topples."
+
+"How am I going to know whose fingerprints they are till we get hold of
+Sprague?" Carraway asked reasonably.
+
+"We don't need him--for that purpose, at least," Dundee assured him.
+"Downstairs in the living room, on a little table in the southeast
+corner of the room, you'll find a red glass ashtray which no one but
+Dexter Sprague used all evening. It was clean and empty when I saw him
+use it first. I think you'll find on it all the prints you need."
+
+"So you think Sprague killed her because she was through with him?"
+Strawn asked.
+
+Dundee shook his head. "Since I don't like Dexter Sprague a little bit,
+chief, I'd like to think so, but--"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER FIFTEEN
+
+
+Bonnie Dundee's first thought upon awakening that Sunday morning was
+that it might prove to be rather a pity that his new bachelor apartment,
+as he loved to call his three rooms at the top of a lodging house which
+had once been a fashionable private home, faced south and west, rather
+than east. At the Rhodes House, whose boarding-house clamor and lack of
+privacy he had abandoned upon taking the flattering job and decent
+salary of "Special Investigator attached to the District Attorney's
+office," he had grown accustomed to using the hot morning sun upon his
+reluctant eyelids as an alarm clock.
+
+But--he continued the train of thought, after discovering by his watch
+that it was not late; only 8:40--it was pretty darned nice having
+"diggings" like these. Quiet and private. For he was the only tenant
+now on the top floor. His pleased, lazy eyes roved over the plain
+severity but solid comfort of his bedroom, and on past the open door to
+take in appreciatively the equally comfortable and masculine living
+room.... Pretty nice! That leather-upholstered couch and armchair had
+been a real bargain, and he liked them all the better for being rather
+scuffed and shabby. Then his eyes halted upon a covered cage, swung from
+a pedestal....
+
+"Poor old Cap'n!... Must be wondering when the devil I'm going to get
+up!" and he swung out of bed, lounged sleepily into the small living
+room and whisked the square of black silk from the cage.
+
+The parrot, formerly the property of murdered old Mrs. Hogarth of the
+Rhodes House, but for the past year the young detective's official
+"Watson," ruffled his feathers, poked his green-and-yellow head between
+the bars of his cage and croaked hoarsely: "Hullo! Hullo!"
+
+"Hullo, yourself, my dear Watson!" Dundee retorted. "Your vacation is
+over, old top! It's back on the job for you and me both!... Which
+reminds me that I ought to be taking a squint at the Sunday papers, to
+see how much Captain Strawn thought fit to tell the press."
+
+He found _The Hamilton Morning News_ in the hall just outside his living
+room door.
+
+"Listen, Cap'n.... 'NITA SELIM MURDERED AT BRIDGE'.... Probably the
+snappiest streamer headline the News has had for many a day.... Now
+let's see--" He was silent for two minutes, while his eyes leaped down
+the lesser headlines and the column one, page one story of the murder.
+Then: "Good old Strawn! Not a word, my dear Watson, about your absurd
+master's absurd performance in having 'the death hand at bridge'
+replayed. Not a word about Ralph Hammond, the missing guest! Not a word
+about Mrs. Tracey Miles' being hidden away in the clothes closet while
+her hostess was being murdered!... In fact, my dear Watson, not a word
+about anything except Strawn's own theory that a hired gunman from New
+York or Chicago--preferably Nita's home town, New York, of
+course--sneaked up, crouched in her window, and bumped her off. _And_
+life-size photographs of the big footprints under the window to prove
+his theory!... By golly, Cap'n! I clean forgot to tell my former chief
+that I'd found Nita's will and note to Lydia! He'll think I deliberately
+held out on him.... Well--I can't sit here all day gossiping with you,
+'my dear Watson....' Work--much work--to be done; then--Sunday dinner
+with poor little Penny."
+
+Four hours later a tired and dispirited young detective was climbing the
+stairs of an ugly, five-story "walk-up" apartment house in which Penny
+Crain and her mother had been living since the financial failure and
+flight of the husband and father, Roger Crain.
+
+"Hello, there!" It was Penny's friendly voice, hailing him from the
+topmost landing of the steep stairs. "All winded, poor thing?"
+
+His tired, unhappy eyes drank her in--the freshness and sweetness of a
+domestic Penny, so different from the thorny little office Penny who
+prided herself on her efficiency as secretary to the district
+attorney.... Penny in flowered voile, with a saucy, ruffled white
+apron.... But there were purplish shadows under her brown eyes, and her
+gayety lasted only until he had reached her side.
+
+"Sh-h-h!--Have they found Ralph?" she whispered anxiously.
+
+He could only answer "No," and he almost choked on the word.
+
+"Mother's all of a twitter at my having a detective to dinner," she
+whispered, trying to be gay again. "She fancies you'll be wearing size
+11 shoes and a 'six-shooter' at your belt--Yes, Mother! It's Mr.
+Dundee!"
+
+She did not look "all of a twitter," this pretty but rather faded
+middle-aged little mother of Penny's. A gentle dignity and patient
+sadness, which Dundee was sure were habitual to her, lay in the faded
+blue eyes and upon the soft, sweet mouth....
+
+But Mrs. Crain was ushering him into the living room, and its charm made
+him forget for the moment that the Crains were to be pitied, because of
+their "come-down" in life. For every piece of furniture seemed to be
+authentic early American, and the hooked rugs and fine, brocaded damasks
+allied themselves with the fine old furniture to defeat the ugliness
+with which the Maple Court Apartments' architect had been fiercely
+determined to punish its tenants.
+
+"'Scuse me! Gotta dish up!" Penny flung over her shoulder as she ran
+away and left him alone with her mother.
+
+Dundee liked Mrs. Crain for making no excuses about a maid they could
+not afford, liked the way she settled into a lovely, ancient
+rocking-chair and set herself to entertain him while her daughter made
+ready the dinner.
+
+Not a word was said about the horrible tragedy which had occurred the
+day before in the house which had once been her home. They talked of
+Penny's work, and the little gentlewoman listened eagerly, with only the
+faintest of sighs, as Dundee humorously described Penny's fierce
+efficiency and District Attorney Sanderson's keen delight in her work.
+
+"Bill Sanderson is a nice boy," the woman of perhaps 48 said of
+Hamilton's 35-year-old district attorney. "It is nice for Penny to work
+with an old friend of the family, or was--until--"
+
+And that was the nearest she came to mentioning the murder before Penny
+summoned them to the little dining room.
+
+Because Penny was watching him and was obviously proud of her skill as a
+cook--skill recently acquired, he was sure--Dundee ate as heartily as
+his carefully concealed depression would permit. There was a beautifully
+browned two-rib roast of beef, pan-browned potatoes, new peas,
+escalloped tomatoes, and, for dessert, a gelatine pudding which Penny
+proudly announced was "Spanish cream," the secret of which she had
+mastered only that morning.
+
+"I was up almost at dawn to make it, so that it would 'set' in time,"
+she told him, and by the quiver of her lip Dundee knew that it was not
+Spanish cream which had got her up....
+
+"I'm going to help wash dishes," he announced firmly, and Penny, with a
+quick intake of breath, agreed.
+
+"Hadn't you better take a nap, Mother?" she added a minute later, as
+Mrs. Crain, with a slight flush on her faded cheeks, began to stack the
+dessert dishes. "You mustn't lay a hand on these dishes, or Bonnie and I
+will have our dishwashing picnic spoiled.... Run along now. You need
+sleep, dear."
+
+"Not any more than you do, poor baby!" Mrs. Crain quavered, and then
+hurried out of the room, since gentlewomen do not weep before strangers.
+
+"I called you 'Bonnie' so Mother would know we are really friends,"
+Penny explained, her cheeks red, as she preceded him through the
+swinging door into the miniature kitchen.
+
+"You'll stick to that--being friends, I mean, no matter what happens,
+won't you, Penny?" Dundee said in a low voice, setting the fragile
+crystal dishes he carried upon the porcelain drainboard of the sink.
+
+"I knew you had something bad to tell me.... It's about--Ralph, I
+suppose?" Her husky voice was scarcely audible above the rush of hot
+water into the dishpan. "You'd better tell me straight off, Bonnie. I'm
+not a very patient person.... Are they going to arrest Ralph when they
+find him? There wasn't a word in the paper about him this morning--"
+
+"I'm afraid they are, Penny," Dundee told her miserably. "Captain Strawn
+has a warrant ready, but of course--"
+
+"Oh, you don't have to tell me you hope Ralph isn't guilty!" she cut in
+with sudden passionate vehemence. "Don't _I_ know he couldn't have done
+it? They always arrest the wrong person first, the blundering idiots--"
+
+It was the thorny Penny again, the Penny with glittering eyes which
+matched her nickname. But Dundee felt better able to cope with this
+Penny....
+
+"I'm afraid I'm the chief idiot, but you must believe that I'm sorry it
+should be a friend of yours," he told her, and reached for the plate she
+had rinsed of its suds under the hot water tap.
+
+"Shoot the works!" she commanded, with hard flippancy. "Of course I
+might have known that Captain Strawn's theory about a gunman was just
+dust in our eyes, and that only a miracle could keep you from fastening
+on poor Ralph, since he and the gun are both missing.... Naturally it
+wouldn't occur to you that it might be an outsider, someone who had
+followed Nita and her lover, Sprague, from New York, to kill her for
+having left him for Sprague.... Oh, no! Certainly not!" she gibed, to
+keep from bursting into tears.
+
+"An outsider would hardly have had access to Judge Marshall's pistol and
+Maxim silencer," he reminded her. "And Captain Strawn received a wire
+from a ballistics expert in Chicago this morning, confirming our
+conviction that the same gun which fired the bullets against Judge
+Marshall's target fired the bullet which killed Nita Selim.... You've
+washed that plate long enough. Let me dry it now.... And there are other
+things, Penny--"
+
+"Such as--" she challenged in her angry, husky contralto.
+
+"Sprague admitted to me this morning, after I had confronted him with
+proofs, that he sometimes slept in the upstairs bedroom--"
+
+"I told you they were lovers!" Penny interrupted.
+
+"--and that he slept there Friday night, after he and Nita had
+quarreled. He still contends that the row was over that
+movie-of-Hamilton business," Dundee went on, as if she had not spoken.
+"He admitted also that Nita had told him to take his things away when he
+left Saturday morning, but he says it was only because she didn't want
+Ralph Hammond to find a man's belongings there if he had occasion to go
+into the upstairs rooms in making his estimates for the finishing-up of
+the other side. But he contends, and Lydia Carr, whom I also saw again
+this morning, supports him in it, that he stayed in the house
+occasionally when Nita was particularly nervous about being alone, and
+that they were _not_ lovers."
+
+"Pooh!... Don't wipe the flowers off that plate. Here's another."
+
+"I'm inclined to say 'Pooh!', too, Penny," Dundee assured her, "but
+Tracey Miles told me last night when he came to get Lydia that Nita
+really seemed to be in love with Ralph--part of the time, at least."
+
+"Nita thought enough of Dexter Sprague to send for him to come down
+here, and to root her head off for him to get the job of making the
+movie," Penny reminded him fiercely, making a great splashing in the
+dishpan.
+
+"Then--_you_ don't think she was in love with Ralph?" Dundee asked.
+
+"Oh, _I don't know_!" the girl cried. "I thought so sometimes--had the
+grace to hope so, anyway, since Ralph was so crazy about her."
+
+"That's the point, Penny," Dundee told her gently. "Everyone I've talked
+to this morning, including Sprague, seems sure that Ralph Hammond was
+mad about Nita Selim."
+
+"So of course he would kill her!" Penny scoffed bitterly.
+
+"Yes, Penny--when he discovered Sprague's easily-recognized cravats
+draped over the mirror frame in a bedroom in Nita's house.... For they
+were there to be seen when Ralph went into that bedroom yesterday
+morning."
+
+"How do you know he saw them?"
+
+"Because he left this behind him," Dundee admitted reluctantly, and
+wiped his hands before drawing an initialed silver pencil from his
+breast pocket. "I found it under the edge of the bed. The initials are
+R. H."
+
+"Yes, I recognize it," Penny admitted, turning sharply away. "I gave it
+to him myself, for a Christmas present. I thought I could afford to give
+silver pencils away then. Dad hadn't bolted yet--" She crooked an elbow
+and leaned her face against it for a moment. Then she flung up her brown
+bobbed head defiantly. "Well?"
+
+"Ralph must have been--well, in a pretty bad way, since he loved Nita
+and wanted to--marry her," Dundee persisted painfully. "Remember that
+Polly Beale found him still there when she stopped to offer Nita a lift
+to Breakaway Inn. It is not hard to imagine what took place. We _know_
+that Polly curtly cancelled her luncheon engagement with Nita and the
+rest of you, and went into town with Ralph, after making sure that Clive
+would join them. I saw young Hammond myself for an instant, without
+knowing who he was, and I remember now thinking that he looked far too
+ill to eat. I was lunching at the Stuart House myself when they came
+into the dining room, you know."
+
+"Plenty to hang him on, I see!" Penny cried furiously.
+
+"There's a little more, Penny," Dundee went on. "Polly Beale and Clive
+Hammond were mortally afraid that Ralph _would_ come to the cocktail
+party! I'm sure Clive made Ralph promise to stay away, and that both
+Clive and Polly did not trust him to keep his promise. That is why, I am
+sure, Clive beckoned Polly to join him in the solarium, without entering
+the living room to speak to Nita. You remember they said they stayed
+there all during the playing of--"
+
+"If you call it the 'death hand' again, I'll scream!"
+
+"All right.... They stayed there until Karen discovered the murder. I am
+sure they chose that place because of its many windows--they could watch
+for Ralph's car, dash out and head him off. Take him away by force, if
+necessary, to keep him from making a scene. I believe they knew he had
+murder in his heart, and that he would find a way to get a gun--"
+
+"Have you also found out that he stole Hugo's gun yesterday?"
+
+"I have found that it was possible for him to do so," Dundee said
+slowly. "The butler was off for the afternoon until six o'clock. There
+was no one in the house but the nursemaid and the-three-months-old
+baby."
+
+"Well? And I suppose you think Clive and Polly didn't have a chance to
+head Ralph off, as you say, but that they did see him running away after
+he killed her?" Her voice was still brittle with anger, but there were
+indecision and fear in it, too.
+
+"No," Dundee replied. "I don't think they saw him. I feel pretty sure he
+came into the house by the back way, and through the back hall into
+Nita's room. He must have known Clive and Polly would be on the lookout
+for him.... At any rate, I have proof that whoever shot Nita from in
+front of that window near the porch door fled toward the back hall."
+
+And he told her of the big bronze lamp, whose bulb had been broken,
+reminding her of its place at the head of the chaise longue which was
+set between the two west windows.
+
+"That was the 'bang or bump' Flora Miles heard while she was hiding in
+the closet," he explained. "I suppose Flora has told all of you about
+it?... I thought so. Muffled as she was in the closet, it is unlikely
+that she could have heard Nita's frantic whisperings to Ralph.... I
+doubt if he spoke at all. Nita must have been sure he was about to leave
+by the porch door--"
+
+Dimly there came the ring of the telephone. With a curt word, Penny
+excused herself to answer it. Dundee went on polishing glasses with a
+fresh towel....
+
+"Bonnie!" Penny was coming back, walking like a somnambulist, her brown
+eyes wide and fixed. "That was--Ralph!... _And he doesn't even know Nita
+is dead!_"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER SIXTEEN
+
+
+"Of course I recognized his voice instantly when he said, 'That you,
+Penny?' and it's a wonder I didn't scream," said Penny Crain, fighting
+her way up through dazed bewilderment to explain in detail, in answer to
+Dundee's pelting questions. "I said, 'Of course, Ralph.... Where _have_
+you been?...' And _he_ said, in that coaxing, teasing voice of his that
+I know so well: 'Peeved, Penny?... I don't blame you, honey. You really
+ought not to let me come over and explain why I stood you up last night,
+but you will, won't you?... Ni-i-ze Penny!...' That's exactly how he
+talked, Bonnie Dundee! Exactly! _Oh, don't you see he couldn't know that
+Nita is dead?_"
+
+"Did you ask him where he was?" Dundee asked finally.
+
+"No. I just told him to come on over, and he said I could depend on it
+that he wouldn't waste any time.... Oh, Bonnie! What shall we _do_?"
+
+"Listen, Penny!" Dundee urged rapidly. "You must realize that I've got
+to see and hear, but I don't want Ralph Hammond to see _me_ until after
+he's had a talk with you. Will you let me eavesdrop behind these
+portieres?... I know it's a beastly thing to do, but--"
+
+Penny agreed at last, and within ten minutes after that amazing
+telephone call Dundee, from behind the portieres that separated the
+dining and living room, heard Penny greeting her visitor in the little
+foyer. She had played fair; had not gone out into the hall to whisper a
+warning--if any warning was needed.
+
+He had seen Ralph Hammond enter the dining room of the Stuart House the
+day before, in company with Clive Hammond and Polly Beale, when the
+three had been strangers to him; but Dundee told himself now that he
+would hardly have recognized the young man whom Penny was preceding into
+her living room. The Ralph Hammond of Saturday had had a white, drawn
+face and sick eyes. But this boy....
+
+Like his older brother, Clive, Ralph Hammond had dark-red, curling hair.
+But unlike his brother's, his eyes were a wide, candid hazel--the green
+iris thickly flecked with brown. A little shorter than Clive, a trifle
+more slender. But that which held the detective's eyes was something
+less tangible but at once more evident than superlative masculine good
+looks. It was a sort of shy joyousness and buoyance, which flushed the
+tan of his cheeks, sang in his voice, made his eyes almost unbearably
+bright....
+
+Before Penny Crain, very pale and quiet, could sink into the chair she
+was groping toward, Ralph Hammond was at her side, one arm going out to
+encircle her shoulders.
+
+"Don't look like that, Penny!" Dundee heard him plead, his voice
+suddenly humble. "You've every right to be sore at me, honey, but please
+don't be. I know I've been an awful cad these last few weeks, but I'm
+myself again. I'm cured now, Penny--"
+
+"Wait, Ralph!" Penny protested faintly, holding back as he would have
+hugged her hard against his breast. "What about--Nita?"
+
+Dundee saw the young man's face go darkly red, but heard him answer
+almost steadily: "I hoped you'd understand without making me put it into
+words, honey.... I'm cured of--Nita. I can't express it any other way
+except to say I was sick, and now I'm cured--"
+
+"You mean--" Penny faltered, but with a swift, imploring glance toward
+Dundee, "--you don't love Nita any more? You can't deny you were
+terribly in love with her, Ralph. Lois told us--told _me_ last night
+that Nita had told her in strictest confidence that she had promised to
+marry you, just Thursday night--"
+
+The boy's face was very pale as he dropped his hands from Penny's
+shoulders, but Dundee, from behind the portieres, was not troubling to
+spy for the moment. He was too indignant with Penny for having withheld
+from him the vital fact of Nita's engagement to Ralph Hammond....
+
+"That's true, Penny," Ralph was saying dully. "You have a right to know,
+because I'm asking _you_ to marry me now.... I did propose to Nita again
+Thursday night, and she did accept me. I confess now I was wild with
+happiness--"
+
+"Why did she refuse you before?" Penny cut in, and Dundee silently
+thanked her for asking the question he would have liked to ask himself.
+"Was it because she wasn't sure she was in love with you?"
+
+"You're making it awfully hard for me, honey," the boy protested,
+then admitted humbly, "Of course you want to know, and you should
+know.... No, she said all along, almost from the first that she loved
+me more than I could love her, but that there were--reasons.... _Two
+reasons_, she always said, and once I asked her jealously if they were
+both men, but she looked so startled and then laughed so queerly that I
+didn't ask again.... Then I thought it might be because I was younger
+than she was, though I can't believe she is more than twenty-three or so,
+and I'm twenty-five, you know. And once I got cold-sick because I thought
+she might still be married, but she said her husband was married again,
+and I wasn't to ask questions or worry about him--"
+
+"But she _did_ accept you Thursday night?" Penny persisted.
+
+"Yes," the boy admitted, his face darkly flushed again. "This is awfully
+hard, honey, but I'll tell you once for all and get it over with.... I
+took her to dinner. We drove to Burnsville because she said she was sick
+of Hamilton. When we were driving back she suddenly became very
+queer--reckless, defiant.... And she asked me if I still wanted to marry
+her, and I said I did. I asked her right then to say when, and she said
+she'd marry me June first, but she added--" and the boy, to Dundee's
+watching eyes, seemed to be genuinely puzzled again by what must have
+sounded so odd at the time--"that she'd marry me June first _if she
+lived to see the day_."
+
+"Oh!" Penny gasped, then, controlling her horror, she asked with what
+sounded like real curiosity, "Then what--happened, Ralph? Why do you
+propose to _her_ on Thursday and to _me_ on--on Sunday?"
+
+"A gorgeous actress sacrificed to the typewriter," Dundee told himself,
+as he waited for Ralph Hammond's reluctant reply.
+
+"Can't we forget it, honey?... You do love me a little, don't you? Can't
+you take my word for it that--I'm cured now--forever?"
+
+Penny's hands went up to cover her face, and Dundee had the grace to
+feel very sorry indeed for her--sorry even if she intended to give her
+promise to Ralph Hammond, as a sick feeling in his stomach prophesied
+that she was about to do....
+
+"How can I know you're really--cured, if I don't know what cured you?"
+
+"I suppose you're right," the boy admitted miserably. "There's no need
+to ask you not to tell anyone else. Although I don't want to see her
+again ever--. Why, Penny, I wouldn't even tell Polly and Clive
+yesterday, after it happened, though Polly guessed and went upstairs--.
+I tried to keep her back--."
+
+"I don't--quite understand, Ralph," Penny interrupted. "You mean
+something happened when you were at Nita's house yesterday morning?"
+
+"Yes. Judge Marshall had promised Nita to have the unfinished half of
+the top story turned into a maid's bedroom and bath and a guest bedroom
+and bath. Clive let me go to make the estimates. Of course I was glad of
+the chance to see Nita again--I hadn't been with her since Thursday
+night. But she had to take Lydia in for a dentist's appointment, and
+they left me alone in the house. I had to go into the finished half to
+make some measurements, and in the bedroom I found--oh, God!" he
+groaned, and pressed a fist against his trembling mouth.
+
+"You found that Dexter Sprague was staying there, was using the bedroom
+that used to be mine--didn't you?" Penny helped him at last, in
+desperation.
+
+"How did you know?" The boy stared at the girl blankly for a moment,
+then seemed to crumple as if from a new blow. "I suppose it was common
+gossip that Nita and Sprague were lovers, and I was the only one she
+fooled!... My God! To think all of you would stand by and let me _marry_
+her--a cheap little gold-digger from Broadway, living with a cheap
+four-flusher she couldn't get along without and had to send for--"
+
+"Did you--want to kill her, Ralph?" Penny whispered, touching one of his
+knotted fists with a trembling hand.
+
+"Kill her?... Good Lord, _no_!" the boy flung at her violently. "I'm not
+such an ass as that! You girls are all alike! Polly had so little sense
+as to think I'd want to kill Nita and Sprague both! She couldn't see,
+and neither could Clive, that all I wanted was to get away from
+everybody and get so drunk I could forget what a fool I'd been--"
+
+"What _did_ you do, Ralph?" Penny asked urgently.
+
+"Why, I got drunk, of course," the boy answered, as if surprised at her
+persistence. "Darling, you wouldn't believe me if I told you how much
+rot-gut Scotch it took to put me under, but that filthy bootlegging
+hotel clerk would have charged me twice what he did for the stuff if he
+had known how much good it would do me."
+
+"Hotel?" Penny snatched at the vital word. "Where did you go to get
+drunk, Ralph?"
+
+"I never realized before you had so much curiosity, honey," the boy
+grinned at her. "After I shook Clive--Polly went on to Nita's bridge
+party, because she couldn't throw her down at the last minute--I
+wandered around till I came to the Railroad Men's Hotel, down on State
+Street, you know, the other side of the tracks. It's a miserable dump,
+but I sort of hankered for a place to hide in that was as miserable and
+cheap as I felt--"
+
+"Did you register under your own name?"
+
+"Ashamed of me, Penny?... No, I registered under my first two
+names--Ralph Edwards. And the rat-faced, filthy little hotel clerk
+turned out to be a bootlegger.... Well, when I woke up about eleven this
+morning I give you my word I wasn't sick and headachy, though God knows
+I'd drunk enough to put me out for a week.... Penny, I woke up
+feeling--well, I can't explain it but to say I felt light and new
+and--and clean.... All washed-up! At first I thought my heart was
+empty--it felt so free of pain. But as I lay there thanking God that
+_that was that_, I found my heart wasn't empty at all. It was brimming
+full of love--Gosh, honey! I sound like a Laura Jean Libbey hero, don't
+I?... But before I rang you from the lunch room where I ate breakfast I
+wrote Nita a special delivery note, telling her it was all off. I had to
+be free actually, before I could ask you.... You _will_ marry me, won't
+you, Penny honey?... I knew this morning I had never really loved anyone
+else--"
+
+Penelope Crain remained rigid for a moment, then very slowly she laid
+both her hands on his head, for he had knelt and buried his face against
+her skirt. But as she spoke, her brown eyes, enormous in her white face,
+were upon Dundee, who had stepped silently from behind the portieres.
+
+"Yes. I'll marry you, Ralph!... You may come in now, Mr. Dundee!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
+
+
+It was nearly nine o'clock Monday morning, and Special Investigator
+Dundee sat alone in the district attorney's office, impatiently awaiting
+Sanderson's arrival. Coroner Price, with the approval of Captain Strawn
+of the Homicide Squad, had set the inquest into the murder of Juanita
+Leigh Selim for ten o'clock, and there was much that Dundee wished to
+say to the district attorney before that hour arrived.
+
+When the thoroughly tired and dispirited young detective had returned to
+his apartment late Sunday afternoon, after having seen Ralph Hammond
+completely exonerated of any possible complicity in the murder of Nita
+Selim, he had found a telegram from the district attorney, filed in
+Chicago:
+
+     "CALLED CHICAGO SERIOUS ILLNESS OF MOTHER STOP RETURNING HAMILTON
+     EIGHT TEN MONDAY MORNING STOP SEE BY PAPERS YOU ARE ON SELIM JOB
+     STOP GOOD BUT WATCH YOUR STEP--SANDERSON"
+
+Well--and Dundee grinned ruefully--he had been on the job all right, but
+would Sanderson consider that he had "watched his step"? At any rate, he
+had been thorough, he congratulated himself, as he weighed the big
+manilla envelope containing his own transcription of the copious
+shorthand notes he had taken during the first hours of the
+investigation. A smaller envelope held Nita's tell-tale checkbook, her
+amazing last will and testament, and the still more startling note she
+had written to Lydia Carr. The last two Dundee had retrieved from
+Carraway only this morning, after having submitted them to the
+fingerprint expert on Sunday.
+
+Carraway's report had rather dashed him at first, for it proved that no
+other hands than Nita's--and his own, of course--had touched either
+envelope or contents. But he was content now to believe that Nita
+herself had unsealed the envelope she had inscribed, "To Be Opened in
+Case of My Death".... Why?... Had she been moved by an impulse to give a
+clue to the identity of the person of whom she stood in fear, but had
+stifled the impulse?
+
+Strawn had said, too, that the little rosewood desk had been in a fairly
+orderly condition, before his big, official hands had clawed through it
+in search of a clue or the gun itself.... Well, Strawn had been properly
+chagrined when Dundee had produced the will and note....
+
+"Why did she stick it away in a pack of new envelopes, if she wanted it
+to be found?" Strawn had demanded irritably, and had not been appeased
+by Dundee's suggestion: "Because she did not want Lydia, in dusting the
+desk, to see it and be alarmed."
+
+Yes, he had been busy enough, but what, actually, had he to show for his
+industry? He had worked up three good cases--the first against Lydia
+Carr, the second against Dexter Sprague, and the third against Ralph
+Hammond--only to have them knocked to pieces almost as fast as he had
+conceived them.... Of course Lydia Carr might be lying to give Sprague
+an alibi, but Dundee was convinced that she was telling the truth and
+that she hated Sprague too much to fake an alibi for him.... Of course
+there was always Judge Marshall, but--
+
+Through the closed door came sounds which Dundee presently identified as
+connected with Penny Crain's arrival--the emphatic click of her heels;
+the quick opening and shutting of desk drawers....
+
+The down-hearted young detective debated the question of taking his
+perplexities out to her, but decided against it. She probably wanted to
+hear no more of his theories, was undoubtedly burning with righteous
+indignation against him because of Ralph Hammond.... Did she still
+consider herself engaged to Ralph, in spite of the fact that young
+Hammond had gallantly insisted upon releasing her from her promise as
+soon as he suspected that it had been given merely to prove her faith in
+his innocence?
+
+It was a decidedly unhappy young detective whom Sanderson greeted upon
+his arrival at nine o'clock.
+
+The new district attorney, who had held office since November, was a
+big, good-natured, tolerant man, who looked younger than his 35 years
+because of his freckles and his always rumpled mop of sandy hair. But
+those who sought to take advantage of his good nature in the courtroom
+found themselves up against as keen a lawyer and prosecutor as could be
+found in the whole state, or even in the Middle West.
+
+"Well, boy!" he greeted Dundee genially but with an undertone of
+solemnity in his rich, jury-swaying baritone. "Looks like we've got a
+sensational murder on our hands. It's not every day Hamilton can rate a
+headline like 'BROADWAY BELLE MURDERED AT BRIDGE'--to quote a Chicago
+paper.... But I'm afraid there's not enough mystery in it to suit your
+tastes."
+
+Dundee grinned wryly. "I've been pretty down in the mouth all morning
+because there's a little too much mystery, chief."
+
+"Fairly open-and-shut, isn't it?" Sanderson asked, obviously surprised.
+"New York gets too hot for this Selim baby--probably mixed up with some
+racketeer, racketeers being the favorite boy-friends of 'Broadway
+belles', if one can believe the tabloids. Lois Dunlap offers her a job
+to organize a Little Theater in Hamilton--which the fair Nita would
+certainly have described as a hick town and which she wouldn't have been
+found dead in if she could have helped it--" and the district attorney
+grinned at his own witticism, "--but Broadway Nita jumps at it. Her
+racketeer sweetie has a long arm, however, and Nita gets hers. Justly
+enough, probably, but I wish to the Lord she had chosen some other town
+to hide in. Lois Dunlap is the finest woman in Hamilton, but she's too
+damned promiscuous in her friendships. As it is now, some of the best
+friends I have in the world are mixed up in this mess, even if it is
+only as innocent victims of circumstance--"
+
+Until then Dundee had let his chief express his pent-up convictions
+without interruption, and indeed Sanderson's courtroom training had
+fitted him admirably for long speeches. But he could keep silent no
+longer.
+
+"That is what has been worrying me, chief," he interrupted. "Captain
+Strawn has given the papers very little real information, but the truth
+is I am afraid _one_ of your friends was not an innocent victim of
+circumstance."
+
+District Attorney Sanderson sat down abruptly in the swivel chair at his
+desk. "Just what do you mean, Dundee?"
+
+"I mean I am convinced that one of Mrs. Selim's _guests_ was her
+murderer, but I'd like to tell you the whole story, and let you judge
+for yourself."
+
+"My God!" Sanderson ejaculated. Slowly he drew out a handkerchief and
+mopped his freckled brow. "If I hadn't had a good many years of
+experience with criminals, Dundee, I'd say it is obvious on the face of
+it that none of those four men--Judge Marshall, Tracey Miles, Johnny
+Drake, Clive Hammond--could have committed such a cheap, sensational
+crime as murdering a hostess during a bridge game.... Not that I haven't
+wanted to commit murder myself over many a game of bridge," he added,
+with the irrepressible humor for which he was famous. Then he groaned,
+the rueful twinkle still in his eye: "I'm afraid we're in for a lot of
+gruesome kidding. Why, last night, in the club car of my train, three
+tables of bridge players could scarcely play a hand for wisecracking
+about the dangers of being dummy!... Well, boy, now that I've talked
+myself past the worst shock, suppose you give me the low-down. But I
+warn you I'm going to take a powerful lot of convincing."
+
+Painstakingly, and in the greatest detail, Dundee told the whole story,
+beginning with his arrival Saturday evening at the Selim house,
+including the ghastly replaying of the "death hand at bridge"--a phrase,
+by the way, which the prosecutor instantly adopted--and ending with
+Ralph Hammond's establishing of an alibi, to the entire satisfaction of
+Captain Strawn, as well as of Dundee himself. He was interrupted
+frequently of course, scoffingly at first, then with deepening solemnity
+and respect on the part of the district attorney.
+
+"Let me see the plan of the house again," he said, when Dundee had
+finished. "Also that table you've worked up showing the approximate time
+and order of arrival of the four men.... Thanks!... Hmm!... Hmm!"
+
+"You see, sir," Dundee repeated at last, "the list of possible suspects
+includes Lydia Carr, Dexter Sprague, John C. Drake, Judge Marshall,
+Polly Beale, Flora Miles, Janet Raymond, Clive Hammond--"
+
+"But Polly and Clive were in the solarium _together_ all the time!"
+Sanderson objected.
+
+"So they said," Dundee agreed. "But it is a very short trip from the
+solarium by way of the side porch into Nita's bedroom. And either Polly
+Beale or Clive Hammond could have made that trip, on the pretext of
+speaking to Nita about Ralph!... Motive: murder to end blackmail.
+Naturally such a theory would not include _both_ of them, but if _one of
+them_ was being blackmailed and made use of the pretext of warning Nita
+of Ralph's overwrought condition--"
+
+"Sprague's your man!" Sanderson interrupted with relief. "Motive:
+jealousy because Nita was ditching him to marry Ralph.... As for the gun
+and silencer, it seems pretty clear to me that Nita herself stole it
+from Judge Marshall, and that Sprague got it away from her. You say the
+maid, Lydia, went upstairs to tell Sprague he had to pack his things and
+take them away--for good!... Very well! Sprague goes down the backstairs
+with the gun in his pocket, through the back hall into Nita's bedroom,
+shoots her, bumps into the lamp, goes out by the back door, and comes
+around front to join the party.... You say yourself he has admitted to
+everything but the trip to Nita's room and the shooting--even to
+sneaking back to get his bag, which I believe also contained the gun
+until he had a chance to dispose of it on his way to his hotel in
+Hamilton."
+
+Dundee shook his head. "I'd like to agree, chief, but I believe Lydia is
+telling the truth. She says she was in the upstairs bedroom with Sprague
+and remained behind only two or three minutes at most, to put his
+shaving kit into the packed bag, and to clean up the bathroom basin. On
+her way down the backstairs she says she heard Lois Dunlap's second ring
+and went to answer it. Sprague and Janet Raymond, with whom Janet says
+he stopped to talk a minute on the front porch, were in the dining room
+_before_ Lydia entered it.... I'm convinced Lydia hates Sprague and
+would be glad to believe him guilty.... No, Mr. Sanderson, I don't
+believe Sprague did it, but I do believe it was Sprague's revenge that
+Nita was afraid of when she made her will Friday night. Naturally she
+figured she'd have time to tell the person she was blackmailing that she
+was through with him--or her, but I believe Sprague and Nita were
+lovers, even partners in blackmail, and that she feared he would kill
+her when he knew she was going to marry Ralph Hammond and give up their
+source of income."
+
+Sanderson considered for a long minute, pulling at his full lower lip.
+"Well, thank God for those precious footprints Strawn is building on!
+Don't think I fail to follow your reasoning that the crime _must_ have
+been committed in the bedroom, and not from the window sill, but those
+footprints may save us yet, and will certainly get us through the
+inquest. You agree, of course, that none of all this you've told me must
+even be hinted at during the inquest?... Good! Let's be going. It's
+nearly ten."
+
+Dundee's whole soul revolted at the very thought of the barbaric farce
+of an inquest--the small morgue chapel crowded to the doors with
+goggle-eyed, blood-loving humanity; the stretcher with its sheeted
+corpse; reporters avid of sensation and primed with questions which, if
+answered by indiscreet witnesses, would defeat the efforts of police and
+district attorney; news photographers with their insatiable cameras
+aimed at every person connected with the case in any way.
+
+Mercifully, this particular inquest upon the body of Juanita Leigh Selim
+promised to be quickly over. For Coroner Price, in conference with
+Sanderson, Dundee and Captain Strawn, had gladly agreed to call only
+those witnesses and extract from them only such information as the
+authorities deemed advisable.
+
+Lydia Carr, whose black veil had defeated the news camera levelled at
+her poor scarred face, was the first witness called by Coroner Price,
+and she was required for the single purpose of identifying the body as
+that of her mistress. To two perfunctory questions--"Have you any
+information to give this jury regarding the cause and manner of the
+deceased's death?" and "Have you any personal knowledge of the identity
+of any person, man or woman, of whom the deceased stood in fear of her
+life?"--Lydia answered a flat "No!" and was then dismissed.
+
+Karen Marshall, looking far too young to be the wife of the elderly
+ex-judge, Hugo Marshall, was the second witness called. Dr. Price guided
+her gently to a brief recital of her discovery of the dead body of her
+hostess, emphasizing only the fact that, so far as she could see, the
+bedroom was unoccupied except by the corpse at the time of the
+discovery.
+
+He then handed her the photostatic copy of a blueprint of the ground
+floor of the Selim house, with a pencilled ring drawn around the
+bedroom. Karen falteringly identified it, as well as the pencil-drawn
+furniture, and was immediately dismissed--to the packed rows of
+spectators and reporters.
+
+Dr. Price himself took the stand next and described, in technical terms,
+the wound which had caused death and the caliber of the bullet he had
+extracted from the dead woman's heart.
+
+"I find, also, from the autopsy," he concluded, "that the bullet
+traveled a downward-slanting path. I should add, moreover, that I have
+made exact mathematical calculations, using the position of the body and
+of the wound as a basis, and found that a line drawn from the wound, and
+extended, at the correct slant, ends at a point 51.8 inches high, upon
+the right-hand side of the frame of the window nearest the porch door."
+And he obligingly passed the marked blueprint among the jury. When it
+was in his own hands again, he added: "It is impossible to state the
+exact distance the bullet traveled, more nearly than to say the shot was
+fired along the line I have indicated, at a distance of not more than
+fifteen feet and not less than ten."
+
+Captain Strawn rose and was permitted to question the witness:
+
+"Dr. Price, that blueprint shows that the bedroom is fifteen feet in
+width, don't it?"
+
+"That is correct."
+
+"Have you also measured the height of that window sill from the floor?"
+
+"I have," the coroner answered. "The height from floor to sill is 26
+inches."
+
+"Now, doctor, from your calculations, would it be possible for a man
+crouching in the open window to fire a shot along the path you have
+calculated?"
+
+"It would," Dr. Price answered. "But as I have pointed out, it is
+impossible for me to say at exactly what distance from the body the shot
+was fired."
+
+But Strawn, of course, was amply satisfied. And so were Dundee and the
+district attorney, for it suited their purposes admirably for the public
+to be convinced at this time that an intruding gunman had murdered Nita
+Selim.
+
+Captain Strawn, sworn in, told briefly of his being called to the scene
+of the crime, of the activities of Carraway, the fingerprint expert, and
+of the exhaustive search of his squad of detectives.
+
+"Did you find any person concealed upon the premises, that is, within
+the house itself, or in the garage or on the grounds?" Dr. Price asked.
+
+"No, sir."
+
+"Did you or your men discover the weapon with which the deceased was
+killed?"
+
+"No, sir."
+
+"Did you question all persons in the house at the time of the crime, as
+to whether or not a shot had been heard?"
+
+"I did. The answer in every case was that they heard no shot."
+
+"And you also questioned every person present in an effort to place
+responsibility for the death of Mrs. Selim?"
+
+"I did. I couldn't find that anyone present had anything to do with it."
+
+"Who were these persons?" Dr. Price then asked.
+
+"Judge and Mrs. Hugo Marshall, Mr. and Mrs. Tracey A. Miles, Mr. and
+Mrs. John C. Drake, Mrs. Peter Dunlap, Miss Janet Raymond, Miss Polly
+Beale, Miss Penelope Crain, Mr. Clive Hammond, Mr. Dexter Sprague--of
+New York, and Mrs. Selim's maid, Lydia Carr," Captain Strawn answered
+promptly, rolling out the names of Hamilton's elect with sonorous
+satisfaction, which obviously had the desired effect in convincing the
+jury that not among those proud names, at least, could be found the name
+of the murderer.
+
+"Did you find on the premises any clue which you consider of importance
+to this jury?"
+
+"I did! A bunch of footprints under the window you've been talking
+about. Here are life-size photographs of 'em, doctor.... And the rambler
+rose vines that climb up the outside of the window had been torn."
+
+After the photographs had been duly inspected by the jury of six Dr.
+Price said: "That is all, and thank you, Captain Strawn.... Mr. Dundee!"
+
+As had been agreed between the coroner and the district attorney,
+Dundee's testimony, after the preliminary questions, was confined to the
+offering of Nita Selim's "last will and testament" and the note to
+Lydia.
+
+The reporters, who had obviously feared that nothing new would
+eventuate, sat up with startled interest, then their pencils flew, as
+Dundee read the two documents, after he had told when and where he had
+discovered them. As District Attorney Sanderson had said; "Better give
+the press something new to chew on, but for God's sake don't mention
+that checkbook of Nita's. It's dynamite, boy--dynamite!"
+
+While the morgue chapel was still in a buzz of excitement, Dundee was
+dismissed, and District Attorney Sanderson requested an adjournment of
+the inquest for one week.
+
+The police were urging the crowd upon its way before it became fully
+aware that it had been cheated of the pleasure of hearing, at first
+hand, the stories of that fatal bridge and cocktail party from the
+guests themselves.
+
+"Tell the Carr woman I want to speak to her," Sanderson directed Dundee.
+"She'll thank you for rescuing her from the reporters."
+
+As Dundee pushed his way through the jam he heard a reporter earnestly
+pleading with Lois Dunlap: "But I'm sure you can remember the cards each
+player held in that 'death hand,' Mrs. Dunlap--"
+
+Cheerfully sure that he could trust Lois Dunlap's discretion and
+distaste for publicity, Dundee went on, grinning at the reporter's use
+of his own lurid phrase.
+
+Two minutes later Sanderson, Strawn and Dundee were closeted in Dr.
+Price's own office with Lydia Carr.
+
+"First, Lydia," began Sanderson, "I want to warn you to give the
+reporters no information at all regarding the nature or extent of your
+mistress' bequest."
+
+"It was little enough she had, poor girl, beyond her clothes and a few
+pieces of jewelry," Lydia answered stubbornly. "Are you going to let me
+do what she told me to, in that note?... Not that I hold with burning--"
+
+"I see no reason why you should not take charge of the body, Lydia, and
+arrange it immediately for cremation.... Do you, Captain Strawn?"
+Sanderson answered.
+
+"No, sir. The quicker the better."
+
+"Then, Lydia, if Captain Strawn will send you out to the Selim house
+with one of his boys, you may get the dress described in Mrs. Selim's
+note--"
+
+"And the curls she cut off and had made into switches," Lydia
+interrupted. "I can't dress my poor girl's hair in a French roll without
+them!"
+
+"The curls, too," Sanderson agreed. "Now as to the cremation--"
+
+"Mrs. Miles let me come in early to see about that," Lydia interrupted
+again. "They can do it this afternoon, and you don't need to worry about
+the expense. I've got money enough of my own to pay my girl's funeral
+expenses."
+
+"Good!" Sanderson applauded. "The will shall be probated as soon as
+possible, of course, but it makes it simpler if you will pay the
+necessary expenses now."
+
+"Just a minute, chief," Dundee halted the district attorney as he was
+about to leave. "Under the circumstances, I think it highly advisable
+that we get pictures of the burial dress. I suggest you have Lydia bring
+the things to your office before she lays out the body, and that
+Carraway photograph the dress there, from all angles. I should also like
+to have a picture of the body after Lydia has finished her services."
+
+The maid's scarred face flushed a deep, angry red, but she offered no
+protest when the district attorney accepted both of Dundee's
+suggestions.
+
+"Then you'll have Carraway with his camera at my office in about an
+hour?" Sanderson turned to Captain Strawn. "Let's say twelve o'clock. By
+the way, Lydia, you may bring in with you the few pieces of jewelry you
+mentioned. I'll keep them safely in my offices until the will is
+probated and they are turned over to you."
+
+"I don't know where she kept them," Lydia answered.
+
+"_What?_" exclaimed Bonnie Dundee.
+
+"I said I don't know where she kept her jewelry," Lydia Carr retorted.
+"It wasn't worth much--not a hundred dollars altogether, I'll be bound,
+because Nita sold her last diamond not a week before we left New York.
+She owed so many bills then that the money she got for directing that
+play at the Forsyte School hardly made a dent on them."
+
+"Do you know whether the jewelry was kept in the house or in a safe
+deposit box?" Dundee asked, excitement sharpening his voice.
+
+"It must have been in the house, because she wore the different pieces
+any time she pleased," the maid answered. "I didn't ask no questions,
+and I didn't happen to see her get it out or put it away. I didn't ever
+do much lady's-maid work for her, like dressing her or fixing her
+hair--just kept her clothes and the house in order, and did what little
+cooking there was to do--"
+
+"Her dressing-table?" Dundee prodded. "Her desk?"
+
+The maid shook her head. "I was always straightening up the drawers in
+both her dressing-table and her desk, and she didn't keep the jewelry in
+either one of them places."
+
+"Captain Strawn, when you searched the dressing-table and desk for the
+gun or anything of importance, did you have any reason to suspect a
+secret drawer in either of them?"
+
+"No, Bonnie. They're just ordinary factory furniture. I tapped around
+for a secret drawer, of course, but there wasn't even any place for
+one," Strawn assured him with an indulgent grin.
+
+"I want to see Penny Crain!" Dundee cried, making for the door.
+
+"Then you'd better come along to the courthouse with me," Sanderson
+called after him. "I sent her back to the office as soon as the inquest
+was adjourned."
+
+The two men passed through the now deserted morgue chapel and almost
+bumped into a middle-aged man, obviously of the laboring class in spite
+of his slicked-up, Sunday appearance.
+
+"You're the district attorney, ain't you, sir?" he addressed Sanderson
+in a nervous, halting undertone.
+
+"Yes. What is it?"
+
+"I come to the inquest to give some information, sir, but it was
+adjourned so quick I didn't have time--"
+
+"Who are you?" Sanderson interrupted impatiently.
+
+"I'm Rawlins, sir. I worked for the poor lady, Mrs. Selim--gardening one
+day a week--"
+
+"Come to my office!" Sanderson commanded quickly, as a lingering
+reporter approached on a run.... "No, no! I'm sorry, Harper," he said
+hastily, cutting into the reporter's questions. "Nothing new! You may
+say that the police have thrown out a dragnet--" and he grinned at the
+trite phrase "--for the gunman who killed Mrs. Selim, and will offer a
+reward for the recovery of the weapon--a Colt's .32 equipped with a
+Maxim silencer.... Come along, George, and I'll explain just what Mrs.
+Sanderson and I have in mind."
+
+The district attorney and Dundee strode quickly away, and the man,
+Rawlins, after a moment of indecision, trotted after them.
+
+"I don't understand, sir, and my name ain't George. It's Elmer."
+
+"You don't have to understand anything, except that you're not to answer
+any question that any reporter asks you," Sanderson retorted.
+
+When the trio entered the reception room of the district attorney's
+suite in the courthouse Sanderson paused at Penny Crain's desk:
+
+"Bring in your notebook, Penny. This man has some information he
+considers important."
+
+A minute later Sanderson had begun to question his voluntary but highly
+nervous witness.
+
+"Your name?"
+
+"It's Elmer Rawlins, like I told you, sir," the man protested, and
+flinched as Penny recorded his words in swift shorthand. "It was my wife
+as made me come. She said as long as me and her knowed I didn't do
+nothing wrong, I'd oughta come forward and tell what I knowed."
+
+"Yes, yes!" Sanderson encouraged him impatiently. "You say you worked
+for Mrs. Selim as gardener one day a week--"
+
+"Yes, sir, but I 'tended to her hot water and her garbage, too--twice a
+day it was I had to go and stoke the little laundry heater that heats
+the hot water tank in summertime when the steam furnace ain't being
+used. I live about a mile beyant the Crain place, that is, the house the
+poor lady was killed in--"
+
+"Did you come to stoke the laundry heater Saturday evening?" Dundee
+interrupted. "Excuse me, sir," he turned to the district attorney, "but
+this is the first time I've seen this man."
+
+"No, sir, I didn't stoke it Sat'dy night," Rawlins answered uneasily.
+"You see, I was comin' up the road to do my chores at half past six,
+like I always do, but before I got to the house I seen a lot of
+policemen's cars and motorcycles, and I didn't want to get mixed up in
+nothing, so I turned around and went home again. I didn't know what was
+up, but when me and the wife went into Hamilton Sat'dy night in our
+flivver we seen one of the extries and read about how the poor lady was
+murdered. But that ain't what I was gittin' at, sir--"
+
+"Well, what _are_ you getting at?" Sanderson urged.
+
+"Well, the extry said the police had found some footprints under the
+frontmost of them two side windows to Mis' Selim's bedroom, and went on
+to talk about the rose vines being tore, and straight off I said to the
+missus, 'Them's _my_ footprints, Minnie'--Minnie's my wife's name--"
+
+"_Your_ footprints!" Sanderson ejaculated, then shook with silent
+laughter. "There goes Strawn's case, Bonnie!" But immediately he was
+serious again, as the import of this new evidence came to him. "Tell us
+all about it, Rawlins.... When did you make those footprints?"
+
+"Friday, sir. That's the day I gardened for Mis' Selim.... You see, sir,
+the poor little lady told me she was kept awake nights when they was a
+high wind, by the rose vines tapping against the windows. Says she, 'I
+think they's somebody tryin' to git into my room, Elmer,' and I could
+see the poor little thing was mighty nervous anyway, so I didn't waste
+no time. I cut away a lot of the rose vine and burned it when I was
+burnin' the garbage and papers in the 'cinerator out back."
+
+"Is that all, Rawlins?" Sanderson asked.
+
+"'Bout all that 'mounts to anything," the laborer deprecated. "But they
+was somethin' else that struck me as a little funny, when I come to
+think of it--"
+
+"Well?" Sanderson prodded, as the man halted uncertainly.
+
+"Well, it's like I told you, it was my job to burn the papers. That
+scar-face maid of Mis' Selim's put everything--garbage and trash--in a
+big garbage can outside the back door, and I burnt 'em up. So I was
+kinder surprised Sat'dy mornin', when I went to stoke up the laundry
+heater, to find somebody'd been meddlin' with my drafts and had let the
+fire go clean out. I had to clean out the ashes and build a new fire--"
+
+"You're trying to say, I suppose, that you could tell by the ashes that
+someone had been burning papers in the laundry heater?" Sanderson asked,
+with a quick glance at Dundee's tense face.
+
+"That's right, sir," Rawlins agreed eagerly. "You know what kind of
+ashes a mess o' paper makes--layers of white ashes, sir, that kinder
+looks like papers yit."
+
+"Yes, I know.... And you found layers of white ashes, which you took
+particular pains to clean out?" Sanderson asked bitterly.
+
+"Yes, sir. So's I could build a new fire--"
+
+"Did you speak to the maid--ask her if she'd been 'meddlin' with your
+drafts'?"
+
+"Yes, sir, I did!" the man answered with a trace of the belligerence he
+had undoubtedly shown to Lydia. "She said _she_ didn't open no dampers,
+claimed the heater was the same as usual when she left Friday night to
+go to a movie. So I reckin it was the poor lady herself, burnin' up love
+letters, maybe, or some such truck--"
+
+"You're to keep your 'reckins' to yourself, Rawlins," Sanderson cut in
+emphatically. "Remember, now, you're not to tell anybody else what
+you've just told me.... If that's all, you can go now, and I'm much
+obliged to you. Leave your address with the young lady here. You'll be
+needed later, of course."
+
+The relieved man hurried out of the room on Penny's heels. Sanderson
+shrugged, then, when the door had closed, began heavily:
+
+"It looks like you're right, Bonnie, about that blackmail business.
+As the astute Rawlins says, 'love letters, maybe, or some such
+truck....' Of course it all fits in with your theory that Nita had made
+up her mind to reform, marry Ralph Hammond, and be a very good girl
+indeed.... All right! You can have Penny in now. I think I know pretty
+well what you're going to ask her. And I may as well tell you that when
+Roger Crain skipped town with some securities he was known to possess, he
+hadn't got them from a safe deposit box, because he didn't have one," and
+Sanderson pressed a button on the edge of his desk....
+
+"Penny, do you know whether there is a concealed safe in the Selim
+house?"
+
+The girl, startled, began to shake her head, then checked herself. "Not
+that I ever saw, or knew of when Dad and Mother and I lived there,
+but--" She hesitated, her cheeks turning scarlet.
+
+"Out with it, Penny!" Sanderson urged, his voice very kind.
+
+"It's just that, if you really think there's a secret hiding place in
+the house, I believe I understand something that puzzled me when it
+happened," Penny confessed, her head high. "I was at the Country Club
+one night--a Saturday night when the whole crowd is usually there for
+the dinner and dance. I'd been dancing with--with Ralph, and when the
+music stopped we went out on the porch, where several of our crowd were
+sitting. It was--just two or three weeks after--after Dad left town.
+Lois wouldn't let me drop out of things.... Anyway, it was dark and I
+heard Judge Marshall saying something about 'the simplest and most
+ingenious arrangement you ever saw. Of course that's where the rascal
+kept his securities--...' I knew they were talking about Dad, from the
+way Judge Marshall shut up and changed the subject as soon as he saw
+me."
+
+"Who was on the porch, Penny?" Dundee asked tensely.
+
+"Why, let's see--Flora, and Johnny Drake, and Clive," she answered
+slowly. "I think that was all, besides Judge Marshall. The others hadn't
+come out from dancing.... Of course I don't know whether or not it was
+some 'arrangement' in the house--"
+
+"Where are you going, boy?" Sanderson checked Dundee, who was already on
+his way to the door.
+
+"To find that gun, of course!"
+
+"Well, if it's tucked away in the 'simplest and most ingenious
+arrangement you ever saw' it will stay put for a while," Sanderson said.
+"Lydia's due here within half an hour, and you don't want to miss her,
+do you?"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
+
+
+It was exactly twelve o'clock when Lydia Carr, accompanied by Detective
+Collins of the Homicide Squad carrying a small suitcase, arrived at the
+district attorney's office.
+
+"I kept my eye on her every minute of the time, to see that there wasn't
+no shenanigans," Collins informed Dundee and Sanderson importantly,
+callous to the fact that the maid could hear him. "But I let her bring
+along everything she said she needed to lay the body out in.... Was that
+right?"
+
+"Right!" agreed the district attorney, as Dundee opened the suitcase
+upon Sanderson's desk.
+
+The royal blue velvet dress lay on top, neatly folded. Dundee shook out
+its folds. It looked remarkably fresh and new, in spite of the years it
+had hung in Nita Selim's various clothes closets, preserved because of
+God alone knew what tender memories. Perhaps the beautiful little dancer
+had intended all those years that it should be her shroud....
+
+"Oh, it's lovely!" Penny Crain, who was looking on, cried out
+involuntarily. "It looks like a French model."
+
+"It's a copy of a French model. You can see by the label on the back of
+the neck," Lydia answered, her one good eye softening for Penny.
+
+"So it is!" Dundee agreed, and took out his penknife to snip the threads
+which fastened the white satin, gold-lettered label to the frock.
+"'Pierre Model. Copied by Simonson's--New York City'," he read aloud,
+and slipped the little square of satin into the envelope containing the
+murdered woman's will. "Well, Penny, I'm glad you like the dress, for
+I'm going to ask you to do the mannikin stunt in it as soon as Carraway
+arrives with his camera."
+
+Penny turned very pale, but she said nothing in protest, and Dundee
+continued to unpack the suitcase. His masculine hands looked clumsy as
+they lifted out the costume slip and miniature "dancing set"--brassiere
+and step-ins--all matching, of filmiest white chiffon and lace. His
+fingers flinched from contact with the switch of long, silky black
+curls....
+
+"She bought them after we came to Hamilton," Lydia informed him,
+pointing to the undergarments. "Them black moire pumps and them French
+stockings are brand new, too--hundred-gauge silk them stockings are, and
+never on her feet--"
+
+"Ready for me?" Carraway had appeared in the doorway, with camera and
+tripod.
+
+"Yes, Carraway.... Just the dress, Penny.... I want full-length
+front, back and side views of Miss Crain wearing this dress,
+Carraway.... Flashlights, of course. Better take the pictures in Miss
+Crain's office," Dundee directed. "You stay here, Lydia. I want to talk
+with you while that job is being done."
+
+"Yes, sir," Lydia answered, and accepted without thanks the chair he
+offered.
+
+"I suppose you have read _The Hamilton Morning News_ today, Lydia?"
+
+"I have!"
+
+"May I have that paper, chief?... Thanks!... Now, Lydia, I want you to
+read again the paragraphs that are headed 'New York, May 25--' and tell
+us if the statements are correct."
+
+Lydia accepted the paper and her single eye scanned the following lines
+obediently:
+
+     New York, May 25 (UP)
+
+     Mrs. Juanita Leigh Selim, who was murdered Saturday afternoon
+     in Hamilton, ----, was known along Broadway as Nita Leigh, chorus
+     girl and specialty dancer. Her last known address in New York was
+     No. -- West 54th St., where she had a three-room apartment.
+     According to the superintendent, E. J. Black, Miss Leigh, as he
+     knew her, lived there alone except for her maid, Lydia Carr, and
+     entertained few visitors.
+
+     Irving Wein, publicity director for Altamont Pictures, when
+     interviewed by a reporter in his rooms at the Cadillac Hotel late
+     today, said that Nita Leigh had been used for "bits" and as a
+     dancing "double" for stars in a number of recent pictures,
+     including "Night Life" and "Boy, Howdy!", both of which have
+     dancing sequences. Musical comedy programs for the last year carry
+     her name only once, in the list of "Ladies of the Ensemble" of the
+     revue, "What of it?"
+
+     Miss Eloise Pendleton, head-mistress of Forsyte-on-the-Hudson,
+     mentioned in the dispatches from Hamilton, confirms the report that
+     Mrs. Selim, as she was known there, twice directed the annual
+     Easter musical comedy presented by that fashionable school for
+     young ladies, but could add nothing of interest to the facts given
+     above, beyond asserting that Mrs. Selim had proved to be an
+     unusually competent and popular director of their amateur
+     theatricals.
+
+"Yes, that's correct, as far as it goes," Lydia commented, resentment
+strong in her harsh voice as she returned the paper to Dundee.
+
+"Have you anything to add?" Dundee caught her up quickly.
+
+"No, sir!" Lydia shook her head, her lips in a grim line. Then
+resentment burst through: "They don't have to talk like she was a back
+number on Broadway, just because she was tired of the stage and going in
+for movies!"
+
+District Attorney Sanderson took her in hand then, pelting her with
+questions about Nita's New York "gentlemen friends," but he made no more
+headway than Dundee.
+
+"We _know_ that Nita Selim was afraid of _someone_!" Sanderson began
+again, angrily. "Who was it--someone she'd known in New York, or
+somebody in Hamilton?"
+
+"I don't know!" Lydia told him flatly.
+
+"But you do know she was living in fear of her life, don't you?" Dundee
+interposed.
+
+"I--well, yes, I suppose she was," Lydia admitted reluctantly. "But I
+thought she was just afraid to live out there in that lonesome house
+away off at the end of nowhere."
+
+"Was she afraid of Dexter Sprague?" Sanderson shot at her.
+
+"Would she have asked him to stay all night if she'd been afraid of
+_him_?" Lydia demanded scornfully. "And would she have asked _him_ to
+rig up a bell from her bedroom to mine, if it was _him_ she was afraid
+of?"
+
+"A bell?" Dundee echoed.
+
+"Yes, sir. It has a contraption under the rug, right beside her bed,
+so's she could step on it and it would ring in my room, which was
+underneath hers.... Mr. Sprague bought the wire and stuff, bored a hole
+through her bedroom floor, and fixed it all hisself."
+
+"Did anyone know Nita had taken this precaution to protect herself?"
+Dundee asked.
+
+"Mis' Lois did, because one day not long ago she stepped on it
+accidentally, when she was in Nita's room. The bell buzzed in my room
+and I come up to answer it, and Nita explained it to Mis' Lois."
+
+So that was why no attempt had been made to murder Nita while she
+slept!--Dundee told himself triumphantly. For of course it was more than
+probable that Lois Dunlap had innocently spread the news of Nita's
+nervousness and her ingenious method of summoning help instantly....
+
+There was a knock at the door.
+
+"Come in!... All finished, Carraway?... Fine! I'd like to see the prints
+as soon as possible, and now I'd like you to go over to the morgue with
+Lydia, and wait there until she has the body dressed in these clothes,
+and the hair done according to the instructions Mrs. Selim left.... I'll
+leave the posing to you, but I want a full-length picture as well as a
+head portrait."
+
+As Lydia's work-roughened, knuckly hands were returning the funeral
+clothes to the suitcase, another question occurred to Dundee:
+
+"Lydia, did you know, before I questioned you at the Miles home
+yesterday, that Sprague had returned for that bag he had left in the
+bedroom upstairs?"
+
+Her scarred cheek flushed livid, but the maid answered with defiant
+honesty: "Yes, I did! He spoke to me through my basement window just
+before you come running down to talk to me. He'd sneaked back, but he
+could tell from seeing your car outside that you was there, and he asked
+me to go up and get the bag and set it outside the kitchen door for him.
+I said I wouldn't do it; it was too risky."
+
+"Then you were pretending to be asleep when I entered your room?"
+
+"Yes, I was! But I _had_ been asleep before Mr. Sprague called me. While
+you was ding-donging at me about Nita burning my face I heard Mr.
+Sprague open the kitchen door. He had a key Nita had give him, so's he
+could slip in unnoticed if he happened to come when Nita had other
+company. He didn't hardly make any noise at all, but I heard it, because
+I was listening for it.... You'd left the door to the basement stairs
+open, and my door, too, so I heard him."
+
+"Did you hear him come down?"
+
+"Yes, I did! There's a board on the backstairs that squeaks, and I heard
+it plain, while you was still at me, hammer and tongs," Lydia answered.
+"He was in the house not more'n two minutes, all told, and when I
+figured he was safely out, I went upstairs with you to show you the
+presents I'd give Nita after she burnt me, to prove I'd forgive her."
+
+"Why didn't you tell me, Lydia? Why did you protect Sprague? I know you
+don't like him," Dundee puzzled.
+
+"I wasn't thinking about him," Lydia told him flatly. "I was thinking
+about Nita. I didn't want any scandal on her, and I knew what the police
+and the newspapers would say if they found out Mr. Sprague had been
+staying all night sometimes."
+
+"Are you prepared to swear Sprague had time to do nothing but go up to
+the bedroom and get his bag?"
+
+"I am!"
+
+When Lydia and Carraway had left together, Dundee rose and addressed the
+district attorney:
+
+"I'm going out to the Selim house now, to look for that secret hiding
+place where Roger Crain kept his securities, and which Judge Marshall
+evidently displayed to Nita, as one of the charms of the house when she
+'rented' it."
+
+"Why not simply telephone Judge Marshall and ask him where and what it
+is?" Sanderson asked reasonably.
+
+"Do you think he'd tell?" Dundee retorted. "The old boy's no fool. Even
+if he didn't kill Nita himself and hide the gun there, my question would
+throw him into a panic of fear lest one of his best friends had done
+just that.... No, I'll find it myself, if it's all right with you!"
+
+But after a solid hour of hard and fruitless work, Bonnie Dundee was
+forced to admit ruefully to himself that his parting words to the
+district attorney might have been the youthful and empty boast that
+Sanderson had evidently considered them.
+
+For nowhere in the house Roger Crain had built and in which Nita Selim
+had been murdered could the detective find anything remotely resembling
+a concealed safe. The two plainclothesmen whom Strawn had detailed to
+guard the house and to continue the search for the missing gun and
+silencer looked on with unconcealed amusement as Dundee tapped walls,
+floors and ceilings in a house that seemed to be exceptionally free of
+architectural eccentricities.
+
+Finally Dundee grew tired of their ribald comments and curtly ordered
+them to make a new and exhaustive search of the unused portions of the
+basement--those dark earth banks, with their overhead networks of water
+and drain pipes, heavily insulated cables of electric wires, cobwebby
+rafters and rough shelves holding empty fruit jars and liquor
+bottles--which contrasted sharply with the neatly ceiled and
+cement-floored space devoted to furnace, laundry and maid's room. Dundee
+himself had given those regions only a cursory inspection with his
+flashlight, for it was highly improbable that Nita Selim would have made
+use of a secret hiding place for her jewelry and valuable papers, if
+that hiding place was located in such dark, awesome surroundings.
+
+No. The hiding place, if it really existed--and it must exist--had been
+within easy reach of Nita dressing and bedecking herself for a party, or
+Lydia Carr could not have been kept in complete ignorance of its
+location.
+
+With that conviction in mind, Dundee returned to Nita's bedroom, to
+which he had already devoted at least half an hour. Nothing in the big
+clothes closet, where Flora Miles had been hiding while Nita was being
+murdered. No secret drawers in desk or dressing-table or bedside table.
+No false bottom in boudoir chair or chaise longue.... He had even taken
+every book out of the four-shelf bookcase which stood against the west
+wall near the north corner of the room, and had satisfied himself that
+no book was a leafless fake.
+
+His minute inspection of the bathroom and back hall, upon which Nita's
+bedroom opened, had proved as fruitless, although he had removed every
+drawer from the big linen press which stood in the hall, and measured
+spaces to a fraction of an inch. As for the walls, they were, except for
+the doors, unbroken expanses of tinted plaster.
+
+And yet--
+
+He stepped into the clothes closet again, hammer in hand for a fresh
+tapping of the cedar-board walls. Nothing here.... And then he tapped
+again, his ear against the end wall of the closet--the wall farthest
+from the side porch....
+
+Yes! There was a faintly hollow echo of the hammer strokes!
+
+Excitement blazing high again, he took the tape measure with which he
+had provided himself on his way out, and calculated the length of the
+closet from end to end. Six feet....
+
+Emerging from the closet he closed his eyes in an effort to recall in
+exact detail the architect's blueprint of the lower floor, which Coroner
+Price had submitted to his jury at the inquest that morning. Yes, that
+was right! The inner end wall of Nita's clothes closet was also the back
+of the guest closet in the little foyer that lay between Nita's bedroom
+and the main hall.
+
+Within ten minutes, much laying-on of the tape measure had produced a
+startling result. Instead of having a wall in common, the guest closet
+and Nita's clothes closet were separated by exactly eleven inches! Why
+the waste space? The blueprint, bearing the imprint of the architects,
+Hammond & Hammond, showed no such walled-up cubbyhole!
+
+Exultantly, Dundee again entered Nita's closet and went over every inch
+of the narrow, horizontal cedar boards, which formed the end wall. But
+he met with no reward. Not through this workmanlike, solidly constructed
+wall had an opening been made....
+
+But in the foyer closet he read a different story. Its back wall had an
+amateurish look. This closet was not cedar-lined, as was Nita's, but was
+painted throughout in soft ivory. But it was the back wall of the closet
+in which Dundee was interested. Unlike the other walls, which were of
+plaster, the back was constructed of six-inch-wide boards--the cheapness
+of the lumber not concealed by its coat of ivory paint. No
+self-respecting builder had put in that wall of broad, horizontal
+boards....
+
+And then, directly beneath the shelf which was set regulation height,
+just above the pole on which swung a dozen coat hangers, Dundee found
+what he was looking for.
+
+A short length of the cheap board, a queer scrap to have been used even
+in so shoddy a job as that wall was.... Eight inches long. And set
+square in the center of the wall, just below the shelf and pole. If he
+had not been looking for something odd, however, Dundee acknowledged to
+himself, he would not have noticed it. Did anyone ever notice the back
+walls of closets?
+
+Sure of the result, he pressed with his finger tips upon the lower end
+of that short piece of board. And slowly it swung inward, the top
+slanting outward.
+
+_He had found the secret hiding place._ And Dundee silently agreed with
+Judge Marshall that it was "the simplest and most ingenious arrangement
+you ever saw," for it was nothing more nor less than a shelf set between
+the two closets, in those eleven inches of unaccounted for space!
+
+"I take off my hat to Roger Crain!" Dundee reflected. "No burglar in the
+world would ever have thought of pressing upon a short piece of board in
+a foyer closet, in search of a safe.... But how did Judge Marshall know
+of its existence?"
+
+The only answer Dundee could think of was that Crain, overseeing the
+building of his house, had suddenly conceived this brilliant and simple
+plan, and had tipped one of the carpenters to carry it out for him.
+Possibly, or probably, he had bragged to Clive or Ralph Hammond, his
+architects, of his clever invention. And the Hammond boys had passed on
+the information to Judge Marshall, when, after Crain's failure and
+flight, the house had become the property of the ex-judge.
+
+These thoughts rushed through his mind as his flashlight explored the
+shelf through the tilted opening. The gun and silencer _must_ be here,
+since they could be no place else!... But the shelf was bare except for
+a small brass box, fastened only by a clasp. In his acute disappointment
+Dundee took little interest in the collection of pretty but inexpensive
+jewelry--Nita's trinkets, undoubtedly--which the brass box
+contained.... No wedding ring among them....
+
+In spite of his chagrin at not finding the gun, Dundee studied the
+simple mechanism which Roger Crain's ingenuity had conceived. From the
+outside, the eight-inch length of board fitted smoothly, giving no
+indication whatever that it was otherwise than what it seemed--part of a
+cheaply built wall. But Dundee's flashlight played upon the beveled
+edges of both the short board and the two neighboring planks between
+which it was fitted. The pivoting arrangement was of the simplest, the
+small nickel-plated pieces being set into the short board and the other
+two planks with small screws which did not pierce the painted outside
+surface.
+
+His curiosity satisfied, Dundee stepped out of the closet into the tiny
+foyer. He was about to leave when a terrific truth crashed through his
+mind and froze his feet to the floor.
+
+_Of course the gun and silencer were not there!_
+
+This was the _guest closet_! In it had hung the hat of every person who
+had been Nita's guest, either for bridge or cocktails, that fatal
+Saturday afternoon!
+
+_And to this closet, to retrieve hat, stick or--in the case of the
+women, summer coat and hat--had come every person who had been
+questioned and then searched by the police._
+
+Dundee tried to recapture the picture of the stampede which had followed
+upon his permission for all guests to go to their homes. But it was
+useless. He had stayed in the living room with Strawn, had taken not the
+slightest interest in the scramble for hats, coats and sticks. For
+Strawn had previously assured him that the guest closet had been
+thoroughly searched.
+
+So quickly that he felt slightly dizzy, Dundee's thoughts raced around
+the new discovery. This changed everything, of course. Any one of half a
+dozen persons could have arrived with the gun and silencer--not screwed
+together, of course, because of the ungainly length--and seized the
+opportunity presented by Nita's being alone in her bedroom to shoot her.
+What easier, then, than to hide the weapon on this secret shelf, the
+"door" of which yielded to the slightest pressure? And what easier than
+to retrieve the weapon after permission had been granted to all to
+return to their homes? Easy enough to manage to go alone to the closet
+for a hat, the extra minute of time unnoticed in the general excitement.
+It had been vitally necessary, too, to retrieve the weapon, since any
+innocent member of that party might have remembered later to mention the
+secret hiding place to the police--secret no longer since Judge Marshall
+had gossiped about it....
+
+Then another thought boiled up and demanded attention. In the new
+theory, what place did the "bang or bump" have--that noise which Flora
+Miles, concealed in Nita's closet, had dimly heard? Dundee had been
+positive, when Lydia had discovered the shattered electric bulb in the
+big bronze lamp that its position in Nita's room indicated the progress
+of the flight of the murderer--flight diagonally across the room toward
+the back hall. But now--
+
+A little dashed, Dundee returned to the bedroom. The big lamp was where
+he had first seen it--about a foot beyond the window nearest the porch,
+and at the head of the chaise longue which was set between the two west
+windows, where, according to Lydia, the lamp always stood. The too-long
+cord lay slackly along the floor near the west wall, and extended to the
+double outlet on the baseboard behind the bookcase.... _A slack cord!_
+
+Down on his hands and knees Dundee went, to peer under the low bottom
+shelf of the bookcase.... Yes! The pronged plug of the lamp cord had
+been jerked almost out of the baseboard outlet! It was easy to visualize
+what had happened: The murderer, after firing the shot, had
+involuntarily taken a step or even several steps backward, until his
+foot had caught in the loop of electric cord, causing the big lamp to be
+thrown violently against the wall near which it stood.... But who?
+
+_Any one of half a dozen people!_ But--_who_?
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER NINETEEN
+
+
+Having ticketed the big bronze lamp, which he had brought with him from
+the Selim house, and locked it away in the room devoted to "exhibits for
+the state," Bonnie Dundee hurried into Penny's office, primed with the
+news of his discovery of the secret hiding place and eager to lay his
+new theory before the district attorney.
+
+"Bill's gone," Penny interrupted her swift typing to inform him. "To
+Chicago. He had only fifteen minutes to make the three o'clock train,
+after he received a wire saying his mother is not expected to live. He
+tried to reach you at the Selim house, but one of Captain Strawn's men
+said you had left."
+
+"I stopped on my way in to get a bite to eat," Dundee explained
+mechanically. "I'd dashed off without my lunch, you know."
+
+"Did you find the gun and silencer?" Penny asked.
+
+"No. Whoever used it Saturday afternoon walked out of the house with it,
+in plain view of the police, and still has it.... Very convenient, too,
+in case another murder seems to be expedient--or amusing."
+
+"Don't joke!" Penny shuddered. "But what in the world do you mean?"
+
+Briefly Dundee told her, minimizing the hard work, the concentrated
+thinking, and the meticulous use of a tape measure which had resulted in
+the discovery of the shelf between Nita's bedroom closet and the guest
+closet in the little foyer.
+
+"I see," Penny agreed, her husky voice slow and weighted with horror.
+She sat in dazed thought for a minute. "That rather brings it home to my
+crowd--doesn't it?... To think that Dad--!... Probably everyone at the
+party--except me--had heard all about Dad's 'simple and ingenious'
+arrangement for hiding the securities he sent on to New York before he
+ran away.... And no outsiders--nobody but _us_--had a legitimate excuse
+for entering that closet.... Not even Dexter Sprague. It's one of his
+affectations not to wear a hat--"
+
+"Is it?" Dundee pounced. "You're sure he wore no hat that afternoon? Did
+you notice him when he left after I had dismissed you all?"
+
+"Yes," Penny acknowledged honestly. "I paid attention to him, because I
+was hating him so. I believed then that he was the murderer, and I was
+furious with you and Captain Strawn for not arresting him.... He was
+the first to leave--just walked straight out; wouldn't even stop to talk
+with Janet Raymond, who was trying to get a word with him. I saw him
+start toward Sheridan Road--walking. He had no car, you know."
+
+"Did you observe the others?" Dundee demanded eagerly. "Do you know who
+went _alone_ to the guest closet?"
+
+Penny shook her head. "Everybody was milling around in the hall, and I
+paid no attention. Lois said she would drive me home, and then I went in
+to ask you to let me stay behind with you--"
+
+"I remember.... Listen, Penny! I'm going to tell you something else that
+nobody knows yet but Sanderson, Lydia and me. I don't have to ask you
+not to tell any of your friends. You know well enough that anything you
+learn from either Sanderson or me is strictly confidential."
+
+Penny nodded, her face very white and her brown eyes big with misery.
+
+"I have every reason to believe that Nita Selim was a blackmailer, that
+she came to Hamilton for the express purpose of bleeding someone she had
+known before, or someone on whom she had 'the goods' from some
+underworld source or other.... At any rate, Nita banked ten thousand
+mysterious dollars--$5,000 on April 28, and $5,000 on May 5. I talked to
+Drake last night, and I have his word for it that the money was in bills
+of varying denomination--none large--when Nita presented it for deposit.
+Therefore it seems clear to me that Nita got the money right here in
+Hamilton; otherwise it would have come to her in the form of checks or
+drafts or money orders. And it seems equally clear to me that she did
+not bring that large amount of cash from New York with her, or she would
+have deposited it in a lump sum in the bank immediately after her
+arrival."
+
+"Yes," Penny agreed. "But why are you telling _me_?... Of course I'm
+interested--"
+
+"Because I want you to tell me the financial status of each of your
+friends," Dundee said gently. "I know how hard it is for you--"
+
+"You could find out from others, so I might as well tell you," Penny
+interrupted, with a weary shrug. "Judge Marshall is well-to-do, and
+Karen's father--her mother is dead--settled $100,000 on her when she
+married. She has complete control of her own money.... The Dunlaps are
+the richest people in Hamilton, and have been for two or three
+generations. Lois was 'first-family' but poor when she married Peter,
+but he's been giving her an allowance of $20,000 a year for several
+years--not for running the house, but for her personal use. Clothes,
+charities, hobbies, like the Little Theater she brought Nita here to
+organize--"
+
+"I wouldn't say she spends a great deal of it on dress," Dundee
+interrupted with a grin.
+
+"Lois doesn't give a hang how she looks or what anyone thinks of
+her--which is probably one reason she is the best-loved woman in our
+crowd," Penny retorted loyally. "The Miles' money is really Flora's,
+and she has the reputation of being one of the shrewdest business
+'men' in town. When she married Tracey nearly eight years ago, he was
+just a salesman in her father's business--the biggest dairy in the
+state ... 'Cloverblossom' butter, cream, milk and cheese, you
+know.... Well, when Flora married Tracey, her father retired and let
+Tracey run the business for Flora, and he's still managing it, but Flora
+is the real head.... Now, let's see.... Oh, yes, the Drakes!... Johnny
+is vice president of the Hamilton National Bank, as you know, and owns
+a big block of the stock. Carolyn has no money of her own, except what
+Johnny gives her, and I rather think he isn't any too generous--"
+
+"They don't get along very well together, do they?"
+
+"N-no!" Penny agreed reluctantly. "You see, Johnny Drake was simply not
+cut out for love and marriage. He's a born ascetic, would have been a
+monk two or three centuries ago, but he cares as much for Carolyn as he
+could for any woman.... The Hammond boys have some inherited money, and
+Clive has made a big financial success of architecture.... That leaves
+only Janet and Polly, doesn't it?... Polly's an orphan and has barrels
+of money, and will have barrels more when her aunt, with whom she lives,
+dies and leaves her the fortune she has always promised her."
+
+"And Janet Raymond?"
+
+"Janet's father is pretty rich--owns a big wire-fence factory, but Janet
+has only a reasonable allowance," Penny answered. "As for me--I'm _very_
+rich: I get thirty-five whole dollars a week, to support myself and
+Mother on."
+
+Dundee remained thoughtfully silent for a long minute. Then: "All you
+girls are alumnae of Forsyte-on-the-Hudson, and Nita Selim came here
+immediately after she had directed a Forsyte play.... Tell me,
+Penny--was any of the Hamilton girls ever in disgrace while in the
+Forsyte School?"
+
+Penny's face flamed. "I'm sorry to disappoint you, but so far as I know
+there was never anything of the sort. Of course we all graduated
+different years, except Karen and I, and I might not have heard--But
+no!" she denied vehemently. "There wasn't any scandal on a Hamilton girl
+ever! I'm sure of it!"
+
+But her very vehemence convinced Bonnie Dundee that she was not at all
+sure....
+
+He looked at his watch. Four o'clock.... By this time Nita Selim--tiny
+cold body, royal blue velvet dress, black curls piled high in an
+old-fashioned "French roll," bullet-torn heart--were nothing more than a
+little heap of grey ashes.... Would Lydia Carr have them put in a sealed
+urn and carry them about with her always?
+
+"I'm going out now, Penny, and I shan't be back today," he told the girl
+who had returned to her furious typing. "I'll telephone in about an hour
+to see if anything has come up.... By the way, how do I get to the
+Dunlap house?"
+
+"It's in the Brentwood section. You know--that cluster of hills around
+Mirror Lake. Most of the crowd live out there--the Drakes, the Mileses,
+the Beales, the Marshalls. The Dunlap house stands on the highest hill
+of all. It's grey stone, a little like a French chateau. We used to live
+out there, too, in a Colonial house my mother's father built, but Dad
+persuaded Mother to sell, when he went into that Primrose Meadows
+venture. The Raymonds bought it.... But why do you want to see Lois?"
+
+"Thanks much, Penny. I don't know what I should do without you," Dundee
+said, without answering her question, and reached for his hat.
+
+After ten minutes of driving, the last mile of which had circled a
+smooth silver coin of a lake, Dundee stopped his car and let his eyes
+rove appreciatively. He had made this trip the day before to question
+Lydia, already installed as nurse for the Miles children, but he had
+been in too great a hurry then to see much of this section consecrated
+to Hamilton's socially elect....
+
+Georgian "cottage," Spanish hacienda, Italian villa, Tudor mansion--that
+was the Miles home; Colonial mansion where Penny had once lived; grey
+stone chateau.... Not one of them blatantly new or marked with the
+dollar sign. Dundee sighed a little enviously as he turned his car into
+the winding driveway that led up the highest hill to the Dunlap home.
+
+Lois Dunlap betrayed no surprise when the butler led Dundee to the
+flag-stoned upper terrace overlooking Mirror Lake, where she was having
+tea with her three children and their governess. For a moment the
+detective had the illusion that he was in England again....
+
+"How do you do, Mr. Dundee?... This is Miss Burden.... My three
+offspring--Peter the third, Eleanor, and Bobby.... Will you please take
+the children to the playroom now, Miss Burden?... Thank you!... Tea, Mr.
+Dundee? Or shall I order you a highball?"
+
+"Nothing, thanks," Dundee answered, grateful for her friendliness but
+nonplussed by it. Not for the first time he felt a sick distaste for the
+profession he had chosen....
+
+"It's all over," Lois Dunlap said in a low voice, as the butler
+retreated. "Lydia made her look very beautiful.... I thought it would be
+rather horrible, having to see her, as the poor child requested in her
+note to Lydia, but I'm glad now I did. She looked as sweet and young and
+innocent as she must have been when she first wore the royal blue
+velvet."
+
+"I'm glad," Dundee said sincerely. Then he leaned toward her across the
+tea table. "Mrs. Dunlap, will you please tell me just how you persuaded
+Mrs. Selim to come to Hamilton--so far from Broadway?"
+
+"Why certainly!" Lois Dunlap looked puzzled. "But it really did not take
+much persuasion after I showed her some group photographs we had made
+when we Forsyte girls put on 'The Beggar's Opera' here last October--a
+benefit performance for the Forsyte Alumnae Scholarship fund."
+
+With difficulty Dundee controlled his excitement. "May I see those
+photographs, please?"
+
+"I had to hunt quite a bit for them," his hostess apologized ten minutes
+later, as she spread the glossy prints of half a dozen photographs for
+Dundee's inspection. "Do you know 'The Beggar's Opera'?"
+
+"John Gay--eighteenth century, isn't it?... As I remember it, it is
+quite--" and Dundee hesitated, grinning.
+
+"Bawdy?" Lois laughed. "Oh, very! We couldn't have got away with it if
+it hadn't been a classic. As it was, we had to tone down some of the
+naughtiest passages and songs. But it was lots of fun, and the boys
+enjoyed it hugely because it gave them an opportunity to wear tight
+satin breeches and lace ruffles.... This is my husband, Peter. He adored
+being the highwayman, 'Robin of Bagshot'," and she pointed out a stocky,
+belligerent-looking man near the end of the long row of costumed
+players, in a photograph which showed the entire cast.
+
+"You say that Mrs. Selim accepted your proposal _after_ she saw these
+photographs?" Dundee asked. "Had she refused before?"
+
+"Yes. I'd gone to New York for the annual Easter Play which the Forsyte
+School puts on, because I'm intensely interested in semi-professional
+theatricals," Lois explained. "Nita had done a splendid job with the
+play the year before, and I spoke to her, after this year's show was
+over, about coming to Hamilton. She was not at all interested, but
+polite and sweet about it, so I invited her to have lunch with me the
+next day, and showed her these photographs of our own play in the hope
+that they would make her take the idea more seriously. We had borrowed a
+Little Theater director from Chicago and I knew we had done a really
+good job of 'The Beggar's Opera.' The local reviews--"
+
+"These 'stills' look extremely professional. I don't wonder that they
+interested Nita," Dundee cut in. "Will you tell me what she said?"
+
+"She rather startled me," Lois Dunlap confessed. "I first showed her
+this picture of the whole cast, and as I was explaining the play a
+bit--she didn't know 'The Beggar's Opera'--she almost snatched the
+photograph out of my hands. As she studied it, her lovely black eyes
+grew perfectly enormous. I've never seen her so excited since--"
+
+"What did she say?" Dundee interrupted tensely.
+
+"Why, she said nothing just at first, then she began to laugh in the
+queerest way--almost hysterically. I asked her why she was laughing--I
+was a little huffy, I'm afraid--and she said the men looked so adorably
+conceited and funny. Then she began to ask the names of the players. I
+told her that 'Macheath'--he's the highwayman hero, you know--was played
+by Clive Hammond; that my Peter was 'Robin of Bagshot', that Johnny
+Drake was another highwayman, 'Mat of the Mint', that Tracey Miles
+played the jailor, 'Lockit'--"
+
+"Did she show more interest in one name than another?"
+
+"Yes. When I pointed out Judge Marshall as 'Peachum', the fence, she
+cried out suddenly: 'Why, I know him! I met him once on a party.... Is
+he really a _judge_?' and she laughed as if she knew something very
+funny about Hugo--as no doubt she did. He was an inveterate
+'lady-killer' before his marriage, as you may have heard."
+
+"Do you think her first excitement was over seeing Judge Marshall among
+the players?" Dundee asked.
+
+"No," Lois answered, after considering a moment. "I'm sure she didn't
+notice him until I pointed him out. The face in this group that seemed
+to interest her most was Flora Miles'. Flora played the part of 'Lucy
+Lockit', the jailor's daughter, and Karen Marshall the other feminine
+lead, 'Polly Peachum', you know. But it was Flora's picture she lingered
+over, so I showed her this picture," and Lois Dunlap reached for the
+portrait of Flora Miles, unexpectedly beautiful in the eighteenth
+century costume--tight bodice and billowing skirts.
+
+"She questioned you about Mrs. Miles?" Dundee asked.
+
+"Yes. All sorts of questions--her name, and whether she was married and
+then who her husband was, and if she had had stage experience," Lois
+answered conscientiously. "She explained her interest by saying Flora
+looked more like a professional actress than any of the others, and that
+we should give her a real chance when we got our Little Theater going. I
+asked her if that meant she was going to accept my offer, and she said
+she might, but that she would have to talk it over with a friend first.
+Just before midnight she telephoned me at my hotel that she had decided
+to accept the job."
+
+Dundee's heart leaped. It was very easy to guess who that "friend" was!
+But he controlled his excitement, asked his next question casually:
+
+"Did she show particular interest in any other player?"
+
+"Yes. She asked a number of questions about Polly Beale, and seemed
+incredulous when I told her that Polly and Clive were engaged. Polly
+played 'Mrs. Peachum', and was a riot in the part.... But Nita's
+intuition was correct. Flora carried off the acting honors.... Oh, yes,
+she also asked, quite naively, if all my friends were rich, too, and
+could help support a Little Theater. I reassured her on that point."
+
+"And," Dundee reflected silently, "upon a point much more important to
+Nita Selim." Aloud he said: "I don't see _you_ among the cast."
+
+"Oh, I haven't a grain of talent," Lois Dunlap laughed. "I can't act for
+two cents--can I, Peter darling?... Here's the redoubtable 'Robin of
+Bagshot' in person, Mr. Dundee--my husband!"
+
+The detective rose to shake hands with the man he had been too absorbed
+to see or hear approaching.
+
+"You're the man from the district attorney's office?" Peter Dunlap
+scowled, his hand barely touching Dundee's. "I suppose you're trying to
+get at the bottom of the mystery of why my wife brought that Selim
+woman--"
+
+"Don't call her 'that Selim woman', Peter!" Lois Dunlap interrupted with
+more sharpness than Dundee had ever seen her display. "You never liked
+the poor girl, were never just to her--"
+
+"Well, it looks as if my hunch was correct, doesn't it?" the stocky,
+rugged-faced man retorted. "I told you at the beginning to pay her off
+and send her back to New York--"
+
+"You knew I couldn't do that, even to please you, dear," Lois said. "But
+please don't let's quarrel about poor Nita again. She's dead now, and I
+want to do anything I can to help bring her murderer to justice."
+
+"There's nothing you can do, Lois, and I hope Mr.--ah--Dundee will not
+find it necessary to quiz you again."
+
+Dundee reached for his hat. "I hope so, too, Mr. Dunlap.... By the way,
+you are president of the Chamber of Commerce, aren't you?"
+
+"Yes, I am! And we're having a meeting tonight, at which that Sprague
+man's bid on making a historical movie of Hamilton will be turned
+down--unanimously. Now that the Selim woman isn't here to vamp my
+fellow-members into doing anything she wants, I think I can safely
+promise you that Dexter Sprague will have no further business in
+Hamilton--unless it is police business!"
+
+"Thanks for the tip, Mr. Dunlap," Dundee said evenly. "I hope you
+enjoyed your fishing trip. Where do you fish, sir?"
+
+"A tactful way of asking for my alibi, eh?" Dunlap was heavily
+sarcastic. "I left Friday afternoon for my own camp in the mountains, up
+in the northwest part of the state. I drove my own car, went alone,
+spent the week-end alone, and got back this noon. I read of the murder
+in a paper I picked up in a village on my way home. I didn't like Nita
+Selim, and I don't give a damn about her being murdered, except that my
+wife's name is in all the papers.... Any questions?"
+
+"None, thanks!" Dundee answered curtly, then turned to Lois Dunlap who
+was watching the two men with troubled, embarrassed eyes. "I am very
+grateful to you, Mrs. Dunlap, for your kindness."
+
+The detective's angry resentment of Peter Dunlap's attitude lasted until
+he had circled Mirror Lake and was on the road into Hamilton. Then
+commonsense intervened. Dunlap was undoubtedly devoted to his wife.
+Penny had said that he had "never looked at another woman." It was
+rather more than natural that he should be in a futile, blustering rage
+at the outcome of Lois' friendship for the little Broadway dancer....
+
+Free of anger, his mind reverted to the story Lois Dunlap had told him.
+For in it, he was sure, was hidden the key to the mystery of Nita
+Selim's murder. Not at all interested in the proposition to organize a
+Little Theater in Hamilton, Nita had been seized with a strange
+excitement as soon as she was shown photographs of a large group of
+Hamilton's richest and most prominent inhabitants.... But there was the
+rub! _A large group!_ Would that group of possible suspects never narrow
+down to one? Of course there was Judge Marshall, but if Lois Dunlap's
+memory was to be trusted Nita had not noticed the elderly Beau Brummel's
+picture until _after_ that strange, hysterical excitement had taken
+possession of her. And if it had been Judge Marshall whom she had come
+to Hamilton to blackmail would Nita not have guarded her tongue before
+Lois? The same was true about her extraordinary interest in Flora
+Miles....
+
+Dundee tried to put himself in Nita's place, confronted suddenly with a
+group picture containing the likeness of a person--man or woman--against
+whom she knew something so dreadful and so secret that her silence would
+be worth thousands of dollars. Would _he_ have chattered of that very
+person? No! Of anyone else but that particular person! It was easy to
+picture Nita, her head whirling with possibilities, hitting upon the
+most conspicuous player in the group--dark, tense, theatrical Flora,
+already pointed out to her as one of the two female leads in the
+opera.... But of whom had she really been thinking?
+
+Again a blank wall! For in that group photograph of the cast of "The
+Beggar's Opera" had appeared every man, woman and girl who had been
+Nita's guest on the day of her murder....
+
+Dundee, paying more attention to his driving, now that he was in the
+business section of the city, saw ahead of him the second-rate hotel
+where Dexter Sprague had been living since Nita had wired him to join
+her in Hamilton. On a sudden impulse the detective parked his car in
+front of the hotel and five minutes later was knocking upon Sprague's
+door.
+
+"Well, what do you want now?" the unshaven, pallid man demanded
+ungraciously.
+
+Dundee stepped into the room and closed the door. "I want you to tell me
+the name of the man Nita Selim came here to blackmail, Sprague."
+
+"Blackmail?" Sprague echoed, his pallid cheeks going more yellow.
+"You're crazy! Nita came here to take a job--"
+
+"She came here to blackmail someone, and I am convinced that she sent
+for you to act as a partner in her scheme.... No, wait! I'm _convinced_,
+I tell you," Dundee assured him grimly. "But I'll make a trade with you,
+in behalf of the district attorney. Tell me the name of the person she
+blackmailed, and I will promise you immunity from prosecution as her
+accomplice."
+
+"Get out of my room!" and Dexter Sprague's right forefinger trembled
+violently as it pointed toward the door in a melodramatic gesture.
+
+"Very well, Sprague," Dundee said. "But let me give you a friendly
+warning. _Don't try to carry on the good work._ Nita got ten thousand
+dollars, but she also got a bullet through her heart. And the gun which
+fired that bullet is safely back in the hands of the killer.... You're
+not going to get that movie job, and I was just afraid you might be
+tempted!... Good afternoon!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER TWENTY
+
+
+It was Wednesday evening, four whole days since Nita Leigh Selim,
+Broadway dancer, had been murdered while she was dummy at bridge.
+Plainclothesmen, in pairs, day and night shifts, still guarded the
+lonely house in Primrose Meadows, but Dundee had taken no interest in
+the actual scene of the crime since Carraway, fingerprint expert, had
+reported negatively upon the secret shelf between Nita's bedroom closet
+and the guest closet. So far as any tangible evidence went, only
+Dundee's fingers had pressed upon the pivoting panel and explored the
+narrow shelf.
+
+The very lack of fingerprints had of course confirmed Dundee's belief
+that the murderer's hand had pressed upon that swinging panel, had
+quested in vain for the incriminating documents or letters which had
+been the basis of Nita's blackmail scheme, had deposited upon the shelf
+the gun and silencer with which the murder had been accomplished, and
+had later retrieved the weapon in perfect safety. A hand loosely wrapped
+in a handkerchief or protected by a glove.... The hand of a cunning,
+careful, cold-blooded murderer--or murderess.... But--who? _Who?_
+
+Bonnie Dundee, brooding at his desk in the living room of his small
+apartment, reflected bitterly that he was no nearer the answer to that
+question than he had been an hour after Nita Selim's death.
+
+"Well, 'my dear Watson'," he addressed his caged parrot finally. "What
+do you say?... Who killed Nita Selim?"
+
+The parrot stirred on his perch, thrust out his hooked beak to nip his
+master's prodding finger, then disdainfully turned his back.
+
+"I don't blame you, Cap'n," Dundee chuckled. "You must be as sick of
+that question as I am.... And what a pity it ever had to be asked! If
+the murderer had not been so hasty--or so pressed for time that he
+really could not wait to listen to Nita--he would have learned from
+Nita herself that she had decided to be a very good girl, and had burned
+the 'papers'--all because she was genuinely in love with Ralph
+Hammond.... One comfort we have, 'my dear Watson': the murderer still
+does not know that Nita burned the papers Friday night. Sooner or later,
+when he believes police vigilance has been relaxed, he'll go prowling
+about that house, and to Captain Strawn, who doesn't take the slightest
+stock in my theory, will go credit for the arrest.... Unless--"
+
+Dundee reached for a telegraph form and again scanned the pencilled
+message. Only that afternoon had it occurred to him to ask the telegraph
+company for a copy of the wire by which Dexter Sprague, according to his
+own story, had been summoned to Hamilton by Nita Selim.
+
+The manager had been obliging, had looked up the message and copied it
+with his own hand. It was a night letter, and had been filed in Hamilton
+April 24--the third day after Nita's arrival. Addressed to Dexter
+Sprague, at a hotel in the theatrical district, New York City, the
+message read:
+
+     "EVERYTHING JAKE SO FAR BUT WOULD FEEL SAFER YOU HERE CHAMBER OF
+     COMMERCE PLANNING BOOSTER MOVIE FOUNDING AND DEVELOPMENT OF
+     HAMILTON LOOKING GOOD DIRECTOR WHY NOT TRY FOR JOB AS GOOD EXCUSE
+     ALL MY LOVE--NITA"
+
+Dundee laid the paper on his desk, locked his hands behind his head, and
+addressed the parrot again. The habit of using the bird for an audience
+and as an excuse for puzzling and mulling aloud had grown on him during
+the year he had owned the doughty old Cap'n.
+
+"As I was about to say, 'my dear Watson', Captain Strawn's boys out at
+the Selim house will have their chance to nab our man--or woman--unless
+Dexter Sprague ignores my warning, pretends to have the papers himself,
+and tries to carry on the blackmail scheme, which he undoubtedly knew
+all about and which, most probably, he encouraged Nita to undertake--the
+'friend' she had to consult, you know, before she decided to accept Lois
+Dunlap's offer."
+
+The parrot interrupted with a hoarse cackle.
+
+"Have you gone over to the enemy, Cap'n?" Dundee reproved the bird. "You
+sound exactly like Strawn when he laughed at my interpretation of this
+message this afternoon. My late chief contends--and it is just possible,
+of course, that he is right--that Nita was afraid she couldn't swing the
+job of organizing and directing Lois' Little Theater, and wanted Sprague
+here, both as lover and unofficial assistant. But that's a pretty thin
+explanation, don't you think, 'my dear Watson'?... Oh, all right! Laugh,
+damn you! But I'd feel better if Strawn had taken my advice and set a
+dick to trail Sprague, to see that he keeps out of mischief.... All
+this, however, gets us no nearer to answering that eternal
+question--'Who?'"
+
+With a deep sigh the troubled young special investigator reached for the
+"Time Table" he had drafted from his notes made during the grisly
+replaying of the "death hand at bridge," and scanned it again:
+
+     5:20--Flora Miles, dummy, Table No. 1, leaves living room to
+     telephone.
+
+     5:22--Clive Hammond arrives and goes directly into solarium.
+
+     5:23--End of rubber at Table No. 1. Players: Polly Beale, Janet
+     Raymond, Lois Dunlap, Flora Miles (dummy). Polly Beale leaves
+     living room to join Clive Hammond in solarium.
+
+     5:24--Janet Raymond leaves room; says she went straight to front
+     porch.
+
+     5:25--Tracey Miles parks car at curb; walks up to the house, hangs
+     up hat in clothes closet and at (his estimate)
+
+     5:27--Miles enters living room, talks with Nita, who, as dummy, has
+     just laid down her cards at Table No. 2. Players: Karen Marshall,
+     Penny Crain, Carolyn Drake.
+
+     5:28--Nita leaves living room, goes to her bedroom to make up.
+
+     5:28-1/2--Lois Dunlap and Miles go into dining room, Miles to make
+     cocktails.
+
+     5:31--Judge Marshall enters living room, interrupts bridge game.
+
+     5:33--John C. Drake enters living room, having walked from Country
+     Club, which he says he left at 5:10, and which is only
+     three-quarters of a mile from the Selim house.
+
+     5:36--Karen finishes playing of hand, and Dexter Sprague and Janet
+     Raymond enter from front porch, proceeding into dining room.
+
+     5:37--Penny Crain finishes scoring, and Karen leaves room to tell
+     Nita the score.
+
+     5:38--Karen screams upon discovering the dead body at the
+     dressing-table.
+
+Dundee laid aside the typed sheet and reached for another, the typing of
+which was perfect, since Penny's efficient fingers had manipulated the
+keys.
+
+When he had telephoned to the office just before five o'clock Monday
+afternoon to see if anything had come up, Dundee had learned from Penny
+that Peter Dunlap had issued an informal call to "the crowd" for a
+meeting at his home that evening.
+
+"You're going, of course?" Dundee had asked. "Then, during the
+discussion of the case, I wish you'd try to get the answers to some
+questions which need clearing up--if you can do so without getting
+yourself 'in Dutch' with your friends.... Fine! Got a pencil?... Here
+goes!"
+
+And now he was re-reading the "report" she had conscientiously written
+and left on his desk Tuesday morning:
+
+"Peter, declaring he wanted to get at the bottom of this case, presided
+almost like a judge on the bench, and asked nearly every question you
+wanted the answer to. Everyone in the crowd adores gruff old Peter and
+no one dreamed of resenting his barrage of questions. What a detective
+_he_ would make!
+
+"First: Janet admitted that she did not go directly to the front porch
+when she left the living room after her table finished the last rubber.
+Went first to the hall lavatory to comb her hair and renew her make-up.
+Said she was there alone about five minutes, then went to the front
+porch. (Revised her story after Tracey had said he did not see her on
+the porch when he arrived.)
+
+"Second: Judge Marshall said he glanced into the living room when he
+arrived, saw Karen, Carolyn and me absorbed in our game, and went on
+down the hall, to hang up his hat and stick. Proceeded immediately to
+the living room.
+
+"Third: John Drake told Peter he entered the front hall and passed on to
+the lavatory to wash up. Felt sticky after his walk from the Country
+Club. Hung up hat in the guest closet. Went to living room within three
+minutes after reaching the house.
+
+"Fourth: Polly and Clive told Peter they stayed together in the solarium
+the whole time, stationed at a front window, watching for Ralph. When
+Peter asked them if they could confirm Judge Marshall's story and Johnny
+Drake's story, they said they had seen them both arrive, but had paid no
+attention to them after they were in the house. It occurred to Peter,
+too, to wonder if either Polly or Clive went to Nita's room to warn her
+that Ralph knew about Sprague's having slept the night before in the
+upstairs bedroom. They both denied emphatically that they had done so.
+
+"Fifth: Judge Marshall--the pompous old darling--still smarting under
+the insinuations you made about him and Nita right after the murder,
+volunteered the information to Peter that Nita had _not_ paid her rent,
+on the plea that she was short of funds, and that he had told her to let
+it go until it was quite convenient.
+
+"Sixth: The word 'blackmail' was not mentioned, and Johnny Drake,
+because of professional ethics, I suppose, did not tell about Nita's two
+deposits of $5,000 each in his bank.
+
+"Seventh: The secret shelf in the foyer closet was not mentioned.
+
+"Peter's verdict, after he got through with us, was that only Sprague
+could have done it--using the gun and silencer which Nita herself had
+stolen from Hugo. I couldn't tell him that you are convinced that
+Lydia's alibi for him is a genuine one, for apparently Lydia hasn't told
+either Flora or Tracey that she was able to furnish Sprague an alibi.
+
+"And that's all, except that Peter asked me to convey to you his
+apologies for his rudeness Monday afternoon.... Penelope Crain."
+
+With a deep sigh Dundee laid Penny's report aside.
+
+"And that does seem to be all, 'my dear Watson'," he told the parrot.
+"Exactly half a dozen possible suspects, and not an atom of actual
+evidence against one of them--except that Judge Marshall owned the gun.
+Six--count 'em: Judge Marshall, John Drake, Flora Miles, Clive Hammond,
+Polly Beale, Janet Raymond.... Every single one of them a possible
+victim of blackmail, since the girls all attended the Forsyte School,
+where Nita directed the Easter play for two years, and since the men
+make several trips a year to New York.... Six people, all of whom
+probably knew of the existence of the secret shelf.... Six people who
+knew Nita was in her bedroom, either from having seen her go or from
+hearing her powder box tinkling its damnable tune!... Yes, Penny! You're
+right! That's all--so far as Hamilton is concerned! If Sanderson won't
+let me go to New York--which is where this damned business started--I'll
+resign and go on my own, without wasting another day here!"
+
+But Dundee did not go to New York the next morning. He was far too busy
+in Hamilton....
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
+
+
+"Hello, Penny!" Dundee greeted the district attorney's private secretary
+Thursday morning at five minutes after nine. "Any news from Sanderson?"
+
+"Yes," Penny Crain answered listlessly. "A night letter. He says his
+mother is still very low and that we're to wire him at the Good
+Samaritan Hospital in Chicago if anything turns up."
+
+"Then I suppose I can reach him there by long distance," and Dundee
+lifted the telephone from Penny's desk to put in the call.
+
+"What's happened?" Penny demanded, her brown eyes wide and startled.
+
+"And hurry it up, will you, please?" Dundee urged the long distance
+operator before hanging up the receiver and answering Penny's question.
+"That's just the trouble--nothing's happened, and nothing is very likely
+to happen here. I'm determined to go to New York and work on this pesky
+case from that end--"
+
+"Then you've come around to Captain Strawn's theory that it was a New
+York gunman?" Penny asked hopefully.
+
+"Not by a jugful!... But what's the matter with you this morning, young
+woman? You're looking less like a new penny and more like one that has
+been too much in circulation."
+
+"Thanks!" Penny retorted sarcastically; then she grinned wryly. "You are
+right, as a matter of fact. I was up too late last night--bridge at the
+Mileses'."
+
+"_Bridge!_" Dundee ejaculated incredulously. "So the bridge party _did_
+take place, in spite of the society editor's discreet announcement
+yesterday that 'owing to the tragic death of Mrs. Selim, the regular
+every-other-Wednesday dinner-bridge of the Forsyte Alumnae Association
+will not be held this evening at the home of Mr. and Mrs. Tracey Miles,
+as scheduled'."
+
+"It wasn't a 'dinner-bridge' and it really wasn't intended to be a
+party," Penny corrected him. "It just sort of happened, and of all the
+ghastly evenings--"
+
+"Tell me about it," Dundee suggested. "Knowing this town's telephone
+service as I do, I'll have plenty of time to listen, and you don't know
+how all-agog I am for inside gossip on Hamilton's upper crust."
+
+"Idiot!" Penny flung at him scornfully. "You know society would bore you
+to death, but I don't think you would have been exactly bored last
+night, knowing, as I do, your opinion of Dexter Sprague."
+
+"Sprague? Good Lord! Was he there?... This does promise to be
+interesting! Tell me all!"
+
+"Give me time!" Penny snapped. "I might as well talk, since there's
+almost no work for me to do, with Bill away.... Ralph called me up last
+night at dinner time, and asked me if I felt equal to playing bridge
+again. He said that he, Clive, Tracey and Johnny Drake had lunched
+together yesterday--as they frequently do--at the Athletic Club, and
+that Judge Marshall, who had been lunching at another table with his
+friend, Attorney Sampson, stopped at their table and suggested a bridge
+game at his home for last night. Hugo said he wanted to coax Karen into
+playing again, so she would get over her hysterical aversion to the game
+since she had to replay that awful 'death hand'.... You see," Penny
+explained parenthetically, "Hugo is a regular bridge fiend, and
+naturally he doesn't want to be kept out of his game."
+
+"Brute!" Dundee cried disgustedly. "Why couldn't he give the poor girl a
+few days more?"
+
+"That's what I thought," Penny acknowledged. "But _I_ didn't get an
+inhibition against bridge, and the idea rather appealed to me
+personally. The last few days haven't been particularly cheerful ones,
+so I told Ralph I'd be glad to go. Tracey had suggested his house,
+instead of Hugo's, because Betty wasn't well yesterday and Flora
+wouldn't want to leave her for a whole evening. Well, Ralph and I--"
+
+"Are you going to marry Ralph Hammond, Penny?" Dundee interrupted, as if
+prompted by casual interest.
+
+Penny's pale face flushed vividly. "No. I'm not in love with him, and
+I'm sure he realizes I'm not and won't ask me again. But I _had_ to say
+yes Sunday! I simply couldn't let you walk in on us, after I'd permitted
+you to eavesdrop while he was talking, without first saying the one
+thing that would convince him that I believed in his innocence and
+hadn't set a trap for him."
+
+"I see!" Dundee acknowledged soberly, but his blue eyes shone
+with sudden joy. "Oh! There's long distance! Just a minute,
+darling!... Hello! Hello!... Yes, this is Dundee.... Oh! All right!
+Try again in fifteen minutes, will you?" He hung up the receiver and
+explained to Penny: "Sanderson hasn't reached the hospital yet, but is
+expected soon.... Go on with your story.... Who all played bridge at
+the Mileses'? You don't mean to say Dexter Sprague was invited, too!"
+
+Penny's face was still a brilliant pink as she answered: "I refuse to
+have my climax spoiled!... When Ralph and I got there at eight, we found
+that Peter and Lois had dined with Tracey and Flora and that they were
+delighted at the prospect of bridge, as a relief from endless
+discussions of the murder. We'd hardly got there when the Marshalls
+came, poor little Karen not suspecting that she was going to have to
+play. Then came Johnny Drake alone, with the news that Carolyn was in
+bed and very miserable with a summer cold. Polly walked over from her
+house, which is on the next hill to the right, you know. She said Clive
+had decided to work late at the office, and had promised to call for her
+about eleven, to take her home."
+
+"What about Janet Raymond? Was she left out?" Dundee asked.
+
+"I told you it wasn't a planned affair," Penny reminded him. "But Flora
+did telephone her, and she said she didn't feel like coming. She's been
+moping about like a sick cat since Nita's death. We all knew she was
+idiotically in love with Dexter Sprague, and it must have been an awful
+blow to her to hear you read aloud that note Nita received from
+Sprague."
+
+"So I noticed," Dundee nodded, recalling the deathly pallor of the
+girl's face as Sprague had glibly explained away that damning note and
+all its implications.
+
+"Well," Penny continued, "Tracey suggested bridge, and at first Karen
+flatly refused to play, but Hugo finally persuaded her.... Karen would
+do absolutely _anything_ for that ridiculous old husband of hers! I
+simply can't understand it--how she can be in love with him, I mean!"
+
+"I thought you liked Judge Marshall," Dundee laughed.
+
+"Oh, I do--in a way.... But fancy a young girl like Karen being in love
+with him!... Well, anyway, we all went out to the east porch, which is
+kept in readiness for bridge all summer. Iron bridge tables, covered
+with oilcloth, and with oilcloth pouches for the cards and score pads,
+so there's never any bother about scurrying in with things on account of
+rain. It's a roofed, stone-floored porch, right outside the living-room,
+and under it are the garages, so it's high and cool, with a grand view
+of Mirror Lake down below, and of the city in the distance." She sighed,
+and Dundee knew that she was thinking of her own lost home in
+Brentwood--the fine old Colonial mansion which had been sacrificed to
+her father's disastrous Primrose Meadows venture. Then she went on: "I
+don't know why I am telling you all this, except that the setting was so
+pleasant that we should have had a much better time than we did."
+
+"You're an artful minx, Penny!" Dundee chuckled. "You're working up
+suspense for the entrance of the villain!"
+
+"Then let me do it justice," Penny retorted. "Lois and Peter, Ralph and
+I, made up one table for bridge; Tracey and Polly, Judge Marshall and
+Karen the other. Flora said she didn't want to play, because she wanted
+to be free to keep an eye on Betty, although she protested she had
+perfect faith in Lydia, who, Flora says, is proving to be a marvel with
+the children. And Johnny Drake asked her to play anagrams with him, in
+between trips to the nursery. Johnny has a perfect pash for anagrams,
+and is a wow at 'em. So Tracey got the box of anagrams out of the trophy
+room--"
+
+"The trophy room?" Dundee repeated, amused.
+
+"That's what Tracey calls it," Penny explained impatiently, "because he
+has a couple of golf cups and Flora has an immense silver atrocity which
+testifies to the fact that she was the 'lady's tennis champion' of the
+state for one year. There are also some mounted fish and some deer heads
+with incredible antlers, but the room is really used as a catch-all for
+all the sports things--racquets, golf clubs, skis, ping-pong table,
+etc.... Anyway, Tracey brought out the box of anagrams, and we were all
+having a pretty good time when, at half past eight, the butler announced
+'_Mr. Dexter Sprague_'!"
+
+"Your tone makes me wish I'd been there," Dundee acknowledged. "What
+happened?"
+
+"You know how slap-em-on-the-back Tracey always is?" Penny asked,
+grinning. "Well, you should have seen him and heard him as he dismissed
+poor Whitson--the butler--as if he were giving him notice, instead of
+letting him off for the night! And the icy dignity with which he greeted
+poor Sprague--"
+
+"_Poor_ Sprague?" Dundee echoed.
+
+"Well, after all, Sprague _had_ been received by all the crowd before
+Nita's death," Penny retorted. "I think it was rather natural for him to
+think he'd still be welcome. He began to apologize for his uninvited
+presence, saying he had felt lonesome and depressed and had just 'jumped
+into a taxi' and come along, hoping to find the Mileses in. Flora tried
+to act the lady hostess, but Peter got up from his bridge table and said
+in tones even icier than Tracey's: 'Will you excuse me, Flora? And will
+you take my place, Drake?... I'm going into the library. I don't enjoy
+the society of murderers!'"
+
+"Good Lord!" Dundee ejaculated, shocked but admiring. "Did Sprague make
+a quick exit?"
+
+"Not just then," Penny said mysteriously. "Of course everyone was simply
+stunned, but Sprague retorted cheerfully, 'Neither do I, Dunlap!' Peter
+stalked on into the living room on his way to the library, Johnny took
+his place at the bridge table, and Tracey, at an urgent signal from
+Flora, offered his seat at the other table to Sprague, as if he were
+making way for a leper. Poor Polly had to be Sprague's partner. Flora,
+as if she were terrified at what might happen--you know how frightfully
+tense and nervous she is--made an excuse to run upstairs for a look at
+Betty."
+
+"And something terrible did happen," Dundee guessed. "You're looking
+positively ghoulish. Out with it!"
+
+"After about half an hour of playing without pivoting," Penny went on
+imperturbably, "Hugo bid three spades, Karen raised him--in a trembling
+voice--to five spades, Hugo of course went to a little slam, and Dexter
+Sprague, if you can believe me, said: 'Better not leave the table,
+Karen. _A little slam-bid in spades has been known to be fatal to the
+dummy!_'"
+
+"_No!_" Dundee was genuinely shocked, but before he could say more the
+telephone rang. "Sanderson at last.... Hello! Chicago?... Oh, hello,
+Captain Strawn!... _What's that?_... Oh, my God!... Where did you say
+the body is?"
+
+He listened for a long minute, then, with a dazed "Thanks! I'll be
+over," he hung up the receiver.
+
+"Sprague--murdered!" he answered the horrified question in Penny's eyes.
+"Body discovered this morning about nine by one of the Miles' maids, in
+what you described just now as the 'trophy room'.... Shot--just below
+the breastbone, Captain Strawn says."
+
+"The trophy room!" Penny cried. "Then--_that's_ where he was all the
+time after he disappeared so strangely last night--"
+
+"Whoa, Penny!" Dundee commanded. "Get hold of yourself! You're shaking
+all over.... I want to know everything _you_ know--as quickly and as
+accurately as you can tell it. Go right on--"
+
+"Poor Dexter!" Penny groaned, covering her convulsed face with her
+hands. "To think that he was _dead_ when we were saying such horrid
+things about him--"
+
+"Don't waste sympathy on him, honey!" Dundee cut in, his voice very
+gentle but urgent. "If he had heeded my warning Monday he wouldn't be
+dead now."
+
+"What do you mean?" Penny gasped, but she was already calmer. "Your
+warning--?"
+
+"I had a strong suspicion that he was mixed up with Nita in her
+blackmail scheme and I took the trouble to warn him not to try to carry
+on with it. Yesterday afternoon I begged Strawn to have him shadowed to
+see that he kept out of mischief. I was afraid the temptation would be
+too strong for him, but Strawn wouldn't listen to me--still clinging to
+his theory of a New York gunman.... Feeling better now, honey? Can you
+go on? I want to get out to the Miles house as soon as I can."
+
+"You're getting very--affectionate, aren't you?" Penny gave him a wobbly
+smile in which, however, there was no reproof. "I think I can go on
+now--. Where was I?"
+
+"Good girl!" Dundee applauded, but his heart was beating hard with
+something more than excitement over Sprague's murder. "You'd just told
+me about Sprague's warning Karen not to leave the table when she became
+dummy after Judge Marshall's little slam bid in spades."
+
+"I remember," Penny said, pressing her fingers into her temples. "But
+Karen _did_ leave the table. When Sprague said that awful thing, poor
+Karen burst into tears and ran from the porch into the living room, Hugo
+started to follow her, but Sprague halted him by apologizing very
+humbly, and then by adding: 'I'd really like to see you play this hand,
+sir. I believe I've got the cards to set you with....' Of course he
+could not have said anything better calculated to hold Hugo, who, as I
+said, is a regular fiend when it comes to bridge.... Well, Hugo played
+the hand and made his little slam, and then he again started to go look
+for Karen, but Polly, who was Sprague's partner, you know, told him in
+that brusque way of hers to go on with the game and give Karen a chance
+to have her little weep in peace. Probably Hugo would have gone to look
+for her anyway, but just then Flora came back. She said Betty was asleep
+at last and that her temperature was normal, and when she heard about
+Karen, she offered to take her hand until Karen felt like coming back."
+
+"What did Drake do then? He'd been playing anagrams with Mrs. Miles, you
+said," Dundee interrupted.
+
+"Don't you remember?--I told you Johnny had taken Peter's place at our
+table after Peter refused to breathe the same air as Dexter Sprague,"
+Penny reminded him. "Ralph and I, Lois and Johnny were playing together,
+and just at the time I became dummy, Sprague became dummy at the other
+table. He rose, saying he had to go telephone for a taxi, and passed
+from the porch into the living room--"
+
+"Where is the telephone?"
+
+"The one the guests use is on a table in the hall closet, where we put
+our things," Penny explained. "You can shut the door and hold a
+perfectly private conversation.... Well, _we never saw Dexter Sprague
+again_!"
+
+"Good Lord! Another bridge dummy murdered!" Dundee groaned. "At least
+the newspapers will be happy!... Didn't anyone go to look for him after
+the hand was played?"
+
+"Not straight off," Penny answered, with an obvious effort to remember
+clearly every detail. "Let's see--Oh, yes! That hand was played out
+before Ralph had finished playing his, at our table, so I was free to
+pay attention to the other table. Flora said that since they couldn't
+play another hand until Dexter came back, she thought she'd better hunt
+up Karen, who hadn't come back yet."
+
+"How long was Mrs. Miles away from the porch?" Dundee asked quickly.
+
+"Oh, I don't know--ten minutes, maybe. She came back alone, saying she
+had found Karen in her bedroom--Flora's room, of course--crying
+inconsolably. Flora told Hugo he'd better go up to her himself, since
+she evidently had her feelings hurt because he hadn't followed her in
+the first place. Tracey, who wasn't playing bridge, you remember,
+because he had given up his place to Sprague, asked Flora if she'd seen
+Sprague, and Flora said, in a surprised voice, 'No! I wonder where he is
+all this time,' and Polly said that probably he'd gone to the lavatory,
+which opens into the main hall and is next to the library.... Well,
+pretty soon Judge Marshall and Karen came back--"
+
+"Pretty soon?--Just how long was Judge Marshall gone?" Dundee pressed
+her, his pencil, which had been flying to take down her every word,
+poised over the notebook he had snatched from her desk.
+
+"I can't say exactly!" Penny protested thornily. "I was playing again at
+the other table. I suppose it was about ten minutes, for Ralph and I had
+made another rubber, I remember.... Anyway, Karen was smiling like a
+baby that has had a lot of petting, but she said Hugo had promised her
+she wouldn't have to play bridge any more that evening, so Flora
+remained at that table, playing opposite Hugo, while Tracey played with
+Polly. As soon as Tracey became dummy, Flora suggested he go look for
+Sprague."
+
+"And how long was _he_ gone from the porch?" Dundee asked.
+
+"Less than no time," Penny assured him. "He was back before Polly had
+finished playing the hand. He said he'd gone to the hall closet, where
+Whitson, the butler, would have put Sprague's hat and stick, and that he
+had found they were gone.... Well--and you needn't put down 'well' every
+time I say it!" Penny interrupted herself tartly. "Tracey said he
+supposed Sprague had ordered his taxi and had decided to walk down the
+hill to meet it, and he added that that was exactly the kind of courtesy
+you could expect from a cad and a bounder like Sprague--walking in
+uninvited, making Karen cry, then walking out, without a word, leaving
+the game while he was dummy. Flora spoke up then and said it was no
+wonder Dexter had left without saying good-by, considering how he'd been
+treated. Then Tracey said something ugly and sarcastic about Flora's
+being disappointed because Sprague had decided not to spend the whole
+evening--"
+
+"A first-class row, eh?" Dundee interrupted, with keen interest.
+
+"Rather! Flora almost cried, said Tracey knew good and well that she had
+only been playing-up to Sprague before Nita's death, in the hope of
+getting the lead in the Hamilton movie, if Sprague got the job of
+directing it, and Tracey said, 'So you call it playing-up, do you? It
+looked like high-powered flirting to me--or maybe it was more than a
+flirtation!...' Then Flora told him he hadn't acted jealous at the
+time, and that he _knew_ he'd have been glad if she'd got the
+lead.... Well, just then along came Janet--"
+
+"_Janet Raymond?_" Dundee ejaculated. "I thought you said she had
+refused the invitation when Mrs. Miles phoned her."
+
+"So she had, but she said she changed her mind, had been blue all
+evening, and needed cheering up."
+
+"How did she get in?"
+
+"She walked over from her house, which isn't very far from the Mileses',
+and simply came up the path to the porch," Penny explained. "Tracey
+asked her if she had seen Sprague on the road--it's the same road Dexter
+would have had to take going down the hill to the main road--and she
+acted awfully queer--"
+
+"How?" Dundee demanded.
+
+"Exactly as she would act, since she was in love with him," Penny
+retorted. "She turned very red, and asked if Sprague had inquired for
+her, and Flora quite sharply told her he hadn't. Then Janet said she was
+very much surprised that Sprague had been there, and that she couldn't
+understand why he had behaved so strangely. Then Lois said she might as
+well go fetch Peter from the library, since Sprague was no longer there
+to contaminate the atmosphere. She came back--"
+
+"After how long a time?"
+
+"Oh, about five minutes, I suppose," Penny answered wearily. "She came
+in, her arm linked with Peter's, and laughing. Said she had found him
+reading a 'Deadwood Dick' thriller.... One of Tracey's hobbies--" she
+broke off to explain, "--is collecting old-fashioned thrillers, like the
+Nick Carter, Diamond King Brady, Buffalo Bill and Deadwood Dick
+paper-bound books. Of course he didn't take up that hobby until a lot of
+other rich men had done it first. There was never anybody less original
+than poor Tracey.... Well, Flora gave up her place to Janet, and again
+played anagrams with Johnny, Peter taking his original place at our
+table. Suddenly Polly threw down her cards--she'd been having rotten
+luck and seemed out of sorts--and said she didn't want to play bridge
+any more. So poor Flora again had to be the perfect hostess, and switch
+from anagrams to bridge."
+
+"And Polly played anagrams with Drake?" Dundee prompted.
+
+"No. She said she thought anagrams were silly, and wandered off the
+porch and down the path, calling over her shoulder that she was going to
+take a walk. Tracey asked Johnny if he'd mind mixing the highballs and
+bringing out the sandwiches. Said Whitson had left a thermos bucket of
+ice cubes on the sideboard, some bottles of ginger ale, and a tray of
+glasses and sandwiches. Told him he'd find decanters of Scotch and rye,
+and to bring out both."
+
+"So Drake left the room, too," Dundee mused. "Oh, Lord. I _knew_ I'd
+find that every last one of the six had a chance to kill Sprague, as
+well as Nita!... How long was Polly Beale gone on this walk of hers?"
+
+"She came in with a pink water lily--said she'd been down to the lily
+ponds, and that Flora had enough to spare her one," Penny answered. "She
+couldn't have been away more than ten minutes, because Johnny was just
+mixing the highballs, according to our preference for Scotch or rye--or
+plain ginger ale, which both Ralph and I chose. After we'd had our
+drinks and the sandwiches, we went on with bridge. Polly and Johnny just
+wandered about the porch or watched the game at the two tables. And
+about five minutes after eleven Clive Hammond arrived, coming up the
+path to the porch, just as Janet had. After he came, there was no more
+bridge, but we sat around on the porch and talked until midnight. Clive
+said he was too tired to play bridge--that he'd been struggling all
+evening with a knotty problem."
+
+"I can sympathize with him!" Dundee said grimly, as he rose. "I've got
+my own knotty problem awaiting me.... When that call comes through from
+Chicago, tell Sanderson the bad news, and say I'll telephone him later."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
+
+
+The Miles home, still known in Hamilton as the Hackett place, since it
+had been built more than thirty years before by Flora's father, old
+Silas Hackett, dead these seven years, dominated one of the most
+beautiful of the wooded hills which encircled Mirror Lake in the
+Brentwood section. Of modified Tudor architecture, its deep red,
+mellowed bricks had achieved in three decades almost the same aged
+dignity and impressiveness as characterized the three-century-old
+mansion in England which Silas Hackett's architect had used as an
+inspiration.
+
+The big house faced the lake, a long series of landscaped terraces
+leading down to the water's edge, but the driveway wound from the state
+road up a side of the hill, to the main entrance at the rear of the
+house.
+
+Once before--on Sunday, the day after Nita Selim's murder, when he had
+come to interview Lydia Carr and had secured the alibi which had
+eliminated Dexter Sprague as a suspect--Dundee had driven his car up
+this hill between the tall yew hedges. But then he had taken the fork
+which led to the hooded doorway over the kitchen; had descended the
+kitchen stairs with Lydia, to the servants' sitting room in the
+basement. Now he continued along the main driveway to the more
+impressive entrance, whose flanking, slim turrets frowned down upon a
+line of police cars and motorcycles.
+
+His approach must have been expected and observed, for it was the master
+of the house who opened the great, iron-studded doors and invited the
+detective into the broad main hall, at the end of which, down three
+steps, lay the immense living room. The detective's first glance took in
+stately armchairs of the Cromwell period, thick, mellow-toned rugs, and,
+in the living room beyond, splendid examples of Jacobean furniture.
+
+"A horrible thing to happen in a man's home, Dundee," Miles was saying,
+his plump, rosy face blighted with horror. "I can't realize yet that we
+actually slept as usual with a corpse lying down here all night! And I
+have only myself to blame--"
+
+"What do you mean?" Dundee asked.
+
+"Why, that the--the body wasn't discovered sooner," Miles explained. "If
+it had occurred to me that Whitson hadn't closed the trophy room
+windows, I should have gone in to close and lock them when I made the
+rounds of living room, dining room and library, after our guests were
+gone last night."
+
+A pale-faced, bald-headed butler had materialized while his master was
+speaking. "Beg pardon, sir, but I did not close the trophy room windows
+because I thought you might be using the room again.... You see, sir,"
+and Whitson turned to Dundee, "Mr. Miles and Mr. Dunlap played ping-pong
+in the trophy room after dinner until the other guests began to arrive,
+and I did not want them to find the room stuffy--it was a warm night--if
+any of the guests--"
+
+"I see," Dundee interrupted. "Who, to your knowledge, was the last
+person to enter the trophy room last night, Mr. Miles?"
+
+"I was, except Sprague, of course, and I had no idea he'd gone there.
+Drake wanted to play anagrams, and before the bridge game started, I
+went to the trophy room to get the box," Miles explained. "I turned off
+the light when I left, and there was no light burning in there this
+morning when Celia, the parlor maid, went there to put the anagram box
+back in the cabinet, and found the body.... Flora--Mrs. Miles--had
+brought the anagrams in from the porch and left them on a table in the
+living room, as our guests were getting ready to leave. There was
+nothing else to bring in, in case of rain. The bridge tables are of
+iron, covered with oilcloth, and fitted with oilcloth bags for the
+cards, score pads, and pencils--"
+
+"Yes, I know," Dundee interrupted. "Miss Crain has already told me all
+about that, and a good many details of the party itself.... By the way,
+where is Mrs. Miles now?"
+
+"In bed. The doctor is with her. She is prostrated from the shock."
+
+"Where is this room you call the trophy room?" Dundee asked. "No, don't
+bother to come with me. Just point it out. It's on this floor, I
+understand."
+
+Miles pointed past the great circular staircase that wound upward from
+the main hall. "You can't see the door from here, but it's behind the
+staircase. Celia found the door closed this morning, and no light on, as
+I said--"
+
+Dundee cut him short by marching toward the door which was again closed.
+He entered so noiselessly that Captain Strawn, Dr. Price and the
+fingerprint expert, Carraway, did not hear him. For a moment he stood
+just inside the door and let his eyes wander about the room which Penny
+Crain had already described. It was not a large room--twelve by fourteen
+feet, possibly--but it looked even smaller, crowded as it was with the
+long ping-pong table, bags of golf clubs, fishing tackle, tennis
+racquets, skis and sleds. There were two windows in the north wall of
+the room, looking out upon the yew-hedged driveway, and between them
+stood a cabinet of numerous big and little drawers.
+
+Not until he had taken in the general aspect of the room did Dundee look
+at the thing over which Captain Strawn and the coroner were bending--the
+body of Dexter Sprague.
+
+The alien from New York had fallen about four feet from the window
+nearer the east wall of the trophy room. He lay on his side, his left
+cheek against the floor, the fingers of his left hand still clutching
+the powder-burned bosom of his soft shirt, now stiff with dried blood, a
+pool of which had formed and then half congealed upon the rug. The right
+hand, the fingers curled but not touching each other, lay palm-upward on
+the floor at the end of the rigid, outstretched arm. The one visible eye
+was half open, but on the sallow, thin face, which had been strikingly
+handsome in an obvious sort of way, was a peace and dignity which Dundee
+had never seen upon Sprague's face when the man was alive. The left leg
+was drawn upward so that the knee almost touched the bullet-pierced
+stomach.
+
+"How long has he been dead, doctor?" Dundee asked quietly.
+
+"Hello, boy!" Dr. Price greeted him placidly. "Always the same question!
+I've been here only a few minutes, and I've already told Strawn that I
+shall probably be unable to fix the hour of death with any degree of
+accuracy."
+
+"Took your time, didn't you, Bonnie?" Captain Strawn greeted his former
+subordinate on the Homicide Squad. "Doc says he's been dead between ten
+and twelve hours. Since it's nearly ten now, that means Sprague was
+killed some time between nine and eleven o'clock last night."
+
+"Better say between nine o'clock and midnight last night," Dr. Price
+suggested. "He may have lived an hour or more--unconscious, of course.
+For the indications are that he did not die instantly, but staggered a
+few steps, clutching at the wound. But of course I shall have to perform
+an autopsy first----"
+
+Dundee crossed the room, stepping over the dead man's stick--a swank
+affair of dark, polished wood, with a heavy knob of carved onyx, which
+lay about a foot beyond the reach of the curled fingers of the stiff
+right hand.
+
+"Sprague's hat?" he asked, pointing to a brightly banded straw which lay
+upon the top of the cabinet.
+
+"Yes," Strawn answered. "And did you notice the window screen?"
+
+He pointed to the window in front of which the body lay. The sash of
+leaded panes was raised as high as it would go, and beneath it was a
+screen of the roller-curtain type, raised about six inches from the
+window sill. A pair of curved, nickel-plated catches in the center of
+the inch-wide metal band on the bottom of the coppernet curtain showed
+how the screen was raised or lowered.
+
+Dundee nodded, frowning, and Strawn began eagerly:
+
+"You'll have to admit I was right now, boy. You've sneered at my gunman
+theory and tried to pin Nita's murder on one of Hamilton's finest bunch
+of people, but you'll have to admit now that every detail of this set-up
+bears me out."
+
+"Yes?"
+
+"Sure. This is the way I figure it out: Sprague has good reason to be
+afraid he's next on the program. He's nervous. He hops a taxi at his
+hotel and comes here--can't stick to his room any longer. Wants a little
+human companionship. This crowd here--and I have Miles' word for
+it--ain't any too glad to see him, and shows it. He phones for a taxi to
+go back to his hotel--about 9:15, that was, Miles says--but decides to
+walk down the hill to meet it. Don't want to go back out on the porch
+and lie about having had a good time, when he hasn't.... Well, he opens
+the front door, or what would be the front door if this was any ordinary
+house, but before he steps out he sees or hears something--probably a
+rustling in the hedge across the driveway, or maybe he even sees a face,
+in the light from the lanterns on each side of the door. He feels sure
+Nita's murderer has trailed him and is lying in wait for him. In a panic
+he darts into this room, and don't turn on the light for fear he'll be
+seen from the windows, but he can see well enough to make out how the
+screens work, and he was familiar with the house anyway. I'll bet you
+anything you like Sprague stayed in this room for an hour or two, till
+he thought the coast was clear, then eased up this screen, intending to
+climb out of the window and drop to the ground.... Not much of a drop at
+that. You can see that the tall hedge on this side of the driveway comes
+pretty near up to these windows.... Well, I figure he laid his hat on
+this cabinet, intending to reach in for it when he was outside, but that
+he had already made some little noise which the gunman was listening
+for, and that when he got the screen up this high, the gunman, crouching
+under the window, let go with the same gun and silencer that he used to
+bump off Nita.... I've got Miles' word for it that neither he nor
+anybody else heard a shot.... Of course, nobody knew Sprague was in
+here, and since his hat and stick was both missing from the hall closet,
+they took it for granted he'd beat it.... Any objections to that theory,
+boy?"
+
+"Just a few--one in particular," Dundee said. "But I grant it's a good
+one, provided Dr. Price's autopsy bears you out as to the course of the
+bullet, and that Carraway finds Sprague's fingerprints on that
+contrivance for raising the screen. Even then----"
+
+But Dundee was not allowed to finish his sentence, for Strawn was
+summoned to the telephone, by Whitson. When he returned there was a
+slightly bewildered look on his heavy old face.
+
+"That's funny.... Collins--the lad I sent to check up on the taxi
+companies--says he's located the driver that answered Sprague's call
+last night. The driver says he was called about 9:15, told to come
+immediately, and to wait for Sprague at the foot of the hill, on the
+main road. He says he waited there until half past ten, then went on
+back to town, sore'n a boiled owl."
+
+"It doesn't look exactly as if Sprague were afraid of anyone _outside of
+this house_ last night, does it?" Dundee asked. "By the way, I suppose
+you've sent for everyone who was here?"
+
+"Sure!" But again Captain Strawn looked uncomfortable. "But we haven't
+been able to locate the Beale girl and Clive Hammond."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
+
+
+"I'd give a good deal to know which of those two suggested that it would
+be a good idea to get married the first thing this morning," Dundee
+mused aloud, as he put down the second extra which _The Hamilton Morning
+News_ had had occasion to issue that Thursday.
+
+It was two o'clock, and the district attorney's "special investigator"
+sat across the desk from Captain Strawn, in his former chief's office at
+Police Headquarters.
+
+The first extra had screamed in its biggest head type: SECOND BRIDGE
+DUMMY MURDER! and had carried, in detail, Captain Strawn's comforting
+theory that Dexter Sprague's erstwhile friends had again been made the
+victims of a New York gunman's fiendish cleverness in committing his
+murders under circumstances which would inevitably involve Hamilton's
+most highly respected and socially prominent citizens in the police
+investigation.
+
+But the second extra had a more romantic streamer headline: HAMMOND
+WEDDING DELAYS MURDER QUIZ.
+
+The story beneath a series of smaller headlines began:
+
+"At the very moment--9:05 o'clock this morning--when Celia Hunt, maid in
+the Tracey Miles home in the Brentwood district of Hamilton, was
+screaming the news of her discovery of the dead body of Dexter Sprague,
+New York motion picture director, in what is known as the 'trophy room,'
+Miss Polly Beale and Mr. Clive Hammond were applying for a marriage
+license in the Municipal Building.
+
+"At 9:30, when Miss Beale and Mr. Hammond were exchanging their vows in
+the rectory of St. Paul's Episcopal Church, of which both bride and
+groom have been members since childhood, Captain John Strawn of the
+Homicide Squad was listening to Tracey Miles' account of the strange
+disappearance of Dexter Sprague last night from an impromptu bridge
+game, after he had announced his intention of taking advantage of the
+fact that he was 'dummy' to telephone for a taxi.
+
+"And at 10 o'clock, when the new Mrs. Hammond called her home to break
+the news of her marriage to her aunt, Mrs. Amelia Beale, the bride was
+in turn acquainted with the news of Sprague's murder and the fact that
+both she and her husband were wanted at the Miles home for questioning
+by the police, since both had been guests of Mr. and Mrs. Miles last
+night, although Mr. Hammond did not arrive until about 11 o'clock."
+
+There followed a revision of the murder story as it had appeared in the
+first extra, with additional details supplied by Strawn, and with a line
+drawing of the scene of the crime--the trophy room itself and the forked
+driveway with its tall yew hedges. A dotted line illustrated Strawn's
+theory of Sprague's plan to elude the murderer who had followed him to
+the Miles home. Because of the curved sweep of the driveway toward the
+main entrance of the house, the tall hedge was less than two feet from
+the window with the partly opened screen.
+
+"Captain Strawn's theory," read the text below the large drawing, "is
+that Sprague had good cause to fear he was being followed on his way to
+the Miles home; that he telephoned for a taxi to wait for him at the
+foot of the hill, and that he planned to leave the Miles house by way of
+the trophy room window, so that his lurking pursuer might have no
+knowledge of his departure. The drawing shows that his proposed flight
+would have been protected by hedges until he reached the wooded slope of
+the hill, provided his Nemesis was lurking in the opposite hedge across
+the driveway, where he could observe every departure from the Miles
+home."
+
+"You've sure got a single-track mind, boy," Strawn chuckled. "So you
+think those two got married in such a hurry this morning because the law
+says a husband or a wife can't be made to testify against the other?"
+
+"Possibly." Dundee grinned, unruffled. "But there is another
+possibility--which is why I should like to know who suggested this
+sudden wedding. I mean that we can't overlook the possibility that these
+two murders made either the bride or the groom feel perfectly safe in
+going on with the marriage. Polly Beale and Clive Hammond had been
+engaged for more than a year, you know, with no apparent reason for a
+long engagement.... As for my having a single-track mind, Captain, what
+about you? I have six possible suspects, all of whose names I know, and
+you have only one--whose name you do not know, and whose motive you can
+only guess at, while _I_ have a perfectly good motive that might fit any
+one of my six--blackmail!"
+
+"Is that so?" Strawn growled. "I'm not telling the papers everything,
+and if they are satisfied to call these murders '_crimes passionnels_,'
+it's all right with me. But I'm not forgetting that Nita Selim banked
+ten thousand dollars cash after she got to Hamilton. My real theory now
+that Sprague has been killed is that Nita and Sprague had cooked up some
+sort of racket between them, and that when Nita got the chance to come
+to Hamilton with Mrs. Dunlap, she jumped at it, and she and Sprague
+sprung their racket, whatever it was, either just before or just after
+Nita left New York. Probably it was Nita's tip-off and Sprague did the
+actual dirty work himself, which explains that telegram that Nita sent
+him April 24, just three days after she got to Hamilton. Let's see again
+just what it says," and Strawn reached for a copy of the night letter
+which Dundee himself had unearthed the day before. "See: '_Everything
+Jake so far, but would feel safer you here_--'"
+
+"Yes, I remember the wording quite well," Dundee interrupted. "But you
+did not take it so seriously when I showed it to you yesterday. If you
+had--"
+
+"All right! Rub it in!" Strawn snapped, flushing darkly. "If I had
+assigned a man to 'tail' Sprague, as you suggested, he wouldn't have
+been murdered--"
+
+"He probably would have been murdered just the same," Dundee comforted
+the older man, "but we might have been lucky enough to have had an
+eye-witness."
+
+"Oh, you and your theory!" Strawn growled. "But let me go on.... Nita
+meant she would feel safer about Sprague if he was here in Hamilton,
+too. But the guy they double-crossed in New York, or worked the badger
+game on, or something like that, got on their trail. But it took him
+weeks to do it, and Sprague followed Nita's advice. He got here on
+Sunday April 27, and on Monday the 28th Nita banked the first $5,000!
+Don't you see it, boy? Sprague brought with him the dough they'd got for
+their stunt, and thought it was safer for Nita to bank it in her name,
+since it wasn't the name she was known by in New York anyway. We've
+checked up on Sprague pretty thoroughly. He didn't have a bank book,
+either on his body or in his room, and every bank in town denies he had
+an account with them."
+
+"If that theory is correct, it makes Nita Selim a pretty low character,"
+Dundee mused aloud. "Not only did she kick him out as a lover, but she
+double-crossed him as her partner in crime, by willing the whole wad to
+Lydia Carr. Sprague must have received quite a shock when he heard
+Nita's will read at the inquest."
+
+"Yeah," Strawn agreed. "It looks like Mrs. Dunlap picked a sweet
+specimen to make a friend out of.... Well, that's my theory, and I think
+it explains everything. Their victim in New York simply hired a gunman,
+or come down here himself, when he got on their tracks. Of course it was
+a good stunt to make it look like a local crime--figured he'd fool _me_
+just as he fooled _you_! So the murderer simply trailed Nita around, and
+saw that whole bunch of society people shooting at a target at Judge
+Marshall's place, with a gun equipped with a Maxim silencer. Too good an
+opportunity to be missed, so he bides his chance to swipe the gun and
+silencer. To make sure it will look like a local crime, he pops off Nita
+when that same bunch is at her house, but it takes a few days longer
+before he has the same opportunity to get Sprague. But it come last
+night and he grabbed it."
+
+"A very plausible theory, and one which, in general, the whole city of
+Hamilton has been familiar with since the night Nita was murdered,"
+Dundee remarked significantly.
+
+"What do you mean?" Strawn demanded. "It's waterproof, ain't it? Doc
+Price says the bullet--and a .32 caliber one at that--entered Sprague's
+body just below the breastbone and traveled an upward course till it
+struck the extreme right side of the heart. The bullet entered exactly
+where it would have to, if the murderer was crouching under that window
+while Sprague was raising the screen. And we have Carraway's report that
+it was Sprague's fingerprints on those nickleplated things you have to
+press together to make the screen roll up or down. Furthermore, I
+haven't a doubt in the world that the ballistics expert in Chicago will
+report that the bullet was fired from the same gun that killed Nita
+Selim."
+
+"Neither have I," Dundee agreed. "But what I meant was that you had
+obligingly furnished the murderer who fits _my_ theory with a theory
+he--or she--would not have upset for the world!... Listen!" and he bent
+forward very earnestly: "I'm willing to grant that Sprague was shot from
+the outside, through the window, when Sprague raised the screen. But
+there our theories part company. I believe that the murderer was a guest
+in the Selim home last night, that he or she had made an appointment to
+meet Sprague there, on the promise of paying the hush money he had
+demanded, in spite of my warning to him not to carry on with the
+blackmail scheme. Naturally he or she--and I'll say 'he' from now on,
+for the sake of convenience--had no intention of being seen entering
+that room. The bridge game was suggested by Judge Marshall at noon.
+There was plenty of time for the rendezvous to be made with Sprague. As
+I see it, the murderer told Sprague to excuse himself from the game when
+he became dummy, and to go to the trophy room and wait there until the
+murderer had a chance to slip away and appear beneath the window.
+Sprague had been promised that, when he raised the screen at a tap or a
+whispered request, a roll of bills would be handed to him, but--he
+received a bullet instead."
+
+"And which one of your six suspects have you picked on?" Strawn asked
+sarcastically.
+
+"That's just the trouble. There are still six," Dundee acknowledged with
+a wry grin. "After Sprague's disappearance, every one of the six was
+absent from the porch at one time or another.... No, by George! There
+are _seven_ suspects now! I was about to forget Peter Dunlap, who admits
+he was alone on a fishing trip when Nita was murdered and who left the
+porch last night to go to the library, as soon as Sprague arrived!... As
+for the movements of the original six after Sprague disappeared: Polly
+Beale took a walk about the grounds; Flora Miles went upstairs to hunt
+for Karen Marshall, and was gone more than ten minutes; Drake went to
+the dining room to get the refreshments, and no one can say exactly how
+long he was gone; Judge Marshall went up to get his wife, and had time
+to make a little trip on the side; Janet Raymond walked over from her
+home, and passed that very window, arriving after Sprague had
+disappeared; and, finally, Clive Hammond arrived alone in his car, which
+he parked within a few feet of that window. This morning he gets
+married----"
+
+"A telegram, sir!" interrupted a plainclothesman, who had entered
+without knocking.
+
+Strawn snatched at it, read it, then exulted: "Read this, boy! I guess
+_this_ settles the business!"
+
+The telegram had been filed half an hour before and was from the city
+editor of _The New York Evening Press_:
+
+     "WORKING ON YOUR THEORY OF NEW YORK GUNMAN RESPONSIBLE MURDERS OF
+     JUANITA LEIGH SELIM AND DEXTER SPRAGUE THIS PAPER HAS DISCOVERED
+     THAT SELIM WOMAN WAS SEEN AT NIGHT CLUBS SEVERAL TIMES DURING
+     JANUARY FEBRUARY WITH QUOTE SWALLOW TAIL SAMMY END QUOTE UNDERWORLD
+     NAME FOR SAM SAVELLI STOP SAVELLI TAKEN FOR RIDE TUESDAY APRIL
+     TWENTY SECOND TWO DAYS AFTER SELIM WOMAN LEFT NEW YORK STOP POLICE
+     HERE WORKING ON THEORY SAVELLI SLAIN BY OWN GANG AFTER THEY WERE
+     TIPPED OFF SAVELLI WAS DOUBLE CROSSING THEM STOP IN EXCHANGE FOR
+     THIS TIP CAN YOU GIVE US ANY SUPPRESSED INFORMATION YOUR POSSESSION
+     STOP SAVELLI HAD BROTHER WHO IS KNOWN TO US TO HAVE PROMISED
+     REVENGE SWALLOW TAIL SAMMYS MURDER STOP BE A SPORT CAPTAIN."
+
+"Well, that puts the lid on it, don't it?" Strawn crowed. "I'll send
+Sergeant Turner to New York on the five o'clock train.... Pretty decent
+of that city editor to wire me this tip, I'll say!"
+
+"And are you going to reciprocate by wiring him about the $10,000 Nita
+banked here?" Dundee asked.
+
+"Sure! Why not? There's no use that I can see to keep it back any
+longer, now that no one can have any excuse to think as you've been
+doing--that it was blackmail paid by a Hamiltonian."
+
+"Then," Dundee began very slowly, "if you really think your case is
+solved, I'll make one suggestion: take charge of Lydia Carr and put her
+in a very safe place."
+
+"Why?" Strawn looked puzzled.
+
+"Because, when you publish the fact that Nita and Sprague got $10,000
+for tipping off Savelli's gang that he was double-crossing them, and
+that Nita willed the money to Lydia, the avenger's next and last job
+would be to 'get' Lydia, since his natural conclusion would be that
+Lydia had been in on the scheme from the beginning," Dundee explained.
+
+"God, boy! You're right!" Strawn exclaimed, and his heavy old face was
+very pale as he reached for the telephone, and called the number of the
+Miles residence. "I'm going to put it up to her that it will be best for
+her to be locked up as a material witness, for her own protection."
+
+Five minutes later Strawn restored the receiver to the hook with a bang.
+"Says she won't budge!" he explained unnecessarily. "Says she ain't
+afraid and the Miles kids need her.... Well, it's her own funeral! But I
+guess _you_ are convinced at last?"
+
+Dundee slowly shook his head. "Almost--but not quite, chief!"
+
+"Lord, but you're stubborn! Here's a water-tight case----"
+
+"A very pretty and a very satisfactory case, but not exactly
+water-tight," Dundee interrupted. "There's just one little thing----"
+
+"What do you mean?" Strawn demanded irritably.
+
+"Have you forgotten the secret shelf behind the guest closet in the
+Selim house?" Dundee asked.
+
+"I can afford to forget it, since it hasn't got a thing to do with the
+case!" Strawn retorted angrily. "There's not a scrap of evidence----"
+
+"Of course it does not fit into _your_ theory," Dundee agreed, "for
+'Swallow-tail Sammy's' avenging brother could not have known of its
+existence, but there is one thing about that secret shelf and its pivot
+door which I don't believe you can afford to forget, Captain!"
+
+"Yeah?" Strawn snarled.
+
+"Yeah!... I refer, of course, to the complete absence of fingerprints on
+the door and on the shelf itself! Carraway didn't even find Nita Selim's
+fingerprints. Since Nita would have had no earthly reason for carefully
+wiping off her fingerprints after she removed the papers she burned on
+Friday night, it's a dead sure fact that someone else who had no
+legitimate business to do so, touched that pivoting panel and the shelf,
+and carefully removed all traces that he had done so!... And--" he
+continued grimly, "until I find out who that someone is, I, for one,
+won't consider the case solved!"
+
+Fifteen minutes later Dundee was sitting at Penny Crain's desk in her
+office of the district attorney's suite, replacing the receiver upon the
+telephone hook, after having put in a call for Sanderson, who was still
+in Chicago, keeping vigil at the bedside of his dying mother.
+
+"Did you find out anything new when you questioned the crowd this
+morning?" Penny asked. "Besides the fact that Polly and Clive got
+married this morning, I mean.... I wasn't surprised when I read about
+the wedding in the extra. It was exactly like Polly to make up her mind
+suddenly, after putting Clive off for a year----"
+
+"So it was Polly who held back," Dundee said to himself. Aloud: "No, I
+didn't learn much new, Penny. You're a most excellent and accurate
+reporter.... But there were one or two things that came out. For
+instance, I got Drake to admit to me, in private, that Nita did give him
+an explanation as to where she got the $10,000."
+
+"Yes?" Penny prompted eagerly.
+
+"Drake says," Dundee answered dryly, "that Nita told him it was 'back
+alimony' which she had succeeded in collecting from her former husband.
+Unfortunately, she did not say who or where the mysterious husband is."
+
+"Pooh!" scoffed Penny. "Don't you see? She just said that to satisfy
+Johnny's curiosity. After all, it was the most plausible explanation of
+how a divorcee got hold of a lot of money."
+
+"So plausible that Drake may have thought of it himself," Dundee
+reflected silently. Aloud, he continued his report to the girl who had
+been of so much help to him: "Among other minor things that came out
+this morning, and which the papers did not report, was the fact that
+Janet Raymond tried to commit suicide this morning by drinking shoe
+polish. Fortunately her father discovered what she had done almost as
+soon as she had swallowed the stuff, and made her take ipecac and then
+sent for the doctor."
+
+"Oh, poor Janet!" Penny groaned. "She must have been terribly in love
+with Dexter Sprague, though what she saw in him----"
+
+Dundee made no comment, but continued with his information: "Another
+minor development was that Tracey Miles admitted that he and Flora had
+quarreled over Sprague after all of you left, and that Flora took two
+sleeping tablets to make sure of a night's rest."
+
+"She's been awfully unstrung ever since Nita's murder," Penny defended
+her friend. "She told us all Monday night at Peter's that the doctor had
+prescribed sleeping medicine.... Now, you look here, Bonnie Dundee!" she
+cried out sharply, answering an enigmatic smile on the detective's face,
+"if you think Flora Miles killed Nita Selim and Dexter Sprague, because
+she was in love with Dexter and learned he was Nita's lover from that
+silly note----"
+
+"Whoa, Penny!" Dundee checked her. "I'm not linking exactly that. But
+I've just remembered something that had seemed of no importance to me
+before."
+
+"And what's that, Mr. Smart Aleck?" Penny demanded furiously.
+
+"Before I answer that question, will you let me do a little theorizing?"
+Dundee suggested gently. "Let us suppose that Flora Miles was _not_ in
+love with Sprague, but that she was being blackmailed by Nita for some
+scandal Nita had heard gossiped about at the Forsyte School.... No,
+wait!... Let us suppose further that Nita recognized Flora's picture in
+the group Lois Dunlap showed her, as the portrait of the girl whose
+story she had heard; that she was able, somehow, to secure incriminating
+evidence of some sort--letters, let us say. Nita tells Sprague about it,
+and Sprague advises her to blackmail Flora, who, Lois has told Nita, is
+very rich. So Nita comes to Hamilton and bleeds Flora of $10,000. Not
+satisfied, Nita makes another demand, the money to be paid to her the
+day of the bridge luncheon----"
+
+"Silly!" Penny scoffed furiously. "The only evidence you have against
+poor Flora is that she stole the note Dexter had written to Nita!"
+
+"That's the crux of the matter, Penny darling!" Dundee assured her in a
+maddeningly soothing voice, at which Penny clinched her hands in
+impotent rage. "Flora, seeing Nita receive a letter written on her
+husband's business stationery, jumps to the conclusion that Nita had
+carried out her threat to tell Tracey, or that Nita has at least given
+Tracey a hint of the truth and that Tracey's special-messenger note is,
+let us say, a confirmation of an appointment suggested by Nita.... Very
+well! Flora goes to Nita's bedroom at the first opportunity, knowing
+that Nita will come there to make up for the men's arrival. Let's
+suppose Flora had brought the gun and silencer with her, intending to
+frighten Nita, rather than kill her. But having had proof, as she
+believes, that Nita means business, Flora waits in the closet until Nita
+comes in and sits down at her dressing-table, then steps out and shoots
+her. Then she recoils step by step, until her foot catches in the slack
+cord of the bronze lamp, causing the very 'bang or bump' which Flora
+herself describes later, for fear someone else has heard it. Her first
+concern, of course, is to hide the gun and silencer. She remembers Judge
+Marshall's tale of the secret shelf in the guest closet, and not only
+hides the gun there but seeks in vain for the incriminating evidence
+Nita has against her. But she also remembers the note she believes
+Tracey has written to Nita, and which, if found after Nita's death, may
+give her away. So she goes to the closet in Nita's bedroom, finds the
+note, and faints with horror at her perhaps needless crime when she
+realizes that the note was written by Sprague, and not Tracey. Of course
+she is too ill and panic-stricken to leave the closet until the murder
+is discovered----"
+
+"But you think she was not too panic-stricken to have the presence of
+mind to retrieve the gun and silencer and walk out with them, under the
+very eyes of the police," Penny scoffed.
+
+"_No! I think she was!_" Dundee amazed her by admitting. "And that is
+where my sudden recollection of something I had considered unimportant
+comes in! Let us suppose that Flora, half-suspected by Tracey, confesses
+to him in their car as they are going to the Country Club for their
+long-delayed dinner, as were the rest of you. Tracey, loyal to her,
+decides to help her. He tells her to suggest, at dinner, that Lydia come
+to them as nurse, so that he can go back to the house and get the gun
+and silencer from the guest-closet hiding place, if an opportunity
+presents itself--as it did, since I left Tracey Miles alone in the hall
+while I went into Nita's bedroom to talk with Lydia before I permitted
+her to go with Tracey."
+
+"You're crazy!" Penny told him fiercely, when he had finished. "I
+suppose you are going to ask me to believe that Tracey was a big enough
+fool to leave the gun and silencer where Flora could get hold of it and
+kill Sprague last night."
+
+"Why not let us suppose that Tracey himself killed Sprague to protect
+his wife, not only from scandal, but from a charge of murder?" Dundee
+countered. "Tell me honestly: do you think Tracey Miles loves Flora
+enough to do that for her?"
+
+Suddenly, inexplicably, Penny began to laugh--not hysterically, but with
+genuine mirth.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
+
+
+"What are you laughing at?" Dundee demanded indignantly, but the
+sustained ringing of the telephone bell checked Penny Crain's mirthful
+laughter. "My Chicago call!... Hello!... Yes, this is Dundee.... All
+right, but make it snappy, won't you?... Hello, Mr. Sanderson! How is
+your mother?... That's fine! I certainly hope--Yes, the inquest is
+slated for tomorrow morning, but there's no use your leaving your mother
+to come back for it.... Yes, sir, one important new development. Can you
+hear me plainly?... Then hold the line a moment, please!"
+
+With the receiver still at his ear, Dundee fumbled in his pocket for a
+folded sheet of paper. "No, operator! We're not through! Please keep off
+the line.... Listen, chief!" he addressed the district attorney at the
+other end of the long distance wire. "This is a telegram Captain Strawn
+received this afternoon from the city editor of The New York Evening
+Press.... Can you hear me?... All right!" and he read slowly, repeating
+when necessary.
+
+When he had finished reading the telegram, he listened for a long
+minute, but not with so much concentration that he could not grin at
+Penny's wide-eyed amazement and joy. "That's what I think, sir!" he
+cried jubilantly. "I'd like to take the five o'clock train for New York
+and work on the case from that end till we actually get our teeth into
+something.... Thanks a lot, and my best wishes for your mother!"
+
+"Why didn't you tell me about this 'Swallow-tail Sammy'?" Penny demanded
+indignantly. "Tormenting me with your silly theory about poor Flora and
+Tracey, when all the time you knew the case was practically solved--"
+
+"I'm afraid I gave the district attorney a slightly false impression,"
+Dundee interrupted, but there was no remorse in his shining blue eyes.
+"But just so I get to New York--By the way, young woman, what _were_ you
+laughing at so heartily? I didn't know I had made an amusing remark when
+I asked you if you thought Tracey Miles loved his wife well enough to
+commit murder for her."
+
+Penny laughed again, white teeth and brown eyes gleaming. "I was
+laughing at something else. It suddenly occurred to me, while you were
+spinning your foolish theory, how _flattered_ Tracey would have been if
+Flora had confessed to him Saturday night that she had killed Nita
+because she was jealous!"
+
+"Which was _not_ my theory, if you remember!" Dundee retorted. "But why
+is the idea so amusing? Deep in his heart, I suppose any man would
+really be a bit flattered if his wife loved him enough to be that
+jealous."
+
+"You don't know Tracey Miles as well as I do," Penny assured him, her
+eyes still mirthful. "He's really a dear, in spite of being a dreadful
+bore most of the time, but the truth is, Tracey hasn't an atom of sex
+appeal, and he _must_ realize it.... Of course we girls have all
+pampered his poor little ego by pretending to be crazy about him and
+terribly envious that it was Flora who got him--"
+
+"But Flora Hackett _did_ marry him," Dundee interrupted. "She must have
+been a beautiful girl, and she was certainly rich enough to get any man
+she wanted--"
+
+"You would think so, wouldn't you?" Penny agreed, her tongue loosened by
+relief. "I was only twelve years old when Flora Hackett made her debut,
+but a twelve-year-old has big ears and keen eyes. It is true that Flora
+was beautiful and rich, but--well, there was something queer about her.
+She was simply crazy to get married, and if a man danced with her as
+many as three times in an evening she literally seized upon him and
+tried to drag him to the altar.... Her eagerness and her intensity
+repelled every man who was in the least attracted to her, and I think
+she was beginning to be frightened to death that she wouldn't get
+married at all, when she happened to meet Tracey, who had just got a job
+as salesman in her father's business. She began to rush him--there's no
+other word for it--and none of the other girls minded a bit, because,
+without Flora, Tracey would have been the perfect male wallflower. They
+became engaged almost right away, and were married six months or so
+later. All the girls freely prophesied that even Tracey, flattered by
+her passion for him as he so evidently was, would get tired of it, but
+he didn't, and there were three marriages in 'the crowd' that June."
+
+"Three?" Dundee repeated absently, for his interest was waning.
+
+"Yes.... Lois Morrow and Peter Dunlap; Johnny Drake and Carolyn Swann;
+and Tracey and Flora," Penny answered. "Although I was thirteen then and
+really too old for the role, I had the fun of being flower girl for Lois
+and Flora both."
+
+"Do you think Flora was really in love with Tracey?" Dundee asked
+curiously.
+
+"Oh, yes! But she'd have been in love with anyone who wanted to
+marry her, and the funny thing is that, with the exception of Peter
+and Lois, they are the happiest married couple I have ever known.... You
+see, Tracey has never got over being flattered that so pretty and
+passionate a girl as Flora Hackett wanted _him_!... And that's why I
+laughed!... Tracey, with that deep-rooted sexual inferiority complex of
+his, would have been so flattered if Flora had told him she killed Nita
+out of jealousy that he would have forgiven her on the spot. On the other
+hand," she went on, "if Flora had told him that Nita had documentary
+proofs of some frightful scandal against her, can't you see how
+violently Tracey would have reacted against her?... Oh, no! Tracey would
+not have taken the trouble to murder Sprague, when Sprague popped up for
+more blackmail!"
+
+"Perhaps he might have, if the scandal dated back to before the
+marriage," Dundee argued. "Let's suppose Sprague did pop up, and Flora
+turned him over to Tracey. When Sprague appeared apparently uninvited
+last night, Flora must have been on pins and needles, trying to make
+Tracey treat him decently and hoping against hope that Tracey would
+simply pay the scoundrel all the blackmail he was demanding----"
+
+"Which is exactly what Tracey would have done, instead of taking the
+awful risk of murdering him in his own home," Penny cut in spiritedly.
+"Besides, Tracey wasn't gone from the porch long enough to go outside,
+signal to Sprague in the trophy room, shoot him when Sprague raised the
+screen, and then hide the gun. I told you Tracey was gone only about a
+minute when he went to see if Sprague's hat and stick were gone from the
+closet."
+
+"Did Tracey and Flora both step outside to see their guests into their
+cars?" Dundee asked suddenly.
+
+"Tracey did," Penny answered. "Flora told us all good night in the
+living room, then ran upstairs to see if Betty was still asleep.... But
+remember we didn't leave until midnight, and Dr. Price says Sprague was
+killed between nine and eleven last night."
+
+"Dr. Price would be the first to grant a leeway of an hour, one way or
+another," Dundee told her. "Of course, if Tracey did kill him, he let
+Flora believe that he had given Sprague the blackmail money he was
+demanding. For it is inconceivable that a woman of Flora Miles'
+hysterical temperament could have slept--even with two sleeping
+tablets--knowing that a corpse was in the house."
+
+"Oh, I'm sick of your silly theorizing!" Penny told him with vehement
+scorn. "Listen here, Bonnie Dundee! You probably laugh at 'woman's
+intuition', but take it from me--_you're on the wrong track_!"
+
+"Oh, I'm not so wedded to that particular theory!" Dundee laughed. "I
+can spin you exactly six more just as convincing--"
+
+"And I shan't listen! You'd better dash home and pack your bag if you
+want to catch the five o'clock train for New York."
+
+"It's already packed and in my office," Dundee assured her lazily. "Got
+lots of time.... Hullo! Here's the home edition of _The Evening Sun_,"
+he interrupted himself, as a small boy, making his rounds of the
+courthouse, flung the paper into the office. He reached for it, and
+read the streamer headline aloud: "ITALIAN GANGSTER SOUGHT IN BRIDGE
+MURDERS ... I wager a good many heads will lie easier on their pillows
+tonight."
+
+"Let me see!" Penny commanded, and snatched the paper unceremoniously.
+"Oh! Did you see this?" and she pointed to a boxed story in the middle
+of the front page. "'Bridge Parties Cancelled'," she read aloud. "'The
+society editor of _The Evening Sun_ was kept busy at her telephone
+today, receiving notices of cancellations of bridge parties scheduled
+for the remainder of the week. Eight frantic hostesses, terrified by
+Hamilton's second murder at bridge----' Oh, that's simply a _crime_! The
+newspapers deliberately work up mob hysteria and then----"
+
+"I'd rather not play bridge for a while myself!" Dundee laughed, as he
+rose and started for his own office. "And don't _you_ dare leave the
+room when you become dummy, if you have the nerve to play again!
+Remember, that gun and silencer are still missing!"
+
+"What do you mean?.... You don't think there'll be more----?"
+
+Dundee became instantly contrite before her terror. "I didn't mean it,
+honey," he said gently. "I think it is more than likely that the gun is
+at the bottom of Mirror Lake. But do take care of yourself, and by that
+I mean don't work yourself to death.... Any messages for anyone in New
+York?"
+
+Penny's pale face quivered. "If you--happen to run across my father,
+which of course you won't, tell him that--Mother would like him to come
+home."
+
+At intervals during the sixteen-hour run to New York, Penny's faltering
+words returned to haunt the district attorney's special investigator,
+although he would have preferred to devote his entire attention to
+mapping out the program he intended to follow when he reached the city
+which, he fully believed, had been the scene of the first act of the
+tragic drama he was bent upon bringing to an equally tragic conclusion.
+
+As soon as he had registered at a hotel near the Pennsylvania Station,
+and had shaved and breakfasted, he took from his bag a large envelope
+containing the photographs Carraway had made of Penny alive and of Nita
+dead, both clad in the royal blue velvet dress. In the envelope also was
+the white satin, gold-lettered label which the dress had so proudly
+borne: "Pierre Model. Copied by Simonson's. New York City."
+
+Half an hour later he was showing the photographs and the label to a
+woman buyer, in the French Salon of Simonson's, one of New York's most
+"exclusive" department stores.
+
+"Can you tell me when the original Pierre model was bought, and when
+this copy was made and sold?" he asked.
+
+The white-haired, smartly dressed buyer accepted the sheaf of
+photographs Bonnie Dundee was offering. "I'll do my best, of course,"
+she began briskly, then paled and uttered a sharp exclamation as her
+eyes took in the topmost picture. "This is Juanita Leigh, isn't
+it?... But--" she shuddered, "how odd she looks--as if--"
+
+"Yes," Dundee agreed gravely. "She was dead when that picture was taken.
+Did you know Mrs. Selim?"
+
+"No," the woman breathed, her eyes still bulging with horror. "But I've
+seen so many pictures of her in the papers.... To think that it was one
+of _our_ dresses she chose for her shroud! But you want to know when the
+dress was sold to her, don't you?" she asked, brisk again. "I can find
+out. We keep a record of all our French originals and of the number of
+copies made of each.... Let me think! I've been going to Paris myself
+for the firm for the last fifteen years, but I can't remember buying
+this Pierre model.... Oh, of course! I didn't go over during 1917 and
+1918, on account of the war, you know, but the big Paris designers
+managed to send us a limited number of very good models, and this must
+have been one of them. Otherwise, I'd remember buying it.... If you'll
+excuse me a moment----"
+
+When she returned about ten minutes later, Miss Thomas brought him a
+pencilled memorandum. "This Pierre model was imported in the summer of
+1917, several months in advance of the winter season, of course. Only
+five copies were made--in different colors and materials, naturally,
+since we make a point of exclusiveness. The royal blue velvet copy was
+sold to Juanita Leigh in January, 1918. I am sorry I cannot give you the
+exact day of the month, but our records show the month only. I took the
+liberty of showing a picture of the dress to the only saleswoman in the
+department who has been with us that long, but she cannot remember the
+sale. Twelve years is a long time, you know."
+
+"Indeed it is," Dundee agreed regretfully. "You have been immensely
+helpful, however, Miss Thomas, and I thank you with all my heart."
+
+"If you could just tell _me_--confidentially, of course," Miss Thomas
+whispered, "what sort of clue this dress is--"
+
+"I don't know, myself!" the detective admitted. "But," he added to
+himself, after he had escaped the buyer's natural curiosity, "I intend
+to find out!"
+
+Before he could take any further steps along that particular path,
+however, Dundee had an appointment to keep. Upon arriving at his hotel
+that morning he had made two telephone calls. He smiled now as he
+recalled the surprise and glee of one of his former Yale classmates, now
+a discouraged young bond salesman, with whom he had kept in touch.
+
+"You want to borrow my name and my kid sister?" Jimmy Randolph had
+chortled. "Hop to it, old sport! But you might tell me what you want
+with such intimate belongings of mine."
+
+"You may not know it," Dundee had retorted, "but young Mr. James
+Wadley Randolph, Jr., scion of the famous old Boston family, is going
+to visit that equally famous school, Forsyte-on-the-Hudson, to see
+whether it is the ideal finishing school for his beloved young sister,
+Barbara.... She's about fifteen now, isn't she, Jimmy?"
+
+"Going on sixteen, and one of Satan's prize hellions," Jimmy Randolph
+had answered. "The family would be eternally grateful if you could get
+Forsyte to take her, but make them promise not to have any more chorus
+girls who plan to get murdered, as directors of their amateur
+theatricals. Bab would be sure to be mixed up in the mess.... I suppose
+that's the job you're on, you flat-footed dick, you!"
+
+The second telephone call had secured an appointment at the Forsyte
+School for "Mr. James Wadley Randolph, Jr., of Boston," and Dundee,
+rather relishing his first need for such professional tactics, relaxed
+to enjoy the ten-mile drive along the Hudson.
+
+It was a quarter to twelve when his taxi swept up the drive toward the
+big grey-stone, turreted building, sedately lonely in the midst of its
+valuable acres.
+
+"Miss Earle says to come to the office," a colored maid told him, when
+he had given his borrowed name, and led him from the vast hall to a
+fairly large room, whose windows looked upon a tennis court, and whose
+walls were almost covered with group pictures of graduating classes,
+photographs of amateur theatrical performances, and portrait studies of
+alumnae.
+
+A very thin, sharp-faced woman of about forty, with red-rimmed eyes
+which peered nearsightedly, rose from an old-fashioned roll-top desk and
+came forward to greet him.
+
+"I am Miss Earle, Miss Pendleton's private secretary," she told him, as
+he shook her bony, clammy hand. "I should have told you when you
+telephoned this morning that both Miss Pendleton and Miss Macon sailed
+for Europe yesterday. We always have our commencement the last Tuesday
+in May, you know.... But if there is anything I can do for you----"
+
+"I should like to know something at first hand of the history of the
+school, its--well, prestige, special advantages, curriculum, and so on,"
+Dundee began deprecatingly.
+
+"I should certainly be able to answer any question you may wish to ask,
+Mr. Randolph, since I have been with the school for fifteen years," Miss
+Earle interrupted tartly.
+
+"Then Forsyte must take younger pupils than I had been led to believe,
+Miss Earle," Dundee said, with his most winning smile.
+
+"I was never a pupil here," the secretary corrected him, but she thawed
+visibly. "Of course, I was a mere child when I finished business school,
+but I _have_ been here fifteen years--fifteen years of watching rich
+society girls dawdle away four or five years, just because they've got
+to be _somewhere_ before they make their debut.... But I mustn't talk
+like that, or I'll give you a wrong impression, Mr. Randolph. Of its
+kind, it is really a very fine school--very exclusive; riding masters,
+dancing masters, a golf 'pro' and our own golf course, native teachers
+for French, Italian, German and Spanish.... Oh, the _school_ is all
+right, and will probably not suffer any loss of prestige on account of
+that dreadful murder out in the Middle West----"
+
+"Murder?" Dundee echoed, as if he had no idea what she was talking
+about.
+
+"Haven't you been reading the papers?" Miss Earle rallied him, with a
+coquettish smile. "But I don't suppose Boston bothers with such sordid
+things," she added, her thin-lipped mouth tightening. "Miss Pendleton
+was all cut up about it, because Mrs. Selim, or Juanita Leigh, as she
+was known on Broadway, had directed our Easter play the last two years,
+and the reporters simply hounded us the first two days after she was
+murdered out in Hamilton, where a number of our richest girls have come
+from----"
+
+"By Jove!" Dundee exclaimed. "Was the Selim woman connected with this
+school, really?... I only read the headlines--never pay much attention
+to murders in the papers--"
+
+"I wish," Miss Earle interrupted tartly, fresh tears reddening her eyes,
+"that people wouldn't persist in referring to her as 'that Selim
+woman'.... When I think how sweet and friendly she was, how--how
+_kind_!" and to Dundee's surprise she choked on tears before she could
+go on: "Of course I know it's dreadful for the school, and I ought not
+to talk about it, when you've come to see about putting your sister into
+the school, but Nita was _my friend_, and it simply makes me _wild_----"
+
+"You admired and liked her very much?" Dundee asked, forgetting his role
+for the moment.
+
+"Yes, I did! And Miss Pendleton liked her, too. And you can imagine how
+clever and popular she was, when a wonderful woman like Mrs. Peter
+Dunlap, who was Lois Morrow when she was in school here, admired her so
+much she took her to Hamilton with her to direct plays for a Little
+Theater.... Why, I never met anyone I was so congenial with!" the
+secretary went on passionately. "The girls here snub me and make silly
+jokes about me behind my back and call me nicknames, but Nita was just
+as sweet to me as she was to anyone--even Miss Pendleton herself!"
+
+"Were you with her much?" Dundee dared ask.
+
+"_With her much?..._ I should say I was!" she asserted proudly. "I have
+a room here, live here the year 'round, and both years Nita shared my
+room, so she would not have to make the long trip back to New York every
+night during the last week of rehearsals. We used to talk until two or
+three o'clock in the morning--Say!" she broke off, in sudden terror.
+"You aren't a reporter, are you?"
+
+"A reporter? Good Lord, no!" Dundee denied, in all sincerity. Then he
+made up his mind swiftly. This woman hated the school and all connected
+with it, had grown more and more sour and envy-bitten every year of the
+fifteen she had served here--and she liked Nita Leigh Selim better than
+anyone she had ever met. The opportunity for direct questioning was too
+miraculous to be ignored. So he changed his tone suddenly and said very
+earnestly: "No, I am not a reporter, Miss Earle. But I am _not_ James
+Wadley Randolph, Jr. I am James F. Dundee, special investigator attached
+to the office of the district attorney of Hamilton, and I want you to
+help me solve the mystery of Mrs. Selim's murder."
+
+It took nearly ten precious minutes for Dundee to nurse the terrified
+but obviously thrilled woman over the shock, and to get her into the
+mood to answer him freely.
+
+"But I shan't and _can't_ tell you anything bad about Nita!" she
+protested vehemently, wiping her red-rimmed eyes. "The papers are all
+saying now that she got $10,000 for double-crossing some awful racketeer
+named 'Swallow-tail Sammy', but I _know_ she didn't get the money that
+way! She was too good----"
+
+"From Nita's confidences to you, do you have any idea how she did get
+the money?" Dundee asked.
+
+Miss Earle shook her head. "I don't know, but she got it honorably. I
+know that!... Maybe she found her husband and made him pay alimony----"
+
+Dundee controlled his excitement with difficulty. "Did she tell you all
+about her marriage and divorce?"
+
+Again Miss Earle shook her head. "The only time she ever spoke of it was
+last year--the first year she directed our play, you know. I asked her
+why she didn't get married again, and she said she couldn't--she wasn't
+divorced, because she didn't know where her husband was, and it was too
+expensive to go to Reno.... Of course she may have found him or
+something--and got a divorce some time this last year, and this money
+she got was a settlement----"
+
+"She must have got a divorce, since she was planning to be married again
+to a young man in Hamilton," Dundee assured her soothingly.
+
+"The way everybody puts the very worst interpretation on everything,
+when a person gets murdered!" Miss Earle stormed. "If poor Nita had
+belonged to a rich family, like the girls here, they would have spent a
+million if necessary to hush up any scandal on her!... I've seen it
+done!" she added, darkly and venomously.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
+
+
+Bonnie Dundee's heart leaped, but he forced himself to go softly. "I
+suppose," he said casually, "a fashionable school like this has plenty
+of carefully hushed-up scandals----"
+
+"I'll say it has!" Miss Earle retorted inelegantly, and with ghoulish
+satisfaction. "_Money_ can do anything! It makes my blood simply boil
+when I think of how those Forsyte girls in Hamilton--so smug and
+snobbish in their hick town 'society'--must be running poor Nita down,
+now that she's dead and can't defend herself!... If the truth were only
+known about some of _them_----"
+
+Dundee could almost have embraced the homely, life-soured spinster--she
+was making his task so easy for him.
+
+"I've met them all, of course, since Mrs. Selim was murdered," he said
+deprecatingly, "and I must say they seem to be remarkably fine women and
+girls----"
+
+"Oh _are_ they?" Miss Earle snorted. "Flora Hackett--Mrs. Tracey Miles
+she is now--didn't happen to tell you the nice little fuss _she_ kicked
+up when she was here, did she? Oh, no! I guess not!"
+
+"She looks," Dundee agreed, "like a girl who would have made things
+lively."
+
+"I'll say so! Miss Pendleton nearly had nervous prostration!" Miss Earle
+plunged on, then fear blanched her face for a moment. "You know you've
+promised you'll never tell Miss Pendleton or Miss Macon that you talked
+to me!"
+
+"You can depend on it that I will protect you," Dundee assured her.
+"When did Flora Hackett kick up her little fuss?"
+
+"Let's see.... Flora graduated in June, 1920," Miss Earle obliged
+willingly. "So it must have been in 1919--yes, because she had one more
+year here. Of course they let her come back!... _Money!_... She took the
+lead in our annual Easter play in 1919, and just because Serena Hart
+complimented her and told her she was almost as good as a
+professional--"
+
+"_Serena Hart!_" Dundee wonderingly repeated the name of one of
+America's most popular and beloved stage stars.
+
+"Yes--Serena Hart," Miss Earle repeated proudly. "She was a Forsyte
+girl, too, and of course she _did_ go into the chorus herself, after she
+graduated in--let's see--1917, because it was the second year after I'd
+come to work here--and Miss Pendleton nearly died, because she was
+afraid Forsyte's precious prestige would be lowered, but when Serena
+became a star everything was grand, of course, and Forsyte was proud to
+claim her.... Anyway, Serena comes to the Easter play every year she
+can, if she isn't in a Broadway play herself, of course, and so she saw
+Flora acting in the Easter play in 1919, and told her she was awfully
+good. She was, too, but not half the actress that little Penny Crain
+was, when she had the lead in the play four or five years ago."
+
+Dundee's heart begged him to ask for more details of Penny's triumph,
+but his job demanded that he keep the now too-voluble Miss Earle to the
+business in hand.
+
+"And Flora Hackett----?" he prompted.
+
+"Well, the next day after the play the Easter vacation began, you know,
+and Flora _forged_ a letter from her father, giving her permission to
+spend the ten-days' Easter holiday with one of the girls who lived in
+Atlanta," Miss Earle continued, with great relish. "Well, sir, right in
+the middle of the holidays, here came her father and mother--they were
+both alive then--and asked for Flora! They wired the girl in Atlanta,
+and Flora wasn't there, and the Hacketts were nearly crazy. But as luck
+would have it, Mr. Hackett ran into a friend of theirs on Broadway, and
+this friend began to tease Mr. Hackett about his daughter's being a
+chorus girl!"
+
+"A chorus girl!" Dundee echoed, taking care not to show his
+disappointment.
+
+"Of course they nabbed her right out of the show, but that wasn't the
+worst of it!" Miss Earle went on dramatically and mysteriously. "They
+tried to hush it up, of course, but the word went through the school
+like wildfire that Flora wasn't only in the chorus, but that she was
+_living with an actor_ she'd been writing fan letters to long before the
+Easter play went on!"
+
+"Did you hear his name?" Dundee asked.
+
+"No," Miss Earle acknowledged regretfully. "But I'll bet anything it was
+the truth!... Why, Flora Hackett was so man-crazy she flirted
+scandalously with every male teacher in the school. The golf 'pro' we
+had then got so scared of her he quit his job!"
+
+"I suppose," Dundee prompted craftily, "she wasn't any worse than some
+of the other Hamilton girls."
+
+"We-ell," Miss Earle admitted reluctantly, "nothing ever _came out_ on
+any of the others, but it looked mighty funny to me when Janet Raymond's
+mother took her out of school right in the middle of a term and hauled
+her off to Europe _for a whole year_!... I guess,"--she suggested, with
+raised eyebrows, "you know what it _usually_ means when a girl has to
+spend a whole year abroad, and her mother says she's taking her away for
+her health--and Janet looking as healthy as any other girl in the
+school, except that she was crying half the time, and smuggling special
+delivery letters in and out by one of the maids--"
+
+"Did you tell Nita these stories and point out the pictures of the
+girls?" Dundee had to risk asking.
+
+Miss Earle froze instantly. "Naturally she was interested in the school,
+and once when she said it always made her mad the way chorus girls were
+run down, I told her that in my opinion society girls were worse than
+actresses, and--well, of course I gave her some examples, a lot of them
+worse than anything I've told you about Flora Hackett and Janet
+Raymond.... I hope," she added viciously, "that Nita dropped a hint or
+two if Flora or Janet had the nerve to high-hat her when she was in
+Hamilton!"
+
+"Perhaps she did," Dundee agreed softly. "By the way, how did Nita
+happen to get the job here of directing the Easter plays?"
+
+"That's what the reporters wanted to know," Miss Earle smiled. "But Miss
+Pendleton wouldn't tell them, for fear Serena wouldn't like it, and
+maybe be drawn into the scandal, when everybody knows she's as straight
+as a string----"
+
+"Did Serena Hart get her the job?" Dundee was amazed.
+
+"Yes.... Wait, I'll show you the letter of recommendation she wrote for
+Nita to Miss Pendleton," Miss Earle offered eagerly. "Remember, now,
+you're not to tell on me!"
+
+She went to a tall walnut filing cabinet, and quickly returned with a
+note, which she thrust into Dundee's willing hands. He read:
+
+     _"Dear Miss Pendleton: The bearer, Juanita Leigh, is rather badly
+     in need of a job, and I have suggested that she apply to you for a
+     chance to direct the Easter play. I have known Miss Leigh
+     personally for ten years, and have the highest regard, both
+     for her character and for her ability. Since you usually stage
+     musical comedies, I think Miss Leigh, who has been a specialty
+     dancer as well as an actress in musical comedy for about twelve
+     years, would be admirably suited for the work. Knowing my love
+     for Forsyte as you do, I do not have to assure you that I would
+     suggest nothing which would be detrimental to the school's best
+     interests.... Fondly yours, Serena Hart."_
+
+"She was wrong there, but I know it wasn't Nita's fault," Miss Earle,
+who had been looking over his shoulder, commented upon the last sentence
+of the letter.
+
+"Is Miss Hart appearing in a play now?" Dundee asked.
+
+"No, but she's rehearsing in one--'Temptation'--which will open at the
+Warburton Theater next Monday night," the secretary answered. "At
+commencement Tuesday night, Serena told Miss Pendleton how awfully sorry
+she was about Nita, and gave me tickets for the opening.... You go to
+see her, but don't tell her _I_ told you anything.... I know she's
+rehearsing at the theater this afternoon, because she said she would be
+all week, and couldn't go to the boat to see Miss Pendleton and Miss
+Macon off for Europe."
+
+"I will!" Dundee accepted the suggestion gratefully, as if it had not
+occurred to him. "But first I want you to come out to lunch with me. I'm
+sure you know of some nice tearoom or roadhouse in the neighborhood."
+
+During the luncheon, which Miss Earle devoured avidly, without its
+interfering with her flow of reminiscences concerning the girls she
+hated, Dundee was able to learn nothing more to the detriment of
+Forsyte's Hamilton alumnae, but he did add considerably to his knowledge
+and pity of female human nature.
+
+It was nearly three o'clock when he presented his card, with a message
+pencilled upon its back, to the aged doorkeeper who drowsed in the alley
+which led to the stage entrance of the Warburton Theater, just off
+Broadway near Times Square, and fifteen minutes later he was being
+received in the star's dressing-room by Serena Hart herself.
+
+"You're working on poor Nita's murder?" she began without preamble, as
+she seated herself at her dressing-table and indicated a decrepit chair
+for the detective. "I was wondering how much longer I could keep out of
+it.... Of course you've been pumping that poor, foolish virgin--Gladys
+Earle.... Why girls who look like that are always called _Gladys_--God!
+I'm tired! We've been at it since ten this morning, but thank the Lord
+we're through now for the day."
+
+Dundee studied her with keen interest, and decided that, almost plain
+though she was, she was even more magnetic than when seen from the
+footlights.... Rather carelessly dressed, long brown hair rather
+tousled, her face very pale and haggard without the make-up which would
+give it radiance on Monday night, Serena Hart was nevertheless one of
+the most attractive women Dundee had ever met--and one of the kindest,
+he felt suddenly sure....
+
+"When did I first meet Nita Leigh?" she repeated his question. "Let me
+think--Oh, yes! The first year after I went on the stage--1917. We were
+in the chorus together in 'Teasing Tilly'--a rotten show, by the way.
+The other girls of the chorus were awfully snooty to me, because I was
+that anathema, a 'society girl', but Nita was a darling. She showed me
+the ropes, and we became quite intimate--around the theater only,
+however, since my parents kept an awfully strict eye on me. The show was
+a great hit--ran on into 1918, till February or March, I believe."
+
+"Then do you know, Miss Hart, whether Nita got married during the
+winter?" Dundee asked.
+
+"Why, yes, she did!" Serena Hart answered, her brow clearing after a
+frown of concentration. "I can't remember exactly when, but it was
+before the show closed--certainly a few weeks before, because the poor
+child was a deserted bride days before the closing notice was posted."
+
+"Deserted!" Dundee exclaimed. "Did you meet her husband, Miss Hart?"
+
+"No," Serena Hart replied. "As a matter of fact, she told me
+extraordinarily little about him, and did not discuss her marriage with
+the other girls of the chorus at all. I got the impression that Mr.
+Selim--Mat, she called him--wanted it kept secret for a while, but I
+don't know why.... This was early in 1918, as I've told you, though I
+have no way of fixing even the approximate date, and New York was full
+of soldiers. I remember I jumped to the conclusion that Nita had
+succumbed to a war romance, but I don't think she said anything to
+confirm my suspicion."
+
+"When did she tell you of her marriage--that is, when--in relation to
+the date of the wedding itself?" Dundee asked.
+
+"The very day she was married," Serena Hart answered. "She was late for
+the matinee. Our dressing-tables were side by side, and as she slipped
+out of her dress----"
+
+"This dress?" Dundee asked, and handed her the photograph of dead Nita
+in the royal blue velvet dress she had kept for twelve years.
+
+"Yes," and Serena Hart shuddered. "And her hair was dressed like that,
+too, although she had been wearing it in long curls, and had to take it
+down before she would go on for the opening number. She whispered to me
+that she had been married that day, that she was terribly happy, very
+much in love, and that her husband had asked her to dress her hair in
+the French roll, a favorite hair-dress with him. Between numbers she
+whispered to me again, telling me that her husband was 'so different',
+'such a lamb'--totally unlike any man she had met on Broadway, poor
+child.... For she was a child still--only twenty, but she had been in
+the 'show business' since she was a motherless, fatherless little
+drifter of sixteen.... No, she did not tell me how old he was, where he
+came from, his business, or what he looked like, and I did not inquire.
+As the days passed--weeks, probably, she became more and more silent and
+reserved, though once or twice she protested she was still 'terribly
+happy.' Then came a day when she did not show up for the performance at
+all. The next night she told me--in just a few words, that her husband
+had left her, after a quarrel, and had not returned. It seems that she
+had innocently told him how she had 'vamped' Benny Steinfeld, the big
+revue producer, you know, into giving her a 'spot' in his summer show,
+and that her 'Mat' had flown into a rage, accusing her of having been
+untrue to him. She never mentioned his desertion to me again, but----"
+
+"Yes?" Dundee prompted.
+
+"Well," Serena Hart went on, uncomfortably, "I'm afraid I rather forgot
+poor Nita after 'Teasing Tilly' closed, for my next work was in stock in
+Des Moines. After a year of stock I got my chance in a legitimate show
+on Broadway, and one day I met her on the street. Not having much to
+talk with her about, I asked her if she and her husband were reconciled.
+She said no, that she had never seen him again. Then, in a burst of
+confidence, she told me that she had hired a private detective out of
+her meager earnings to investigate him in his home town, or rather the
+city he had told her he came from. The detective had reported that no
+such person as Mat or Matthew Selim had ever lived there, so far as he
+could find out. I asked her if she was going to get a divorce and she
+said she was not--that being already married was a protection against
+getting married in haste again. After that, I rather lost sight of Nita,
+and practically forgot her, our paths being so very divergent."
+
+"And you never saw her again?" Dundee asked, very much disappointed.
+
+"Oh, yes, two or three times--at openings, or on the street, but we
+never held any significant conversation," Serena Hart answered, reaching
+for her plain, rather dowdy little hat. "Wait! I was about to forget! I
+had quite a shock in connection with Nita. One afternoon--let's see,
+that was when I opened in 'Hullabaloo,' in which I made my first real
+success, you know--I bought _The New York Evening Star_, which devotes
+considerable space to theatrical doings, to see what sort of review the
+show had got, and on the first page I saw a picture of Nita, beneath a
+headline which said, 'Famous Model Commits Suicide'----"
+
+"What!" Dundee exclaimed, astounded.
+
+"Oh, it wasn't Nita Leigh," Serena Hart reassured him. "There was a
+correction the next day. You see, an artists' model named Anita
+Lee--spelled L-e-e, instead of Le-i-g-h--had committed suicide, and, as
+the _Star_ explained it the next day, the similarity of both the first
+name and the last had caused the error in getting a photograph from the
+'morgue' to accompany the story. There was a picture of Nita Leigh, with
+Nita's statement that 'the report of my death has been exaggerated,' and
+a picture of the real Anita Lee."
+
+"When did the mistake occur?" Dundee asked, in great excitement.
+
+"Let me think!" Serena Hart frowned. "'Hullabaloo' opened in--yes, about
+the first of May, 1922.... Just a little more than eight years ago."
+
+Dundee reached for his own hat, in a fever to be gone, but to his
+surprise the actress stopped him, a faint color in her pale cheeks.
+
+"Since you're from Hamilton, and are investigating the murder, you have
+undoubtedly met little Penelope Crain?"
+
+"I know her very well. It happens that she is private secretary to the
+district attorney, under whom I work.... Why?"
+
+"I saw her play the lead in the Easter show at Forsyte four or five
+years ago," Miss Hart explained, her face turned from the detective as
+she dusted it with powder, "and I was impressed with her talent. In
+fact, I advised her father, who had come from Hamilton to witness the
+performance, as proud parents are likely to do, to let her go on the
+stage."
+
+"So you met Roger Crain?" Dundee paused to ask.
+
+"Oh, yes.... A charming man, with even more personality than his
+daughter," the actress answered carelessly, so carelessly that Dundee
+had a sudden hunch.
+
+"Have you seen Mr. Crain recently?... He deserted his family and fled
+Hamilton, under rather unsavory circumstances."
+
+"What do you mean?" Miss Hart asked sharply.
+
+"Oh, there was nothing actually criminal, I suppose, but he is believed
+to have withheld some securities which would have helped satisfy his
+creditors, when bankruptcy was imminent," Dundee explained. "Have you
+seen him since then--January it was, I believe?"
+
+"January?" Miss Hart appeared to need time for reflection. "Oh, yes! He
+sent in his card on the 'first night' of my show that opened in
+January.... It was a flop--lasted only five weeks.... We chatted of the
+Forsyte girls who are now in Hamilton, most of whom I went to school
+with or have met at the Easter plays."
+
+"Do you know where Mr. Crain is now?" Dundee asked. "I have a message
+for him from Penny--if you should happen to see him again----"
+
+"Why _should_ I see him again?" Miss Hart shrugged. "And I haven't the
+least idea where he is living or what he is doing now.... Of course, if
+he should come to see me backstage after 'Temptation' opens--What is the
+message from Penny?"
+
+"That her mother wants him to come home," Dundee answered. "And I am
+very sure Penny wants him back, too.... The mother is one of the
+sweetest, gentlest, most tragic women I have ever met--and you have seen
+Penny for yourself.... The disgrace has been very hard on them. It would
+be splendid if Roger Crain would come back and redeem himself."
+
+Half an hour later Bonnie Dundee, in the file room of _The New York
+Evening Star_, was in possession of the bound volume of that newspaper
+for the month of May, 1922. On the front page of the issue of May 3,
+under the caption which Serena Hart had quoted so accurately, was a
+picture of a young, laughing Nita Leigh, her curls bobbed short, a rose
+between her gleaming teeth. And in the issue of May 4 appeared two
+pictures side by side--exotic, straight-haired, slant-eyed Anita Lee,
+who had found life so insupportable that she had ended it, and the same
+photograph of living, vital Nita Leigh.
+
+When he returned the files he asked the girl in charge:
+
+"Does this copyright line beneath this picture--" and he pointed to the
+photograph of Nita which had appeared erroneously, "--mean that the
+picture was syndicated?"
+
+The girl bent her head to see. "'Copyright by Metropolitan Picture
+Service'," she read aloud. "Yes, that's what it means. When _The Evening
+Star_ was owned by Mr. Magnus, he formed a separate company called the
+Metropolitan Picture Service, which supplied papers all over the country
+with a daily picture service, in mat form. But the picture syndicate was
+discontinued about five years ago when the paper was sold to its present
+owners."
+
+"Are their files available?" Dundee asked.
+
+"If they are, I don't know anything about it," the girl told him, and
+turned to another seeker after bound volumes of the paper.
+
+"It doesn't matter," Dundee assured her, and asked for a sheet of blank
+paper, on which he quickly composed the following telegram, addressed to
+Penny Crain:
+
+     "PLEASE SEARCH FILES ALL THREE HAMILTON PAPERS WEEK OF MAY FOURTH
+     TO ELEVENTH YEAR OF NINETEEN TWENTY TWO FOR STORY AND PICTURES ON
+     SUICIDE ANITA LEE ARTISTS MODEL STOP SAY NOTHING TO ANYONE NOT EVEN
+     SANDERSON IF HE IS THERE STOP WIRE RESULT"
+
+In his hotel, while impatiently awaiting an answer from Penny, Dundee
+passed the time by scanning all the New York papers of Thursday and
+Friday, on the chance of meeting with significant revelations concerning
+the private life of Dexter Sprague or Juanita Leigh Selim united by
+death--in the press, at least. There was much space devoted to the
+theory involving the two New Yorkers with the murder of the racketeer
+and gambler, "Swallow-tail Sammy" Savelli, but only two pieces of
+information held Dundee's interest.
+
+The first was a reminder to the public that certain theatrical columns
+of Sunday, February 9, had carried the rumor of Dexter Sprague's
+engagement to Dolly Martin, popular "baby" star of Altamont Pictures,
+and that the same columns of Tuesday, February 11, had carried Sprague's
+own denial of the engagement--Dolly having "nothing to say."
+
+"So that is why Nita tried to commit suicide on February 9--and her
+attempted suicide, with its tragic consequences for Lydia Carr, is
+probably the reason Sprague gave up his movie star," Dundee mused. "Did
+Nita let him persuade her to go into the blackmail business, in order to
+hold his wandering, mercenary affections?... Lord! The men some women
+love!"
+
+The second bit of information which the papers supplied him was winnowed
+by Dundee himself, from a news summary of Nita Leigh's last year of life
+as chorus girl, specialty dancer, "double" in pictures, and director of
+the Easter play at Forsyte-on-the-Hudson.
+
+"If Nita got a divorce or even a legal separation from her husband after
+her talk with Gladys Earle a year ago, she got it in New York and so
+secretly that no New York paper has been able to dig it up," Dundee
+concluded. "_And yet she had promised to marry Ralph Hammond!_"
+
+A bellboy with a telegram interrupted the startling new train of thought
+which that conclusion had started.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
+
+
+With a sharp exclamation of excitement and triumph, Dundee read Penny's
+telegram:
+
+     "HAMILTON EVENING SUN DATE OF MAY FIFTH NINETEEN TWENTY TWO
+     PUBLISHED STORY OF SUICIDE ANITA LEE ARTISTS MODEL BUT PICTURE
+     ACCOMPANYING WAS UNDOUBTEDLY NITA LEIGH SELIM'S STOP NO CORRECTION
+     FOLLOWED STOP WHAT DOES IT MEAN"
+
+"What does it mean?" Dundee repeated exultantly to himself. "It means,
+my darling little Penny, that _anyone in Hamilton who had any interest
+in the matter believed Nita Leigh Selim was dead, and thought the
+spelling of her name was wrong, not the picture itself_!... The question
+is _who_ read that story and gazed on that picture with exquisite
+relief?"
+
+Two hours before he had dismissed as impossible or highly impractical
+his impulse to investigate the eleven-year-old scandal on Flora Hackett,
+who was now Flora Miles, as told him by Gladys Earle of the Forsyte
+School. Even more difficult would it be to find out why Janet Raymond's
+mother had taken her abroad for a year. Of course--he had ruefully told
+himself--Nita Leigh might have been lucky--or unlucky enough to run
+across documentary proof of one of the scandals of which Gladys Earle
+had told her, or had dared to blackmail her victim by dark hints, as
+Miss Earle had unconsciously suggested to her.
+
+But this new development could not be ignored. A picture of Nita Leigh
+as a suicide had appeared eight years ago in a Hamilton paper, and the
+paper had either remained unaware of the error or had thought it not
+worth the space for a correction.... _Eight years ago!..._
+
+Eight years ago in June three weddings had occurred in Hamilton! The
+Dunlap, the Miles, the Drake wedding. And within the last year and a
+half Judge Marshall, after proposing season after season to the most
+popular debutante, had married lovely little Karen Plummer. Suddenly a
+sentence from Ralph Hammond's story of his engagement to Nita Leigh
+Selim popped up in Dundee's memory: "And once I got cold-sick because I
+thought she might still be married, but she said her husband had married
+again, and I wasn't to ask questions or worry about him."
+
+If Ralph Hammond had reported Nita accurately she had not said she was
+_divorced_. She had merely said her husband was _married again_! Why was
+Ralph to ask no questions? Divorced wives were not usually so
+reticent....
+
+Had Nita planned to commit the crime of bigamy? If not, when and where
+and how had she secured a divorce?
+
+To Serena Hart, years before, she had denied any intention of getting a
+divorce, for two reasons--_because she did not know where her husband
+was_, and because, being married although husbandless, was a protection
+against matrimonial temptations.
+
+To Gladys Earle, a year ago in April, she had confided that she could
+not marry again, because she was not divorced and because she did not
+know the whereabouts of her husband.
+
+And so far as New York reporters had been able to find out, Nita Leigh
+had done nothing to alter her status as a married woman during the past
+year. Moreover, if Nita had secured either a divorce or a legal
+separation, her "faithful and beloved maid," Lydia Carr, would certainly
+have known of it. And Lydia had vehemently protested more than once to
+Bonnie Dundee that she knew nothing of Nita's husband, although she had
+worked for the musical comedy dancer for five years. Surely if Nita,
+loving and trusting Lydia as she did, had entered into negotiations of
+any kind with or concerning her husband during the last year, her maid
+would have been the first to know of them. And yet----
+
+Suddenly Dundee jumped to his feet and began to pace the floor of his
+hotel bedroom. He was remembering the belated confidence that John C.
+Drake, banker, had made to him the morning before--after the discovery
+of Dexter Sprague's murder. He recalled Drake's reluctant statement
+almost word for word:
+
+"About that $10,000 which Nita deposited with our bank, Dundee.... When
+she made the first deposit of $5,000 on April 28, she explained it with
+an embarrassed laugh as 'back alimony', an instalment of which she had
+succeeded in collecting from her former husband. And, naturally, when
+she made the second deposit on May 5, I presumed the same explanation
+covered that sum, too, though I confess I was puzzled by the fact that
+both big deposits had been made in cash."
+
+_In cash!_
+
+Had Nita, by any chance, been telling a near-truth? Had she been
+blackmailing her own husband--a husband who had dared marry again,
+believing his deserted wife to be dead--and justifying herself by
+calling it "back alimony?"
+
+But--wasn't it, in reality, no matter what coercion Nita had used in
+getting the money, exactly that?... _Back alimony! And the price of her
+silence before the world and the wife who was not really a wife...._
+
+In a new light, Bonnie Dundee studied the character of the woman who had
+been murdered--possibly to make her silence eternal.
+
+Lois Dunlap had liked, even loved her. The other women and girls of "the
+crowd"--that exclusive, self-centered clique of Hamilton's most socially
+prominent women--must have liked her fairly well and found her
+congenial, in spite of their jealousy of her popularity with the men of
+the crowd, or they would not have tolerated her, regardless of Lois
+Dunlap's championship of her protegee.
+
+Gladys Earle had found her "the sweetest, kindest, most generous person
+I ever met"--Gladys Earle, who envied and hated all girls who were more
+fortunate than she.
+
+Serena Hart, former member of New York's Junior League and still listed
+in the Social Register, had found her the only congenial member of the
+chorus she had invaded as the first step toward stardom. And Serena Hart
+had the reputation of being a woman of character and judgment, a kind
+and wise and great woman....
+
+Finally, Ralph Hammond had loved Nita and wanted to marry her.
+
+Was it possible that Nita Selim's only crime, into which she had been
+led by her infatuation for Dexter Sprague, had been to demand, secretly,
+financial compensation from a husband who had married and deserted her,
+a husband who, believing her dead, had married again?
+
+But who was the man whose picture--to spin a new theory--Nita had
+recognized as that of her husband among the male members of the cast of
+"The Beggar's Opera," when Lois Dunlap had proudly exhibited the
+"stills" of that amateur performance?
+
+With excitement hammering at his pulses, Dundee took the bunch of
+photographs which Lois Dunlap had willingly given him, and studied the
+picture that contained the entire cast--the picture which had first
+attracted Nita's attention. And again despair overwhelmed him, for every
+one of his possible male suspects was in that group....
+
+But he could not keep his thoughts from racing on.... Men who stepped
+out of their class and went on parties with chorus girls frequently did
+so under assumed names, he reflected. Serena Hart was authority for the
+information that Nita's had been a sudden marriage. Was it not entirely
+possible that the man who married Nita in 1918 had done so half-drunk,
+both on liquor and infatuation, and that he had not troubled to explain
+to Nita his motives for having used an assumed name or to write in his
+real name on the application for a marriage license? Had Nita's private
+detective journeyed out to _Hamilton_ years ago in a fruitless attempt
+to locate "Matthew Selim?"
+
+Bonnie Dundee lay awake for hours Friday night turning these and a
+hundred other questions over and over in his too-active mind, and slept
+at last, only to awake Saturday with a plan of procedure which he was
+sensible enough to realize promised small chance of success.
+
+And he was right. Not in Manhattan, or in any of the other boroughs of
+New York City, did he find any record of a marriage license issued to
+Juanita Leigh and Matthew Selim. Not only was it entirely probable that
+Juanita Leigh was a stage name and that Nita had married conscientiously
+under her real name, but it was equally possible that the license had
+been secured in New Jersey or Connecticut.
+
+When he gave up his quest at noon Saturday and returned to his hotel,
+Dundee bought at the newsstand a paper whose headline convinced him that
+Sergeant Turner was, at that moment, even more discouraged than himself.
+For the big type told the world:
+
+     JOE SAVELLI "GETS" BROTHER'S SLAYER
+
+And smaller headlines informed the sensation-loving public:
+
+     "SWALLOW-TAIL SAMMY" SAVELLI'S DEATH AVENGED BY BROTHER WHO
+     SURRENDERS TO POLICE; "SLICK" THOMPSON, ALLEGED MEMBER OF SAMMY'S
+     GANG, SHOT TO DEATH ON SIXTH AVENUE.
+
+Still smaller head-type acknowledged that Joe Savelli, after giving
+himself up, with a revolver in his hand, had disclaimed any knowledge of
+or connection with the murders of Juanita Leigh Selim and Dexter
+Sprague.
+
+Two hours later, Dundee received a long telegram from District Attorney
+Sanderson:
+
+     "INFORMED BY EVENING SUN SAVELLI ANGLE COMPLETE WASHOUT STOP HAVE
+     YOU MADE ANY PROGRESS ALONG OTHER LINES STOP HAVE INFORMED
+     REPORTERS YOU WORKING INDEPENDENTLY WITH STRONG CHANCE OF SOLVING
+     BOTH CASES STOP WOULD LIKE YOU HERE FOR ADJOURNED INQUESTS ON BOTH
+     MURDERS MONDAY STOP MOTHER IMPROVED AM ON JOB AGAIN"
+
+Since Dundee felt that there was little chance of following through
+either on the scandals which Gladys Earle had hinted at, or on Nita's
+strangely secret marriage of twelve years before, he immediately
+dispatched a wire to Sanderson, assuring him that vital progress had
+been made and that he would leave New York on the four o'clock train
+west, arriving in Hamilton Sunday morning at 8:50. The concluding
+sentence of the wire was:
+
+     "SUGGEST YOU PACIFY PRESS WITH ONLY VAGUEST OF HINTS."
+
+Sanderson's wire, with its confession of an interview on Dundee's trip
+to New York, had upset him and left him with a cold, sick feeling of
+fear that, stumbling half in darkness, the district attorney had
+unwittingly warned the murderer of Nita Selim and Dexter Sprague that
+his special investigator was on the right track. But he consoled himself
+with the hope that the final sentence of his answering telegram would
+prevent any further damage.
+
+But he was wrong. An hour before he reached his destination on Sunday
+morning he went into the dining car and found a copy of _The Hamilton
+Morning News_ beside his plate. And on the front page was a photograph
+of dead Nita, her black hair in a French roll, her slim, recumbent body
+clad in the royal blue velvet dress. Beneath the picture was the
+caption:
+
+"What part does the outmoded royal blue velvet dress which Nita Selim
+chose as a shroud play in the solution of her murder?... That is the
+question which Special Investigator Dundee, attached to the district
+attorney's office, who is due home this morning from fruitful detective
+work in New York, is undoubtedly prepared to answer."
+
+Dundee was still seething with futile rage when he climbed the stairs to
+his apartment. On the floor just inside his living room door he found an
+envelope--unstamped and bearing his name in typing.
+
+The note inside, on paper as plain as the envelope, was typed and
+unsigned.
+
+"If Detective Dundee will consult page 410 of the latest WHO'S WHO IN
+AMERICA, he will find a tip which should aid him materially in solving
+the two murder cases which seem to be proving too difficult for his
+inexperience."
+
+A wry grin at his anonymous correspondent's unfriendly gibe was just
+twisting his lips when a double knock sounded on the living room door,
+which he had not completely closed.
+
+"Come in, Belle!"
+
+A morose, slack-mouthed mulatto girl in ancient felt slippers sidled
+into the room.
+
+"Howdy, Mistah Dundee," Belle greeted him listlessly. "You got back, lak
+de papers said you would, didn' yuh? An' I ain't sayin' I ain't glad!
+Dat parrot o' yoahs sho is Gawd's own nuisance--nippin' at mah fingahs
+an' screechin' his fool head off.... 'Cose I ain't sayin' it's
+_his_ fault--keepin' dat young gemman on de secon' flo' awake las'
+night.... But lak I say to Mistah Wilson, when he lights into me dis
+mawnin', runnin' off at de mouf 'cause I fo'got to put Cap'n's covah on
+his cage las' night, I ain't de onliest one what fo'gits in dis hyar
+house.... Comin' home Gawd knows when, leavin' de front do' unlocked de
+res' o' de night, so's bugglers and murderers and Gawd knows who could
+walk right in hyar----"
+
+Dundee, itching to consult his own copy of "Who's Who", flung a glance
+at the parrot's cage, intending to pacify the mournful mulatto by
+scolding his "Watson" roundly. But he changed his mind and consoled the
+chambermaid instead:
+
+"Just tell Mr. Wilson that for once he's wrong. You did _not_ forget to
+cover Cap'n's cage, Belle. Look!"
+
+The girl's dull eyes bulged as they took in the cage, completely swathed
+in a square of black silk.
+
+"Gawd's sake, Mistah Dundee!" she ejaculated. "_I_ didn't put dat covah
+on dat bird's cage! An' neithah did Mis' Bowen, 'cause she been laid up
+with rheumatiz eveh since you lef, an' eveh las' endurin' thing in dis
+ol' house has been lef fo' me to do!"
+
+"Then I suppose the indignant Mr. Wilson came up and covered Cap'n
+himself," Dundee suggested, crossing the room to the bookcase which
+stood within reaching distance of his big leather-covered armchair.
+
+"Him?" Belle snorted. "How he gonna get in hyer widout no key? 'Sides,
+he'd a-tol' me if'n----"
+
+"Belle, how many times must I ask you not to misplace my things?" Dundee
+cut in irritably, for he was tired of the discussion, and angry that his
+copy of "Who's Who" was missing from its customary place in the
+bookcase.
+
+"Me?... I ain't teched none o' yoah things, 'cep'n to dus' 'em and lay
+'em down whar I foun' 'em," Belle retorted, mournfulness submerged in
+anger.
+
+Dundee looked about the room, then his eyes alighted upon the missing
+book, lying upon a shelf that extended across the top of an
+old-fashioned hot-air register, set high in the wall between the two
+windows. The thick red volume lay close against the wall, its
+gold-lettered "rib" facing the room.
+
+"Belle, tell me the truth, and I shall not be angry: did you put that
+red book on that shelf?" Dundee asked, his voice steady and kindly in
+spite of his excitement.
+
+"Nossuh! I ain't teched it!"
+
+"And you did not put the cover over my parrot's cage, although I had
+tipped you well to feed Cap'n and cover him at night," Dundee said
+severely.
+
+"I gotta heap o' wuk to do----"
+
+"And you say that Mr. Wilson, one of the two young men on the second
+floor, left the front door unlocked when he came in last night?" Dundee
+asked. "Does he admit it?"
+
+"Yassuh," Belle told him sulkily. "He say he was tiahed when he got home
+'long 'bout midnight, an' he clean fo'got to turn de key in de do' an'
+shoot de bolt."
+
+"Thanks, Belle. That will be all now," and Dundee did a great deal to
+dispel the chambermaid's gloom by presenting her with a dollar bill.
+
+When she had gone, the detective read the note again, then looked
+at it and its envelope more closely. They had a strangely familiar
+look.... Suddenly he jerked open a drawer of his desk, on which his new
+noiseless typewriter stood, selected a sheet of plain white bond, and
+rolled it into the machine. Quickly he tapped out a copy of the strange,
+taunting message.
+
+Yes! The left-hand margin was identical, the typing and its degree of
+blackness were identical, and the paper on which he had made the copy
+was exactly the same as that on which the original had been written.
+
+The truth flashed into his mind. It was no coincidence that he had a
+copy of the very book to which his unknown correspondent referred him.
+For the note had been written in this very room, on stationery
+conveniently at hand, on the noiseless typewriter which had been far
+more considerate about not betraying the intruder than had the parrot
+whose slumbers had been disturbed.
+
+"But why did my unknown friend risk arrest as a burglar if he wanted to
+give me an honest tip?" Dundee remarked aloud to the parrot, who croaked
+an irrelevant answer:
+
+"Bad Penny! Bad Penny!"
+
+"I'm afraid, 'my dear Watson,' that those words will not be so helpful
+in this case as they were when your mistress was murdered," Dundee
+assured his parrot absently, for he was studying the peculiar situation
+from every angle. "Another question, Cap'n--why did the unknown bother
+to take my 'Who's Who' out of the bookcase, where I should normally have
+looked for it, and put it on that particular shelf?"
+
+Warily, for his scalp was prickling with a premonition of danger, Dundee
+crossed the room to the shelf, but his hand did not reach out for the
+red book, which might have been expected to solve one problem, at least.
+"_Why the shelf?_" he asked himself again. Why not the desk top, or the
+mantelpiece, or the smoking table beside the big armchair?
+
+The shelf, with its drapery of rather fine old silk tapestry, offered no
+answer in itself, for it held nothing except the red book, a Chinese
+bowl, and a humidor of tobacco. And beneath the shelf was nothing but
+the old-fashioned register, the opening covered with a screwed-on metal
+screen which was a mass of big holes to permit the escape of hot air
+when the furnace was going in the winter....
+
+Suddenly Dundee stooped and stared with eyes that were widened with
+excitement and a certain amount of horror. Then he rose, and, standing
+far to one side, picked up the fat volume which lay on the shelf. As he
+had expected, a bullet whizzed noiselessly across the room and buried
+itself in the plaster of the wall opposite--a bullet which would have
+ploughed through his own heart if he had obeyed his first impulse and
+gone directly to the shelf to obey the instructions in the note.
+
+But more had happened than the whizzing flight of a bullet through one
+of the holes of the hot-air register. The "Who's Who" had been jerked
+almost out of Dundee's hand before he had lifted the heavy volume many
+inches from the shelf. Coincidental with the disappearance of a bit of
+white string which had been pinned to a thin page of the book was a
+metallic clatter, followed swiftly by the faint sound of a bump far
+below.
+
+Dropping "Who's Who" to the floor, Dundee flung open his living room
+door and raced down three flights of stairs. He brought up, panting, at
+the door of the basement. It was not locked and in another minute he was
+standing before the big hot-air furnace. Above the fire box was a big
+metal compartment--the reservoir for the heated air. And set into the
+reservoir, to conduct the heat to the regions above, were three huge
+pipes.
+
+With strength augmented by excitement, Dundee tugged and tore at one of
+the pipes until he had dislodged it. Then thrusting his hand into the
+heat reservoir, he groped until he had found what he had known must be
+there--_Judge Marshall's automatic, with the Maxim silencer screwed upon
+the end of its short nose_.
+
+At last he held in his hands the weapon with which Nita Leigh Selim and
+Dexter Sprague had been murdered.
+
+The ingeniousness of his own attempted murder moved him to such profound
+admiration that he could scarcely feel resentment. If, in the excitement
+of hunting for a promised clue, he had gone directly to the shelf,
+standing in front of the hole in the register into which the end of the
+silencer had been jammed, so that it showed scarcely at all, even to
+eyes looking for it, he would now have been dead. And the gun and
+silencer, after hurtling down the big hot-air pipe behind the register,
+could have lain hidden for months, even years, in the heat reservoir of
+the furnace.
+
+With the weapon carefully wrapped in his handkerchief, Dundee went up
+the stairs almost as swiftly as he had gone down them, meeting no one on
+the way to his rooms on the top floor.
+
+"My most heartfelt thanks to you, Cap'n!" he greeted his parrot. "If you
+had not squawked last night and so frightened the murderer that he made
+the vital error of covering your cage, I should never have annoyed you
+again with my Sherlock ruminations on cases which do not interest you in
+the slightest."
+
+The parrot cackled hoarsely, but Dundee paid him scant attention. He
+picked up the now harmless "Who's Who" and turned to page 410, a corner
+of which had disappeared with the string that was still fastened to the
+hair-trigger hammer of the Colt's .32. Very clever and very simple! The
+murderer of two people and the would-be murderer of a third had had only
+to unscrew the metal covering of the register, wedge the end of the
+silencer into one of the many holes, replace the screws, and paste the
+end of the string, drawn through another hole hidden by the tapestry, to
+a page of the book he had selected as the one most likely to appeal to a
+detective as a clue source....
+
+No, wait! He had had to do more! Dundee bent and examined the metal
+cover of the register. The circumference of the hole the murderer had
+chosen as the one which would be directly in front of Dundee's heart
+gleamed brightly. It had been necessary to enlarge it considerably. _The
+murderer had left a trace after all!_
+
+But the book was open in Dundee's hands and his eyes rapidly scanned
+page 410. And he found what the murderer had not expected him to live to
+read, but which he had counted on as an explanation of the note which
+the police would have puzzled over, if all had gone well with his
+scheme....
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
+
+
+Dundee laughed, the parrot which had saved his life echoing his mirth
+raucously, as his eyes hit upon the following lines of fine print
+halfway down the third column of page 410 of "Who's Who in America":
+
+     BURNS, William John, detective; b. Baltimore, Oct. 19, 1861--
+
+"A taunt and a joke which turned sour, 'my dear Watson'!" he exulted to
+the parrot. "A joke I was not intended to live to laugh over!"
+
+He closed the book and replaced it in the bookcase, careless of
+fingerprints, for he was sure the murderer had been too clever to leave
+any behind him in that room--or upon the gun and silencer either, for
+that matter.
+
+Interestedly, Dundee surveyed the scene of his attempted murder. If he
+had unsuspectingly gone up to the high shelf to reach for the book he
+would have stood so close to the register that there would have been
+powder burns on his shirt front--just as there had been on Dexter
+Sprague's. And he would have been shot so near an open window--no chance
+for fingerprints there, either, since he had not closed the windows on
+his departure for New York, not wishing to return to a stuffy
+apartment--that the police would have been justified in thinking he had
+been shot from outside. It was an old-fashioned house in more ways than
+in the manner of its heating. Outside of one of his two unscreened
+windows there was an iron grating--the topmost landing of a fire escape.
+Dundee could imagine Captain Strawn's positiveness in placing the
+murderer there--crouching in wait for his victim....
+
+Yes, damned ingenious, this attempted murder! Undoubtedly Strawn would
+have dismissed the note as the work of a crank, not hitting upon the
+fact that it had been written in that very room, on Dundee's own
+typewriter and stationery. Strawn might even have got a mournful sort of
+amusement out of the fact that Dundee had been advised to call upon a
+greater detective than himself for assistance!... Yes, ingenious indeed!
+And so amazingly simple----
+
+Suddenly the young detective snatched for his hat. If the murderer was
+so ingenious in this case, might he not have been equally clever in
+planning and executing the murder of Nita Leigh Selim?
+
+Twenty minutes later he parked his car in the rutty road before the
+Selim house in Primrose Meadows, and honked his horn loudly to attract
+the attention of the plainclothesmen Captain Strawn had detailed
+immediately after the murder to guard the premises during the day. There
+was no answer. And a violent ringing of the doorbell also brought no
+response. The guard had been withdrawn, probably to join the small army
+of plainclothesmen and patrolmen who had been foolishly and futilely
+searching for the New York gunman--the keystone of Captain Strawn's
+exploded theory.
+
+With an oath, Dundee used his skeleton key to release the Yale lock with
+which the front door was equipped. Straight down the main hall he went
+and into the little foyer between the hall and Nita's bedroom. He
+snatched up the telephone and to his relief it was not dead. He gave the
+number of Captain Strawn's home, and had the pleasure of learning that
+he had interrupted his former chief at a late Sunday breakfast.
+
+"When did you withdraw the guard from the Selim house?" he asked
+abruptly, cutting short Strawn's cordial welcome-home.
+
+"Late Thursday afternoon," the Chief of the Homicide Squad answered
+belligerently. "I needed all my men, and the Selim house had been gone
+over with a fine tooth comb half a dozen times.... Why?"
+
+"Oh, nothing!" Dundee retorted wearily, and hung up the receiver after
+assuring his old friend that he would call on him later in the day.
+
+No use to explain now to Strawn that the murderer had been given every
+chance to remove any betraying traces of his crime. Besides, his first
+excited hunch, after his own attempted murder, might very well be a
+wild, groundless one. In his--Dundee's case--the impossibility of the
+murder's being delayed or arranged so that the detective might be slain
+when the whole "crowd" was assembled was obvious. The murderer had read
+in a late Saturday afternoon extra--a copy of which was now in Dundee's
+pocket--District Attorney Sanderson's boast to the press that his office
+had been working on an entirely different theory than that which
+connected the two murders with "Swallow-tail Sammy," that Special
+Investigator Dundee, _expected back in Hamilton early Sunday morning_,
+had been investigating Nita Leigh's past life in New York. And despite
+Dundee's telegraphed warning, he had hinted sensational revelations
+connected with the twelve-year-old royal blue velvet dress which Nita
+had chosen to be her shroud. And in his desire to reassure the public
+through the press, Sanderson had mysteriously promised even more
+specific revelations than Dundee had actually brought home with him.
+Prodded by reporters, Sanderson had admitted that he did not himself
+know the nature of those revelations.
+
+The exasperated young detective could picture the murderer reading those
+sensational hints and promises, could imagine his panic, the need for
+immediate action, so that Special Investigator Dundee should not live to
+tell the tale of his New York discoveries to the district attorney or
+anyone else.
+
+But whether he was right or wrong, Dundee determined to give his hunch a
+chance. He went into the over-ornate bedroom in which Nita Leigh Selim
+had been murdered--shot through the back as she sat at her
+dressing-table powdering her face. If her murder had been accomplished
+by mechanical means, how had it been done? There was no hot-air register
+here....
+
+From the dressing-table Dundee walked to the window, upon whose
+pale-green frame there was still the tiny pencil mark which Dr. Price
+had drawn, to indicate the end of the path along which the bullet had
+traveled, provided it had traveled so far. Nothing _here_ to aid in a
+mechanical murder--
+
+But in a flash Dundee changed his mind. For just slightly above the
+pencil mark there was a small dent in the soft painted pine of the
+window frame.
+
+And before his mind could frame words and sentences he thought he saw
+how Nita Leigh had been murdered.
+
+Nothing here?... _Not now, because he himself had taken the lamp to the
+courthouse for safe-keeping._
+
+He saw it clearly in imagination--that bronze floor-lamp which Lydia
+Carr had given to Nita Leigh, its big round bowl studded with great
+jewels of colored glass. And in recalling every detail of the lamp he
+saw what he had dismissed as of no importance at the time, in the
+excitement of finding that the lamp's bulb had been shattered by the
+"bang or bump" which Flora Miles had described. _One of the big glass
+jewels had been missing, leaving an unsightly hole._
+
+No wonder there had been a "bang or bump" hard enough to dent the frame
+of the window! For if his hunch was correct, the gun, wedged into the
+big bowl, with the silencer slightly protruding from the jewel-hole, had
+"kicked," just as it had kicked an hour before, when it had dislodged
+itself from the hole in the hot-air register and clattered down the big
+pipe to the heat reservoir of the furnace.
+
+That the big lamp, when he, following Strawn, had first examined the
+scene of Nita's murder, had not stood in front of the window frame, did
+not dampen Dundee's excitement in the least. After Karen Marshall's
+scream that room had been filled with excited people, who had rushed
+about, looking out of the window for the murderer and doing all the
+other things which terror-stricken people do in such a crisis. No, the
+murderer--or murderess--had found no difficulty in shifting the big lamp
+one foot nearer the chaise longue, to the place it had always occupied
+before.
+
+But--_how_ had the gun been fired from the lamp? Electrically? Another
+picture flashed into Dundee's mind. He saw himself stooping, on Monday
+afternoon, to see if the plug of the lamp's cord had been pulled from
+the socket, saw it again as it was then--nearly out, so that no current
+could pass from the baseboard outlet under the bookcase into the bronze
+lamp. How far from the truth his conclusion that Monday had been!
+
+But what was the _real_ truth?
+
+Suddenly Dundee flung back the moss-green Wilton rug which almost
+entirely covered the bedroom floor and revealed the bell which Dexter
+Sprague had rigged up so that Nita might summon Lydia from her basement
+room, in case of dire need--a precaution with which the murderer was
+probably familiar, since Lois Dunlap might innocently have spread the
+news of its existence.
+
+There was a half-inch hole in the hardwood floor, and out of it issued a
+length of green electric cord, connected with two small, flat metal
+plates, one upon the other, so that when stepped upon a bell would ring
+in Lydia's basement room.
+
+But there was something odd about the wire. Although it was obviously
+new, a section of it near the two metal plates was wrapped with black
+adhesive tape. Another memory knocked for attention upon Dundee's mind.
+_The long cord of the bronze lamp had been mended with exactly the same
+sort of tape--about a foot from where it ended in the contact plug._
+
+Within another two minutes, Dundee, with a flashlight he had found in
+the kitchen, was exploring the dark, earthy portion of the basement
+which lay directly to the east of Lydia Carr's basement room. And he
+found what he was looking for--adhesive tape wrapped about the wire
+which had been dropped through the floor of Nita's room before it had
+been carried, by means of another hole, into Lydia's room.
+
+He was too late--thanks to Captain Strawn. The bell which Sprague had
+rigged up was in working order again. But as he was passing out of the
+basement he glanced at the ceiling of the large room devoted to furnace,
+hot-water heater and laundry tubs. And in the ceiling he saw a hole....
+
+The murderer had left a trace he could not obliterate!
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+At three o'clock that Sunday afternoon Bonnie Dundee, fatigued after a
+strenuous day, and suffering, to his own somewhat disgusted amusement,
+from reaction--even a detective feels some shock at having narrowly
+escaped death--permitted himself the luxury of a call upon Penny Crain.
+
+He found the girl and her mother playing anagrams. After greeting him,
+Mrs. Crain rose, to surrender her place to the visitor.
+
+"_You_ play with this girl of mine, Mr. Dundee. She's too clever for me!
+She's beaten me every game so far, and when I plead for two-handed
+bridge as a chance to get even, she shudders at the very word."
+
+"Why did you drag poor Ralph away from his dinner here today?" Penny
+demanded, scrambling the little wooden blocks until they made a weird
+pattern of letters.
+
+"Because I wanted to find out exactly _how_ Nita Selim was killed--and I
+did," Dundee answered. "I wish I knew as well _who_ murdered her!"
+
+Mute before Penny's excited questions, the detective idly selected
+letters from the mass of face-up blocks on the table, and spelled out,
+in a long row, the names of all the guests at Nita's fatal bridge party.
+Suddenly, and with a cry that startled Penny, Dundee made a new name
+with the little wooden letters....
+
+Now he knew the answers to both "_How?_" and "_Who?_"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
+
+
+"I fail to see any necessity for all this secrecy and hocus-pocus,"
+District Attorney Sanderson protested irritably. "Why the devil don't
+you come clean and give us the low-down--if you have it!--on this
+miserable business, instead, of high-handedly summoning Captain Strawn
+to my office, so that you can give orders to us both?"
+
+Before Dundee could answer, Captain Strawn came to his assistance.
+
+"I worked with this boy for pretty near a year, Bill, and never yet did
+he fail to make good when he said he had a pot on to boil. If he says it
+will boil over this evening, provided we help him, boil over it will, or
+I don't know Bonnie Dundee!"
+
+Sanderson scowled but capitulated. "All right! What do you want?"
+
+"Thanks, chief! And thanks, Captain!" Dundee cried, with heartfelt
+gratitude. "First, I want to be excused from attending the adjourned
+inquests into the two murders, scheduled for three o'clock today."
+
+"O.K." Sanderson agreed shortly.
+
+"Second, after about an hour of routine stuff, I wish you'd ask for
+another adjournment until tomorrow, on the plea that important
+developments are expected today."
+
+"O.K. again!"
+
+"Third, I'd like you personally to request the appearance of every
+person connected in any way with each of the murders, in your office
+this afternoon at four o'clock--so the whole bunch will be kept together
+and have no chance to go to their homes or anywhere else until I am
+ready for them. You can say that, owing to the illness of your mother
+during the investigations, you want to question everyone personally."
+
+"Do you want all the servants brought here, too?" Sanderson asked.
+
+"None but Lydia Carr," Dundee answered. "After about an hour's innocuous
+questioning, please invite them to accompany you to the Selim house. For
+that--" and he grinned, "--is where the pot is scheduled to boil over.
+I'd like everybody to be there by 5:15."
+
+"Where do I come in?" Captain Strawn demanded, almost jealously.
+
+"Now that you are no longer looking for a New York gunman, I suppose you
+have plenty of plainclothesmen at your disposal?" Dundee asked, and was
+instantly sorry he had reminded his former chief of the collapse of his
+cherished and satisfying theory.
+
+"Plenty," Strawn answered gruffly. "How many will you need?"
+
+"Enough to keep every person on Mr. Sanderson's invitation list under
+strictest observation until--the pot boils over," Dundee replied.
+
+"When do you want them to get on the job?"
+
+"As soon as they can do so, after you get back to your office."
+
+"Are they to follow the whole gang clear out to the Selim house?"
+
+"Most decidedly! After the unwilling guests are safely within the house,
+your boys must guard the premises so that _no one_ leaves without
+permission."
+
+"That's all as good as done," Strawn assured him. "Now--about them
+inquiries you asked me to make yesterday of the secretary of the
+American Legion." He drew a scrap of paper from his breast pocket. "I
+find that John Drake, Peter Dunlap and Clive Hammond were all in
+service, in the ----th Division, which was held up late in January,
+1918, for nearly two weeks, in Hoboken, before the War Department could
+get transports to send 'em to France. Miles, who enlisted the day war
+was declared, was wounded and shipped home late in 1917. He was
+discharged as unfit for further service--spinal operation--from a New
+Jersey base hospital on January 12, 1918. Furthermore, Judge Marshall
+was in New York the whole winter of 1917-'18, attached to the Red Cross
+in some legal capacity. He donated his services and--"
+
+"All that doesn't matter now, Captain, but thanks just the same," Dundee
+interrupted. "Now if you will both excuse me, I've got a lot of work to
+do before five o'clock today!"
+
+Dundee had not exaggerated. That Monday was one of the busiest days he
+had ever spent in all the twenty-seven years of his life. He began,
+rather strangely, by visiting half a dozen of Hamilton's hardware
+stores, exhibiting a peculiar instrument and making annoying inquiries
+as to when and to whom it had been sold. But at his sixth port of call
+success so completely rewarded his efforts that he was jubilant when he
+bade the mystified proprietor good day, a signed statement reposing in
+his wallet.
+
+Two other calls--both in office buildings--took up only an hour of his
+time, and a taxicab delivered him at Police Headquarters just as the
+factory whistles were sirening the news that it was twelve o'clock.
+
+He was lucky enough to find the fingerprint expert, Carraway, in his
+cubbyhole of an office, his desk almost crowded out by immense filing
+cabinets.
+
+Five minutes later Dundee sat at that desk, photographs of Dexter
+Sprague's dead body, just as it had been discovered on the floor of the
+trophy room in the Miles home, and a labelled set of fingerprints spread
+out before him.
+
+"You're sure there can have been no mistake?" he asked. "No chance that
+these fingerprint photographs were _reversed_ when the prints were
+made?"
+
+"Not a chance--with my system!" Carraway retorted positively.
+
+"Fine!" Dundee cried. "May I take these photographs?... You have copies,
+I presume?"
+
+It was half past two o'clock when Dundee, after a much needed lunch,
+parked his car in the driveway of one of the most splendid houses
+overlooking Mirror Lake--a home whose master and mistress were now
+attending an inquest into two murders....
+
+Half an hour later he climbed into his roadster again, his head
+spinning. "Did I say _ingenious_?" he marvelled....
+
+He drove directly to the Selim house, for he had much to do before the
+arrival of Sanderson's compulsory guests at 5:15.
+
+His first visit there was to a small room in the basement--a dark
+cubbyhole next to the coal room. He had locked it carefully after
+exploring it the day before, for he had taken no chance on leaving
+unguarded--as he had found it--treasure worth more to him than its
+weight in gold.
+
+And queer treasure it was that he extracted now--a coiled length of
+electric wire, which he and Ralph Hammond had measured the day before,
+with triumphant excitement; a box of thumb tacks, many of them
+surprisingly bent at the point; an augur with a set of bits of varying
+sizes, a step-ladder, and a hammer. If Dexter Sprague had not
+overestimated the amount of electric wire needed for the job of
+installing an alarm bell between Nita's bedroom and Lydia's.... Dundee
+was about to close the tool chest when his eyes fell upon a piece of
+hardware he had not expected ever to find, although he had known of its
+existence for more than an hour.
+
+At 5:15 he was entirely ready for D. A. Sanderson, Captain Strawn and
+their party of indignant and unwilling guests....
+
+"Oh, Mr. Dundee!" Carolyn Drake squealed. "You're not going to make us
+play that awful 'death hand' again, are you?"
+
+They were all crowding about him--the men and women who had been Nita
+Selim's guests at her last bridge and cocktail party....
+
+"Not only are the bridge tables exactly where they were at this time on
+the evening of May 24," Dundee answered _so_ significantly that all
+stopped chattering to listen, "_but everything else in the house is
+precisely as it was then_. Fortunately, not even the _electricity_ has
+been cut off! But to make sure I have forgotten nothing, I wish you
+would all follow me into Mrs. Selim's bedroom and look for yourselves."
+
+Like sheep, they crowded into the little foyer and on into the bedroom.
+There stood the big bronze lamp, set squarely in front of the window
+frame and in a direct line with the musical powder box on dead Nita's
+dressing table.
+
+At 5:25, Penny Crain, Karen Marshall, Carolyn Drake, and Flora Miles,
+who had been requisitioned by Dundee to play the part of the murdered
+woman, were seated at table No. 2, and behind Karen's chair stood Lois
+Dunlap. Clive Hammond and his new wife were again together in the
+solarium. But there Dundee's restaging of the original scene in the
+tragic drama ended. Everyone else, including Lydia Carr and Peter
+Dunlap, were huddled together in a far corner of the living room.
+
+"Now, Mr. Miles!" Dundee called. "Your cue! Never mind the comedy about
+'How's tricks?' Simply go into the dining room, with Mrs. Dunlap, to mix
+cocktails. You'll find all the ingredients still on the sideboard,
+exactly as there were when Mrs. Selim sent you to mix drinks on May
+24.... And Mrs. Miles, will you, pretending that you are Nita Selim, go
+to powder your face at Mrs. Selim's dressing-table?"
+
+Her face white and drawn, Flora Miles stumbled from the room, just as
+her husband, dumb for once with rage, entered the dining room with Lois
+Dunlap.
+
+Dundee was about to follow the latter two when an interruption occurred.
+Followed by a plainclothesman, a middle-aged man entered the living
+room. Tall, broad-shouldered, determined, he strode to the bridge table,
+his handsome head upflung, his brown eyes fixed upon the widened brown
+eyes of Penny Crain.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Dad!" the girl breathed; then, joyously: "Oh, Dad! You've come home!"
+
+But Dundee halted the reconciliation with a stern word of command.
+"Please join the group in the corner, Mr. Crain!"
+
+Regardless of the ensuing hubbub Dundee strode into the dining room,
+where Tracey Miles stood at the sideboard, pouring whiskey from an
+almost empty decanter into a small glass.
+
+"May I drink the Scotch Tracey has poured for me, Mr. Dundee?" Mrs.
+Dunlap asked shakily, leaning against the big round table.
+
+"Yes, but--Silence, please!" he cried, as there came the first faint,
+tinkling notes of _Juanita_, from Nita's musical powder box, penetrating
+the thin wall between the bedroom and dining room.
+
+"As I have said," the detective spoke loudly and clearly above the
+tinkle of music, "_everything is now exactly as it was when Nita Selim
+was murdered_! Permit me to show you all how that murder was
+accomplished!"
+
+A chair at the bridge table was overturned. Lois Dunlap almost choked on
+her drink of Scotch. Women screamed. In a few seconds every person in
+the living room, including the district attorney and Strawn, was huddled
+in the wide opening into the dining room, their eyes fixed in horror
+upon Bonnie Dundee.
+
+He spoke again, his voice very clear, but slow and weighted with a
+dreadful significance:
+
+_"Mrs. Dunlap, step on the bell beneath the dining table!"_
+
+Lois Dunlap dropped the empty whiskey glass, her face suddenly wiped of
+all expression.
+
+"Step on that bell, Mrs. Dunlap--_just as you did before_!"
+
+As if hypnotized, Lois Dunlap began to grope with the toe of her right
+pump for the slight bulge under the rug which indicated the position of
+the bell used for summoning the maid from the kitchen.
+
+With a strangled cry Tracey Miles lunged across the few feet which
+separated the woman and himself, seized her arm and whirled her
+violently away from the table.
+
+"_Do you want to kill my wife, too?_" he panted, his usually florid face
+the color of putty. "You--_you_--!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
+
+
+"That would be impossible, Miles," Dundee said deliberately. "_For your
+wife is already dead!_" Then his clear words rang out like the knell of
+doom:
+
+"Tracey Arthur Miles, I arrest you for the murder of your wife, known as
+Juanita Leigh Selim, and for the murder of Dexter Sprague. And it is my
+duty to warn you that anything you say may be used against you."
+
+Tracey Miles lifted his ashen face and stared at the detective blankly,
+as though he had gone deaf and blind. "All--over--isn't it? May I--have
+a--drink?" he managed to articulate at last.
+
+"Poor devil! He needs it," the too-soft-hearted young detective told
+himself, as Miles poured a drink from the almost empty whiskey decanter
+and raised the little glass to his lips.
+
+"I have--nothing--to say!" the murderer gasped thickly, then fell
+heavily to the floor.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was three-quarters of an hour later. District Attorney Sanderson,
+Captain Strawn and Dundee were alone in the house where Nita "Selim" had
+been murdered and where her husband had confessed his crimes by
+committing suicide. The morgue ambulance had come and gone....
+
+"I should have known," Dundee admitted ruefully, as the three men
+entered Nita's bedroom, "that so ingenious a criminal as Tracey Miles
+would not have failed to provide against the possibility of discovery.
+He must have seized an opportunity to spill cyanide of potassium into
+the decanter when my eyes were off him for a moment--and upon Lois
+Dunlap."
+
+"I'm glad he did," Sanderson said curtly. "But it was ghastly that poor
+Lois had to know that it was she, in all innocence, who fired the shot
+that killed her friend."
+
+"It was," Dundee sighed. "But I believed that the only way I could make
+Miles confess was to frighten him into thinking Flora would be killed in
+the same manner.... Well, it worked!"
+
+"Captain Strawn and I are still in the dark as to exactly how Miles
+managed his wife's murder," Sanderson reminded him. "This morning you
+chose to tell us nothing more than that a Hamilton man had married Nita
+Leigh in New York in January, 1918, and that eight years ago, when he
+saw her picture in _The Hamilton Evening Sun_, along with the story that
+'Anita Lee' had committed suicide, he felt free to marry again.... You
+said then you knew who the man was but you would not even tell us how
+you knew--"
+
+"Because I had very little actual proof then," Dundee answered. "As to
+who he was, the salient clue had been staring me in the face the whole
+time, but it was not until I was fooling with a set of anagrams last
+night, idly spelling out the names of all the men who _might_ have
+married her and then murdered her, that I saw it--"
+
+"Saw _what_?" Strawn demanded irritably.
+
+"That Selim is simply Miles spelled backwards," Dundee explained.
+"Possibly because he considered it the sophisticated thing to do, Miles
+used an assumed name at the party at which he met Nita Leigh--and
+married her under that name shortly afterward. Even the first name,
+'Mat', by which she knew him, was only his initials reversed."
+
+"Simple--but clever," Sanderson commented.
+
+"Just as were all of Miles' schemes after Nita, egged on by Sprague,
+turned up in Hamilton to demand 'back alimony' as the price of her
+silence.... But let me show you how he killed his wife."
+
+He strode to the big bronze lamp. "It took me less than an hour today to
+reconstruct the death machine so that it would be almost exactly as it
+was when Miles finished his work just before 2:30 on Saturday, May
+24--and as it remained until he had an opportunity to come back here and
+dismantle it. Trust him to find out that the guard was removed from the
+house Thursday!"
+
+As he spoke, he was unscrewing the big, jewel-studded bowl of the bronze
+lamp. Wedged, at a down-slanting angle inside the bowl, which was twelve
+inches in diameter, was Judge Marshall's snub-nosed automatic, the
+attached Maxim silencer projecting slightly from the hole whose jewel
+was missing.
+
+"Lydia told me last night over the telephone--and very much surprised
+she was, too, when I swore her to secrecy--that the jewel had been lost
+when the lamp was shipped from New York," Dundee explained. "There's a
+blank cartridge in the gun now, of course, but Miles, in his panic, took
+my words literally.... See the electro-magnet strapped to the gun butt?
+He got it from the bell Sprague had installed in Lydia's bedroom, and he
+returned it when he was 'cleaning up', so that the bell would ring
+again. The magnet he connected with the electric wire in one of the two
+lamp sockets, as you see it now, and the long cord of the lamp was
+connected with the wire of the bell in the dining room--so connected
+that when anyone stepped on the two little metal plates under the dining
+room rug, the kitchen bell would ring and the gun would be fired
+simultaneously. But if you will examine the jewel hole," he suggested,
+"you will see that Miles had to enlarge it considerably, using a reamer,
+which I found in the tool chest in the basement, along with all the
+apparatus Sprague had bought for installing Nita's alarm bell. I could
+see no reason for Sprague's having needed a reamer for his little job,
+however, and this morning I was lucky enough to get proof that Miles
+himself had purchased it at a hardware store on the Tuesday before
+Nita's murder."
+
+"How did he connect the lamp cord with the dining room bell?" Strawn
+puzzled. "These modern houses don't have exposed wiring--"
+
+"You forget Sprague's wiring for the alarm bell from here to Lydia's
+room!" and Dundee threw back the rug, showing them the hole in the
+floor, out of which came a short length of electric wire, ending in two
+small metal plates. But attached now to the wire was the cord from the
+bronze lamp.
+
+"The plug of the lamp cord is nearly out of the baseboard outlet behind
+the bookcase, just as Miles left it, so that there is no contact with
+electricity there. And the rug, which almost entirely covers the floor,
+hides, as you have seen, the joining of the two wires. An inexplicable
+wrapping of adhesive tape both on the lamp cord and on the wire of
+Nita's alarm bell here gave me the clue.... In installing the alarm
+bell, Sprague copied the arrangement under the dining table, of course.
+And Miles simply had to drop a bit, fastened to the augur Sprague had
+bought and used for his own job, down the four inches which separate the
+dining room floor from the basement ceiling, boring a hole through the
+ceiling. It was that fresh-bored hole in the ceiling that I could not
+understand, and which Ralph Hammond assured me was not there Saturday
+morning before Nita was killed.... Miles joined a piece of electric wire
+to the dining room bell wires, and pushed it down through the hole he
+had bored into the basement ceiling. Now if you'll come down with me--"
+
+When the three men stood staring upward at the basement ceiling, Dundee
+continued:
+
+"See this long wire running along the ceiling from the hole beneath the
+dining room bell? The tacks Miles used to secure it were also returned
+to the tool chest, but he could not get rid of either the augur hole or
+the tiny holes showing the course of the wire.... Let's follow it."
+
+He led them across the basement to a door leading into a dank,
+unfinished portion of the cellar, directly east of Lydia's bedroom and
+beneath Nita's. The wire whose course they were following led under the
+top frame of the door, and, with a flashlight in his hand, Dundee showed
+how it continued along a rafter until it reached the place where it was
+joined, by adhesive tape, to the wire Sprague had dropped from Nita's
+bedroom floor above.
+
+"Miles simply cut the wire here where it enters another hole through
+Lydia's bedroom wall, and attached the new wire," Dundee explained. "The
+connection between the dining room bell and the electro-magnet in the
+lamp upstairs was then complete.... Sprague had bought yards too much of
+the wire--fortunately for Miles' scheme."
+
+"But what a chance Miles took on the bullet's not hitting her in a fatal
+spot!" Sanderson commented in an awed voice.
+
+"Not much of a chance!" Dundee denied. "He would fire the gun only when
+he knew Nita was seated before her dressing-table. Experienced marksman
+that he was, he could calculate the path of the bullet to a nicety. Of
+course the machine had to be used that very day. As you know Nita
+herself gave him his chance. Miles, standing at the sideboard, which was
+separated from Nita's dressing table only by a thin wall, listened until
+the first faint notes of _Juanita_ told him that Nita was powdering her
+face. He could be almost positive that Nita was sitting down to her
+task.... The poor girl saw nothing to alarm her, but the gun kicked when
+the shot was fired by Lois' innocent stepping upon the dining room bell,
+and the big lamp was rocked so that it banged against the window frame,
+shattering the one bulb Miles had left in it. Of course he moved the
+lamp a foot or so, in the resulting excitement. And if Nita had been
+wounded only, living to tell how the shot was fired, Miles would have
+committed suicide then and there."
+
+"What if Nita had not asked him to mix cocktails or had not gone to
+powder her face?" Strawn asked.
+
+"The whole party was going to dine and dance at the Country Club.
+Miles would have escorted her home, as he had done on Monday night, when
+Nita had probably made her last demand. He could have counted on Nita's
+going into her bedroom to powder her face, even if he had had to tell
+her that her nose was shiny, and would himself then have gone to the
+dining room, on the excuse that he needed a drink before discussing
+'business'.... But I must tell you that on Saturday morning, according
+to the telephone operator in Miles' office, into whom I put the fear of
+the Lord and the law when I interviewed her this morning, Nita rang Miles
+to say she must see him as soon as possible, her unexpressed intention
+being to tell him that she was not going to make him come across again.
+Miles--the telephone operator confessed to having listened-in on the
+Whole conversation--told her he would be right out, but Nita said she and
+Lydia were going into Hamilton and would not be back until 2:30--the
+time the bridge game was scheduled to begin. That was the opportunity
+Miles had been praying for, and he came on out, having previously stolen
+the gun and silencer and having studied this house--"
+
+"How had he got in?" Sanderson wanted to know.
+
+"Judge Marshall had lent him a key in February, when Miles wanted to
+show the house to an engaged young man in his offices, and Miles had
+neglected to return it.... Well, when he arrived, he found Ralph Hammond
+here, and had to leave, waiting at a safe distance, probably, until the
+coast was clear about one o'clock. Even so, he had more than an hour to
+do his carefully planned job.... _Nita had to die!_ Miles could not
+continue to pay her large sums of money, since he was really only an
+employe of Flora's. Everything he held dear in the world was threatened.
+He loved Flora, he adored his children, and he could not give up the
+luxury and social position which his bigamous marriage with Flora----"
+
+"Why didn't he make a clean breast of the whole mess to Flora, since he
+had not married her until he believed Nita Leigh was dead?" Sanderson
+interrupted.
+
+"You must remember that Flora was carrying on a violent flirtation with
+Sprague--'vamping' him to get the lead in the Hamilton movie, if Sprague
+got the job of directing it," Dundee reminded him. "Miles, victim of a
+deep-rooted sexual inferiority complex, must have felt sure that Flora,
+on discovering she was not legally married, would snatch at the chance
+to marry Sprague--which was of course what Sprague had planned in case
+Nita published the truth."
+
+"But you were wrong about the secret shelf! The gun was never there!"
+Strawn gloated.
+
+"No. But it was the absence of fingerprints on the pivoting panel and
+shelf which kept me on the right track. Miles had searched the shelf for
+the marriage certificate which he could not know Nita had already
+burned. Probably, too, he had written her a few letters during their
+short courtship----"
+
+"How was Sprague killed?" Sanderson interrupted impatiently.
+
+Dundee led the way across the basement to a cubbyhole next to the coal
+room, entered and came out with a narrow, deep drawer of ebony inlaid
+with mother-of-pearl....
+
+"First I must tell you that Miles got the gun out of the lamp that
+Saturday night, parking his car at a distance and sneaking into the
+house while I was talking with Lydia in the basement. We can guess that
+he stowed gun, silencer and electro-magnet in a pocket of his car. At
+any rate, he came back noisily enough a little later, to offer Lydia a
+job as nurse in his home. Doubtless he assured himself that she knew
+nothing, or poor Lydia would have gone the way of her mistress and
+Sprague."
+
+"Was Sprague----?" Strawn began.
+
+"Despite my warning," Dundee went on, refusing to be hurried, "Sprague
+made a demand for blackmail money upon Miles. It is possible that
+Sprague, also sneaking into the house that Saturday night to get his
+bag, saw Miles retrieve the gun. At any rate, Sprague knew that Miles
+was the only person among all the company who had a real motive for
+killing Nita Selim, and he undoubtedly blackmailed Miles as a murderer
+as well as a bigamist. Perhaps Miles put him off for a day or two, but
+on Wednesday Judge Marshall begged for a bridge game, and Miles seized
+the opportunity of again having the original crowd present--a sort of
+wall of integrity surrounding and including him. For I don't think he
+really wanted to involve his best friends as suspects. I believe he
+merely wanted to hide among them--apparently as above suspicion as they
+were. And there is safety in numbers, you know.... At any rate, Miles
+made an appointment Wednesday afternoon with Sprague, telling him that,
+if he would come to his home that evening, and manage to leave the
+bridge game while he was dummy, he would find the money he was
+demanding--_in a drawer of the cabinet that stood between the two
+windows in the trophy room_!"
+
+Dundee exhibited the drawer he had taken from the basement tool room.
+"This drawer! I took it away from the Miles home this afternoon while
+everyone but a chambermaid was at the inquest. Miles did not have time
+to go home before going to your office, Mr. Sanderson, with the rest of
+the crowd you had summoned for questioning. If he had, he would have
+killed himself as soon as he found the incriminating drawer was missing
+from the cabinet."
+
+"But--_how_----?" Sanderson began, frowning with bewilderment.
+
+"Very simple!" Dundee answered. "When Sprague pulled open this drawer,
+which was set in the cabinet at just the height of his stomach, he
+received a bullet in his heart.... See these four little holes?... A
+vise was screwed into the bottom of the drawer so that it gripped the
+gun with its silencer, at an upward angle. A piece of string was tied to
+the trigger and fastened somehow to the underside of the drawer, so that
+when Sprague pulled the drawer open the string was drawn taut and the
+trigger pulled. Practically the same mechanism by which he tried to
+murder me.... The kick of the gun jerked the drawer shut. All Miles had
+to do when he was pretending to look for Sprague was to turn off the
+trophy room light by a button--one of a series on the outside wall of
+the hall closet. Probably it had been agreed between them that Sprague
+would not return to the bridge game, hence Sprague's telephoning for a
+taxi to wait for him at the foot of the hill, and his taking his hat and
+stick into the trophy room with him."
+
+"Then Miles had from midnight till dawn to remove the gun!"
+
+"Yes. Some time during the night, after Flora was asleep with a
+sedative, which she badly needed because of the quarrel--a genuine
+one--which she and Tracey had had over Sprague--Miles slipped down to
+the trophy room and removed the gun and vise. But he could not remove
+the holes the screws had made, although he did cover the bottom of the
+usually empty drawer with old pamphlets on the care and feeding of
+dogs.... By the way, the chambermaid told me that her master spent about
+half an hour before dinner that Thursday night in the trophy room,
+'going over his fishing tackle'.... His next concern was to make the
+murder jibe completely with Captain Strawn's theory of a gunman who had
+trailed his quarry to the Miles home and shot him through the window.
+The window was already open, but the screen had to be raised, too, and
+Sprague's fingerprints had to be on the nickel catches by which the
+screen curtain is raised or lowered. Of course Sprague had not touched
+the screen----"
+
+"Do you mean to say he lugged the corpse to the window and lifted it up
+so that he could press the stiff fingers upon the nickel catches?"
+Sanderson asked with a shudder. "What a fiend----"
+
+"No," Dundee assured him. "That was unnecessary. He simply removed the
+curtain screen, which is so designed that it can be taken down and put
+up as easily as a window shade. He carried the screen--his own hands
+protected by gloves, I suppose--to where Sprague's right hand lay _palm
+upward_, on the floor, and pressed the thumb and forefinger against the
+catches, making fingerprints all right, but they were reversed--as I
+discovered when it occurred to me to examine the photographs of
+Sprague's fingerprints in Carraway's office today. Miles could not turn
+the stiff hand over without bruising the dead flesh; consequently the
+print of the forefinger was on the catch where the thumb would normally
+have left its mark--and vice versa.... Before I forget it, I should also
+tell you that I found a master key hanging on the keyboard in the
+butler's pantry. Big houses, with their many locks, are usually provided
+with a master key, and Miles undoubtedly used that one to gain entrance
+into my room after midnight Saturday morning."
+
+"Where did you find the vise?" Strawn asked.
+
+"In the tool chest right here, where he had also placed the reamer he
+had bought. The vise probably belonged to Miles originally, but he was
+taking no chances on anything's being found in his possession, provided
+we tumbled to _how_ the two crimes were committed.... The reamer he must
+have brought out here after he used it to enlarge the hole in my hot-air
+register after midnight Sunday morning. It is possible he did his
+cleaning up job here at the same time. It was safe enough to have lights
+on, since the house is so isolated and there had been no guard here
+since Thursday."
+
+"Well--" Sanderson drew a deep breath. "He was a far cleverer man than
+any of us suspected. The mechanical arrangements were absurdly easy to
+rig up, in all three cases, but the _thinking_ of them----. It is a pity
+Nita did not fear him as she feared Sprague's vengeance----"
+
+"You're right," Dundee answered. "Nita did not fear Miles, not even when
+she was making him pay and pay.... No woman could look at Miles and
+believe him capable of murder. But a conviction of sexual inferiority
+leads to strange things, as psychologists can tell you.... I believe
+Miles married the only two women who ever fell in love with him, and
+there can be no doubt that Nita really loved him, for she kept her
+wedding dress for more than twelve years and chose it to be her shroud.
+It is possible she was still fond of him, although she was infatuated
+with Sprague when she came down here and was later sincerely in love
+with Ralph Hammond. Another reason she did not fear Miles when she made
+her will was that she counted on being able to tell him Saturday night
+at the latest that she would never ask him for money again, if he would
+trade silence for silence. How she hoped to secure Sprague's silence we
+can only guess at. Probably she meant to buy it with the remainder of
+the $10,000 she had already got from Miles--provided Sprague did not
+kill her for ditching him as a lover. We know she foresaw that
+possibility, since she willed the money to Lydia. Of course if Sprague
+had proved tractable, Nita as Ralph's wife would have been able to
+compensate Lydia handsomely for the injury she had done her."
+
+"Poor Nita--and poor Flora!" Sanderson sighed, as he led the way up the
+basement stairs. "Hello! Someone's calling you, Bonnie----"
+
+Dundee ran through the kitchen and dining room and into the living room,
+for he had recognized Penny Crain's sweet, husky contralto.
+
+"What are _you_ doing back here, young woman?" he demanded. "You were
+told to go home and forget all this ugly business----"
+
+"Dad wants a private word with you," Penny explained, her brown eyes
+luminous with happiness. "He's on the front porch.... And you ought to
+see Mother! She looks like a twenty-year-old bride!"
+
+When Dundee joined him on the porch, Roger Crain flushed painfully but
+there was happiness in his eyes, too....
+
+"Serena asked me to thank you for giving her Penny's message to pass
+on to me," Crain began in a low voice. "I'm sure you've guessed a lot,
+but what you probably don't know is that Serena used the securities
+I had sent her for safe keeping, to play the market with. When she
+knew what I had done here, she wouldn't let me touch a penny of the
+money until she had turned it into enough to clear up all my debts in
+Hamilton.... Then," and he sighed slightly, "she sent me home.... Not
+that I'm sorry. I'm going to try to make Margaret and Penny happy, make
+them and the town forget that I disgraced them----"
+
+"Through?" Penny called from the doorway, and Bonnie Dundee forgot
+Tracey Miles and all his ingenious schemes.
+
+
+
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