 13 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 Neda Salim had sealed it, with God only knew what fears in her heart. If so, Lydia Carr had found that she was her mistresses sole legate. 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 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 mistresses' 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 am 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'd 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 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 while 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 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 dress-making during the war, and it was during the war that the girls wore their hair that way. I did mine, in a psych-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 some time why she kept it. Royal blue velvet it is, the skirt half-way to the ankle, 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 up 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. Salim's instructions. So you're going to accept the Miles's offer as a job as nurse? Yes, I'd rather work. Mr. and Mrs. Miles have always been specially nice to me, and I could love their children. They're not. Afraid of me? Perhaps you're wise. Dundee agreed. By the way, Lydia, did Mrs. Salim 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 got one because she was afraid, she had kept it handy, and I'd have been bound to see it. Convinced of her sincerity, she was about to let her go, pack her bag when another belated question occurred to him. Lydia, will you tell me what engagements Mrs. Salim had this last week? The woman scowled, fanatically jealous. Dundee guessed of her mistress's 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 Hammett. He came whenever she'd let him. Monday night? Oh yes. She had dinner at the country club, with the Miles's, and the Drake's, 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 hammed and hawed over. Dundee reflected triumphantly. And Wednesday night, Lydia was continuing, with a surgeon's pride in her mistress's popularity. She was at a dinner-party at the Dunlaps. Did Mr. Peter Dunlap ever call on Mrs. Salim, alone? Him? Lydia was curiously resentful. He wasn't ever here. Nita said to me she wished Mr. Peter liked her as well as Miss Lois did. Thursday night Mr. Ralph Hammett took her somewhere to dinner, to some other town, I think. But I wasn't awake when they got home. Nita would never let me sit up for her. Said I needed my rest. So I always went to bed early. And yesterday, Friday? Demanded Dundee tensely. For Friday she had been driven to making her last will and testament. She was home all day. About half past four Mr. Drake came, Lydia said slowly, as if she too were wondering. She was awfully restless, couldn't sit still or eat. I ought to have suspicious something. But she was often like that, lately. Mr. Drake stayed about an hour, but I didn't see him leave, because I was cooking, neat as 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 Mr. 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 had 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 had come to make the estimates on finishing up the top floor, and we left him here. What was her attitude towards 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 had left her 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 Tracy 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's 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 to town. Mr. Miles? Dundee began slowly, throwing friendliness and persuasion into his voice. I know how all you folk stick together, but I'd appreciate it a lot if you'd tell me frankly, whether you'd 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 Salim, wanted to marry her, and made no secret of it. Though we all thought or hoped it would be little Penny Crane. He's been devoted to Penny for years, and since Roger Crane 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 Crane discussed in this manner. Sometimes we were sure she was, Miles answered. She flirted with all 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, Tracy 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. Might be 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 brought up from the basement with her. And when he had finished his fruitless search, she knelt and silently smoothed the course 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 on 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 Salim 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 plotted wearily up the basement stairs and on into the kitchen. Perhaps the ice-pox 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 towards the electric refrigerator when he stopped as suddenly as if he had been shot. The kitchen door which he had taken as special pains to assure himself was locked when he had made the rounds immediately after the departure of Captain Strahan 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 nearest stairs were those in the back hall, and Dundee took them to 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 Salim and the cranes before her as a storeroom. From the ceiling dangled a green cord ending in its cheap, clear glass bulb, but its light was sufficient to penetrate even the furthest low nooks made by these 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 Salim's empty wardrobe trunks, or behind one of the several pieces of heavy old furniture, undoubtedly left behind by the dispossessed crane family. Big footprints on the thick dust which coated the floor showed them that he had been no more thorough than Captain Straun's brace of plain-clothes detectives had been much earlier that evening. Two pairs of giant footprints. With an exclamation he discovered a smaller, narrower 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 towards the south. Knees and hands steady again he investigated the finished portion of the gable story swiftly. A charming layout he told himself had Penny Crane 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 high-boy 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 Salim, Coke's 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 23rd, left in an arm-chair 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 pillowcases, though clean, had, beyond a 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 XIV 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, needless house to the chief of the homicide squad, car away the fingerprint expert and the two plain clothesmen 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 hand-clasp and to see the almost shy twinkle of apology in his hard old gray 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 saline woman's gentleman friend was, Strawn commented genially, as he followed Dundee into the pleasant big bedroom. I believe I have, but I need car away 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 pillowcase of the bed, which had clearly been slept in since the linen was changed. Now, Collins, Harman, Dundee whirled upon the two silent planes' clothesmen. 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 Harman didn't waste time smelling pillowcases, and I admit we didn't pay no attention to that there newspaper. Empty, Dundee echoed, are you sure, you two, Harman? 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 warded 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 a moment. Furthermore, I am positive that Sprague descended by the back stairs 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 closed shave, and you will remember that he said he had made a half-hour's trip by bus and had walked a 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. I said to Miss Raymond, you observed Mr. Sprague toiling down the ruddy 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 Saleem, 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 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 plain clothesmen, 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 Harman, 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 small 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 them 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 humor. There simply HAD to be a bag somewhere, he laughed. This is the way of it, Straun. Nita and Sprague growled 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 a moment. Got any real proof that it was Sprague who stayed here and not the Hammond boy? Straun interrupted truly. 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 imagined she got a hunch that he hadn't taken her seriously, that he had not removed his belongings. You remember Penny Crane 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, when 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 when 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. Um, strong-grunted, what about the proofs you're holding back? Come along, Chief, you too, Caraway, 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 to-night to get his tell-tale bag, apparently made every effort to wipe his fingerprints off the furniture and bathroom fixtures. Now, Caraway, 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, Caraway 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. Do 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. End of CHAPTER XIV 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 road's 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 eight forty, it was pretty darn 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 arm-chair 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 Capon! 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 road's 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, Hello! Hello! Hello 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, Captain! Need a cellam 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. Tracy 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 Needa's hometown, New York, of course—sneaked up, crouched in her window, and bumped her off. And life-sized photographs of the big footprints under the window to prove his theory by Golly Capen—I clean forgot to tell my former chief that I'd found Needa's will in 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 Crane and her mother had been living since the financial failure and flight of the husband and father, Roger Crane. 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 infloured wall, with a saucy ruffled white apron, and there were purplish shadows under her brown eyes, and her gaiety lasted only until he had reached her side. Shhh! Have they found Ralph, she whispered anxiously? He could only answer, no, and he almost choked on the word. Mothers, 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 eleven 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. Crane was ushering him into the living-room, and its charm made him forget for the moment that the cranes 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 apartment's architect had been fiercely determined to punish its tenants. Excuse me, got a dish up! Penny flung over her shoulder as she ran away and left him alone with her mother. Dundee liked Mrs. Crane for making no excuses about a maid they could not afford, like 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 forty-eight set of Hamilton's thirty-five-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-brown potatoes, new peas, scalloped tomatoes, and, for dessert, a gelatin 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 be 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. Crane, 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. Crane quavered, and then hurried out of the room, since gentle women do not weep before strangers. I called you, Bonnie, so mother would know we are really friends, Penny explained, her cheeks red, as she proceeded 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 drain-board 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 dish-pan. 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 Straughn 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 Straughn'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. Probably 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 jibed, 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 Straughn 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 Selam. 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 control-to, 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. Poo! Don't wipe the flowers off that plate. Here's another. I'm inclined to say Poo, 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 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, I'm sure that Ralph Hammond was mad about Nita's solemn. 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 initial 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 break away in. It is not hard to imagine what took place. We know that Polly curtly canceled 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 Steward 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-month 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 lounge, 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 had 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. End of Chapter 15. CHAPTER XVI. OF MURDER AT BRIDGE. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Nicole Carl, St. Louis, Missouri, September 2007. MURDER AT BRIDGE by Ann Austin, Chapter 16. Of course I recognized his voice instantly when he said, That you, Penny? And it's a wonder I didn't scream, said Penny Crane, fighting her way up through days bewilderment to explain in detail an 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? Niiiice, Penny. That's exactly how he talked, Bonnie Dundee, exactly. Oh, don't you see how he couldn't know that Nita is dead? Did you ask him where he was, Dundee? He asked finally. No, I just told him to come on over, and he said I could pinned 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 in here, 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 portiers? I know it's a beastly thing to do, but— Penny agreed at last, and within ten minutes after that amazing telephone called Dundee, from behind the portiers 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 a 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 brothers, 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're very right to be sore at me, honey, but please don't be. I know I've been on awful cab 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'd 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 portiers, 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, Dolly. 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 were making it awfully hard for me, honey, the boy protested, and 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 1st. And she added, and the boy, 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 1st 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 did you propose to her on Thursday and to me on Sunday? 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. Though I don't want to see her again, ever. Why, Penny, I couldn'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's 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, unusing 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 and 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. Penny 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 would believe me if I told you how much rotgut 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 to the vital word. Where did you go to get drunk, Ralph? I never realized before that you had so much curiosity, honey. The boy grinned at her. After I shook clive, Polly went on to need his bridge-party, because she couldn't throw her down at the last minute. I wandered around until 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 bootleger. Well, when I woke up about eleven this morning, I give you my word I wasn't sick and headachey, though God knows I 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 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 Libby hero, don't I? But before I rang you from the lunchroom 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. Vanellope Crane 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 portiers. Yes, I'll marry you, Ralph. You may come in now, Mr. Dundee. End of Chapter 16 Chapter 17 Of Murder at Bridge This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Murder at Bridge by Ann Austin. Chapter 17 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. Their price, with the approval of Captain Strahan of the Homicide Squad, had set the inquest into the murder of Juanita Lee Salim 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 Salim, 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 Salim 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 manila 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 Caraway only this morning, after having submitted them to the fingerprint expert on Sunday. Today'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 now content 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 to whom she stood in fear, but had stifled the impulse? Straughan 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, Straughan 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? Straughan 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 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 Crane's arrival, the emphatic click of her heels, the quick opening and shutting of desk drawers. The downhearted 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, but 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 thirty-five 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 Bell 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 riley. 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 saline baby, probably mixed up with some racketeer, racketeers being the favorite boyfriends of Broadway Bells, 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. Probably 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 Straughn 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. Salim's guest 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, Tracy 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. While last night, in the club car of my train, three tables of bridge players could scarcely play a hand for wise cracking about the dangers of being dummy. Well, boy, now that I've talked myself past the worst shock, suppose you give me the lowdown. But I'll 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 Salim 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 Straughn, 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 in Donita'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 back stairs with the gun in his pocket, through the back hall in Donita'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 is 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 packaged bag and to clean up the bathroom basin. On her way down the back stairs 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. Unconvinced, 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 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 Lisa Leem promised to be quickly over. For coroner Price, in conference with Sanderson, Dundee and Captain Straughn, 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 leveled 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 Salim House, with a penciled ring drawn around the bedroom. Karen falteringly identified it, as well as the penciled 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 fifty-one point eight 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. 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 still from the floor? I have, the coroner answered. The height from floor to sill is twenty-six 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 Salim. Captain Strawn, sworn in, told briefly of his being called to the scene of the crime, of the activities of Caraway, 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. Salim? I did. I couldn't find that any one present had anything to do with it. Who were those persons, Dr. Price then asked? Judge and Mrs. Hugo Marshall, Mr. and Mrs. Tracey A. Miles, Mr. and Mrs. John C. Drake, Mrs. Peter Dunlop, Ms. Janet Raymond, Ms. Polly Beale, Ms. Penelope Crane, Mr. Clive Hammond, Mr. Dexter Sprague of New York, and Mrs. Salim's maid, Lydia Carr. Captain Strahan answered promptly, rolling out the names of Hamilton's elect with Sonora's 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-sized photographs of them, 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 Strahan. 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 Salim'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 out of the pleasure of hearing, at first hand, the stories of that fatal bridge and cocktail party from the guests themselves. Tell the car 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, Strahan, 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's 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 do 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 Strahan? No, sir, the quicker the better. Then, Lydia, if Captain Strahan will send you out to the Salim house with one of his boys, you may get the dress described in Mrs. Salim's note. When the curls she cut off and had made into switches, Lydia interrupted, I can't dress my poor girl's hair in a French role 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, and 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 caraway 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 caraway with his camera at my office in about an hour, Sanderson turned to Captain Straughn. 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 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 foresight 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, at sightment 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 ladies' 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 Crane, 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. Salim, 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. Salim, and will offer a reward for the recovery of the weapon, a Colt's thirty-two 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 questions 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 Crane'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 who's made me come. She said, as long as me and her knowed I didn't do nothing wrong, I'd ought to come forward and tell what I knowed. Yes, yes, Sanderson encouraged him impatiently. You say you worked for Mrs. Salim 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 beyond the Crane 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. She turned to the district attorney. But this is the first time I've seen this man. No, sir. I didn't stoke it Saturday night, Rollins answered uneasily. You see, I was coming 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 Saturday night in our fliver we seen one of the X-trees and read about how the poor lady was murdered. But that ain't what I was gettin' at, sir. Well what are you gettin' at?" Sanderson urged. Well, the X-trees said the police had found some footprints under the frontmost of them two side windows to Miss Salim's bedroom, and went on to talk about the Rosevines being tore, and straight off I said to the Misses, 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 about it, Rawlins. When did you make those footprints? Friday, sir. That's the day I gardened for Miss Salim. You see, sir, the poor little lady told me she was kept awake nights when there was a high wind by the Rosevines tapping against the windows. Says she, I think there's something trying to get into my room, Elmer. See, the poor little thing was mighty nervous anyway, so I didn't waste no time. I cut away a lot of the Rosevine and burned it when I was burning the garbage and papers in the senator out back. Is that all, Rawlins? Sanderson asked. About all that mounts to anything, the laborer deprecated, but they was something 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. A scar-face made of Miss Salim's put everything, garbage and trash, in a big garbage can outside the back door, and I burnt them up. So I was kind of surprised Saturday morning when I went to stoke up the laundry heater to find somebody had been meddling 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 of paper makes. Layers of white ashes, sir, that kind of looks like papers yet. Yes, I know, and you found layers of white ashes which you took particular pains to clean out, Sanderson asked bitterly. Yes, sir, so as I could build a new fire. Did you speak to the maid, ask her if she'd been meddling 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 reckon it was the poor lady herself burning up love letters maybe or some such truck. You're to keep your reckons 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. 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 Mary 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 Crane 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 Salim 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 dinner and dance. I'd been dancing 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 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? End of Chapter 17. It was exactly twelve o'clock when Lydia Carr, accompanied by detective Cullens 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. Cullens 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 Salim's various clothes-closets, preserved because 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 Crane, who was looking on, cried out in 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 pen-knife 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 it out, 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 mannequin's stunt in it as soon as Carroway 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 firmiest white chiffon and lace. His fingers flinched from contact with a switch of long, silky black curls. She bought them after we came to Hamilton, Lydia informed him, pointing to the undergarments. Them black maré-palms and them French stockings are brand new, too. Hundred-god silk them stockings are, and never on her feet. Ready for me? Carroway had appeared in the doorway, with camera untrippled. Yes, Carroway. With the dress, Penny, I want full-length front, back and side use of Miss Crane, wearing this dress, Carroway. Flashlights, of course. Better take the pictures in Miss Crane'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 with that thanks the chair he offered. I suppose you have read the Hamilton morning used today, Lydia? I have. May I have the paper, Chief? Thanks. Now, Lydia, I want you to read again the paragraphs that are headed New York, May 25th. And tell us if the statements are correct. Lydia accepted the paper, and her single eyes scanned the following lines obediently. New York, May 25th, U.P. Miss Juanita Laysalim, who was murdered Saturday afternoon in Hamilton, was known along Broadway as Nina Lee, Kara's Girl, and Specialty Dancer. Her last known address in New York was number, Blank, West 54th Street, where she had a three-room apartment. According to the superintendent, E.J. Black, Miss Lee, as he knew her, lived there alone except for her maid, Lydia Carr, and entertained few visitors. Irving Vine, publicity director for Ultraman Pictures, been interviewed by a reporter in his rooms at the Cadillac Hotel late today, said that Anita Lee had been used for bits and as a dancing double for stars in a number of recent pictures, including Nightlife 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 review, what of it? Miss Inouye's Pendleton, headmistress of Foresight on the Hudson, mentioned in the dispatches from Hamilton, confirms the report that Miss Salim, as she was known there, twice directed the annual Eastern Musical Comedy presented by that fashionable school for young ladies, but could add nothing of interest to the facts given above, beyond the searching that Miss Salim 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 Dandy. Have you anything to add? Dandy 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 Sandishen took her in hand them, pelting her up with questions about Nita's New York gentleman friends, but he made no more headway than Dandy. We know that Nita Salim was afraid of someone. Sandishen 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, Dandy 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 way off at the end of nowhere. Was she afraid of Dexter Sprague? Sandishen shot at her. Would she have asked him to stay all night if she had 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? Dandy echoed. Yes, sir, it has a contraption under the rug right beside her bed, so she could step on it, and it would ring in my room, which was underneath hers. Mr. Sprague bought the wire and stuff, bore the hole through her bedroom floor, and fixed it all herself. Did anyone know Nita had taken this precaution to protect herself? Dandy asked. Miss Lewis 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 came up to answer it, and Nita explained it to Miss Lewis. So that was why no attempt had been made to murder Nita while she slept. Dandy told himself triumphantly. For of course it was more than probable that Lewis Dunlop had innocently spread the news of Nita's nervousness in her ingenious method of summoning help instantly. There was a knock at the door. Come in. All finished, Carolway? Fine. I'd like to see the prince 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. Salim 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 Dandy. Lydia, did you know, before I questioned you at the Miles' home yesterday, that Sprock had returned for the 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. Sprock called me. While you was ding-donging at me about Nita burning my face, I heard Mr. Sprock open the kitchen door. He had a key Nita had given him, so 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 back stairs that squeaks, and I heard it plain. While you were still at me, hammer and thongs, Lydia answered. He was in the house not more than 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 burned me to prove I'd forgive her. Why didn't you tell me, Lydia? Why did you protect Sprock? I know you don't like him, then depuzzled. 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 Mrs. Sprock had been staying all night sometimes. Are you prepared to swear Sprock had time to do nothing but go up to the bedroom and get his bag? I am. When Lydia and Carol Way had left together, Dandy rose and addressed the district attorney. I'm going out to the Salim House now to look for that secret hiding place where Roger Crane 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? Dandy 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, Dandy 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 Crane had built and in which Nita Salim had been murdered could the detective find anything remotely resembling a concealed safe. The two plainclothes men, whom Straun had detailed to guard the house and to continue the search for the missing gun and silencer looked on with unconcealed amusement as Dandy tapped walls, floors and ceilings in a house that seemed to be exceptionally free of architectural eccentricities. Finally, Dandy grew tired of their rivaled commons and currently ordered them to make a new and exhaustive search of the unused persons of the basement, those dark earth banks, with their overhead networks of water and drain pipes, heavily insulated cables of electric wires, copper wabby rafters and rough shelves holding empty fruit jars and liquor bottles, which contrasted show play with a neatly sealed and thammed floor space devoted to furnace, laundry and maids room. Dandy himself had given those regions only accursory inspections with his flashlight, for it was highly improbable that Nita Salim 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 captain complete ignorance of its location. With that conviction in mind, Dandy returned to Nita's bedroom, to which he had already devoted at least half an hour. Nothing in the big closed closet where Flora Miles had been hiding while Nita was being murdered. No secret doors in the desk, or dressing table, or bedside table, no false button in Boudoir chair, or chairs along. 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. So 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 door's unbroken expanses of tinted plaster. And yet, he stepped into the closed closet again, hammering in hand for a fresh tapping of the setter-boat 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 strength 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 Incvest that morning. Yes, that was right. The inner end wall of Nida's closed closet was also the back of the guest closet in the little foyer that lay between Nida's bedroom and the main hall. Within 10 minutes, much laying on of the tape measure had produced a startling result. Instead of having a wall in common, the guest closet and Nida's closed closet were separated by exactly 11 inches. Why the waste space? The blueprint, bearing the imprint of the architect's hammer and hammered, showed no such walled-up cubbyhole. Exultantly, Dundee again entered Nida's closet and went over every inch of the narrow horizontal setter boards, which formed the end wall. But he met with no reward. Not through this workman-like, 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 set aligned, as was Nida'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 white 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 shabby a job as that 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 fingertips 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 force base. I take off my hat to ratch a crane, 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 his existence? The only answer Dundee could think of was that crane, 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 architect of his clever invention, and the Hammond boys had passed on the information to Judge Marshall when, after crane'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, needle-string kits 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 Crane's ingenuity had conceived. From the outside, the eight-inch length of wood 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 head of every person who had been Nida'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 woman, 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 St. Pete, 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, withdrawn, had taken not the slightest interest in the scramble for hats, coats and sticks. First drawn 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. Anyone of half a dozen persons could have arrived with a gun and silencer, not screwed together, of course, because of the ungainly length, and seized the opportunity presented by Nida's being alone in a 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 Nida's closet had dimly heard. Dundee had been positive when Lidia had discovered the shattered electric bulb in the big bronze lamp that is positioned in Nida's room indicated the progress of the flight of the murderer. Flight diagonally crossed 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 Lidia, 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 pranked block 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 Richard's stood. But who? Anyone of half a dozen people. But.