"Pardon! Awfully sorry," Clive Hammond muttered, as he bent to pick up
the fragments of a colored pottery ashtray which he and his fiancée,
Polly Beale, had been sharing.
"Don't worry--about picking it up," Polly commanded in her brusque
voice, but Dundee, listening acutely, was sure of a very slight pause
between the two parts of her sentence.
He glanced at the couple--the tall, masculine-looking girl, lounging
deep in an armchair, Clive Hammond, rather unusually good-looking with
his dark-red hair, brown eyes, and a face and body as compactly and
symmetrically designed as one of the buildings which had been pointed
out to Dundee as the product of the young architect's genius, now
resuming his seat upon the arm of the chair. His chief concern seemed
to be for another ashtray, which Sergeant Turner, with a grin,
produced from one of the many little tables with which the room was
provided.... Rather strange that those two should be engaged, Dundee
mused....
"Go on, Miss Crain," the detective urged, as if he were impatient of the
delay. "About that note or letter--"
"It was in a blue-grey envelope, with printing or engraving in the upper
left-hand corner," Penny went on, half closing her eyes to recapture the
scene in its entirety. "Like business firms use," she amended. "I
couldn't help seeing, since I sat so near Nita. She seemed startled--or,
well maybe I'd better say surprised and a little sore, but she tore it
open and read it at a glance almost, which is why I say it must have
been only a note. But while she was reading it she frowned, then smiled,
as if something had amused or--or--"
"She smiled like any woman reading a love letter," Carolyn Drake
interrupted positively. "I myself was sure that one of her _many_
admirers had broken an engagement, but had signed himself, 'With all my
love, darling--your own So-and-so!'"
Dundee wondered if even Carolyn Drake's husband, the carefully groomed
and dignified John C. Drake, bank vice-president, had ever sent _her_
such a note, but he did not let his pencil slow down, for Penny was
talking again:
"I think you are assuming a little too much, Carolyn.... But let that
pass. At any rate, Nita didn't say a word about the contents of the note
and naturally no one asked a question. She simply tucked it into the
pocket of her silk summer coat, which was draped over the back of her
chair, and the luncheon went on. Then we all drove over here, and found
Polly waiting in her own coupe, in the road in front of the house. She
told Nita she had rung the bell, but the maid, Lydia, didn't answer, so
she had just waited.
"Nita didn't seem surprised; said she had a key, if Lydia hadn't come
back yet.... You see," she interrupted herself to explain to Dundee,
"Nita had already told us at luncheon that 'poor, darling Lydia,' as she
called her, had had to go in to town to get an abscessed tooth
extracted, and was to wait in the dentist's office until she felt equal
to driving herself home again in Nita's coupe.... Yes, Nita had taken
her in herself," she answered the beginning of a question from Dundee.
"At what time?" Dundee queried.
"I don't know exactly, but Nita said she'd had to dash away at an
ungodly hour, so that Lydia could make her ten o'clock dentist's
appointment, and so that she herself could get a manicure and a shampoo
and have her hair dressed, so I imagine she must have left not later
than fifteen or twenty minutes to ten."
"How did Mrs. Selim get out to Breakaway Inn, if she left her own car
with the maid?"
"You saw her arrive with Lois," Penny reminded him.
"Nita had told us all about Lydia's dentist's appointment when she was
at my house for dinner Wednesday night," Lois Dunlap contributed. "I
offered to call for her anywhere she said, and take her out to Breakaway
Inn in my car today. I met her, at her suggestion, in the French hat
salon of the shop where she got her shampoo and manicure--Redmond's
department store."
"A large dinner party, Mrs. Dunlap?" Dundee asked.
"Not large at all.... Just twelve of us--the crowd here except for Mr.
Sprague, Penny and Janet."
"Who was Mrs. Selim's dinner partner?" Dundee asked.
"That's right! He _isn't_ here!" Lois Dunlap corrected herself. "Ralph
Hammond brought her and was her dinner partner."
"Thank you.... Now, Penny. You were saying the maid had not returned."
"Oh, but she had!" Penny answered impatiently. "If I'm going to be
interrupted so much--. Well, Nita rang the bell and Lydia came, tying on
her apron. Nita kissed her on the cheek that wasn't swollen, and asked
her why she hadn't let Polly in. And Lydia said she hadn't heard the
bell, because she had dropped asleep in her room in the basement--dopey
from the local anesthetic, you know," she explained to Dundee.
"I--see," Dundee acknowledged, and underlined heavily another note in
his scrawled shorthand.
"So Lydia took our hats and summer coats and put them in the hall
closet, and then followed Nita, who was calling to her, on into Nita's
bedroom. We thought she either wanted to give directions about the
makings for the cocktails and the sandwiches, or to console poor Lydia
for the awful pain she had had at the dentist's, so we didn't intrude.
We made a dive for the bridge tables, found our places, and were ready
to play when Nita joined us. Nita and Karen--"
"Just a minute, Penny.... Did any of you, then or later, until Mrs.
Marshall discovered the tragedy, go into Mrs. Selim's bedroom?"
"There was no need for us to," Penny told him. "There's a lavatory with
a dressing-table right behind the staircase. I, for one, didn't go into
Nita's room until after Karen screamed."
There was a chorus of similar denials on the part of every woman
present. At Dundee's significant pressing of the same question upon the
men, he was met with either laconic negatives or sharply indignant ones.
"All right, Penny. Go ahead, please."
"I was going to tell you how we were seated for bridge, if that
interests you," Penny said, rather tartly.
"It interests me intensely," Dundee assured her, smiling.
"Then it was this way," began Penny, thawing instantly. "Karen and Nita,
Carolyn and I were at this table," and she pointed to the table nearer
the hall. "Flora, Polly, Janet and Lois were at the other. We played at
those tables all afternoon. We simply pivoted at our own table after the
end of each rubber. When Nita became dummy--"
"Forgive me," Dundee begged, as he interrupted her again. "I'd like to
ask a question ... Mrs. Dunlap, since you were at the other table,
perhaps you will tell me what your partner and opponents were doing just
before Mrs. Selim became dummy."
Lois Dunlap pressed her fingertips into her temples, as if in an effort
to remember clearly.
"It's--rather hard to think of bridge now, Mr. Dundee," she said at
last. "But--yes, of course I remember! We had finished a rubber and had
decided there would be no time for another, since it was so near 5:30--"
"That last rubber, please, Mrs. Dunlap," Dundee suggested. "Who were
partners, and just when was it finished?"
"Flora--" Lois turned toward Mrs. Miles, who had sat with her hands
tightly locked and her great haggard dark eyes roving tensely from one
to another--"you and I were partners, weren't we?... Of course! Remember
you were dummy and I played the hand? You went out to telephone, didn't
you?... That's right! I remember clearly now! Flora said she had to
telephone the house to ask how her two babies--six and four years old,
they are, Mr. Dundee, and the rosiest dumplings--. Well, anyway, Flora
went to telephone--"
"In the little foyer between the main hall and Mrs. Selim's room?"
"Yes, of course," Lois Dunlap answered, but Dundee's eyes were upon
Flora Miles, and he saw her naturally sallow face go yellow under its
too-thick rouge. "I played the hand and made my bid, although Flora and
I had gone down 400 on the hand before," Lois continued, with a rueful
twinkle of her pleasant grey eyes. "When the score was totted up, I
found I'd won a bit after all. Our winnings go to the Forsyte Alumnae
Scholarship Fund," she explained.
"Yes, I know," Dundee nodded. "And then--?"
"Polly asked the other table how they stood, and Nita said, 'One game to
go on this rubber, provided we make it....' Karen was dealing the cards
then, and Nita was looking very happy--she'd been winning pretty
steadily, I think--"
"Pardon, Mrs. Dunlap.... How did the players at your table dispose of
themselves then--that is, immediately after you had finished playing the
last hand, and Mrs. Marshall was dealing at the other table?"
Lois screwed up her forehead. "Let me think--I know what _I_ did. I went
over to watch the game at the other table, and stayed there till
Tracey--Mr. Miles--came in for cocktails. I can't tell you exactly what
the other three did."
There was a strained silence. Dundee saw Polly Scale's hand tighten
convulsively on Clive Hammond's, saw Janet Raymond flush scarlet,
watched a muscle jerk in Flora Miles' otherwise rigid face.
Suddenly he sprang to his feet. "I am going to make what will seem an
absurd request," he said tensely. "I am going to ask you all--the women,
I mean--to take your places at the bridge tables. And then--" he paused
for an instant, his blue eyes hard: "I want to see the death hand played
exactly as it was played while Nita Selim was being murdered!"