"Shame on you, Bonnie Dundee!" cried Penny Crain, her small fists
clenched belligerently. "'Death hand', indeed! You talk like a New York
tabloid! And if you don't realize that all of us have stood pretty
nearly as much as we can without having to play the hand at bridge--the
_very_ hand we played while Nita Selim was being murdered!--then you
haven't the decency and human feelings I've credited you with!"
A murmur of indignant approval accompanied her tirade and buzzed on for
a moment after she had finished, but it ceased abruptly as Dundee spoke:
"Who's conducting this investigation, Penny Crain--you or I? You will
kindly let me do it in my own fashion, and try to be content when I tell
you that, in my humble opinion, what I propose is absolutely necessary
to the solution of this case!"
Bickering--Dundee grinned to himself--exactly as if they had known each
other always, had quarreled and made up with fierce intensity for years.
"Really, Mr. Dundee," Judge Hugo Marshall began pompously, embracing his
young wife protectingly, "I must say that I agree with Miss Crain. This
is an outrage, sir--an outrage to all of us, and particularly to this
frail little wife of mine, already half-hysterical over the ordeal she
has endured."
"Take your places!" Dundee ordered curtly. After all, there was a limit
to the careful courtesy one must show to Hamilton's "inmost circle of
society."
Penny led the way to the bridge tables, the very waves of her brown bob
seeming to bristle with futile anger. But she obeyed, Dundee exulted.
The way to tame this blessed little shrew had been solved by old Bill
Shakespeare centuries ago....
As the women took their places at the two tables, arguing a bit among
themselves, with semi-hysterical edges to their voices, Dundee watched
the men, but all of them, with the exception of Dexter Sprague--that
typical son of Broadway, so out of place in this company--had managed at
least a fine surface control, their lips tight, their eyes hard,
narrowed and watchful. Sprague slumped into a vacated chair and closed
his eyes, revealing finely-wrinkled, yellowish lids.
"Where shall we begin?" Polly Beale demanded brusquely. "Remember this
table had finished playing when Karen began to deal what you call the
'death hand,'" she reminded him scornfully. "And Flora wasn't here at
all--she had been dummy for our last hand--"
"And had gone out to telephone," Dundee interrupted. "Mrs. Miles, will
you please leave the room, and return exactly when you did return--or as
nearly so as you can remember?"
Dundee was sure that Mrs. Miles' sallow face took on a greyish tinge as
she staggered to her feet and wound an uncertain way toward the hall.
Tracey Miles sprang to his wife's assistance, but Sergeant Turner took
it upon himself to lay a detaining hand on the too-anxious husband's
arm. With no more than the lifting of an eyebrow, Dundee made Captain
Strawn understand that Flora Miles' movements were to be kept under
strict observation, and the chief of the Homicide Squad as unobtrusively
conveyed the order to a plainclothesman loitering interestedly in the
wide doorway.
"Now," he was answering Polly Beale's question, "I should like the
remaining three of you to behave exactly as you did when your last hand
was finished. Did you keep individual score, as is customary in
contract?--or were you playing auction?"
"Contract," Polly Beale answered curtly. "And when we're playing among
ourselves like this, one at each table is usually elected to keep score.
Janet was score-keeper for us this afternoon, but we all waited, after
our last hand was played, for Janet to give us the result for our tally
cards."
Dundee drew near the table, picked up the three tally cards--ornamental
little affairs, and rather expensive--glanced over the points recorded,
then asked abruptly:
"Where is Mrs. Miles' tally? I don't see it here."
There was no answer to be had, so he let the matter drop, temporarily,
though his shorthand notebook received another deeply underlined series
of pothooks.
"Go on, please, at both tables," Dundee commanded. "Your table--" he
nodded toward Penny, who was already over her flare of temper, "will
please select the cards each held at the conclusion of Mrs. Marshall's
deal."
"Oooh, I'd never remember _all_ my cards in the world," Carolyn Drake
wailed. "I know I had five Clubs--Ace, King, Queen--"
"You had the Jack, not the Queen, for I held it myself," Penny
contradicted her crisply.
"Until this matter of who held which cards after Mrs. Marshall's deal is
settled, I shall have to ask you all to remain as you are now," Dundee
said to the players seated at the other table.
At last it was threshed out, largely between Penny Crain and Karen
Marshall, the latter proving to have a better memory than Dundee had
expected. At last even Carolyn Drake's querulous fussiness was
satisfied, or trampled down.
Both Judge Marshall and John Drake started forward to inspect the cards,
which none of the players was trying to conceal, but Dundee waved them
back.
"Please--I want you men--all of you, to take your places outside, and
return to this room in the order of your arrival this afternoon. Try to
imagine that it is now--if I can trust Mr. Miles' apparently excellent
memory--exactly 5:25--"
"Pretty hard to do, considering it's now a quarter past seven and
there's still no dinner in sight," Tracey Miles grumbled, then
brightened: "I can come right back in then--at 5:27, can't I?"
That point settled, and the men sent away, to be watched by several
pairs of apparently indolent police eyes, Dundee turned to the bridge
table, Nita's leaving of which had provided her murderer with his
opportunity.
"The cards are 'dealt'," Penny reminded him.
"Now I want you other three to scatter exactly as you did before,"
Dundee commanded, hurry and excitement in his voice.
Lois Dunlap rose, laid down her tally card, and strolled over to the
remaining table. After a moment's hesitation, Polly Beale strode
mannishly out of the room, straight into the hall. Dundee, watching as
the bridge players earlier that afternoon certainly had not, was amazed
to see Clive Hammond beckoning to her from the open door of the
solarium.
So Clive Hammond had arrived ahead of Tracey Miles! Had somehow entered
the solarium unnoticed, and had managed to beckon his fiancée to join
him there! Prearranged?... And why had Clive Hammond failed to enter and
greet his hostess first? Moreover, _how_ had he entered the solarium?
But things were happening in the living room. Janet Raymond, flushing so
that her sunburned face outdid her red hair for vividness, was slowly
leaving the room also. Through a window opening upon the wide front
porch Dundee saw the girl take her position against a pillar, then--a
thing she had not done before very probably--press her handkerchief to
her trembling lips.
But the bidding was going on, Karen Marshall piping in her childish
treble: "Three spades!"
Dundee took his place behind her chair, then silently beckoned to Penny
to shift from her own chair opposite Carolyn Drake to the chair Nita
Selim had left to go to her death. She nodded understandingly.
"Double!" quavered Carolyn Drake, next on the left to the dealer, and
managed to raise her eyebrows meaningly to Penny, her partner, who had
not yet changed places.
Penny, throwing herself into the spirit of the thing, scowled warningly.
No exchanging of illicit signals for Penny Crain! But the instant she
slipped into Nita Selim's chair her whole face and body took on a
different manner, underwent almost a physical change. She _was_ Nita
Selim now! She tucked her head, considered her cards, laughed a little
breathless note, then cried triumphantly:
"And I say--_five spades_! What do you think of _that_, partner?"
Then the girl who was giving an amazing imitation of Nita Selim changed
as suddenly into her own character as she changed chairs.
"Nita, I don't think it's quite Hoyle to be so jubilant about the
strength of your hand," she commented tartly. "I pass."
Karen Marshall pretended to study her hand for a frowning instant, then,
under Penny's spell, announced with a pretty air of bravado:
"Six spades!... Your raise to five makes a little slam obligatory,
doesn't it, Nita?"
Carolyn Drake flushed and looked uneasily toward Penny, a bit of by-play
which Dundee could see had not figured in the original game. But she
bridled and shifted her plump body in her chair, as she must have done
before.
"I double a little slam!" she declared. Then, still acting the role she
had played in earnest that afternoon, she explained importantly: "I
always double a little slam on principle!"
Penny, in the role of Nita, redoubled with an exultant laugh, then, as
herself, said, "Pass!" with a murderous glance at Mrs. Drake.
"Let's see your hand, partner," Karen quavered, addressing a woman who
had been dead nearly two hours; then she shuddered: "Oh, this is too
horrible!" as Penny Crain again slipped into Nita Selim's chair and
prepared to lay down the dummy hand.
And it _was_ horrible--even if vitally necessary--for these three to
have to go through the farce of playing a bridge hand while one of the
original players was lying on a marble slab at the morgue, her cold
flesh insensible to the coroner's expert knife.
But Dundee said nothing, for Tracey Miles was already hovering in the
doorway, ready for his cue to enter.
Penny, or rather "Nita," was saying:
"How's _this_, Karen darling?" as she laid down the Ace and deuce of
Spades, Karen's trumps.
"I hope you remember _you_ are vulnerable, as well as we," Carolyn
remarked in a sorry imitation of her original cocksureness, as she
opened the play by leading the Ace of Clubs.
"And how's _this_, partner?... A singleton in Clubs!" Nita's imitator
demanded triumphantly, as she continued to lay down her dummy hand,
slapping the lone nine of Clubs down beside trumps; "and this little
collection of Hearts!" as she displayed and arranged the King, Jack,
eight and four of Hearts; "_and_ this!" as a length of Diamonds--Ace,
Jack, ten, eight, seven and six slithered down the glossy linen cover of
the bridge table toward Karen Marshall. "Now if you don't make your
little slam, infant, don't dare say I shouldn't have jumped you to
five!... I figured you for a blank or a singleton in Diamonds, and at
least the Ace of Hearts, or you--cautious as you are--wouldn't have made
an original three Spade bid without the Ace.... Hop to it, darling!"
"This is where I enter," Tracey Miles whispered to Dundee, and, at a nod
from the young detective, the pudgy little blond man strode jauntily
into the living room, proud of himself in the role of actor.
"Hello, everybody! How's tricks?" he called genially, but there was a
quiver of horror in his voice under its blitheness.
Penny was quite pale when she sprang from her chair, but her voice
seemed to be Nita's very own, as she sang out:
"It _can't_ be 5:30 already!... Thank heaven I'm dummy, and can run away
and make myself pretty-pretty for you and all the other great big men,
Tracey darling!"
Dundee's keen memory registered the slight difference in the wording of
the greeting as reported by this pseudo-Nita and the man she was running
to meet. But Penny, as Nita, was already straightening Tracey Miles'
necktie with possessive, coquettish fingers, was coaxing, with head
tucked alluringly:
"Tracey, my ownest lamb, won't you shake up the cocktails for Nita? The
makings are all on the sideboard, or I don't know my precious old
Lydia--even if her poor jaw does ache most horribly."
Then Penny, as Nita, was on her way, pausing in the doorway to blow a
kiss from her fingertips to the fatuously grinning but now quite pale
Tracey Miles. She was out of sight for only an instant, then reappeared
and very quietly retraced her steps to the bridge table.
Unobtrusively, Dundee drew his watch from his pocket, palmed it as he
noted the exact minute, then commanded curtly: "On with the game!"
As Tracey Miles passed the first bridge table Lois Dunlap linked her arm
in his, saying in a voice she tried to make gay and natural:
"I'm trailing along, Tracey. Simply dying for a nip of Scotch! Nita's is
the real stuff--which is more than my fussy old Pete can get half the
time!--and you know I loathe cocktails."
The two passed on into the dining room, the players scarcely raising
their eyes from their cards, which they held as if the game were real.
Dundee, his watch still in his hand, advanced to the bridge table.
Strolling from player to player he made mental photographs of each hand,
then took his stand behind Penny's chair to observe the horribly
farcical playing of it. Poor little Penny! he reflected. She hadn't had
a chance against that dumb-bell across the table from her. Fancy
anyone's doubling a little slam bid on a hand like Carolyn Drake's--or
even calling an informatory double in the first place! Why hadn't she
bid four Clubs after Karen's original three Spade bid, if she simply
wanted to give her partner information?... Not that she really had a
bid--
Karen's hand trembled as she drew the lone nine of Clubs from the dummy,
to place beside Carolyn's Ace, but Penny's fingers were quite steady as
she followed with the deuce of Clubs, to which Karen added, with a trace
of characteristic uncertainty, the eight.
"There's our book!" Carolyn Drake exulted obediently, but she cast an
apologetic glance toward Penny. "If we take one more trick we set them."
"Fat chance!" Penny obligingly responded, and Dundee, relieved, knew
that the farcical game would now be played almost exactly, and with the
same comments, as it had been played while Nita Selim was being
murdered. Thanks to Penny Crain!
With a shamefaced glance upward at Dundee, Carolyn Drake then led the
deuce of Diamonds, committing the gross tactical error of leading from
the Queen. Karen added the Jack from the dummy, and Penny shruggingly
contributed her King, to find the trick, as she had suspected in the
original game, trumped by the five of Spades, since Karen had no
Diamonds.
"So _that_ settles _us_, Carolyn!" Penny commented acidly.
Her partner rose to the role she was playing. "Well, as I said, I always
double a little slam on principle. Besides, how could I know they would
have a chance for cross-ruffing in _both_ Clubs and Diamonds? I thought
you would at least hold the Ace of Diamonds and that Karen would
certainly have one, as I only had four--"
Penny shrugged. "Oh, well! Let's play bridge!" for Karen was staring at
her cards helplessly. "Sorry, Karen! I realize a post mortem is usually
held after the playing of a hand--not before."
"I--I guess I'd better get my trumps out," Karen--now almost a genuine
actress, too--breathed tremulously. "I _do_ wish Nita were playing this
hand. I know I'll muff it somehow--"
"Good kid!" Dundee commented silently, and allowed himself the liberty
of patting Karen on her slim shoulder.
The girl threw an upward glance of gratitude through misty eyes, then
led the six of Spades, Mrs. Drake contributing the four, dummy taking
the trick with the Ace, and Penny relinquishing the three.
"Let's see--that makes five of 'em in, since I trumped one trick," Karen
said, as she reached across the table to lead from dummy.
As if the words were a cue--which they probably were--Judge Marshall
entered the room at that moment, making a great effort to be as jaunty,
debonair, and "young for his age" as he must have thought he looked when
he made his entrance when the real game was being played.
At his step Karen lifted her head and greeted her elderly husband with a
curious mixture of childlike joy and womanly tenderness:
"Hullo, darling!... I'm trying to make a little slam I may have been
foolish to bid, but Nita jumped me from three to five Spades--"
"Let's have a look, sweetheart," the retired judge suggested pompously,
and Dundee gave way to make room for him behind Karen's chair.
But before Judge Marshall looked at his wife's cards he bent and kissed
her on her flushed cheek, and Karen raised a trembling hand to tweak his
grey mustache. Dundee, with uplifted eyebrow, queried Penny, who nodded
shortly, conveying the information that this was the way the scene had
really been played when there was no question of acting.
"I'm getting out my trumps, darling," Karen confided sweetly, as she
reached for the deuce of Spades--the only remaining trump in the dummy.
"What's your hurry, child?" her husband asked indulgently. "Lead this!"
and he pointed toward the six of Diamonds.
"I wish you'd got a puncture, Hugo, so you couldn't have butted in
before this hand was played," Carolyn Drake spluttered. "Remember this
is a little slam bid, doubled and redoubled--"
"I should think _you_ would like to forget that, Carolyn!" Penny
commented bitingly. "But I agree with Carolyn, Hugo, that Karen is quite
capable of making her little slam without your assistance."
"Please don't mind," Karen begged. "Hugo just wanted to help me, because
I'm such a dub at bridge--"
"The finest little player in town!" Judge Marshall encouraged her
gallantly, but with a jaunty wink at the belligerent Penny.
Smiling adoringly at him again, Karen took his suggestion and led the
six of Diamonds from the dummy; Penny covered it with the nine; Karen
ruffed with the seven of Spades from her own hand, and Mrs. Drake
lugubriously contributed the four of Diamonds.
"I can get my trumps out now, can't I, Hugo?" Karen asked deprecatingly,
and at her husband's smiling permission, she led the King of Spades,
Carolyn had to give up the Jack, which she must have foolishly thought
would take a trick; the dummy contributed the deuce, and Penny followed
with her own last trump--the eight.
Karen counted on her fingers, her eyes on the remaining trumps in her
hand, then smiled triumphantly up at her husband.
"Why not simply tell us, Karen, that the rest of the trumps are in your
own hand?" Penny suggested caustically.
"I--I didn't mean to do anything wrong," Karen pleaded, as she led now
with the ten of Hearts, which drew in Carolyn's Queen to cover--Carolyn
murmuring religiously: "Always cover an honor with an honor--or should I
have played second hand low, Penny?"--topped by the King in the dummy,
the trick being completed by Penny's three of Hearts.
At that point John C. Drake marched into the room, strode straight to
Dundee, and spoke with cold anger:
"Enough of this nonsense! I, for one, refuse to act like a puppet for
your amusement! If you are so vitally interested in contract bridge, I
should advise you to take lessons from an expert, not from three
terrified women who are rather poor players at best. I also advise you
to get about the business you are supposed to be here for--the finding
of a murderer!"