Having ticketed the big bronze lamp, which he had brought with him from
the Selim house, and locked it away in the room devoted to "exhibits for
the state," Bonnie Dundee hurried into Penny's office, primed with the
news of his discovery of the secret hiding place and eager to lay his
new theory before the district attorney.
"Bill's gone," Penny interrupted her swift typing to inform him. "To
Chicago. He had only fifteen minutes to make the three o'clock train,
after he received a wire saying his mother is not expected to live. He
tried to reach you at the Selim house, but one of Captain Strawn's men
said you had left."
"I stopped on my way in to get a bite to eat," Dundee explained
mechanically. "I'd dashed off without my lunch, you know."
"Did you find the gun and silencer?" Penny asked.
"No. Whoever used it Saturday afternoon walked out of the house with it,
in plain view of the police, and still has it.... Very convenient, too,
in case another murder seems to be expedient--or amusing."
"Don't joke!" Penny shuddered. "But what in the world do you mean?"
Briefly Dundee told her, minimizing the hard work, the concentrated
thinking, and the meticulous use of a tape measure which had resulted in
the discovery of the shelf between Nita's bedroom closet and the guest
closet in the little foyer.
"I see," Penny agreed, her husky voice slow and weighted with horror.
She sat in dazed thought for a minute. "That rather brings it home to my
crowd--doesn't it?... To think that Dad--!... Probably everyone at the
party--except me--had heard all about Dad's 'simple and ingenious'
arrangement for hiding the securities he sent on to New York before he
ran away.... And no outsiders--nobody but _us_--had a legitimate excuse
for entering that closet.... Not even Dexter Sprague. It's one of his
affectations not to wear a hat--"
"Is it?" Dundee pounced. "You're sure he wore no hat that afternoon? Did
you notice him when he left after I had dismissed you all?"
"Yes," Penny acknowledged honestly. "I paid attention to him, because I
was hating him so. I believed then that he was the murderer, and I was
furious with you and Captain Strawn for not arresting him.... He was
the first to leave--just walked straight out; wouldn't even stop to talk
with Janet Raymond, who was trying to get a word with him. I saw him
start toward Sheridan Road--walking. He had no car, you know."
"Did you observe the others?" Dundee demanded eagerly. "Do you know who
went _alone_ to the guest closet?"
Penny shook her head. "Everybody was milling around in the hall, and I
paid no attention. Lois said she would drive me home, and then I went in
to ask you to let me stay behind with you--"
"I remember.... Listen, Penny! I'm going to tell you something else that
nobody knows yet but Sanderson, Lydia and me. I don't have to ask you
not to tell any of your friends. You know well enough that anything you
learn from either Sanderson or me is strictly confidential."
Penny nodded, her face very white and her brown eyes big with misery.
"I have every reason to believe that Nita Selim was a blackmailer, that
she came to Hamilton for the express purpose of bleeding someone she had
known before, or someone on whom she had 'the goods' from some
underworld source or other.... At any rate, Nita banked ten thousand
mysterious dollars--$5,000 on April 28, and $5,000 on May 5. I talked to
Drake last night, and I have his word for it that the money was in bills
of varying denomination--none large--when Nita presented it for deposit.
Therefore it seems clear to me that Nita got the money right here in
Hamilton; otherwise it would have come to her in the form of checks or
drafts or money orders. And it seems equally clear to me that she did
not bring that large amount of cash from New York with her, or she would
have deposited it in a lump sum in the bank immediately after her
arrival."
"Yes," Penny agreed. "But why are you telling _me_?... Of course I'm
interested--"
"Because I want you to tell me the financial status of each of your
friends," Dundee said gently. "I know how hard it is for you--"
"You could find out from others, so I might as well tell you," Penny
interrupted, with a weary shrug. "Judge Marshall is well-to-do, and
Karen's father--her mother is dead--settled $100,000 on her when she
married. She has complete control of her own money.... The Dunlaps are
the richest people in Hamilton, and have been for two or three
generations. Lois was 'first-family' but poor when she married Peter,
but he's been giving her an allowance of $20,000 a year for several
years--not for running the house, but for her personal use. Clothes,
charities, hobbies, like the Little Theater she brought Nita here to
organize--"
"I wouldn't say she spends a great deal of it on dress," Dundee
interrupted with a grin.
"Lois doesn't give a hang how she looks or what anyone thinks of
her--which is probably one reason she is the best-loved woman in our
crowd," Penny retorted loyally. "The Miles' money is really Flora's,
and she has the reputation of being one of the shrewdest business
'men' in town. When she married Tracey nearly eight years ago, he was
just a salesman in her father's business--the biggest dairy in the
state ... 'Cloverblossom' butter, cream, milk and cheese, you
know.... Well, when Flora married Tracey, her father retired and let
Tracey run the business for Flora, and he's still managing it, but Flora
is the real head.... Now, let's see.... Oh, yes, the Drakes!... Johnny
is vice president of the Hamilton National Bank, as you know, and owns
a big block of the stock. Carolyn has no money of her own, except what
Johnny gives her, and I rather think he isn't any too generous--"
"They don't get along very well together, do they?"
"N-no!" Penny agreed reluctantly. "You see, Johnny Drake was simply not
cut out for love and marriage. He's a born ascetic, would have been a
monk two or three centuries ago, but he cares as much for Carolyn as he
could for any woman.... The Hammond boys have some inherited money, and
Clive has made a big financial success of architecture.... That leaves
only Janet and Polly, doesn't it?... Polly's an orphan and has barrels
of money, and will have barrels more when her aunt, with whom she lives,
dies and leaves her the fortune she has always promised her."
"And Janet Raymond?"
"Janet's father is pretty rich--owns a big wire-fence factory, but Janet
has only a reasonable allowance," Penny answered. "As for me--I'm _very_
rich: I get thirty-five whole dollars a week, to support myself and
Mother on."
Dundee remained thoughtfully silent for a long minute. Then: "All you
girls are alumnae of Forsyte-on-the-Hudson, and Nita Selim came here
immediately after she had directed a Forsyte play.... Tell me,
Penny--was any of the Hamilton girls ever in disgrace while in the
Forsyte School?"
Penny's face flamed. "I'm sorry to disappoint you, but so far as I know
there was never anything of the sort. Of course we all graduated
different years, except Karen and I, and I might not have heard--But
no!" she denied vehemently. "There wasn't any scandal on a Hamilton girl
ever! I'm sure of it!"
But her very vehemence convinced Bonnie Dundee that she was not at all
sure....
He looked at his watch. Four o'clock.... By this time Nita Selim--tiny
cold body, royal blue velvet dress, black curls piled high in an
old-fashioned "French roll," bullet-torn heart--were nothing more than a
little heap of grey ashes.... Would Lydia Carr have them put in a sealed
urn and carry them about with her always?
"I'm going out now, Penny, and I shan't be back today," he told the girl
who had returned to her furious typing. "I'll telephone in about an hour
to see if anything has come up.... By the way, how do I get to the
Dunlap house?"
"It's in the Brentwood section. You know--that cluster of hills around
Mirror Lake. Most of the crowd live out there--the Drakes, the Mileses,
the Beales, the Marshalls. The Dunlap house stands on the highest hill
of all. It's grey stone, a little like a French chateau. We used to live
out there, too, in a Colonial house my mother's father built, but Dad
persuaded Mother to sell, when he went into that Primrose Meadows
venture. The Raymonds bought it.... But why do you want to see Lois?"
"Thanks much, Penny. I don't know what I should do without you," Dundee
said, without answering her question, and reached for his hat.
After ten minutes of driving, the last mile of which had circled a
smooth silver coin of a lake, Dundee stopped his car and let his eyes
rove appreciatively. He had made this trip the day before to question
Lydia, already installed as nurse for the Miles children, but he had
been in too great a hurry then to see much of this section consecrated
to Hamilton's socially elect....
Georgian "cottage," Spanish hacienda, Italian villa, Tudor mansion--that
was the Miles home; Colonial mansion where Penny had once lived; grey
stone chateau.... Not one of them blatantly new or marked with the
dollar sign. Dundee sighed a little enviously as he turned his car into
the winding driveway that led up the highest hill to the Dunlap home.
Lois Dunlap betrayed no surprise when the butler led Dundee to the
flag-stoned upper terrace overlooking Mirror Lake, where she was having
tea with her three children and their governess. For a moment the
detective had the illusion that he was in England again....
"How do you do, Mr. Dundee?... This is Miss Burden.... My three
offspring--Peter the third, Eleanor, and Bobby.... Will you please take
the children to the playroom now, Miss Burden?... Thank you!... Tea, Mr.
Dundee? Or shall I order you a highball?"
"Nothing, thanks," Dundee answered, grateful for her friendliness but
nonplussed by it. Not for the first time he felt a sick distaste for the
profession he had chosen....
"It's all over," Lois Dunlap said in a low voice, as the butler
retreated. "Lydia made her look very beautiful.... I thought it would be
rather horrible, having to see her, as the poor child requested in her
note to Lydia, but I'm glad now I did. She looked as sweet and young and
innocent as she must have been when she first wore the royal blue
velvet."
"I'm glad," Dundee said sincerely. Then he leaned toward her across the
tea table. "Mrs. Dunlap, will you please tell me just how you persuaded
Mrs. Selim to come to Hamilton--so far from Broadway?"
"Why certainly!" Lois Dunlap looked puzzled. "But it really did not take
much persuasion after I showed her some group photographs we had made
when we Forsyte girls put on 'The Beggar's Opera' here last October--a
benefit performance for the Forsyte Alumnae Scholarship fund."
With difficulty Dundee controlled his excitement. "May I see those
photographs, please?"
"I had to hunt quite a bit for them," his hostess apologized ten minutes
later, as she spread the glossy prints of half a dozen photographs for
Dundee's inspection. "Do you know 'The Beggar's Opera'?"
"John Gay--eighteenth century, isn't it?... As I remember it, it is
quite--" and Dundee hesitated, grinning.
"Bawdy?" Lois laughed. "Oh, very! We couldn't have got away with it if
it hadn't been a classic. As it was, we had to tone down some of the
naughtiest passages and songs. But it was lots of fun, and the boys
enjoyed it hugely because it gave them an opportunity to wear tight
satin breeches and lace ruffles.... This is my husband, Peter. He adored
being the highwayman, 'Robin of Bagshot'," and she pointed out a stocky,
belligerent-looking man near the end of the long row of costumed
players, in a photograph which showed the entire cast.
"You say that Mrs. Selim accepted your proposal _after_ she saw these
photographs?" Dundee asked. "Had she refused before?"
"Yes. I'd gone to New York for the annual Easter Play which the Forsyte
School puts on, because I'm intensely interested in semi-professional
theatricals," Lois explained. "Nita had done a splendid job with the
play the year before, and I spoke to her, after this year's show was
over, about coming to Hamilton. She was not at all interested, but
polite and sweet about it, so I invited her to have lunch with me the
next day, and showed her these photographs of our own play in the hope
that they would make her take the idea more seriously. We had borrowed a
Little Theater director from Chicago and I knew we had done a really
good job of 'The Beggar's Opera.' The local reviews--"
"These 'stills' look extremely professional. I don't wonder that they
interested Nita," Dundee cut in. "Will you tell me what she said?"
"She rather startled me," Lois Dunlap confessed. "I first showed her
this picture of the whole cast, and as I was explaining the play a
bit--she didn't know 'The Beggar's Opera'--she almost snatched the
photograph out of my hands. As she studied it, her lovely black eyes
grew perfectly enormous. I've never seen her so excited since--"
"What did she say?" Dundee interrupted tensely.
"Why, she said nothing just at first, then she began to laugh in the
queerest way--almost hysterically. I asked her why she was laughing--I
was a little huffy, I'm afraid--and she said the men looked so adorably
conceited and funny. Then she began to ask the names of the players. I
told her that 'Macheath'--he's the highwayman hero, you know--was played
by Clive Hammond; that my Peter was 'Robin of Bagshot', that Johnny
Drake was another highwayman, 'Mat of the Mint', that Tracey Miles
played the jailor, 'Lockit'--"
"Did she show more interest in one name than another?"
"Yes. When I pointed out Judge Marshall as 'Peachum', the fence, she
cried out suddenly: 'Why, I know him! I met him once on a party.... Is
he really a _judge_?' and she laughed as if she knew something very
funny about Hugo--as no doubt she did. He was an inveterate
'lady-killer' before his marriage, as you may have heard."
"Do you think her first excitement was over seeing Judge Marshall among
the players?" Dundee asked.
"No," Lois answered, after considering a moment. "I'm sure she didn't
notice him until I pointed him out. The face in this group that seemed
to interest her most was Flora Miles'. Flora played the part of 'Lucy
Lockit', the jailor's daughter, and Karen Marshall the other feminine
lead, 'Polly Peachum', you know. But it was Flora's picture she lingered
over, so I showed her this picture," and Lois Dunlap reached for the
portrait of Flora Miles, unexpectedly beautiful in the eighteenth
century costume--tight bodice and billowing skirts.
"She questioned you about Mrs. Miles?" Dundee asked.
"Yes. All sorts of questions--her name, and whether she was married and
then who her husband was, and if she had had stage experience," Lois
answered conscientiously. "She explained her interest by saying Flora
looked more like a professional actress than any of the others, and that
we should give her a real chance when we got our Little Theater going. I
asked her if that meant she was going to accept my offer, and she said
she might, but that she would have to talk it over with a friend first.
Just before midnight she telephoned me at my hotel that she had decided
to accept the job."
Dundee's heart leaped. It was very easy to guess who that "friend" was!
But he controlled his excitement, asked his next question casually:
"Did she show particular interest in any other player?"
"Yes. She asked a number of questions about Polly Beale, and seemed
incredulous when I told her that Polly and Clive were engaged. Polly
played 'Mrs. Peachum', and was a riot in the part.... But Nita's
intuition was correct. Flora carried off the acting honors.... Oh, yes,
she also asked, quite naïvely, if all my friends were rich, too, and
could help support a Little Theater. I reassured her on that point."
"And," Dundee reflected silently, "upon a point much more important to
Nita Selim." Aloud he said: "I don't see _you_ among the cast."
"Oh, I haven't a grain of talent," Lois Dunlap laughed. "I can't act for
two cents--can I, Peter darling?... Here's the redoubtable 'Robin of
Bagshot' in person, Mr. Dundee--my husband!"
The detective rose to shake hands with the man he had been too absorbed
to see or hear approaching.
"You're the man from the district attorney's office?" Peter Dunlap
scowled, his hand barely touching Dundee's. "I suppose you're trying to
get at the bottom of the mystery of why my wife brought that Selim
woman--"
"Don't call her 'that Selim woman', Peter!" Lois Dunlap interrupted with
more sharpness than Dundee had ever seen her display. "You never liked
the poor girl, were never just to her--"
"Well, it looks as if my hunch was correct, doesn't it?" the stocky,
rugged-faced man retorted. "I told you at the beginning to pay her off
and send her back to New York--"
"You knew I couldn't do that, even to please you, dear," Lois said. "But
please don't let's quarrel about poor Nita again. She's dead now, and I
want to do anything I can to help bring her murderer to justice."
"There's nothing you can do, Lois, and I hope Mr.--ah--Dundee will not
find it necessary to quiz you again."
Dundee reached for his hat. "I hope so, too, Mr. Dunlap.... By the way,
you are president of the Chamber of Commerce, aren't you?"
"Yes, I am! And we're having a meeting tonight, at which that Sprague
man's bid on making a historical movie of Hamilton will be turned
down--unanimously. Now that the Selim woman isn't here to vamp my
fellow-members into doing anything she wants, I think I can safely
promise you that Dexter Sprague will have no further business in
Hamilton--unless it is police business!"
"Thanks for the tip, Mr. Dunlap," Dundee said evenly. "I hope you
enjoyed your fishing trip. Where do you fish, sir?"
"A tactful way of asking for my alibi, eh?" Dunlap was heavily
sarcastic. "I left Friday afternoon for my own camp in the mountains, up
in the northwest part of the state. I drove my own car, went alone,
spent the week-end alone, and got back this noon. I read of the murder
in a paper I picked up in a village on my way home. I didn't like Nita
Selim, and I don't give a damn about her being murdered, except that my
wife's name is in all the papers.... Any questions?"
"None, thanks!" Dundee answered curtly, then turned to Lois Dunlap who
was watching the two men with troubled, embarrassed eyes. "I am very
grateful to you, Mrs. Dunlap, for your kindness."
The detective's angry resentment of Peter Dunlap's attitude lasted until
he had circled Mirror Lake and was on the road into Hamilton. Then
commonsense intervened. Dunlap was undoubtedly devoted to his wife.
Penny had said that he had "never looked at another woman." It was
rather more than natural that he should be in a futile, blustering rage
at the outcome of Lois' friendship for the little Broadway dancer....
Free of anger, his mind reverted to the story Lois Dunlap had told him.
For in it, he was sure, was hidden the key to the mystery of Nita
Selim's murder. Not at all interested in the proposition to organize a
Little Theater in Hamilton, Nita had been seized with a strange
excitement as soon as she was shown photographs of a large group of
Hamilton's richest and most prominent inhabitants.... But there was the
rub! _A large group!_ Would that group of possible suspects never narrow
down to one? Of course there was Judge Marshall, but if Lois Dunlap's
memory was to be trusted Nita had not noticed the elderly Beau Brummel's
picture until _after_ that strange, hysterical excitement had taken
possession of her. And if it had been Judge Marshall whom she had come
to Hamilton to blackmail would Nita not have guarded her tongue before
Lois? The same was true about her extraordinary interest in Flora
Miles....
Dundee tried to put himself in Nita's place, confronted suddenly with a
group picture containing the likeness of a person--man or woman--against
whom she knew something so dreadful and so secret that her silence would
be worth thousands of dollars. Would _he_ have chattered of that very
person? No! Of anyone else but that particular person! It was easy to
picture Nita, her head whirling with possibilities, hitting upon the
most conspicuous player in the group--dark, tense, theatrical Flora,
already pointed out to her as one of the two female leads in the
opera.... But of whom had she really been thinking?
Again a blank wall! For in that group photograph of the cast of "The
Beggar's Opera" had appeared every man, woman and girl who had been
Nita's guest on the day of her murder....
Dundee, paying more attention to his driving, now that he was in the
business section of the city, saw ahead of him the second-rate hotel
where Dexter Sprague had been living since Nita had wired him to join
her in Hamilton. On a sudden impulse the detective parked his car in
front of the hotel and five minutes later was knocking upon Sprague's
door.
"Well, what do you want now?" the unshaven, pallid man demanded
ungraciously.
Dundee stepped into the room and closed the door. "I want you to tell me
the name of the man Nita Selim came here to blackmail, Sprague."
"Blackmail?" Sprague echoed, his pallid cheeks going more yellow.
"You're crazy! Nita came here to take a job--"
"She came here to blackmail someone, and I am convinced that she sent
for you to act as a partner in her scheme.... No, wait! I'm _convinced_,
I tell you," Dundee assured him grimly. "But I'll make a trade with you,
in behalf of the district attorney. Tell me the name of the person she
blackmailed, and I will promise you immunity from prosecution as her
accomplice."
"Get out of my room!" and Dexter Sprague's right forefinger trembled
violently as it pointed toward the door in a melodramatic gesture.
"Very well, Sprague," Dundee said. "But let me give you a friendly
warning. _Don't try to carry on the good work._ Nita got ten thousand
dollars, but she also got a bullet through her heart. And the gun which
fired that bullet is safely back in the hands of the killer.... You're
not going to get that movie job, and I was just afraid you might be
tempted!... Good afternoon!"