"Hello, Penny!" Dundee greeted the district attorney's private secretary
Thursday morning at five minutes after nine. "Any news from Sanderson?"
"Yes," Penny Crain answered listlessly. "A night letter. He says his
mother is still very low and that we're to wire him at the Good
Samaritan Hospital in Chicago if anything turns up."
"Then I suppose I can reach him there by long distance," and Dundee
lifted the telephone from Penny's desk to put in the call.
"What's happened?" Penny demanded, her brown eyes wide and startled.
"And hurry it up, will you, please?" Dundee urged the long distance
operator before hanging up the receiver and answering Penny's question.
"That's just the trouble--nothing's happened, and nothing is very likely
to happen here. I'm determined to go to New York and work on this pesky
case from that end--"
"Then you've come around to Captain Strawn's theory that it was a New
York gunman?" Penny asked hopefully.
"Not by a jugful!... But what's the matter with you this morning, young
woman? You're looking less like a new penny and more like one that has
been too much in circulation."
"Thanks!" Penny retorted sarcastically; then she grinned wryly. "You are
right, as a matter of fact. I was up too late last night--bridge at the
Mileses'."
"_Bridge!_" Dundee ejaculated incredulously. "So the bridge party _did_
take place, in spite of the society editor's discreet announcement
yesterday that 'owing to the tragic death of Mrs. Selim, the regular
every-other-Wednesday dinner-bridge of the Forsyte Alumnae Association
will not be held this evening at the home of Mr. and Mrs. Tracey Miles,
as scheduled'."
"It wasn't a 'dinner-bridge' and it really wasn't intended to be a
party," Penny corrected him. "It just sort of happened, and of all the
ghastly evenings--"
"Tell me about it," Dundee suggested. "Knowing this town's telephone
service as I do, I'll have plenty of time to listen, and you don't know
how all-agog I am for inside gossip on Hamilton's upper crust."
"Idiot!" Penny flung at him scornfully. "You know society would bore you
to death, but I don't think you would have been exactly bored last
night, knowing, as I do, your opinion of Dexter Sprague."
"Sprague? Good Lord! Was he there?... This does promise to be
interesting! Tell me all!"
"Give me time!" Penny snapped. "I might as well talk, since there's
almost no work for me to do, with Bill away.... Ralph called me up last
night at dinner time, and asked me if I felt equal to playing bridge
again. He said that he, Clive, Tracey and Johnny Drake had lunched
together yesterday--as they frequently do--at the Athletic Club, and
that Judge Marshall, who had been lunching at another table with his
friend, Attorney Sampson, stopped at their table and suggested a bridge
game at his home for last night. Hugo said he wanted to coax Karen into
playing again, so she would get over her hysterical aversion to the game
since she had to replay that awful 'death hand'.... You see," Penny
explained parenthetically, "Hugo is a regular bridge fiend, and
naturally he doesn't want to be kept out of his game."
"Brute!" Dundee cried disgustedly. "Why couldn't he give the poor girl a
few days more?"
"That's what I thought," Penny acknowledged. "But _I_ didn't get an
inhibition against bridge, and the idea rather appealed to me
personally. The last few days haven't been particularly cheerful ones,
so I told Ralph I'd be glad to go. Tracey had suggested his house,
instead of Hugo's, because Betty wasn't well yesterday and Flora
wouldn't want to leave her for a whole evening. Well, Ralph and I--"
"Are you going to marry Ralph Hammond, Penny?" Dundee interrupted, as if
prompted by casual interest.
Penny's pale face flushed vividly. "No. I'm not in love with him, and
I'm sure he realizes I'm not and won't ask me again. But I _had_ to say
yes Sunday! I simply couldn't let you walk in on us, after I'd permitted
you to eavesdrop while he was talking, without first saying the one
thing that would convince him that I believed in his innocence and
hadn't set a trap for him."
"I see!" Dundee acknowledged soberly, but his blue eyes shone
with sudden joy. "Oh! There's long distance! Just a minute,
darling!... Hello! Hello!... Yes, this is Dundee.... Oh! All right!
Try again in fifteen minutes, will you?" He hung up the receiver and
explained to Penny: "Sanderson hasn't reached the hospital yet, but is
expected soon.... Go on with your story.... Who all played bridge at
the Mileses'? You don't mean to say Dexter Sprague was invited, too!"
Penny's face was still a brilliant pink as she answered: "I refuse to
have my climax spoiled!... When Ralph and I got there at eight, we found
that Peter and Lois had dined with Tracey and Flora and that they were
delighted at the prospect of bridge, as a relief from endless
discussions of the murder. We'd hardly got there when the Marshalls
came, poor little Karen not suspecting that she was going to have to
play. Then came Johnny Drake alone, with the news that Carolyn was in
bed and very miserable with a summer cold. Polly walked over from her
house, which is on the next hill to the right, you know. She said Clive
had decided to work late at the office, and had promised to call for her
about eleven, to take her home."
"What about Janet Raymond? Was she left out?" Dundee asked.
"I told you it wasn't a planned affair," Penny reminded him. "But Flora
did telephone her, and she said she didn't feel like coming. She's been
moping about like a sick cat since Nita's death. We all knew she was
idiotically in love with Dexter Sprague, and it must have been an awful
blow to her to hear you read aloud that note Nita received from
Sprague."
"So I noticed," Dundee nodded, recalling the deathly pallor of the
girl's face as Sprague had glibly explained away that damning note and
all its implications.
"Well," Penny continued, "Tracey suggested bridge, and at first Karen
flatly refused to play, but Hugo finally persuaded her.... Karen would
do absolutely _anything_ for that ridiculous old husband of hers! I
simply can't understand it--how she can be in love with him, I mean!"
"I thought you liked Judge Marshall," Dundee laughed.
"Oh, I do--in a way.... But fancy a young girl like Karen being in love
with him!... Well, anyway, we all went out to the east porch, which is
kept in readiness for bridge all summer. Iron bridge tables, covered
with oilcloth, and with oilcloth pouches for the cards and score pads,
so there's never any bother about scurrying in with things on account of
rain. It's a roofed, stone-floored porch, right outside the living-room,
and under it are the garages, so it's high and cool, with a grand view
of Mirror Lake down below, and of the city in the distance." She sighed,
and Dundee knew that she was thinking of her own lost home in
Brentwood--the fine old Colonial mansion which had been sacrificed to
her father's disastrous Primrose Meadows venture. Then she went on: "I
don't know why I am telling you all this, except that the setting was so
pleasant that we should have had a much better time than we did."
"You're an artful minx, Penny!" Dundee chuckled. "You're working up
suspense for the entrance of the villain!"
"Then let me do it justice," Penny retorted. "Lois and Peter, Ralph and
I, made up one table for bridge; Tracey and Polly, Judge Marshall and
Karen the other. Flora said she didn't want to play, because she wanted
to be free to keep an eye on Betty, although she protested she had
perfect faith in Lydia, who, Flora says, is proving to be a marvel with
the children. And Johnny Drake asked her to play anagrams with him, in
between trips to the nursery. Johnny has a perfect pash for anagrams,
and is a wow at 'em. So Tracey got the box of anagrams out of the trophy
room--"
"The trophy room?" Dundee repeated, amused.
"That's what Tracey calls it," Penny explained impatiently, "because he
has a couple of golf cups and Flora has an immense silver atrocity which
testifies to the fact that she was the 'lady's tennis champion' of the
state for one year. There are also some mounted fish and some deer heads
with incredible antlers, but the room is really used as a catch-all for
all the sports things--racquets, golf clubs, skis, ping-pong table,
etc.... Anyway, Tracey brought out the box of anagrams, and we were all
having a pretty good time when, at half past eight, the butler announced
'_Mr. Dexter Sprague_'!"
"Your tone makes me wish I'd been there," Dundee acknowledged. "What
happened?"
"You know how slap-em-on-the-back Tracey always is?" Penny asked,
grinning. "Well, you should have seen him and heard him as he dismissed
poor Whitson--the butler--as if he were giving him notice, instead of
letting him off for the night! And the icy dignity with which he greeted
poor Sprague--"
"_Poor_ Sprague?" Dundee echoed.
"Well, after all, Sprague _had_ been received by all the crowd before
Nita's death," Penny retorted. "I think it was rather natural for him to
think he'd still be welcome. He began to apologize for his uninvited
presence, saying he had felt lonesome and depressed and had just 'jumped
into a taxi' and come along, hoping to find the Mileses in. Flora tried
to act the lady hostess, but Peter got up from his bridge table and said
in tones even icier than Tracey's: 'Will you excuse me, Flora? And will
you take my place, Drake?... I'm going into the library. I don't enjoy
the society of murderers!'"
"Good Lord!" Dundee ejaculated, shocked but admiring. "Did Sprague make
a quick exit?"
"Not just then," Penny said mysteriously. "Of course everyone was simply
stunned, but Sprague retorted cheerfully, 'Neither do I, Dunlap!' Peter
stalked on into the living room on his way to the library, Johnny took
his place at the bridge table, and Tracey, at an urgent signal from
Flora, offered his seat at the other table to Sprague, as if he were
making way for a leper. Poor Polly had to be Sprague's partner. Flora,
as if she were terrified at what might happen--you know how frightfully
tense and nervous she is--made an excuse to run upstairs for a look at
Betty."
"And something terrible did happen," Dundee guessed. "You're looking
positively ghoulish. Out with it!"
"After about half an hour of playing without pivoting," Penny went on
imperturbably, "Hugo bid three spades, Karen raised him--in a trembling
voice--to five spades, Hugo of course went to a little slam, and Dexter
Sprague, if you can believe me, said: 'Better not leave the table,
Karen. _A little slam-bid in spades has been known to be fatal to the
dummy!_'"
"_No!_" Dundee was genuinely shocked, but before he could say more the
telephone rang. "Sanderson at last.... Hello! Chicago?... Oh, hello,
Captain Strawn!... _What's that?_... Oh, my God!... Where did you say
the body is?"
He listened for a long minute, then, with a dazed "Thanks! I'll be
over," he hung up the receiver.
"Sprague--murdered!" he answered the horrified question in Penny's eyes.
"Body discovered this morning about nine by one of the Miles' maids, in
what you described just now as the 'trophy room'.... Shot--just below
the breastbone, Captain Strawn says."
"The trophy room!" Penny cried. "Then--_that's_ where he was all the
time after he disappeared so strangely last night--"
"Whoa, Penny!" Dundee commanded. "Get hold of yourself! You're shaking
all over.... I want to know everything _you_ know--as quickly and as
accurately as you can tell it. Go right on--"
"Poor Dexter!" Penny groaned, covering her convulsed face with her
hands. "To think that he was _dead_ when we were saying such horrid
things about him--"
"Don't waste sympathy on him, honey!" Dundee cut in, his voice very
gentle but urgent. "If he had heeded my warning Monday he wouldn't be
dead now."
"What do you mean?" Penny gasped, but she was already calmer. "Your
warning--?"
"I had a strong suspicion that he was mixed up with Nita in her
blackmail scheme and I took the trouble to warn him not to try to carry
on with it. Yesterday afternoon I begged Strawn to have him shadowed to
see that he kept out of mischief. I was afraid the temptation would be
too strong for him, but Strawn wouldn't listen to me--still clinging to
his theory of a New York gunman.... Feeling better now, honey? Can you
go on? I want to get out to the Miles house as soon as I can."
"You're getting very--affectionate, aren't you?" Penny gave him a wobbly
smile in which, however, there was no reproof. "I think I can go on
now--. Where was I?"
"Good girl!" Dundee applauded, but his heart was beating hard with
something more than excitement over Sprague's murder. "You'd just told
me about Sprague's warning Karen not to leave the table when she became
dummy after Judge Marshall's little slam bid in spades."
"I remember," Penny said, pressing her fingers into her temples. "But
Karen _did_ leave the table. When Sprague said that awful thing, poor
Karen burst into tears and ran from the porch into the living room, Hugo
started to follow her, but Sprague halted him by apologizing very
humbly, and then by adding: 'I'd really like to see you play this hand,
sir. I believe I've got the cards to set you with....' Of course he
could not have said anything better calculated to hold Hugo, who, as I
said, is a regular fiend when it comes to bridge.... Well, Hugo played
the hand and made his little slam, and then he again started to go look
for Karen, but Polly, who was Sprague's partner, you know, told him in
that brusque way of hers to go on with the game and give Karen a chance
to have her little weep in peace. Probably Hugo would have gone to look
for her anyway, but just then Flora came back. She said Betty was asleep
at last and that her temperature was normal, and when she heard about
Karen, she offered to take her hand until Karen felt like coming back."
"What did Drake do then? He'd been playing anagrams with Mrs. Miles, you
said," Dundee interrupted.
"Don't you remember?--I told you Johnny had taken Peter's place at our
table after Peter refused to breathe the same air as Dexter Sprague,"
Penny reminded him. "Ralph and I, Lois and Johnny were playing together,
and just at the time I became dummy, Sprague became dummy at the other
table. He rose, saying he had to go telephone for a taxi, and passed
from the porch into the living room--"
"Where is the telephone?"
"The one the guests use is on a table in the hall closet, where we put
our things," Penny explained. "You can shut the door and hold a
perfectly private conversation.... Well, _we never saw Dexter Sprague
again_!"
"Good Lord! Another bridge dummy murdered!" Dundee groaned. "At least
the newspapers will be happy!... Didn't anyone go to look for him after
the hand was played?"
"Not straight off," Penny answered, with an obvious effort to remember
clearly every detail. "Let's see--Oh, yes! That hand was played out
before Ralph had finished playing his, at our table, so I was free to
pay attention to the other table. Flora said that since they couldn't
play another hand until Dexter came back, she thought she'd better hunt
up Karen, who hadn't come back yet."
"How long was Mrs. Miles away from the porch?" Dundee asked quickly.
"Oh, I don't know--ten minutes, maybe. She came back alone, saying she
had found Karen in her bedroom--Flora's room, of course--crying
inconsolably. Flora told Hugo he'd better go up to her himself, since
she evidently had her feelings hurt because he hadn't followed her in
the first place. Tracey, who wasn't playing bridge, you remember,
because he had given up his place to Sprague, asked Flora if she'd seen
Sprague, and Flora said, in a surprised voice, 'No! I wonder where he is
all this time,' and Polly said that probably he'd gone to the lavatory,
which opens into the main hall and is next to the library.... Well,
pretty soon Judge Marshall and Karen came back--"
"Pretty soon?--Just how long was Judge Marshall gone?" Dundee pressed
her, his pencil, which had been flying to take down her every word,
poised over the notebook he had snatched from her desk.
"I can't say exactly!" Penny protested thornily. "I was playing again at
the other table. I suppose it was about ten minutes, for Ralph and I had
made another rubber, I remember.... Anyway, Karen was smiling like a
baby that has had a lot of petting, but she said Hugo had promised her
she wouldn't have to play bridge any more that evening, so Flora
remained at that table, playing opposite Hugo, while Tracey played with
Polly. As soon as Tracey became dummy, Flora suggested he go look for
Sprague."
"And how long was _he_ gone from the porch?" Dundee asked.
"Less than no time," Penny assured him. "He was back before Polly had
finished playing the hand. He said he'd gone to the hall closet, where
Whitson, the butler, would have put Sprague's hat and stick, and that he
had found they were gone.... Well--and you needn't put down 'well' every
time I say it!" Penny interrupted herself tartly. "Tracey said he
supposed Sprague had ordered his taxi and had decided to walk down the
hill to meet it, and he added that that was exactly the kind of courtesy
you could expect from a cad and a bounder like Sprague--walking in
uninvited, making Karen cry, then walking out, without a word, leaving
the game while he was dummy. Flora spoke up then and said it was no
wonder Dexter had left without saying good-by, considering how he'd been
treated. Then Tracey said something ugly and sarcastic about Flora's
being disappointed because Sprague had decided not to spend the whole
evening--"
"A first-class row, eh?" Dundee interrupted, with keen interest.
"Rather! Flora almost cried, said Tracey knew good and well that she had
only been playing-up to Sprague before Nita's death, in the hope of
getting the lead in the Hamilton movie, if Sprague got the job of
directing it, and Tracey said, 'So you call it playing-up, do you? It
looked like high-powered flirting to me--or maybe it was more than a
flirtation!...' Then Flora told him he hadn't acted jealous at the
time, and that he _knew_ he'd have been glad if she'd got the
lead.... Well, just then along came Janet--"
"_Janet Raymond?_" Dundee ejaculated. "I thought you said she had
refused the invitation when Mrs. Miles phoned her."
"So she had, but she said she changed her mind, had been blue all
evening, and needed cheering up."
"How did she get in?"
"She walked over from her house, which isn't very far from the Mileses',
and simply came up the path to the porch," Penny explained. "Tracey
asked her if she had seen Sprague on the road--it's the same road Dexter
would have had to take going down the hill to the main road--and she
acted awfully queer--"
"How?" Dundee demanded.
"Exactly as she would act, since she was in love with him," Penny
retorted. "She turned very red, and asked if Sprague had inquired for
her, and Flora quite sharply told her he hadn't. Then Janet said she was
very much surprised that Sprague had been there, and that she couldn't
understand why he had behaved so strangely. Then Lois said she might as
well go fetch Peter from the library, since Sprague was no longer there
to contaminate the atmosphere. She came back--"
"After how long a time?"
"Oh, about five minutes, I suppose," Penny answered wearily. "She came
in, her arm linked with Peter's, and laughing. Said she had found him
reading a 'Deadwood Dick' thriller.... One of Tracey's hobbies--" she
broke off to explain, "--is collecting old-fashioned thrillers, like the
Nick Carter, Diamond King Brady, Buffalo Bill and Deadwood Dick
paper-bound books. Of course he didn't take up that hobby until a lot of
other rich men had done it first. There was never anybody less original
than poor Tracey.... Well, Flora gave up her place to Janet, and again
played anagrams with Johnny, Peter taking his original place at our
table. Suddenly Polly threw down her cards--she'd been having rotten
luck and seemed out of sorts--and said she didn't want to play bridge
any more. So poor Flora again had to be the perfect hostess, and switch
from anagrams to bridge."
"And Polly played anagrams with Drake?" Dundee prompted.
"No. She said she thought anagrams were silly, and wandered off the
porch and down the path, calling over her shoulder that she was going to
take a walk. Tracey asked Johnny if he'd mind mixing the highballs and
bringing out the sandwiches. Said Whitson had left a thermos bucket of
ice cubes on the sideboard, some bottles of ginger ale, and a tray of
glasses and sandwiches. Told him he'd find decanters of Scotch and rye,
and to bring out both."
"So Drake left the room, too," Dundee mused. "Oh, Lord. I _knew_ I'd
find that every last one of the six had a chance to kill Sprague, as
well as Nita!... How long was Polly Beale gone on this walk of hers?"
"She came in with a pink water lily--said she'd been down to the lily
ponds, and that Flora had enough to spare her one," Penny answered. "She
couldn't have been away more than ten minutes, because Johnny was just
mixing the highballs, according to our preference for Scotch or rye--or
plain ginger ale, which both Ralph and I chose. After we'd had our
drinks and the sandwiches, we went on with bridge. Polly and Johnny just
wandered about the porch or watched the game at the two tables. And
about five minutes after eleven Clive Hammond arrived, coming up the
path to the porch, just as Janet had. After he came, there was no more
bridge, but we sat around on the porch and talked until midnight. Clive
said he was too tired to play bridge--that he'd been struggling all
evening with a knotty problem."
"I can sympathize with him!" Dundee said grimly, as he rose. "I've got
my own knotty problem awaiting me.... When that call comes through from
Chicago, tell Sanderson the bad news, and say I'll telephone him later."