"Lord, but you're stubborn! Here's a water-tight case----"
"A very pretty and a very satisfactory case, but not exactly
water-tight," Dundee interrupted. "There's just one little thing----"
"What do you mean?" Strawn demanded irritably.
"Have you forgotten the secret shelf behind the guest closet in the
Selim house?" Dundee asked.
"I can afford to forget it, since it hasn't got a thing to do with the
case!" Strawn retorted angrily. "There's not a scrap of evidence----"
"Of course it does not fit into _your_ theory," Dundee agreed, "for
'Swallow-tail Sammy's' avenging brother could not have known of its
existence, but there is one thing about that secret shelf and its pivot
door which I don't believe you can afford to forget, Captain!"
"Yeah?" Strawn snarled.
"Yeah!... I refer, of course, to the complete absence of fingerprints on
the door and on the shelf itself! Carraway didn't even find Nita Selim's
fingerprints. Since Nita would have had no earthly reason for carefully
wiping off her fingerprints after she removed the papers she burned on
Friday night, it's a dead sure fact that someone else who had no
legitimate business to do so, touched that pivoting panel and the shelf,
and carefully removed all traces that he had done so!... And--" he
continued grimly, "until I find out who that someone is, I, for one,
won't consider the case solved!"
Fifteen minutes later Dundee was sitting at Penny Crain's desk in her
office of the district attorney's suite, replacing the receiver upon the
telephone hook, after having put in a call for Sanderson, who was still
in Chicago, keeping vigil at the bedside of his dying mother.
"Did you find out anything new when you questioned the crowd this
morning?" Penny asked. "Besides the fact that Polly and Clive got
married this morning, I mean.... I wasn't surprised when I read about
the wedding in the extra. It was exactly like Polly to make up her mind
suddenly, after putting Clive off for a year----"
"So it was Polly who held back," Dundee said to himself. Aloud: "No, I
didn't learn much new, Penny. You're a most excellent and accurate
reporter.... But there were one or two things that came out. For
instance, I got Drake to admit to me, in private, that Nita did give him
an explanation as to where she got the $10,000."
"Yes?" Penny prompted eagerly.
"Drake says," Dundee answered dryly, "that Nita told him it was 'back
alimony' which she had succeeded in collecting from her former husband.
Unfortunately, she did not say who or where the mysterious husband is."
"Pooh!" scoffed Penny. "Don't you see? She just said that to satisfy
Johnny's curiosity. After all, it was the most plausible explanation of
how a divorcee got hold of a lot of money."
"So plausible that Drake may have thought of it himself," Dundee
reflected silently. Aloud, he continued his report to the girl who had
been of so much help to him: "Among other minor things that came out
this morning, and which the papers did not report, was the fact that
Janet Raymond tried to commit suicide this morning by drinking shoe
polish. Fortunately her father discovered what she had done almost as
soon as she had swallowed the stuff, and made her take ipecac and then
sent for the doctor."
"Oh, poor Janet!" Penny groaned. "She must have been terribly in love
with Dexter Sprague, though what she saw in him----"
Dundee made no comment, but continued with his information: "Another
minor development was that Tracey Miles admitted that he and Flora had
quarreled over Sprague after all of you left, and that Flora took two
sleeping tablets to make sure of a night's rest."
"She's been awfully unstrung ever since Nita's murder," Penny defended
her friend. "She told us all Monday night at Peter's that the doctor had
prescribed sleeping medicine.... Now, you look here, Bonnie Dundee!" she
cried out sharply, answering an enigmatic smile on the detective's face,
"if you think Flora Miles killed Nita Selim and Dexter Sprague, because
she was in love with Dexter and learned he was Nita's lover from that
silly note----"
"Whoa, Penny!" Dundee checked her. "I'm not linking exactly that. But
I've just remembered something that had seemed of no importance to me
before."
"And what's that, Mr. Smart Aleck?" Penny demanded furiously.
"Before I answer that question, will you let me do a little theorizing?"
Dundee suggested gently. "Let us suppose that Flora Miles was _not_ in
love with Sprague, but that she was being blackmailed by Nita for some
scandal Nita had heard gossiped about at the Forsyte School.... No,
wait!... Let us suppose further that Nita recognized Flora's picture in
the group Lois Dunlap showed her, as the portrait of the girl whose
story she had heard; that she was able, somehow, to secure incriminating
evidence of some sort--letters, let us say. Nita tells Sprague about it,
and Sprague advises her to blackmail Flora, who, Lois has told Nita, is
very rich. So Nita comes to Hamilton and bleeds Flora of $10,000. Not
satisfied, Nita makes another demand, the money to be paid to her the
day of the bridge luncheon----"
"Silly!" Penny scoffed furiously. "The only evidence you have against
poor Flora is that she stole the note Dexter had written to Nita!"
"That's the crux of the matter, Penny darling!" Dundee assured her in a
maddeningly soothing voice, at which Penny clinched her hands in
impotent rage. "Flora, seeing Nita receive a letter written on her
husband's business stationery, jumps to the conclusion that Nita had
carried out her threat to tell Tracey, or that Nita has at least given
Tracey a hint of the truth and that Tracey's special-messenger note is,
let us say, a confirmation of an appointment suggested by Nita.... Very
well! Flora goes to Nita's bedroom at the first opportunity, knowing
that Nita will come there to make up for the men's arrival. Let's
suppose Flora had brought the gun and silencer with her, intending to
frighten Nita, rather than kill her. But having had proof, as she
believes, that Nita means business, Flora waits in the closet until Nita
comes in and sits down at her dressing-table, then steps out and shoots
her. Then she recoils step by step, until her foot catches in the slack
cord of the bronze lamp, causing the very 'bang or bump' which Flora
herself describes later, for fear someone else has heard it. Her first
concern, of course, is to hide the gun and silencer. She remembers Judge
Marshall's tale of the secret shelf in the guest closet, and not only
hides the gun there but seeks in vain for the incriminating evidence
Nita has against her. But she also remembers the note she believes
Tracey has written to Nita, and which, if found after Nita's death, may
give her away. So she goes to the closet in Nita's bedroom, finds the
note, and faints with horror at her perhaps needless crime when she
realizes that the note was written by Sprague, and not Tracey. Of course
she is too ill and panic-stricken to leave the closet until the murder
is discovered----"
"But you think she was not too panic-stricken to have the presence of
mind to retrieve the gun and silencer and walk out with them, under the
very eyes of the police," Penny scoffed.
"_No! I think she was!_" Dundee amazed her by admitting. "And that is
where my sudden recollection of something I had considered unimportant
comes in! Let us suppose that Flora, half-suspected by Tracey, confesses
to him in their car as they are going to the Country Club for their
long-delayed dinner, as were the rest of you. Tracey, loyal to her,
decides to help her. He tells her to suggest, at dinner, that Lydia come
to them as nurse, so that he can go back to the house and get the gun
and silencer from the guest-closet hiding place, if an opportunity
presents itself--as it did, since I left Tracey Miles alone in the hall
while I went into Nita's bedroom to talk with Lydia before I permitted
her to go with Tracey."
"You're crazy!" Penny told him fiercely, when he had finished. "I
suppose you are going to ask me to believe that Tracey was a big enough
fool to leave the gun and silencer where Flora could get hold of it and
kill Sprague last night."
"Why not let us suppose that Tracey himself killed Sprague to protect
his wife, not only from scandal, but from a charge of murder?" Dundee
countered. "Tell me honestly: do you think Tracey Miles loves Flora
enough to do that for her?"
Suddenly, inexplicably, Penny began to laugh--not hysterically, but with
genuine mirth.