by Anne Austin
CHAPTER THREE
"Good-by, dinner!" groaned the plump, blond little man who had beenintroduced as Tracey Miles, as he sorrowfully patted his ratherprominent stomach.
"Don't worry, darling," begged the dark, neurotic-looking woman who wasFlora Miles, his wife. "I'm sure Mr. Dundee will ask Lydia--poor Nita'smaid, you know--" she explained in an aside to Dundee, "--to prepare alight supper for us if he really needs to detain us long--which I amsure he won't."
"How can you think of food now?" Polly Beale, the tall, sturdy girl withan almost masculine bob and a quite masculine tweed suit, demandedbrusquely. Her voice had an unfeminine lack of modulation, but whenDundee saw her glance toward Clive Hammond he realized that she waswholly feminine where he was concerned, at least.
"Of course, we are all _dreadfully_ cut up over poor Nita's--death,"gasped a rather pretty girl, whose most distinguishing feature was hercrop of crinkly, light-red hair.
"I assume that to be true, Miss Raymond," Dundee answered. "But we mustlose no more time getting at the facts. Just when was Mrs. Selimmurdered?"
At the brutal use of the word a shudder rippled over the small crowd.Dexter Sprague, "of New York," dropped his lighted cigarette where itwould have burned a hole in a fine Persian rug, if Sergeant Turner, onguard over the room for Captain Strawn, had not slouched from his cornerto plant a big foot upon it.
"We don't know exactly when it happened," Penny volunteered. "We wereplaying bridge, the last hand of the last rubber, because the men werearriving for cocktails, when Nita became dummy and went to her bedroomto--"
"To make herself 'pretty-pretty' for the men," Mrs. Drake mimicked;then, realizing the possible effect of her cattiness on Dundee, shedefended herself volubly: "Of course I _liked_ Nita, but she _did_ thinkso terribly much about her effect on men--and all that, and was alwaysfixing her make-up, and besides--you _can't_ suspect me, because I wasplaying against Karen and Nita--"
"Thank you, Mrs. Drake," Dundee cut in. "Does anyone know the exact timeMrs. Selim left the room, when she became dummy?"
"I can tell you, because I had just arrived--the first of the men to gethere," Tracey Miles volunteered, obviously glad of the chance to talk--acharacteristic of the man, Dundee decided. "I looked at my watch justafter I stepped out of my car, because I like to be on time to the dot,and Nita--Mrs. Selim--had said 5:30.... Well, it was exactly 5:25, so Ihad five minutes to spare."
"Yes?" Dundee speeded him up impatiently.
"Well, I came right into the hall, and hung my hat in the closet outthere, and then came in here. It must have been about 5:27 by thattime," he explained, with the meticulousness of a man on the witnessstand. "I shouted, 'Hello, everybody! How's tricks?...' That's a joke,you know. 'How's tricks?'--meaning tricks in bridge--"
"Yes, yes," Dundee admitted, frowning, but the rest of the companyexchanged indulgent smiles, and Flora Miles patted her husband's handfondly.
"Well, Nita jumped up from the bridge table--that one right there,"Miles pointed to the table nearer the arched doorway, "and she said,'Good heavens! Is it half past five already? I've got to run and makemyself 'pretty-pretty' for just such great big men as you, Tracey--"
"'Tracey, darling'!" Judge Marshall corrected, with a chuckle thatsounded odd in the tensely silent room.
Tracey Miles flushed a salmon pink, and his wife's fingers clutched athis hand warningly. "Oh, Nita called everybody 'darling,' and didn'tmean anything by it, I guess," he explained uneasily. "Just one of hercute little ways--. Well, anyway, she came up to me and straightenedmy necktie--another one of her funny little ways--and said, 'Tracey,my _own_ lamb, won't you shake up the cocktails for poor littleNita?...' You know, a sort of way she had of coaxing people--"
"Yes, I know," Dundee agreed, with a trace of a grin. "Go on as rapidlyas you can, please."
"I thought you wanted to know everything!" Miles was a little peevish;he had evidently been enjoying himself. "Of course I said I'd make thecocktails--she said everything was ready on the sideboard. That's thedining room right behind this room," he explained unnecessarily, sincethe French doors were open. "Well, Nita blew me a kiss from herfingertips, and ran out of the room.... Now, let's see," he ruminated,creasing his sunburned forehead beneath his carefully combed blond hair,"that must have been at exactly 5:30 that she left the room. I went oninto the dining room, and Lois--I mean, Mrs. Dunlap came with me,because she said she was simply dying for a caviar sandwich and a nipof--of--"
"Of Scotch, Tracey," Lois Dunlap cut in, grinning. "I'm sure Mr. Dundeewon't think I'm a confirmed tippler, so you might as well tell thetruth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.... Poor Tracey has adeadly fear that we are all going to lose the last shred of ourreputations in this deplorable affair, Mr. Dundee," she added in arather shaky version of the comfortable, rich voice he had heard earlierin the day.
"I'm not going to pry into cellars," Dundee assured her in the samespirit. "What else, Mr. Miles?"
"Nothing much," Tracey Miles confessed, with apparent regret. "I wasstill mixing--no, I'd begun to shake the cocktails--when I heard ascream--"
"Whose scream?" Dundee demanded, looking about the room, and dismissingMiles thankfully.
"It was--I," Judge Marshall's fair-haired, blue-eyed little bridevolunteered in a voice that threatened to rise to hysteria.
"Tell me all about it," Dundee urged gently.
"Yes, sir," she quavered, while her husband's arm encircled hershoulders in courtly fashion. "As Tracey told you, Nita was dummy, and Iwas declarer--that is, I got the bid, and played the hand. It--it wasquite an exciting end for me to the afternoon of bridge, for I'm notusually awfully lucky, so when Penny had figured up the score, becauseI'm not good at arithmetic, and I knew Nita and I had rolled up anawfully big score, I jumped up and ran into her room to tell her thegood news, because she hadn't come back. And--and--there she was--allbowed over her dressing-table, and she--she was--was--"
"She was dead when you reached her?" Dundee assisted her.
"Yes," Karen Marshall answered faintly, and turned to hide her faceagainst her elderly husband's breast.
Dundee's swift eyes took in the varying degrees of whiteness and sickhorror that claimed every face in the room as surely as if all presenthad not already heard Karen tell her story to Captain Strawn. TraceyMiles looked as if he would have no immediate craving for his dinner,and Judge Marshall's fine, thin face no longer looked so"well-preserved" as he prided himself that it did. As for DexterSprague, he almost folded up against the coral brocade draperies. It wasthe women, oddly enough, who kept the better control over theiremotions.
"Of course you all rushed in when Mrs. Marshall screamed?" he askedcasually.
Twelve heads nodded mutely.
"Did any or all of you touch the body, or things in the room?"
"Mr. Sprague touched her hair, and--and lifted one of her hands," Pennycontributed quietly. "But you know how it must have been! We can't anyof us tell _exactly_ every move we made, but there was some rushingabout. The men, mostly, looking for--for whoever did it--"
"Mrs. Marshall, did you see anyone--_anyone at all_--in or near thatroom when you entered it?"
The white-faced young wife lifted her head, and looked at him dazedlywith drowned blue eyes. "There wasn't anyone in--in that room, I know,"she faltered. "It felt horrible--being in there with--with _her_--allalone--"
"But near the room? In the main hall or in the little foyer where thetelephone is?" Dundee persisted.
"I--don't think so ... I can't--remember--seeing _anyone_.... Oh, Hugo!"and again she crouched against her husband, who soothed her withtrembling hands that looked incongruously old against her childish fairhair and face.
"Where were the rest of you--_exactly_ where, I mean?" Dundee demanded,conscious that Captain Strawn had entered the room and was standingslightly behind him.
There was such a babel of answers, given and then hastily corrected,that Dundee broke in suddenly:
"I want a connected sto
ry of 'the events leading up to the tragedy.' AndI want someone to tell it who hasn't lost his--or her--head at all." Helooked about the company, as if speculatively, but his mind was alreadymade up. "Miss Crain, will you tell the story, beginning with the momentI left you and Mrs. Dunlap and Mrs. Selim today?"
Penny nodded miserably and was about to begin.
"Just a minute, before you begin, Miss Crain," Dundee requested. "I'dlike to make notes on your story," and he drew from a coat pocket ashorthand book, hastily filched from Penny's own tidy desk. "Yes," heanswered the girl's frank stare of amazement, "I can write shorthand--ofa sort, and pretty fast, at that, though no other human being, I amafraid, could read it but myself.... As for you folks," he addressed theuneasy, silent group of men and women in dead Nita's living room, "Ishall ask you not to interrupt Miss Crain unless you are very sure thather memory is at fault."
Penelope Crain was about to begin for the second time, when again Dundeeinterrupted. "Another half second, please."
On the first sheet of the new shorthand notebook Dundee scribbled:"Suggest you try to locate Ralph Hammond immediately. Very much in lovewith Mrs. Selim. Invited to cocktail party; did not show up." Tearingthe sheet from the notebook, he passed it to Captain Strawn, who readit, frowning, and then nodded.
"Doc Price has done all he can here," Strawn whispered huskily. "Wantsto know if you'd like to speak to him before he takes the body to themorgue."
"Certainly," Dundee answered as he grinned apologetically to the girlwho was waiting, white-faced but patiently, to tell the story of theafternoon.
Quickly suppressed shudders and low exclamations of horror followed himand the chief of the Homicide Squad from the room.
"Well, Bonnie boy, we meet again, for the usual reason," old Dr. Pricegreeted the district attorney's new special investigator. "Anothershocking affair--that.... A nice clean wound, one of the neatest jobs Iever saw. Shot entered the back, and penetrated the heart.... _Very_nicely calculated. If the bullet had struck a quarter of an inch higher,it would have been deflected by the--"
"But the _path_ of the bullet, doctor!" Dundee broke in. "Have you madeany calculations as to the place and distance at which the shot wasfired?"
"Roughly speaking--yes," the coroner answered. "The gun was fired at adistance, probably, of ten or fifteen feet--perhaps closer, but I don'tthink so," he amended meticulously. "As for the path of the bullet, Ihave fixed it, judging from the position of the body, which I am assuredhad not been moved before my arrival, as coming from a point somewherealong a straight line drawn from the wound, with the body upright, ofcourse, to--here!"
Dundee and Strawn followed the brisk little white-haired old doctoracross the bedroom to a window opening upon the drive--the one nearestthe door leading out upon the porch.
"I've marked the end of the line here," Dr. Price went on, pointing to afaint pencil mark made upon the window frame--the pale-green strip ofwoodwork near the chaise longue, which was set between the two windows.
"I told you she was shot from the window!" Strawn reminded Dundeetriumphantly. "You see, doc, it's my theory that the murderer climbed upto the sill of this window, which was open as it is now, crouched in it,and shot her while she sat there powdering her face."
"Not necessarily, Captain, not necessarily," Dr. Price deprecated. "Imerely say that this pencil mark indicated the _end_ of the line showingthe path of the bullet. Certainly she was not shot _through_ the frameof the window, but she might have been shot by anyone stationed just infront of it, or anywhere along the line, up to, say, within ten feet ofthe woman.... Now, if that's all, Captain, I'll be getting this corpseinto the morgue for an autopsy. And I'll send you both a copy of myfindings."
"Just a minute, Dr. Price," Dundee detained him. "How old would you sayMrs. Selim was?"
The little doctor pursed his wrinkled lips and considered for a moment,eyeing the body stretched upon the chaise longue speculatively.
"We-ell, between thirty and thirty-four years old," he answered finally."Of course, you understand that that estimate is unofficial, and mustremain so, until I have completed the autopsy--"
Dundee stared down at the upturned face of the dead woman with startledincredulity. Between thirty and thirty-four years old! That tiny,lovely--But she was not quite so lovely in death, in spite of theserenity it had brought to those once-vivacious features. Peering moreclosely, he could see--without those luminous, wide eyes to center hisattention--numerous fine lines on the waxen face, the slackness of alittle pouch of soft flesh beneath her round chin, an occasional whitehair among the shoulder-length dark curls.... Dundee sighed. How easy itwas for a beautiful woman to deceive men with a pair of wide, velvetyblack eyes! But he'd bet the women had not been quite so thoroughlytaken in by her cuddly childishness, her odd mixture of demureness andyouthful impudence!
Back in the living room, whose occupants stopped whispering and grewtaut with suspense, Dundee seated himself at a little red-lacquer table,notebook spread, while Strawn settled himself heavily in the nearestoverstuffed armchair.
"Now, Miss Crain, I am quite ready, if you will forgive me for havingkept you waiting."
In a very quiet voice--slightly husky, as always--Penny began her story:
"I think it lacked two or three minutes of one o'clock when you droveaway. Nita, Lois--do you mind if I use the names I am most accustomedto?... Thank you!--and I went immediately into the lounge of BreakawayInn, where we found Carolyn Drake and Flora Miles waiting for us. Nitasoon left us to see about the arrangement of the table, and while shewas away the rest of the girls arrived."
"Except--" a woman's voice broke in.
"I was going to say all eight of us were ready for lunch except PollyBeale. She hadn't come," Penny went on, her husky voice a little sharpwith annoyance. "When Nita came to ask us into the private dining room,one of the Inn's employees came and told her there was a call for herand showed her to the private booth in the lounge. In a minute Nitareturned and told us that Polly wasn't coming to the luncheon, but wouldjoin us later for bridge here."
"Why don't you tell him how funny Nita acted?" Janet Raymond prompted.
Penny flushed, but she accepted the prompting. "I think any of us mighthave been a little--annoyed," she said steadily, as if striving to beutterly truthful. "Nita told us--" she turned to Dundee, whose pencilwas flying, "that Polly had made no excuse at all; in fact, she quotedPolly exactly: 'Sorry, Nita. Can't make it for lunch. I'll show up atyour place at 2:30 for bridge.'"
"Nita couldn't bear the least hint of being slighted," Janet Raymondexplained, with a malicious gleam in her pale blue eyes. "If it hadn'tbeen for Lois and Hugo--Judge Marshall, I mean--Nita Selim would neverhave been included in any of our affairs--and she _knew_ it! The Dunlapscan do anything they please, because they're--"
"Please, Janet!" Lois Dunlap cut in, her usually placid voice becomingquite sharp. "You must know by this time that I make friends wherever Iplease, and that I liked--yes, I was _extremely_ fond of poor littleNita. In fact, I am forced to believe that, of all the women she met inthis town, I was her only real friend."
There was a flush of anger on her lovably plain face as her grey eyeschallenged first one and then another of the "Forsyte girls." One or twolooked a little ashamed, but there was not a single voice to contradictLois Dunlap's flat assertion.
"Will you please go on, Pen--Miss Crain?" Dundee urged, but he hadmissed nothing of the little by-play.
"I wish you would call me Penny so I'd feel more like a person than awitness," Penny retorted thornily. "Where was I?... Oh, yes! Nita cooledright off when Lois reminded her that Polly was always abrupt likethat--" and here Penny paused to grin apologetically at the girl withthe masculine-looking haircut, "and then we all went into the privatedining room, where Nita had ordered a perfectly gorgeous lunch, with aheavenly centerpiece of green-striped yellow orchids--Well, I don'tsuppose you're interested in what we ate and things like that--" shehesitated.
"Was there anything unusua
l in the conversation--anything like aquarrel?" Dundee prompted.
"Oh, no!" Penny protested. "Nothing happened out of the ordinary atall--No, wait! Nita received a letter by messenger--or rather a note,when we were about half through luncheon--"
There was a low, strangled-in-the-throat cry from someone. Who haduttered it Dundee could not be sure, since his eyes had been on hisnotebook. But what had really interrupted Penny Crain was a crash.
