Murder at Bridge

by Anne Austin

  CHAPTER SIX

  Before Drake had reached his side, his purpose plain upon his stern,rather ascetic features, Dundee had taken a hasty glance at the watchcupped in his palm and noted the exact minute and second of theinterruption. Time out!

  "One moment, Mr. Drake," he said calmly. "I quite agree with you--fromyour viewpoint. What mine is, you can't be expected to know. But believeme when I say that I consider it of vital importance to theinvestigation of the murder of Mrs. Selim that this particular bridgehand, with all its attending remarks, the usual bickering, and itsinterruptions of arriving guests for cocktails, be played out, exactlyas it was this afternoon. I thought I had made myself clear before. Ifyou don't wish me to believe that _you have something to conceal_ byrefusing to take part in a rather grisly game--"

  "Certainly I have nothing to conceal!" John C. Drake snorted angrily.

  "Then please bow as gracefully as possible to necessity," Dundee urgedwithout rancor. "And may I ask, before we go on, if you made yourentrance at this time, and the facts of your arrival?"

  Drake considered a moment, gnawing a thin upper lip. Beads of sweatstood on his high, narrow forehead.

  "I walked over from the Country Club, after eighteen holes of golf withyour _superior_, the district attorney," Drake answered, with nastyemphasis. "I left the clubhouse at 5:10, calculating that it would takeme about twenty minutes for the walk of--of about a mile."

  Dundee made a mental note to find out exactly how far from this lonelyhouse in Primrose Meadows the Country Club actually was, but his nextquestion was along another line:

  "You _walked_, Mr. Drake?--after eighteen holes of golf on a warm day?"

  Drake flushed. "My wife had the car. I had driven out with Mr.Sanderson, but he was called away by a long distance message. I lingeredat the club for a while, chatting and--er--having a cool drink or two,then I set out afoot."

  "No one offered you a lift?" Dundee inquired suavely.

  "No. I presume my fellow-members thought I had my car with me, and Iasked no one for a lift, for I rather fancied the idea of a walk acrossthe meadows."

  "I see," said Dundee thoughtfully. "Now as to your arrival here--"

  "I walked in. The door had been left on the latch, as it usually is,when a party is on," Drake explained coldly. "And I was just enteringthe room when I heard my wife make the remark about covering an honorwith an honor, and then her question of Penny as to whether she shouldhave played second hand low."

  "So you entered this time at the correct moment," said Dundee. "Now, Mr.Drake, I am going to ask you to re-enter the room and do exactly as youdid upon your arrival at approximately 5:33. I am sure you would notwillingly hamper me--or _my superior_--in this investigation."

  Drake wheeled, ungraciously, and returned to the doorway, while Dundeeagain consulted his watch, mentally subtracting the minutes which hadbeen wasted upon this interruption, from the time he had marked upon hismemory as the moment at which Drake had interfered. But an undercurrentof skepticism nagged at his mind. Why had Drake chosen to _walk_? Andwhy had it taken him from 5:10 to approximately 5:33 to walk a mile orless? The average walker, and especially one accustomed to playing golf,could easily have covered a mile in fifteen minutes, instead of thetwenty-three minutes Drake had admitted to.... If it _was_ amile!... Was it possible that the banker loved wildflowers?

  With head up aggressively, Drake was undoubtedly making an effort tothrow himself into the role--or perhaps into a role chosen on the spot!

  "Where's everybody?" he called from the doorway. "Am I early?"

  "Don't interrupt, please, dear," Carolyn Drake answered, her voicetrembling now, where before it must have been sharp and querulous.

  Silently Drake took his place behind his wife's chair, laying a handaffectionately upon her shoulder. Dundee, watching closely, saw Penny'seyes widen with something like shocked surprise. So Drake _was_ tryingto deceive him, counting on the oneness of this group, his closestfriends!

  Karen, obviously flustered, too, reached to the dummy for the Ace ofDiamonds, to which Penny played the three, Karen herself discarding theten of Clubs, and Mrs. Drake the five of Diamonds.

  "You asked no questions, Mr. Drake?" Dundee interpolated.

  The banker flushed again. "I--yes, I believe I did. Carolyn--Mrs.Drake--explained that Karen was playing for a little slam in Spades, andthat she had doubled--'on principle'," he added acidly--a voice whichMrs. Drake must be very well accustomed to, Dundee surmised.

  "And when I told you that Nita had redoubled and it looked as if she wasgoing to make it," Carolyn Drake whimpered and shifted her short, stoutbody in the little bridge chair, "you said--why not tell the truth?--yousaid it was just like me and I might as well take to tatting at bridgeparties."

  "That was said jokingly, my dear," Drake retorted, with a coldness thattried to be affectionate warmth.

  "Play bridge!" Dundee commanded, sure that the approximate length of theprevious dispute had now been taken up, whatever retort Carolyn Drakehad made. Then he checked himself, again looking at his watch: "And justwhat did you answer to your husband's little joke, Mrs. Drake?"

  "I--I--" The woman looked helplessly around the table, her slate-coloredeyes reddened with tears, then she plunged recklessly, after a fearfulglance at Dundee's implacable face. "I said that if it was Nita he wastalking to, he wouldn't speak in that tone; that she could make all thefoolish mistakes of over-bidding or revoking or doubling that she wantedto, and he wouldn't say a word except to praise her--"

  "Then I may as well confess," Drake said acidly, "that I answeredsubstantially as follows: 'Nita is an _intelligent_ bridge player aswell as a charming woman, my dear!...' Now make the most of that littlefamily tiff, sir--and be damned to you!"

  "Did that end the scene, Mrs. Drake?" Dundee asked gently.

  "I--I said something about all the men thinking Nita was perfect," Mrs.Drake confessed, "and I cried a little, but we went on with the hand.And Johnny--Mr. Drake went away, walking up and down the room, waitingfor Nita to come back, I suppose!"

  "Then go on with the game," Dundee ordered.

  Silently now, as silently as the real game must have been played,because of the embarrassing scene between husband and wife, the sinistergame was carried to its conclusion. Karen led the Jack of Hearts fromthe dummy, Penny played her seven, Karen contributed her own deuce, andMrs. Drake followed suit with the five.

  Again Karen led from the dummy, with the four of Hearts, followed byPenny's nine, taking it with her own Ace, Mrs. Drake throwing off thefive of Clubs. Karen then led the six of Hearts, Carolyn Drake discardedthe six of Clubs, dummy took the trick with the eight of Hearts, andPenny sloughed the three of Clubs.

  With a faint imitation of the triumph with which she had played the handthe first time, Karen threw down her remaining three trumps.

  "I've made it--a little slam!" she tried to sound very triumphant."Doubled and redoubled!... How much did I--did Nita and I make, Penny?"

  "Plenty!" But before putting pencil to score pad, Penny cupped her chinin her hands and stared at Carolyn Drake. "I'd like to know, Carolyn, ifit isn't one of your most cherished secrets, _what_ possessed you todouble in the first place?"

  Carolyn Drake flushed scarlet as she protested feebly: "I thought ofcourse I could take two Club tricks with my Ace and King.... That's whyI doubled the little slam, of course. And my first double simply meantthat I had one good suit.... I thought if you could bid at all that mytwo doubletons--"

  "Oh, what's the use?" Penny groaned. "But may I remind you that it is_not_ bridge to lead from a Queen?... You led the deuce of Diamonds,when of course the play, since you had seen the Ace in the dummy, was tolead your Queen, forcing the Ace and leaving my King guarded to take atrick later."

  "But Karen didn't have any Diamonds at all," Carolyn defended herself.

  "A secret you weren't in on when you led from your Queen," Pennyreminded her. "Oh, well! We'll pay up and shut up!" and she made apretense of totting up the sco
re, while Karen, who had risen, stood overher like a bird poised for flight.

  At that instant Dexter Sprague began to advance into the room, JanetRaymond at his side, her face flaming.

  "Behave exactly as you did before!" Dundee commanded in a harsh whisper.No time for coddling these people now!

  Dexter Sprague's face took on a yellower tinge, but he obeyed.

  "Greetings!" he called in the jaunty, over-cordial tones of a man whoknows himself not too welcome. "Where's Nita--and everybody? Isn't thatthe cocktail shaker I hear?"

  Having received no answer from anyone present, Sprague strolled throughthe living room and on into the dining room, Janet following. JudgeMarshall had nodded stiffly, and John C. Drake had muttered thesemblance of a greeting.... Were they all overdoing it a bit--thisreacting of their hostility to the sole remaining outsider of theircompact little group?... Dundee stroked his chin thoughtfully.

  But Penny was saying in her abrupt, husky voice: "Above the line, 1250;below the line 720, making a total of 1970 on this hand, Karen."

  "Won't Nita be glad?" Karen gasped, then began to run totteringly,calling: "Nita! Nita!" But in the hall she collapsed, shuddering, cryingin a child's whimper: "No, no! I--can't--go in there--again!"

  It was Dundee who reached her first--Dundee and not her outraged andexcited old husband.

  "Mrs. Marshall--listen, please," he begged in a low voice, as he liftedher so that her head rested against his arm. "You have beensplendid--wonderful! Please believe that I am truly sorry to distressyou so, and that very soon, I hope, you may go home and rest."

  "I--can't bear any--more," Karen whimpered.

  Ignoring Judge Marshall's blustering, Dundee continued softly: "Youdon't want the wrong person to be accused of this terrible crime, doyou, Mrs. Marshall?... Of course not! And you _do_ want to help us allyou can to discover who really killed Mrs. Selim?"

  "I--I suppose so," Karen conceded, on a sob.

  "Then I'll help you. I'll go to the bedroom with you," Dundee promisedher with a sigh of relief. To the others he spoke sharply:

  "Go back to the exact positions in living room and dining room andsolarium, that you occupied when Mrs. Marshall ran from the room."

  "I think you're overdoing it, Bonnie," Captain Strawn protested."But--sure I'll see that they mind you."

  With Karen Marshall clinging to his arm, Dundee walked down the hall,beyond the staircase to an open door on his left--a door guarded by alounging plainclothesman. Seated at the dressing-table of the guests'lavatory was Flora Miles, her sallow dark face so ravaged that shelooked ten years older than when he had first seen her an hour before.

  "So you were in here when you heard Mrs. Marshall scream, Mrs. Miles?"Dundee paused to ask.

  "Yes--yes!" she gasped, rising. "And that horrible man has made me stayin here--. Of course, the door was closed--before. I telephoned home toask about my children, and then I came in here to--to do my face over--"

  "You didn't hear your husband arrive?"

  "No,--I didn't hear him arrive," Flora Miles faltered, her handkerchiefdabbing at her trembling, over-rouged lips.

  "I--see," Dundee said slowly.

  He stepped into the little room, leaving Karen to stand weakly againstthe door frame. Without a word to Mrs. Miles he looked closely at thetop of the dressing-table and into the small wastebasket that stoodbeside it.

  "You--you can see that I cold-creamed my face before I put on freshpowder and--and rouged," Flora Miles pointed out, with an obvious effortat offended dignity. "After I came back, while you were making thosepoor girls play the hand over again, I went through the samemotions--because you told all of us to behave exactly as we had donebefore--"

  "I--see," Dundee agreed.

  Pretty clever, in spite of being almost frightened to death, Dundee saidto himself. But he had been just a shade cleverer than she, for he hadbeen in this room ahead of her, and there had been no balls of greasyface tissue in the wastebasket then!

  He was passing out of the room, offering his arm to Karen, when one ofhis underlined notes thrust itself upon his memory:

  "May I see your bridge tally, please, Mrs. Miles?"

  "My--bridge tally!" she echoed blankly. "Why--it must be on the tablewhere I was playing--"

  "It is not," Dundee assured her quietly. "Perhaps it is in yourhandbag?" and he glanced at the rather large raffia bag that lay on thetable.

  She snatched it up, slightly averting her body as she looked hastilythrough its contents.

  "It--isn't here.... Oh, I don't know _where_ it is! What does itmatter?"

  Without replying, Dundee escorted the trembling little discoverer ofNita Selim's body into the large ornate bedroom, murmuring as he did so:

  "Don't be frightened, Mrs. Marshall. The bod--I mean Mrs. Selim isn'there now.... And you shan't have to scream. I'll give the signal myself.I just want you to go through the same motions you did before." On jerkyfeet the girl advanced to Nita's now deserted vanity dresser.

  "I--I was calling to her all the time," she whispered. "I didn't evenwait to knock, and I--I began to tell her how much we'd made off thathand, when I--when she didn't answer.... I didn't touch her, but Isaw--I saw--" Again she gripped her face with her hands and was about toscream.

  "I know," Dundee assured her gently. Then he shouted: "Ready!"

  Herded by Strawn, the small crowd of men and women came running into theroom, Judge Marshall leading the way, Penny being second in line. Penny_second_! Why not Flora Miles, who had been nearer to that room than anyof the others, if her story was true--Dundee asked himself. But all hadcrowded into the room, including Polly Beale and Clive Hammond, beforeMrs. Miles crept in.

  "Is this the order of your arrival?" Dundee asked them all.

  Penny, who was standing against the wall, just inside the doorway, spokeup, staring at Flora with frowning intentness.

  "You're sort of mixed up, aren't you, Flora? I was standing right hereuntil the worst of it was over--I didn't even go near Nita, and I knowyou didn't pass me. I remember that Tracey stepped away from the--body,and called you, and you weren't here. And then almost the next minute Isaw you coming toward him from--from--_over there_!"

  And Penny pointed toward that corner of the room which held, on oneangle, the door leading to the porch, and on its other angle the windowfrom which, or from near which Nita Selim had been shot.

  "You're lying, Penny Crain! I did no such thing!" Flora Miles criedhysterically. "I came running in--with--with the rest of you, and Irushed over there just to see if I could see anybody running away acrossthe meadow--"

  "My wife is right, sir," Tracey Miles added his word aggressively. "Isaw what she was doing--the most sensible of all of us--and I ran tojoin her. We looked out of the windows, both the side windows and therear ones, and out onto the porch. But we didn't see anything."

  Surprisingly, Dundee abandoned the point.

  "And you were the only one to touch her, Sprague?"

  "I--believe so," Dexter Sprague answered in a strained voice. "I--laidmy hand on her--her hair, for an instant, then I picked up her hand tosee if--if there was any pulse left."

  "Yes?"

  "She--she was dead."

  "And her hand--did it feel cold?"

  "Neither cold nor warm--just cool," Sprague answered in a voice that wasnearly strangled with emotion. "She--she always had cool hands--"

  "What did you do, Judge Marshall?" Dundee asked abruptly.

  "I took my poor little wife away from this room, laid her on a couch inthe living room, and then telephoned the police. Miss Crain stood at myelbow, urging me to hurry, so that she might ring you--as she did. Yourline was busy, and she lost about five minutes before getting you."

  "And the rest of you?" Dundee asked.

  "Nothing spectacular, I'm afraid, Mr. Dundee," Polly Beale answered inher brusque, deep voice, now edged with scorn.

  Further questioning elicited little more, beyond the fact that CliveHammond had dashed out to circle the hous
e and look over the grounds,and that John Drake had been fully occupied with an hysterical wife.

  "Better let this bunch go for the present, hadn't we, boy?" CaptainStrawn whispered uneasily. "Not a thing on any of them--"

  "Not quite yet, sir, if you don't mind," Dundee answered in a low voice."Will you take them back into the living room and put them underSergeant Turner's charge for a while? Then there are one or two thingsI'd like to talk over with you."

  Mollified by the younger man's deference and persuasiveness, Strawnobeyed the suggestion, to return within five minutes, his grey browsdrawn into a frown.

  "I hope you'll be willing to take full credit for that fool bridge game,Bonnie," he worried. "_I_ don't want to look a chump in the newspapers!"

  "I'll take the blame," Dundee assured him, with a grin. "But that 'foolbridge game'--and I admit it was a horrible thing to have to do--told mea whole bunch of facts that ought to be very, very useful."

  "For instance?" Strawn growled.

  "For instance," Dundee answered, "it told me that it took approximatelyeight minutes to play out a little slam bid, when ordinarily it wouldhave taken not more than two or three minutes. Not only that, but ittold me the names of everyone in _this_ party who could have killed NitaSelim, and--. Good Lord! Of course!"

  And to Captain Strawn's amazement Dundee threw open the door of Nita'sbig clothes closet, jerked on the light, and stooped to the floor.