Murder at Bridge

by Anne Austin

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Bonnie Dundee's first thought upon awakening that Sunday morning wasthat it might prove to be rather a pity that his new bachelor apartment,as he loved to call his three rooms at the top of a lodging house whichhad once been a fashionable private home, faced south and west, ratherthan east. At the Rhodes House, whose boarding-house clamor and lack ofprivacy he had abandoned upon taking the flattering job and decentsalary of "Special Investigator attached to the District Attorney'soffice," he had grown accustomed to using the hot morning sun upon hisreluctant eyelids as an alarm clock.

  But--he continued the train of thought, after discovering by his watchthat it was not late; only 8:40--it was pretty darned nice having"diggings" like these. Quiet and private. For he was the only tenantnow on the top floor. His pleased, lazy eyes roved over the plainseverity but solid comfort of his bedroom, and on past the open door totake in appreciatively the equally comfortable and masculine livingroom.... Pretty nice! That leather-upholstered couch and armchair hadbeen a real bargain, and he liked them all the better for being ratherscuffed and shabby. Then his eyes halted upon a covered cage, swung froma pedestal....

  "Poor old Cap'n!... Must be wondering when the devil I'm going to getup!" and he swung out of bed, lounged sleepily into the small livingroom and whisked the square of black silk from the cage.

  The parrot, formerly the property of murdered old Mrs. Hogarth of theRhodes House, but for the past year the young detective's official"Watson," ruffled his feathers, poked his green-and-yellow head betweenthe bars of his cage and croaked hoarsely: "Hullo! Hullo!"

  "Hullo, yourself, my dear Watson!" Dundee retorted. "Your vacation isover, old top! It's back on the job for you and me both!... Whichreminds me that I ought to be taking a squint at the Sunday papers, tosee how much Captain Strawn thought fit to tell the press."

  He found _The Hamilton Morning News_ in the hall just outside his livingroom door.

  "Listen, Cap'n.... 'NITA SELIM MURDERED AT BRIDGE'.... Probably thesnappiest streamer headline the News has had for many a day.... Nowlet's see--" He was silent for two minutes, while his eyes leaped downthe lesser headlines and the column one, page one story of the murder.Then: "Good old Strawn! Not a word, my dear Watson, about your absurdmaster's absurd performance in having 'the death hand at bridge'replayed. Not a word about Ralph Hammond, the missing guest! Not a wordabout Mrs. Tracey Miles' being hidden away in the clothes closet whileher hostess was being murdered!... In fact, my dear Watson, not a wordabout anything except Strawn's own theory that a hired gunman from NewYork or Chicago--preferably Nita's home town, New York, ofcourse--sneaked up, crouched in her window, and bumped her off. _And_life-size photographs of the big footprints under the window to provehis theory!... By golly, Cap'n! I clean forgot to tell my former chiefthat I'd found Nita's will and note to Lydia! He'll think I deliberatelyheld out on him.... Well--I can't sit here all day gossiping with you,'my dear Watson....' Work--much work--to be done; then--Sunday dinnerwith poor little Penny."

  Four hours later a tired and dispirited young detective was climbing thestairs of an ugly, five-story "walk-up" apartment house in which PennyCrain and her mother had been living since the financial failure andflight of the husband and father, Roger Crain.

  "Hello, there!" It was Penny's friendly voice, hailing him from thetopmost landing of the steep stairs. "All winded, poor thing?"

  His tired, unhappy eyes drank her in--the freshness and sweetness of adomestic Penny, so different from the thorny little office Penny whoprided herself on her efficiency as secretary to the districtattorney.... Penny in flowered voile, with a saucy, ruffled whiteapron.... But there were purplish shadows under her brown eyes, and hergayety lasted only until he had reached her side.

  "Sh-h-h!--Have they found Ralph?" she whispered anxiously.

  He could only answer "No," and he almost choked on the word.

  "Mother's all of a twitter at my having a detective to dinner," shewhispered, trying to be gay again. "She fancies you'll be wearing size11 shoes and a 'six-shooter' at your belt--Yes, Mother! It's Mr.Dundee!"

  She did not look "all of a twitter," this pretty but rather fadedmiddle-aged little mother of Penny's. A gentle dignity and patientsadness, which Dundee was sure were habitual to her, lay in the fadedblue eyes and upon the soft, sweet mouth....

  But Mrs. Crain was ushering him into the living room, and its charm madehim forget for the moment that the Crains were to be pitied, because oftheir "come-down" in life. For every piece of furniture seemed to beauthentic early American, and the hooked rugs and fine, brocaded damasksallied themselves with the fine old furniture to defeat the uglinesswith which the Maple Court Apartments' architect had been fiercelydetermined to punish its tenants.

  "'Scuse me! Gotta dish up!" Penny flung over her shoulder as she ranaway and left him alone with her mother.

  Dundee liked Mrs. Crain for making no excuses about a maid they couldnot afford, liked the way she settled into a lovely, ancientrocking-chair and set herself to entertain him while her daughter madeready the dinner.

  Not a word was said about the horrible tragedy which had occurred theday before in the house which had once been her home. They talked ofPenny's work, and the little gentlewoman listened eagerly, with only thefaintest of sighs, as Dundee humorously described Penny's fierceefficiency and District Attorney Sanderson's keen delight in her work.

  "Bill Sanderson is a nice boy," the woman of perhaps 48 said ofHamilton's 35-year-old district attorney. "It is nice for Penny to workwith an old friend of the family, or was--until--"

  And that was the nearest she came to mentioning the murder before Pennysummoned them to the little dining room.

  Because Penny was watching him and was obviously proud of her skill as acook--skill recently acquired, he was sure--Dundee ate as heartily ashis carefully concealed depression would permit. There was a beautifullybrowned two-rib roast of beef, pan-browned potatoes, new peas,escalloped tomatoes, and, for dessert, a gelatine pudding which Pennyproudly announced was "Spanish cream," the secret of which she hadmastered only that morning.

  "I was up almost at dawn to make it, so that it would 'set' in time,"she told him, and by the quiver of her lip Dundee knew that it was notSpanish cream which had got her up....

  "I'm going to help wash dishes," he announced firmly, and Penny, with aquick intake of breath, agreed.

  "Hadn't you better take a nap, Mother?" she added a minute later, asMrs. Crain, with a slight flush on her faded cheeks, began to stack thedessert dishes. "You mustn't lay a hand on these dishes, or Bonnie and Iwill have our dishwashing picnic spoiled.... Run along now. You needsleep, dear."

  "Not any more than you do, poor baby!" Mrs. Crain quavered, and thenhurried out of the room, since gentlewomen do not weep before strangers.

  "I called you 'Bonnie' so Mother would know we are really friends,"Penny explained, her cheeks red, as she preceded him through theswinging door into the miniature kitchen.

  "You'll stick to that--being friends, I mean, no matter what happens,won't you, Penny?" Dundee said in a low voice, setting the fragilecrystal dishes he carried upon the porcelain drainboard of the sink.

  "I knew you had something bad to tell me.... It's about--Ralph, Isuppose?" Her husky voice was scarcely audible above the rush of hotwater into the dishpan. "You'd better tell me straight off, Bonnie. I'mnot a very patient person.... Are they going to arrest Ralph when theyfind him? There wasn't a word in the paper about him this morning--"

  "I'm afraid they are, Penny," Dundee told her miserably. "Captain Strawnhas a warrant ready, but of course--"

  "Oh, you don't have to tell me you hope Ralph isn't guilty!" she cut inwith sudden passionate vehemence. "Don't _I_ know he couldn't have doneit? They always arrest the wrong person first, the blundering idiots--"

  It was the thorny Penny again, the Penny with glittering eyes whichmatched her nickname. But Dundee felt better able to cope with thisPenny....

  "I'm afraid I'm the chief idio
t, but you must believe that I'm sorry itshould be a friend of yours," he told her, and reached for the plate shehad rinsed of its suds under the hot water tap.

  "Shoot the works!" she commanded, with hard flippancy. "Of course Imight have known that Captain Strawn's theory about a gunman was justdust in our eyes, and that only a miracle could keep you from fasteningon poor Ralph, since he and the gun are both missing.... Naturally itwouldn't occur to you that it might be an outsider, someone who hadfollowed Nita and her lover, Sprague, from New York, to kill her forhaving left him for Sprague.... Oh, no! Certainly not!" she gibed, tokeep from bursting into tears.

  "An outsider would hardly have had access to Judge Marshall's pistol andMaxim silencer," he reminded her. "And Captain Strawn received a wirefrom a ballistics expert in Chicago this morning, confirming ourconviction that the same gun which fired the bullets against JudgeMarshall's target fired the bullet which killed Nita Selim.... You'vewashed that plate long enough. Let me dry it now.... And there are otherthings, Penny--"

  "Such as--" she challenged in her angry, husky contralto.

  "Sprague admitted to me this morning, after I had confronted him withproofs, that he sometimes slept in the upstairs bedroom--"

  "I told you they were lovers!" Penny interrupted.

  "--and that he slept there Friday night, after he and Nita hadquarreled. He still contends that the row was over thatmovie-of-Hamilton business," Dundee went on, as if she had not spoken."He admitted also that Nita had told him to take his things away when heleft Saturday morning, but he says it was only because she didn't wantRalph Hammond to find a man's belongings there if he had occasion to gointo the upstairs rooms in making his estimates for the finishing-up ofthe other side. But he contends, and Lydia Carr, whom I also saw againthis morning, supports him in it, that he stayed in the houseoccasionally when Nita was particularly nervous about being alone, andthat they were _not_ lovers."

  "Pooh!... Don't wipe the flowers off that plate. Here's another."

  "I'm inclined to say 'Pooh!', too, Penny," Dundee assured her, "butTracey Miles told me last night when he came to get Lydia that Nitareally seemed to be in love with Ralph--part of the time, at least."

  "Nita thought enough of Dexter Sprague to send for him to come downhere, and to root her head off for him to get the job of making themovie," Penny reminded him fiercely, making a great splashing in thedishpan.

  "Then--_you_ don't think she was in love with Ralph?" Dundee asked.

  "Oh, _I don't know_!" the girl cried. "I thought so sometimes--had thegrace to hope so, anyway, since Ralph was so crazy about her."

  "That's the point, Penny," Dundee told her gently. "Everyone I've talkedto this morning, including Sprague, seems sure that Ralph Hammond wasmad about Nita Selim."

  "So of course he would kill her!" Penny scoffed bitterly.

  "Yes, Penny--when he discovered Sprague's easily-recognized cravatsdraped over the mirror frame in a bedroom in Nita's house.... For theywere there to be seen when Ralph went into that bedroom yesterdaymorning."

  "How do you know he saw them?"

  "Because he left this behind him," Dundee admitted reluctantly, andwiped his hands before drawing an initialed silver pencil from hisbreast pocket. "I found it under the edge of the bed. The initials areR. H."

  "Yes, I recognize it," Penny admitted, turning sharply away. "I gave itto him myself, for a Christmas present. I thought I could afford to givesilver pencils away then. Dad hadn't bolted yet--" She crooked an elbowand leaned her face against it for a moment. Then she flung up her brownbobbed head defiantly. "Well?"

  "Ralph must have been--well, in a pretty bad way, since he loved Nitaand wanted to--marry her," Dundee persisted painfully. "Remember thatPolly Beale found him still there when she stopped to offer Nita a liftto Breakaway Inn. It is not hard to imagine what took place. We _know_that Polly curtly cancelled her luncheon engagement with Nita and therest of you, and went into town with Ralph, after making sure that Clivewould join them. I saw young Hammond myself for an instant, withoutknowing who he was, and I remember now thinking that he looked far tooill to eat. I was lunching at the Stuart House myself when they cameinto the dining room, you know."

  "Plenty to hang him on, I see!" Penny cried furiously.

  "There's a little more, Penny," Dundee went on. "Polly Beale and CliveHammond were mortally afraid that Ralph _would_ come to the cocktailparty! I'm sure Clive made Ralph promise to stay away, and that bothClive and Polly did not trust him to keep his promise. That is why, I amsure, Clive beckoned Polly to join him in the solarium, without enteringthe living room to speak to Nita. You remember they said they stayedthere all during the playing of--"

  "If you call it the 'death hand' again, I'll scream!"

  "All right.... They stayed there until Karen discovered the murder. I amsure they chose that place because of its many windows--they could watchfor Ralph's car, dash out and head him off. Take him away by force, ifnecessary, to keep him from making a scene. I believe they knew he hadmurder in his heart, and that he would find a way to get a gun--"

  "Have you also found out that he stole Hugo's gun yesterday?"

  "I have found that it was possible for him to do so," Dundee saidslowly. "The butler was off for the afternoon until six o'clock. Therewas no one in the house but the nursemaid and the-three-months-oldbaby."

  "Well? And I suppose you think Clive and Polly didn't have a chance tohead Ralph off, as you say, but that they did see him running away afterhe killed her?" Her voice was still brittle with anger, but there wereindecision and fear in it, too.

  "No," Dundee replied. "I don't think they saw him. I feel pretty sure hecame into the house by the back way, and through the back hall intoNita's room. He must have known Clive and Polly would be on the lookoutfor him.... At any rate, I have proof that whoever shot Nita from infront of that window near the porch door fled toward the back hall."

  And he told her of the big bronze lamp, whose bulb had been broken,reminding her of its place at the head of the chaise longue which wasset between the two west windows.

  "That was the 'bang or bump' Flora Miles heard while she was hiding inthe closet," he explained. "I suppose Flora has told all of you aboutit?... I thought so. Muffled as she was in the closet, it is unlikelythat she could have heard Nita's frantic whisperings to Ralph.... Idoubt if he spoke at all. Nita must have been sure he was about to leaveby the porch door--"

  Dimly there came the ring of the telephone. With a curt word, Pennyexcused herself to answer it. Dundee went on polishing glasses with afresh towel....

  "Bonnie!" Penny was coming back, walking like a somnambulist, her browneyes wide and fixed. "That was--Ralph!... _And he doesn't even know Nitais dead!_"