Murder at Bridge

by Anne Austin

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  "That would be impossible, Miles," Dundee said deliberately. "_For yourwife is already dead!_" Then his clear words rang out like the knell ofdoom:

  "Tracey Arthur Miles, I arrest you for the murder of your wife, known asJuanita Leigh Selim, and for the murder of Dexter Sprague. And it is myduty to warn you that anything you say may be used against you."

  Tracey Miles lifted his ashen face and stared at the detective blankly,as though he had gone deaf and blind. "All--over--isn't it? May I--havea--drink?" he managed to articulate at last.

  "Poor devil! He needs it," the too-soft-hearted young detective toldhimself, as Miles poured a drink from the almost empty whiskey decanterand raised the little glass to his lips.

  "I have--nothing--to say!" the murderer gasped thickly, then fellheavily to the floor.

  * * * * *

  It was three-quarters of an hour later. District Attorney Sanderson,Captain Strawn and Dundee were alone in the house where Nita "Selim" hadbeen murdered and where her husband had confessed his crimes bycommitting suicide. The morgue ambulance had come and gone....

  "I should have known," Dundee admitted ruefully, as the three menentered Nita's bedroom, "that so ingenious a criminal as Tracey Mileswould not have failed to provide against the possibility of discovery.He must have seized an opportunity to spill cyanide of potassium intothe decanter when my eyes were off him for a moment--and upon LoisDunlap."

  "I'm glad he did," Sanderson said curtly. "But it was ghastly that poorLois had to know that it was she, in all innocence, who fired the shotthat killed her friend."

  "It was," Dundee sighed. "But I believed that the only way I could makeMiles confess was to frighten him into thinking Flora would be killed inthe same manner.... Well, it worked!"

  "Captain Strawn and I are still in the dark as to exactly how Milesmanaged his wife's murder," Sanderson reminded him. "This morning youchose to tell us nothing more than that a Hamilton man had married NitaLeigh in New York in January, 1918, and that eight years ago, when hesaw her picture in _The Hamilton Evening Sun_, along with the story that'Anita Lee' had committed suicide, he felt free to marry again.... Yousaid then you knew who the man was but you would not even tell us howyou knew--"

  "Because I had very little actual proof then," Dundee answered. "As towho he was, the salient clue had been staring me in the face the wholetime, but it was not until I was fooling with a set of anagrams lastnight, idly spelling out the names of all the men who _might_ havemarried her and then murdered her, that I saw it--"

  "Saw _what_?" Strawn demanded irritably.

  "That Selim is simply Miles spelled backwards," Dundee explained."Possibly because he considered it the sophisticated thing to do, Milesused an assumed name at the party at which he met Nita Leigh--andmarried her under that name shortly afterward. Even the first name,'Mat', by which she knew him, was only his initials reversed."

  "Simple--but clever," Sanderson commented.

  "Just as were all of Miles' schemes after Nita, egged on by Sprague,turned up in Hamilton to demand 'back alimony' as the price of hersilence.... But let me show you how he killed his wife."

  He strode to the big bronze lamp. "It took me less than an hour today toreconstruct the death machine so that it would be almost exactly as itwas when Miles finished his work just before 2:30 on Saturday, May24--and as it remained until he had an opportunity to come back here anddismantle it. Trust him to find out that the guard was removed from thehouse Thursday!"

  As he spoke, he was unscrewing the big, jewel-studded bowl of the bronzelamp. Wedged, at a down-slanting angle inside the bowl, which was twelveinches in diameter, was Judge Marshall's snub-nosed automatic, theattached Maxim silencer projecting slightly from the hole whose jewelwas missing.

  "Lydia told me last night over the telephone--and very much surprisedshe was, too, when I swore her to secrecy--that the jewel had been lostwhen the lamp was shipped from New York," Dundee explained. "There's ablank cartridge in the gun now, of course, but Miles, in his panic, tookmy words literally.... See the electro-magnet strapped to the gun butt?He got it from the bell Sprague had installed in Lydia's bedroom, and hereturned it when he was 'cleaning up', so that the bell would ringagain. The magnet he connected with the electric wire in one of the twolamp sockets, as you see it now, and the long cord of the lamp wasconnected with the wire of the bell in the dining room--so connectedthat when anyone stepped on the two little metal plates under the diningroom rug, the kitchen bell would ring and the gun would be firedsimultaneously. But if you will examine the jewel hole," he suggested,"you will see that Miles had to enlarge it considerably, using a reamer,which I found in the tool chest in the basement, along with all theapparatus Sprague had bought for installing Nita's alarm bell. I couldsee no reason for Sprague's having needed a reamer for his little job,however, and this morning I was lucky enough to get proof that Mileshimself had purchased it at a hardware store on the Tuesday beforeNita's murder."

  "How did he connect the lamp cord with the dining room bell?" Strawnpuzzled. "These modern houses don't have exposed wiring--"

  "You forget Sprague's wiring for the alarm bell from here to Lydia'sroom!" and Dundee threw back the rug, showing them the hole in thefloor, out of which came a short length of electric wire, ending in twosmall metal plates. But attached now to the wire was the cord from thebronze lamp.

  "The plug of the lamp cord is nearly out of the baseboard outlet behindthe bookcase, just as Miles left it, so that there is no contact withelectricity there. And the rug, which almost entirely covers the floor,hides, as you have seen, the joining of the two wires. An inexplicablewrapping of adhesive tape both on the lamp cord and on the wire ofNita's alarm bell here gave me the clue.... In installing the alarmbell, Sprague copied the arrangement under the dining table, of course.And Miles simply had to drop a bit, fastened to the augur Sprague hadbought and used for his own job, down the four inches which separate thedining room floor from the basement ceiling, boring a hole through theceiling. It was that fresh-bored hole in the ceiling that I could notunderstand, and which Ralph Hammond assured me was not there Saturdaymorning before Nita was killed.... Miles joined a piece of electric wireto the dining room bell wires, and pushed it down through the hole hehad bored into the basement ceiling. Now if you'll come down with me--"

  When the three men stood staring upward at the basement ceiling, Dundeecontinued:

  "See this long wire running along the ceiling from the hole beneath thedining room bell? The tacks Miles used to secure it were also returnedto the tool chest, but he could not get rid of either the augur hole orthe tiny holes showing the course of the wire.... Let's follow it."

  He led them across the basement to a door leading into a dank,unfinished portion of the cellar, directly east of Lydia's bedroom andbeneath Nita's. The wire whose course they were following led under thetop frame of the door, and, with a flashlight in his hand, Dundee showedhow it continued along a rafter until it reached the place where it wasjoined, by adhesive tape, to the wire Sprague had dropped from Nita'sbedroom floor above.

  "Miles simply cut the wire here where it enters another hole throughLydia's bedroom wall, and attached the new wire," Dundee explained. "Theconnection between the dining room bell and the electro-magnet in thelamp upstairs was then complete.... Sprague had bought yards too much ofthe wire--fortunately for Miles' scheme."

  "But what a chance Miles took on the bullet's not hitting her in a fatalspot!" Sanderson commented in an awed voice.

  "Not much of a chance!" Dundee denied. "He would fire the gun only whenhe knew Nita was seated before her dressing-table. Experienced marksmanthat he was, he could calculate the path of the bullet to a nicety. Ofcourse the machine had to be used that very day. As you know Nitaherself gave him his chance. Miles, standing at the sideboard, which wasseparated from Nita's dressing table only by a thin wall, listened untilthe first faint notes of _Juanita_ told him that Nita was powdering herfa
ce. He could be almost positive that Nita was sitting down to hertask.... The poor girl saw nothing to alarm her, but the gun kicked whenthe shot was fired by Lois' innocent stepping upon the dining room bell,and the big lamp was rocked so that it banged against the window frame,shattering the one bulb Miles had left in it. Of course he moved thelamp a foot or so, in the resulting excitement. And if Nita had beenwounded only, living to tell how the shot was fired, Miles would havecommitted suicide then and there."

  "What if Nita had not asked him to mix cocktails or had not gone topowder her face?" Strawn asked.

  "The whole party was going to dine and dance at the Country Club.Miles would have escorted her home, as he had done on Monday night, whenNita had probably made her last demand. He could have counted on Nita'sgoing into her bedroom to powder her face, even if he had had to tellher that her nose was shiny, and would himself then have gone to thedining room, on the excuse that he needed a drink before discussing'business'.... But I must tell you that on Saturday morning, accordingto the telephone operator in Miles' office, into whom I put the fear ofthe Lord and the law when I interviewed her this morning, Nita rang Milesto say she must see him as soon as possible, her unexpressed intentionbeing to tell him that she was not going to make him come across again.Miles--the telephone operator confessed to having listened-in on theWhole conversation--told her he would be right out, but Nita said she andLydia were going into Hamilton and would not be back until 2:30--thetime the bridge game was scheduled to begin. That was the opportunityMiles had been praying for, and he came on out, having previously stolenthe gun and silencer and having studied this house--"

  "How had he got in?" Sanderson wanted to know.

  "Judge Marshall had lent him a key in February, when Miles wanted toshow the house to an engaged young man in his offices, and Miles hadneglected to return it.... Well, when he arrived, he found Ralph Hammondhere, and had to leave, waiting at a safe distance, probably, until thecoast was clear about one o'clock. Even so, he had more than an hour todo his carefully planned job.... _Nita had to die!_ Miles could notcontinue to pay her large sums of money, since he was really only anemploye of Flora's. Everything he held dear in the world was threatened.He loved Flora, he adored his children, and he could not give up theluxury and social position which his bigamous marriage with Flora----"

  "Why didn't he make a clean breast of the whole mess to Flora, since hehad not married her until he believed Nita Leigh was dead?" Sandersoninterrupted.

  "You must remember that Flora was carrying on a violent flirtation withSprague--'vamping' him to get the lead in the Hamilton movie, if Spraguegot the job of directing it," Dundee reminded him. "Miles, victim of adeep-rooted sexual inferiority complex, must have felt sure that Flora,on discovering she was not legally married, would snatch at the chanceto marry Sprague--which was of course what Sprague had planned in caseNita published the truth."

  "But you were wrong about the secret shelf! The gun was never there!"Strawn gloated.

  "No. But it was the absence of fingerprints on the pivoting panel andshelf which kept me on the right track. Miles had searched the shelf forthe marriage certificate which he could not know Nita had alreadyburned. Probably, too, he had written her a few letters during theirshort courtship----"

  "How was Sprague killed?" Sanderson interrupted impatiently.

  Dundee led the way across the basement to a cubbyhole next to the coalroom, entered and came out with a narrow, deep drawer of ebony inlaidwith mother-of-pearl....

  "First I must tell you that Miles got the gun out of the lamp thatSaturday night, parking his car at a distance and sneaking into thehouse while I was talking with Lydia in the basement. We can guess thathe stowed gun, silencer and electro-magnet in a pocket of his car. Atany rate, he came back noisily enough a little later, to offer Lydia ajob as nurse in his home. Doubtless he assured himself that she knewnothing, or poor Lydia would have gone the way of her mistress andSprague."

  "Was Sprague----?" Strawn began.

  "Despite my warning," Dundee went on, refusing to be hurried, "Spraguemade a demand for blackmail money upon Miles. It is possible thatSprague, also sneaking into the house that Saturday night to get hisbag, saw Miles retrieve the gun. At any rate, Sprague knew that Mileswas the only person among all the company who had a real motive forkilling Nita Selim, and he undoubtedly blackmailed Miles as a murdereras well as a bigamist. Perhaps Miles put him off for a day or two, buton Wednesday Judge Marshall begged for a bridge game, and Miles seizedthe opportunity of again having the original crowd present--a sort ofwall of integrity surrounding and including him. For I don't think hereally wanted to involve his best friends as suspects. I believe hemerely wanted to hide among them--apparently as above suspicion as theywere. And there is safety in numbers, you know.... At any rate, Milesmade an appointment Wednesday afternoon with Sprague, telling him that,if he would come to his home that evening, and manage to leave thebridge game while he was dummy, he would find the money he wasdemanding--_in a drawer of the cabinet that stood between the twowindows in the trophy room_!"

  Dundee exhibited the drawer he had taken from the basement tool room."This drawer! I took it away from the Miles home this afternoon whileeveryone but a chambermaid was at the inquest. Miles did not have timeto go home before going to your office, Mr. Sanderson, with the rest ofthe crowd you had summoned for questioning. If he had, he would havekilled himself as soon as he found the incriminating drawer was missingfrom the cabinet."

  "But--_how_----?" Sanderson began, frowning with bewilderment.

  "Very simple!" Dundee answered. "When Sprague pulled open this drawer,which was set in the cabinet at just the height of his stomach, hereceived a bullet in his heart.... See these four little holes?... Avise was screwed into the bottom of the drawer so that it gripped thegun with its silencer, at an upward angle. A piece of string was tied tothe trigger and fastened somehow to the underside of the drawer, so thatwhen Sprague pulled the drawer open the string was drawn taut and thetrigger pulled. Practically the same mechanism by which he tried tomurder me.... The kick of the gun jerked the drawer shut. All Miles hadto do when he was pretending to look for Sprague was to turn off thetrophy room light by a button--one of a series on the outside wall ofthe hall closet. Probably it had been agreed between them that Spraguewould not return to the bridge game, hence Sprague's telephoning for ataxi to wait for him at the foot of the hill, and his taking his hat andstick into the trophy room with him."

  "Then Miles had from midnight till dawn to remove the gun!"

  "Yes. Some time during the night, after Flora was asleep with asedative, which she badly needed because of the quarrel--a genuineone--which she and Tracey had had over Sprague--Miles slipped down tothe trophy room and removed the gun and vise. But he could not removethe holes the screws had made, although he did cover the bottom of theusually empty drawer with old pamphlets on the care and feeding ofdogs.... By the way, the chambermaid told me that her master spent abouthalf an hour before dinner that Thursday night in the trophy room,'going over his fishing tackle'.... His next concern was to make themurder jibe completely with Captain Strawn's theory of a gunman who hadtrailed his quarry to the Miles home and shot him through the window.The window was already open, but the screen had to be raised, too, andSprague's fingerprints had to be on the nickel catches by which thescreen curtain is raised or lowered. Of course Sprague had not touchedthe screen----"

  "Do you mean to say he lugged the corpse to the window and lifted it upso that he could press the stiff fingers upon the nickel catches?"Sanderson asked with a shudder. "What a fiend----"

  "No," Dundee assured him. "That was unnecessary. He simply removed thecurtain screen, which is so designed that it can be taken down and putup as easily as a window shade. He carried the screen--his own handsprotected by gloves, I suppose--to where Sprague's right hand lay _palmupward_, on the floor, and pressed the thumb and forefinger against thecatches, making fingerprints all right, but they were reversed--as Idiscovered when it oc
curred to me to examine the photographs ofSprague's fingerprints in Carraway's office today. Miles could not turnthe stiff hand over without bruising the dead flesh; consequently theprint of the forefinger was on the catch where the thumb would normallyhave left its mark--and vice versa.... Before I forget it, I should alsotell you that I found a master key hanging on the keyboard in thebutler's pantry. Big houses, with their many locks, are usually providedwith a master key, and Miles undoubtedly used that one to gain entranceinto my room after midnight Saturday morning."

  "Where did you find the vise?" Strawn asked.

  "In the tool chest right here, where he had also placed the reamer hehad bought. The vise probably belonged to Miles originally, but he wastaking no chances on anything's being found in his possession, providedwe tumbled to _how_ the two crimes were committed.... The reamer he musthave brought out here after he used it to enlarge the hole in my hot-airregister after midnight Sunday morning. It is possible he did hiscleaning up job here at the same time. It was safe enough to have lightson, since the house is so isolated and there had been no guard heresince Thursday."

  "Well--" Sanderson drew a deep breath. "He was a far cleverer man thanany of us suspected. The mechanical arrangements were absurdly easy torig up, in all three cases, but the _thinking_ of them----. It is a pityNita did not fear him as she feared Sprague's vengeance----"

  "You're right," Dundee answered. "Nita did not fear Miles, not even whenshe was making him pay and pay.... No woman could look at Miles andbelieve him capable of murder. But a conviction of sexual inferiorityleads to strange things, as psychologists can tell you.... I believeMiles married the only two women who ever fell in love with him, andthere can be no doubt that Nita really loved him, for she kept herwedding dress for more than twelve years and chose it to be her shroud.It is possible she was still fond of him, although she was infatuatedwith Sprague when she came down here and was later sincerely in lovewith Ralph Hammond. Another reason she did not fear Miles when she madeher will was that she counted on being able to tell him Saturday nightat the latest that she would never ask him for money again, if he wouldtrade silence for silence. How she hoped to secure Sprague's silence wecan only guess at. Probably she meant to buy it with the remainder ofthe $10,000 she had already got from Miles--provided Sprague did notkill her for ditching him as a lover. We know she foresaw thatpossibility, since she willed the money to Lydia. Of course if Spraguehad proved tractable, Nita as Ralph's wife would have been able tocompensate Lydia handsomely for the injury she had done her."

  "Poor Nita--and poor Flora!" Sanderson sighed, as he led the way up thebasement stairs. "Hello! Someone's calling you, Bonnie----"

  Dundee ran through the kitchen and dining room and into the living room,for he had recognized Penny Crain's sweet, husky contralto.

  "What are _you_ doing back here, young woman?" he demanded. "You weretold to go home and forget all this ugly business----"

  "Dad wants a private word with you," Penny explained, her brown eyesluminous with happiness. "He's on the front porch.... And you ought tosee Mother! She looks like a twenty-year-old bride!"

  When Dundee joined him on the porch, Roger Crain flushed painfully butthere was happiness in his eyes, too....

  "Serena asked me to thank you for giving her Penny's message to passon to me," Crain began in a low voice. "I'm sure you've guessed a lot,but what you probably don't know is that Serena used the securitiesI had sent her for safe keeping, to play the market with. When sheknew what I had done here, she wouldn't let me touch a penny of themoney until she had turned it into enough to clear up all my debts inHamilton.... Then," and he sighed slightly, "she sent me home.... Notthat I'm sorry. I'm going to try to make Margaret and Penny happy, makethem and the town forget that I disgraced them----"

  "Through?" Penny called from the doorway, and Bonnie Dundee forgotTracey Miles and all his ingenious schemes.