Afternoon Tea Mysteries, Volume One: A Collection of Cozy Mysteries (Three thrilling novels in one volume!)

by Anne Austin

  “Lydia, this is Mrs. Selim’s last will and testament,” Dundee interrupted, withdrawing the sheets slowly and unfolding them. “It was written yesterday, and it begins:

  “‘Knowing that any of us may die any time, and that I, Juanita Leigh Selim, have good cause to fear that my own life hangs by a thread that may break any minute—’”

  “What did my poor girl mean?” Lydia Carr cried out vehemently. “She wasn’t sick, ever—”

  “I think, Lydia, that she feared exactly what happened today—murder! And I want you to tell me who it was she feared. For I believe you know!”

  The woman shrank from him, until she was sitting on her lean haunches, her hands flattening against her cheeks. For a long minute she did not attempt to answer. Her right eye widened enormously, then slowly grew as expressionless as the milky left ball.

  “I—don’t—know,” she said dully. Then, with vehement emphasis: “I don’t know! If I did, I’d kill him with my own hands!”

  Dundee had no choice but to take her word.

  “You said there was a message for me,” Lydia reminded him.

  “I’ll read you her will first,” Dundee said quietly, lifting the sheets again:

  “I am herewith setting down my last will and testament, in my own handwriting. I do here and now solemnly will and bequeath to my faithful and beloved maid, Lydia Carr, all property, including all moneys, stocks and personal belongings of which I die possessed—”

  “To—me?” Lydia whispered. “To me?”

  “To you, Lydia,” Dundee assured her gravely.

  “Then I can have all her pretty clothes to keep always?”

  “And her money, to do as you like with, if the court accepts this will for probate—as I think it will, regardless of the fact that it is very informal and was not witnessed.”

  “But—she didn’t have any money,” Lydia protested. “Nothing but what Mrs. Dunlap paid her in advance for the work she was going to do—”

  “Lydia, your mistress died possessed of nearly ten thousand dollars!” Dundee fixed her bewildered grey eye with his blue ones. “Ten thousand dollars! All of which she got right here in Hamilton! And I want you to tell me how she got it!”

  “But—I don’t know! I don’t believe she had it!”

  Dundee shrugged. Either this woman would perjure her soul to protect her mistress’ name from scandal, or she really knew nothing.

  “That is all of the will itself, Lydia,” he went on finally, “except her command that her body be cremated without funeral services of any kind, and that nobody be allowed to accompany the remains to the crematory except yourself and Mrs. Peter Dunlap, in case her death takes place in Hamilton—”

  “She did love Mrs. Dunlap,” Lydia sobbed. “Oh, my poor little girl—”

  “And there is also a note for you, which I took the liberty of reading, in which Mrs. Selim minutely describes the clothes in which she wishes to be cremated, as well as the fashion in which her hair is to be dressed—”

  “Let me see it!” Lydia plunged forward on her knees and snatched at the papers he held. “For God’s sake, let me see!”

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  “I’ll read you the note, Lydia, but I can’t let you touch it,” Dundee said sternly, taking good care that she should not touch either the paper on which the note to herself had been written or the sheet which contained that strange, informal will. Informal, in spite of the dead woman’s obvious effort to couch it in legal phraseology….

  Was Lydia’s frenzy assumed? Did she hope to leave fingerprints now which would account for fingerprints she had already left upon it? Was it not possible that Lydia’s had been the prying fingers which had opened the envelope after Nita Selim had sealed it with God only knew what fears in her heart? If so, Lydia Carr had found that she was her mistress’ sole legatee…. Revenge, coupled with greed…. What better motive for murder could a detective ask? And who had had so good an opportunity as Lydia Carr to dispose of the weapon?

  The woman crouched back on her haunches, an agony of pleading in her single eye.

  “Lydia, I think you know already what this note tells you,” Dundee said slowly.

  To his astonishment the maid nodded, the tears starting again. “I asked her once what she wanted to keep that old dress for, and she—she said I’d find out some day, but I never dreamed she’d want it for a—oh, my God!—for a shroud!”

  For the second time that evening Lydia Carr completely routed Dundee’s carefully worked-up case against her. It was inconceivable, he told himself, that a mind cunning enough to have executed this murder would give itself away in such a fashion. If she had indeed pried among her mistress’ papers and found the will and note, would she not, from the most primitive instinct of self-preservation, have pretended total ignorance of the note’s contents?

  “I’ll read the note, Lydia,” he said gently. “It is addressed: ‘My precious old Lydia’—”

  “She was always calling me that!” the maid sobbed.

  “And she writes: ‘If you ever read this it will be because I’m dead, and you’ll know that I’ve tried to make it up to you the only way I knew. I never could believe you really forgave me, but maybe you will now. And there is one last thing I want you to do for me, Lydia darling. You remember that old royal blue velvet dress of mine that you were always sniffing at and either trying to make me give away or have made over? And remember that I told you that you’d know some time why I kept it? Well, I want you to lay me out in it, Lydia. Such a funny old-fashioned shroud, isn’t it? … But with dresses long again, maybe it won’t look so funny, and there’ll be nobody but you and Lois to see me in it, because I’ve said so in my will. And I want my hair dressed as it was the only time I ever wore the royal blue velvet. A French roll, Lydia, with little curls coming out the left side of it and hanging down to the left ear. You brush the hair straight up the back of the head, gather it together and tie a little bit of black shoestring around it, then you twist the hair into a roll and spread it high, pinning it down on each side of the head. And don’t forget the little curls on the left side! I hope I have enough hair, but if it hasn’t grown long enough, you know where those switches are that I had made when I first bobbed my hair…. You won’t mind touching me when I’m dead, will you, Lydia? I do love you…. Nita.’”

  Dundee was silent for a minute after he had finished reading the strange note and had returned it to the envelope, along with the will. At last, speaking against a lump in his throat, he broke in on the desolate sobbing of Nita’s maid:

  “Lydia, how old was your mistress?”

  “You won’t put it in the papers, will you?” Lydia pleaded. “She—she was—thirty-three. But not a soul knew it except me—”

  “And will you tell me how old the royal blue velvet dress is?” he continued. “Also, how long since girls dressed their hair in a French roll?”

  “The dress is twelve or thirteen years old,” Lydia said, her voice dull now with grief. “I know, because I used to do dressmaking during the war. And it was during the war that girls wore their hair that way—I did mine in a Psyche knot, but the French roll was more stylish.”

  “Did your mistress ever tell you about the one time she wore the dress?”

  Lydia shook her head. “No. She wouldn’t talk about it—just said I’d know sometime why she kept it…. Royal blue velvet, it is, the skirt halfway to the ankles, and sleeves with long pointed ends, lined with gold taffeta, and finished off with gold tassels. It’s in a dress bag, hanging in her closet.”

  “Do you think it was her wedding dress, Lydia?” Dundee suggested, the idea suddenly flashing into his mind.

  “I don’t know. I didn’t ask her that,” Lydia denied dully. “Can I take it with me—and the switches she had made out of her curls?”

  “I’ll have to get authority to remove anything from the house, Lydia,” Dundee told her. “But I am sure you will be permitted to follow Mrs. Selim’s instructions…. So you’re go
ing to accept the Miles’ offer of a job as nurse?”

  “Yes. I’d rather work. Mr. and Mrs. Miles have always been specially nice to me, and I—I could love their children. They’re not—afraid of me—”

  “Perhaps you’re wise,” Dundee agreed. “By the way, Lydia, did Mrs. Selim have a pistol in her possession at any time during the past week?”

  The maid shook her head. “Not that I seen. And if she’d got one because she was afraid, she’d a-kept it handy and I’d a-been bound to see it.”

  Convinced of her sincerity, he was about to let her go to pack her bag when another belated question occurred to him. “Lydia, will you tell me what engagements Mrs. Selim had this last week?”

  The woman scowled, fanatically jealous, Dundee guessed, of her mistress’ reputation, but at last she answered defiantly: “Let me see…. Mr. Sprague had Sunday dinner here, and spent the afternoon, but Sunday night it was young Mr. Ralph Hammond. He come whenever she’d let him…. Monday night? … Oh, yes! She had dinner at the Country Club with the Mileses and the Drakes and the Dunlaps. Mr. Miles brought her home, because Mr. Sprague wasn’t invited…. Tuesday night—let me think! … Yes, that’s the night Judge Marshall was here. Nita had sent for him to talk about finishing up the attic—”

  So that was the “business engagement” which Judge Marshall had hemmed and hawed over, Dundee reflected triumphantly.

  “—and Wednesday night,” Lydia was continuing, with a certain pride in her mistress’ popularity, “she was at a dinner party at the Dunlaps’.”

  “Did Mr. Peter Dunlap ever call on Mrs. Selim—alone?”

  “Him?” Lydia was curiously resentful. “He wasn’t ever here. Nita said to me she wished Mr. Peter liked her as well as Mis’ Lois did.”

  “Thursday night?”

  “Mr. Ralph Hammond took her somewhere to dinner, to some other town, I think, but I wasn’t awake when they got home. Nita never would let me set up for her—said I needed my rest. So I always went to bed early.”

  “And yesterday—Friday?” Dundee demanded tensely. For Friday she had been driven to making her last will and testament….

  “She was home all day, but about half past four Mr. Drake came,” Lydia said slowly, as if she too were wondering. “She was awfully restless, couldn’t set still or eat. I ought to have suspicioned something, but she was often like that—lately. Mr. Drake stayed about an hour. I didn’t see him leave, because I was cooking Nita’s dinner…. But little good it did, because she didn’t eat it, so there was plenty for Mr. Sprague when he dropped in about seven.”

  “Did Sprague spend the evening?”

  “I guess so, but I don’t know. Nita made me take the Ford and drive into town for a picture show. She was in bed when I got back, and—” but she checked herself hastily.

  “Did Nita seem strange—troubled, excited? Did she look as if she’d been crying?” Dundee prodded.

  “I didn’t see her,” the maid acknowledged. “I knocked on her door, but she told me to go on to bed, that she wouldn’t need me. But now I think back, her voice sounded queer…. Maybe she was crying, but I don’t know—”

  “And this morning?”

  “She seemed all right—just excited about the party and worried about my tooth. Mr. Ralph Hammond come to make the estimates on finishing up the top floor, and we left him here—”

  “What was her attitude toward Mr. Miles when he dropped in on her this morning?” Dundee interrupted.

  “Mr. Miles?” Lydia echoed, frowning. “He wasn’t here this morning, or if he was, it was after Nita and I left for town.”

  While the maid was packing a bag, which Dundee would examine before she was allowed to take it away with her, the detective rejoined Tracey Miles, who had made himself as comfortable as possible in the living room.

  “Lydia’s going with you, and is grateful for your wife’s kindness,” Dundee informed him, and felt his heart warm to the boresome, egotistical little cherub of a man when he saw how Miles’ face lit up with real pleasure. “By the way, Miles, you saw Ralph Hammond when you called here this morning, didn’t you?”

  “Yes,” Miles answered with some reluctance. “He answered the door when I rang and told me Lydia and Nita had gone into town.”

  “Mr. Miles,” Dundee began slowly, throwing friendliness and persuasion into his voice, “I know how all you folks stick together, but I’d appreciate it a lot if you’d tell me frankly whether you noticed anything unusual in Hammond’s manner this morning.”

  “Unusual?” Miles repeated, frowning. “He was a little short with me because he was busy, and, I suspect, a little jealous because I’d come calling on Nita—” He broke off abruptly, in obvious distress. “Look here, Dundee! I didn’t mean to say that, but I suppose you’ll find out sooner or later…. Well, the fact is, the whole crowd knows Ralph Hammond was absolutely mad about Nita Selim. Wanted to marry her, and made no secret of it, though we all thought or hoped it would be little Penny Crain. He’s been devoted to Penny for years, and since Roger Crain made a mess of things and skipped out, leaving Penny and her poor mother high and dry, we’ve all done our best to throw Penny and Ralph together. But since Nita came to town—”

  “Was Nita in love with Ralph?” Dundee cut in, rather curtly, for he had a curious distaste for hearing Penny Crain discussed in this manner.

  “Sometimes we were sure she was,” Miles answered. “She flirted with all of us men—had a way with her of making every man she talked to think he was the only pebble on the beach. But there was something special in the way she looked at Ralph…. Yes, I think she was in love with him! But then again,” he frowned, “she would treat him like a dog. Seemed to want to drive him away from her—but she always called him back—Oh, Lord!” he interrupted himself with a groan. “Now I suppose I have put my foot in it! You’ve got the damnedest way of making a chap tell everything he would cut his tongue out rather than spill, Dundee! But just because a young man’s in love, and happens not to show up at a party, is no reason to think he sneaked up to the house and killed the woman he loved and wanted to marry. For I’m not so dumb that I haven’t seen the drift of your damnable questions, Dundee! … Do you know Ralph Hammond, by any chance?” he concluded, his round face red with anger.

  “No—but I should like to meet him,” Dundee retorted. “He seems quite hard to locate this evening.”

  “Well, when you do meet him,” Tracey Miles began violently, his blue eyes blazing with anger, “you’ll soon find you’ve been barking up the wrong tree! There’s not a cleaner, finer, straighter—”

  “In fact, he is a friend of yours, Miles,” Dundee answered soothingly, “and I respect you for every word you’ve said…. By the way, did all of you go to the Country Club for dinner after you left here?”

  Somewhat mollified, Miles answered: “All of us but Clive Hammond. He said he was going to have a look around for Ralph himself. Seemed to have an idea where he might find him…. And, oh, yes, Sprague disappeared in the scramble. He hasn’t a car and nobody thought of offering him a lift. Guess he took a bus into Hamilton…. Ah! Here’s Lydia! … Hello, Lydia!” he called heartily to the woman who was standing, tall and gaunt, in the doorway. “Mighty glad you’re coming to look after the kids!”

  From behind the black veil which draped her ugly black hat and hid her scarred face, Lydia answered in the dull, harsh voice that was characteristic of her:

  “Thank you, sir. I’ll do my best.”

  She made no protest when Dundee, with a word of embarrassed apology, went rapidly through the heavy suitcase she had brought up from the basement with her. And when he had finished his fruitless search, she knelt and silently smoothed the coarse, utilitarian garments he had disarranged.

  Five minutes later Dundee was alone in the house where murder had been committed under such strange and baffling circumstances that afternoon. He was not nervous, but again he made a tour of inspection of the first floor and basement, looking into closets, and testing
windows to make sure they were all locked. Everywhere there were evidences of the thoroughness of the police detectives who had searched for the weapon with which Nita Selim had been murdered. In the basement, as he had subconsciously noted on his headlong dash to question Lydia Carr, the furnace doors swung open, and the lids of the laundry tubs had been left propped up, after the unavailing search….

  He plodded wearily up the basement stairs and on into the kitchen. Perhaps the ice-box had something fit to eat in it—the fruit intended for Nita’s and Lydia’s Sunday breakfast. Those caviar and anchovy sandwiches had certainly not stuck with him long….

  He was making his way toward the electric refrigerator when he stopped as suddenly as if he had been shot.

  The kitchen door, which he had taken especial pains to assure himself was locked, when he had made the rounds immediately after the departure of Captain Strawn and his men, was standing slightly ajar!

  Someone had entered this house!

  Dundee stared blankly at the door, which was equipped with a Yale lock. Someone with a key…. But why had the door been left ajar? To make escape more noiseless?

  With the toe of his shoe Dundee pushed the door to and heard the click of the lock, then, all thought of food routed from his mind, made a quick but almost silent dash into the dining room to secure one of the pair of tall wax tapers, which, in their silver candlesticks, served as ornaments for the sideboard.

  If the intruder was still in the house he could be nowhere but in that unfinished half of the gabled top story. The nearer stairs were those in the back hall, and Dundee took them two at a time, regardless of the noise. Who had preceded him stealthily? … By the aid of his lighted candle he discovered an electric switch at the head of the stairs, flicked it on, and found himself in a wide hall, one wall of which was finished with buff-tinted plaster and with three doors, the other of rough boards with but a single door.