by Anne Austin
“Did you find the gun and silencer?” Penny asked.
“No. Whoever used it Saturday afternoon walked out of the house with it, in plain view of the police, and still has it…. Very convenient, too, in case another murder seems to be expedient—or amusing.”
“Don’t joke!” Penny shuddered. “But what in the world do you mean?”
Briefly Dundee told her, minimizing the hard work, the concentrated thinking, and the meticulous use of a tape measure which had resulted in the discovery of the shelf between Nita’s bedroom closet and the guest closet in the little foyer.
“I see,” Penny agreed, her husky voice slow and weighted with horror. She sat in dazed thought for a minute. “That rather brings it home to my crowd—doesn’t it? … To think that Dad—! … Probably everyone at the party—except me—had heard all about Dad’s ‘simple and ingenious’ arrangement for hiding the securities he sent on to New York before he ran away…. And no outsiders—nobody but us—had a legitimate excuse for entering that closet…. Not even Dexter Sprague. It’s one of his affectations not to wear a hat—”
“Is it?” Dundee pounced. “You’re sure he wore no hat that afternoon? Did you notice him when he left after I had dismissed you all?”
“Yes,” Penny acknowledged honestly. “I paid attention to him, because I was hating him so. I believed then that he was the murderer, and I was furious with you and Captain Strawn for not arresting him…. He was the first to leave—just walked straight out; wouldn’t even stop to talk with Janet Raymond, who was trying to get a word with him. I saw him start toward Sheridan Road—walking. He had no car, you know.”
“Did you observe the others?” Dundee demanded eagerly. “Do you know who went alone to the guest closet?”
Penny shook her head. “Everybody was milling around in the hall, and I paid no attention. Lois said she would drive me home, and then I went in to ask you to let me stay behind with you—”
“I remember…. Listen, Penny! I’m going to tell you something else that nobody knows yet but Sanderson, Lydia and me. I don’t have to ask you not to tell any of your friends. You know well enough that anything you learn from either Sanderson or me is strictly confidential.”
Penny nodded, her face very white and her brown eyes big with misery.
“I have every reason to believe that Nita Selim was a blackmailer, that she came to Hamilton for the express purpose of bleeding someone she had known before, or someone on whom she had ‘the goods’ from some underworld source or other…. At any rate, Nita banked ten thousand mysterious dollars—$5,000 on April 28, and $5,000 on May 5. I talked to Drake last night, and I have his word for it that the money was in bills of varying denomination—none large—when Nita presented it for deposit. Therefore it seems clear to me that Nita got the money right here in Hamilton; otherwise it would have come to her in the form of checks or drafts or money orders. And it seems equally clear to me that she did not bring that large amount of cash from New York with her, or she would have deposited it in a lump sum in the bank immediately after her arrival.”
“Yes,” Penny agreed. “But why are you telling me? … Of course I’m interested—”
“Because I want you to tell me the financial status of each of your friends,” Dundee said gently. “I know how hard it is for you—”
“You could find out from others, so I might as well tell you,” Penny interrupted, with a weary shrug. “Judge Marshall is well-to-do, and Karen’s father—her mother is dead—settled $100,000 on her when she married. She has complete control of her own money…. The Dunlaps are the richest people in Hamilton, and have been for two or three generations. Lois was ‘first-family’ but poor when she married Peter, but he’s been giving her an allowance of $20,000 a year for several years—not for running the house, but for her personal use. Clothes, charities, hobbies, like the Little Theater she brought Nita here to organize—”
“I wouldn’t say she spends a great deal of it on dress,” Dundee interrupted with a grin.
“Lois doesn’t give a hang how she looks or what anyone thinks of her—which is probably one reason she is the best-loved woman in our crowd,” Penny retorted loyally. “The Miles’ money is really Flora’s, and she has the reputation of being one of the shrewdest business ‘men’ in town. When she married Tracey nearly eight years ago, he was just a salesman in her father’s business—the biggest dairy in the state … ‘Cloverblossom’ butter, cream, milk and cheese, you know…. Well, when Flora married Tracey, her father retired and let Tracey run the business for Flora, and he’s still managing it, but Flora is the real head…. Now, let’s see…. Oh, yes, the Drakes! … Johnny is vice president of the Hamilton National Bank, as you know, and owns a big block of the stock. Carolyn has no money of her own, except what Johnny gives her, and I rather think he isn’t any too generous—”
“They don’t get along very well together, do they?”
“N-no!” Penny agreed reluctantly. “You see, Johnny Drake was simply not cut out for love and marriage. He’s a born ascetic, would have been a monk two or three centuries ago, but he cares as much for Carolyn as he could for any woman…. The Hammond boys have some inherited money, and Clive has made a big financial success of architecture…. That leaves only Janet and Polly, doesn’t it? … Polly’s an orphan and has barrels of money, and will have barrels more when her aunt, with whom she lives, dies and leaves her the fortune she has always promised her.”
“And Janet Raymond?”
“Janet’s father is pretty rich—owns a big wire-fence factory, but Janet has only a reasonable allowance,” Penny answered. “As for me—I’m very rich: I get thirty-five whole dollars a week, to support myself and Mother on.”
Dundee remained thoughtfully silent for a long minute. Then: “All you girls are alumnae of Forsyte-on-the-Hudson, and Nita Selim came here immediately after she had directed a Forsyte play…. Tell me, Penny—was any of the Hamilton girls ever in disgrace while in the Forsyte School?”
Penny’s face flamed. “I’m sorry to disappoint you, but so far as I know there was never anything of the sort. Of course we all graduated different years, except Karen and I, and I might not have heard—But no!” she denied vehemently. “There wasn’t any scandal on a Hamilton girl ever! I’m sure of it!”
But her very vehemence convinced Bonnie Dundee that she was not at all sure….
He looked at his watch. Four o’clock…. By this time Nita Selim—tiny cold body, royal blue velvet dress, black curls piled high in an old-fashioned “French roll,” bullet-torn heart—were nothing more than a little heap of grey ashes…. Would Lydia Carr have them put in a sealed urn and carry them about with her always?
“I’m going out now, Penny, and I shan’t be back today,” he told the girl who had returned to her furious typing. “I’ll telephone in about an hour to see if anything has come up…. By the way, how do I get to the Dunlap house?”
“It’s in the Brentwood section. You know—that cluster of hills around Mirror Lake. Most of the crowd live out there—the Drakes, the Mileses, the Beales, the Marshalls. The Dunlap house stands on the highest hill of all. It’s grey stone, a little like a French chateau. We used to live out there, too, in a Colonial house my mother’s father built, but Dad persuaded Mother to sell, when he went into that Primrose Meadows venture. The Raymonds bought it…. But why do you want to see Lois?”
“Thanks much, Penny. I don’t know what I should do without you,” Dundee said, without answering her question, and reached for his hat.
After ten minutes of driving, the last mile of which had circled a smooth silver coin of a lake, Dundee stopped his car and let his eyes rove appreciatively. He had made this trip the day before to question Lydia, already installed as nurse for the Miles children, but he had been in too great a hurry then to see much of this section consecrated to Hamilton’s socially elect….
Georgian “cottage,” Spanish hacienda, Italian villa, Tudor mansion—that was the Miles home; Colon
ial mansion where Penny had once lived; grey stone chateau…. Not one of them blatantly new or marked with the dollar sign. Dundee sighed a little enviously as he turned his car into the winding driveway that led up the highest hill to the Dunlap home.
Lois Dunlap betrayed no surprise when the butler led Dundee to the flag-stoned upper terrace overlooking Mirror Lake, where she was having tea with her three children and their governess. For a moment the detective had the illusion that he was in England again….
“How do you do, Mr. Dundee? … This is Miss Burden…. My three offspring—Peter the third, Eleanor, and Bobby…. Will you please take the children to the playroom now, Miss Burden? … Thank you! … Tea, Mr. Dundee? Or shall I order you a highball?”
“Nothing, thanks,” Dundee answered, grateful for her friendliness but nonplussed by it. Not for the first time he felt a sick distaste for the profession he had chosen….
“It’s all over,” Lois Dunlap said in a low voice, as the butler retreated. “Lydia made her look very beautiful…. I thought it would be rather horrible, having to see her, as the poor child requested in her note to Lydia, but I’m glad now I did. She looked as sweet and young and innocent as she must have been when she first wore the royal blue velvet.”
“I’m glad,” Dundee said sincerely. Then he leaned toward her across the tea table. “Mrs. Dunlap, will you please tell me just how you persuaded Mrs. Selim to come to Hamilton—so far from Broadway?”
“Why certainly!” Lois Dunlap looked puzzled. “But it really did not take much persuasion after I showed her some group photographs we had made when we Forsyte girls put on ‘The Beggar’s Opera’ here last October—a benefit performance for the Forsyte Alumnae Scholarship fund.”
With difficulty Dundee controlled his excitement. “May I see those photographs, please?”
“I had to hunt quite a bit for them,” his hostess apologized ten minutes later, as she spread the glossy prints of half a dozen photographs for Dundee’s inspection. “Do you know ‘The Beggar’s Opera’?”
“John Gay—eighteenth century, isn’t it? … As I remember it, it is quite—” and Dundee hesitated, grinning.
“Bawdy?” Lois laughed. “Oh, very! We couldn’t have got away with it if it hadn’t been a classic. As it was, we had to tone down some of the naughtiest passages and songs. But it was lots of fun, and the boys enjoyed it hugely because it gave them an opportunity to wear tight satin breeches and lace ruffles…. This is my husband, Peter. He adored being the highwayman, ‘Robin of Bagshot’,” and she pointed out a stocky, belligerent-looking man near the end of the long row of costumed players, in a photograph which showed the entire cast.
“You say that Mrs. Selim accepted your proposal after she saw these photographs?” Dundee asked. “Had she refused before?”
“Yes. I’d gone to New York for the annual Easter Play which the Forsyte School puts on, because I’m intensely interested in semi-professional theatricals,” Lois explained. “Nita had done a splendid job with the play the year before, and I spoke to her, after this year’s show was over, about coming to Hamilton. She was not at all interested, but polite and sweet about it, so I invited her to have lunch with me the next day, and showed her these photographs of our own play in the hope that they would make her take the idea more seriously. We had borrowed a Little Theater director from Chicago and I knew we had done a really good job of ‘The Beggar’s Opera.’ The local reviews—”
“These ‘stills’ look extremely professional. I don’t wonder that they interested Nita,” Dundee cut in. “Will you tell me what she said?”
“She rather startled me,” Lois Dunlap confessed. “I first showed her this picture of the whole cast, and as I was explaining the play a bit—she didn’t know ‘The Beggar’s Opera’—she almost snatched the photograph out of my hands. As she studied it, her lovely black eyes grew perfectly enormous. I’ve never seen her so excited since—”
“What did she say?” Dundee interrupted tensely.
“Why, she said nothing just at first, then she began to laugh in the queerest way—almost hysterically. I asked her why she was laughing—I was a little huffy, I’m afraid—and she said the men looked so adorably conceited and funny. Then she began to ask the names of the players. I told her that ‘Macheath’—he’s the highwayman hero, you know—was played by Clive Hammond; that my Peter was ‘Robin of Bagshot’, that Johnny Drake was another highwayman, ‘Mat of the Mint’, that Tracey Miles played the jailor, ‘Lockit’—”
“Did she show more interest in one name than another?”
“Yes. When I pointed out Judge Marshall as ‘Peachum’, the fence, she cried out suddenly: ‘Why, I know him! I met him once on a party…. Is he really a judge?’ and she laughed as if she knew something very funny about Hugo—as no doubt she did. He was an inveterate ‘lady-killer’ before his marriage, as you may have heard.”
“Do you think her first excitement was over seeing Judge Marshall among the players?” Dundee asked.
“No,” Lois answered, after considering a moment. “I’m sure she didn’t notice him until I pointed him out. The face in this group that seemed to interest her most was Flora Miles’. Flora played the part of ‘Lucy Lockit’, the jailor’s daughter, and Karen Marshall the other feminine lead, ‘Polly Peachum’, you know. But it was Flora’s picture she lingered over, so I showed her this picture,” and Lois Dunlap reached for the portrait of Flora Miles, unexpectedly beautiful in the eighteenth century costume—tight bodice and billowing skirts.
“She questioned you about Mrs. Miles?” Dundee asked.
“Yes. All sorts of questions—her name, and whether she was married and then who her husband was, and if she had had stage experience,” Lois answered conscientiously. “She explained her interest by saying Flora looked more like a professional actress than any of the others, and that we should give her a real chance when we got our Little Theater going. I asked her if that meant she was going to accept my offer, and she said she might, but that she would have to talk it over with a friend first. Just before midnight she telephoned me at my hotel that she had decided to accept the job.”
Dundee’s heart leaped. It was very easy to guess who that “friend” was! But he controlled his excitement, asked his next question casually:
“Did she show particular interest in any other player?”
“Yes. She asked a number of questions about Polly Beale, and seemed incredulous when I told her that Polly and Clive were engaged. Polly played ‘Mrs. Peachum’, and was a riot in the part…. But Nita’s intuition was correct. Flora carried off the acting honors…. Oh, yes, she also asked, quite naпvely, if all my friends were rich, too, and could help support a Little Theater. I reassured her on that point.”
“And,” Dundee reflected silently, “upon a point much more important to Nita Selim.” Aloud he said: “I don’t see you among the cast.”
“Oh, I haven’t a grain of talent,” Lois Dunlap laughed. “I can’t act for two cents—can I, Peter darling? … Here’s the redoubtable ‘Robin of Bagshot’ in person, Mr. Dundee—my husband!”
The detective rose to shake hands with the man he had been too absorbed to see or hear approaching.
“You’re the man from the district attorney’s office?” Peter Dunlap scowled, his hand barely touching Dundee’s. “I suppose you’re trying to get at the bottom of the mystery of why my wife brought that Selim woman—”
“Don’t call her ‘that Selim woman’, Peter!” Lois Dunlap interrupted with more sharpness than Dundee had ever seen her display. “You never liked the poor girl, were never just to her—”
“Well, it looks as if my hunch was correct, doesn’t it?” the stocky, rugged-faced man retorted. “I told you at the beginning to pay her off and send her back to New York—”
“You knew I couldn’t do that, even to please you, dear,” Lois said. “But please don’t let’s quarrel about poor Nita again. She’s dead now, and I want to do anything I can to help bring her
murderer to justice.”
“There’s nothing you can do, Lois, and I hope Mr.—ah—Dundee will not find it necessary to quiz you again.”
Dundee reached for his hat. “I hope so, too, Mr. Dunlap…. By the way, you are president of the Chamber of Commerce, aren’t you?”
“Yes, I am! And we’re having a meeting tonight, at which that Sprague man’s bid on making a historical movie of Hamilton will be turned down—unanimously. Now that the Selim woman isn’t here to vamp my fellow-members into doing anything she wants, I think I can safely promise you that Dexter Sprague will have no further business in Hamilton—unless it is police business!”
“Thanks for the tip, Mr. Dunlap,” Dundee said evenly. “I hope you enjoyed your fishing trip. Where do you fish, sir?”
“A tactful way of asking for my alibi, eh?” Dunlap was heavily sarcastic. “I left Friday afternoon for my own camp in the mountains, up in the northwest part of the state. I drove my own car, went alone, spent the week-end alone, and got back this noon. I read of the murder in a paper I picked up in a village on my way home. I didn’t like Nita Selim, and I don’t give a damn about her being murdered, except that my wife’s name is in all the papers…. Any questions?”
“None, thanks!” Dundee answered curtly, then turned to Lois Dunlap who was watching the two men with troubled, embarrassed eyes. “I am very grateful to you, Mrs. Dunlap, for your kindness.”
The detective’s angry resentment of Peter Dunlap’s attitude lasted until he had circled Mirror Lake and was on the road into Hamilton. Then commonsense intervened. Dunlap was undoubtedly devoted to his wife. Penny had said that he had “never looked at another woman.” It was rather more than natural that he should be in a futile, blustering rage at the outcome of Lois’ friendship for the little Broadway dancer….
Free of anger, his mind reverted to the story Lois Dunlap had told him. For in it, he was sure, was hidden the key to the mystery of Nita Selim’s murder. Not at all interested in the proposition to organize a Little Theater in Hamilton, Nita had been seized with a strange excitement as soon as she was shown photographs of a large group of Hamilton’s richest and most prominent inhabitants…. But there was the rub! A large group! Would that group of possible suspects never narrow down to one? Of course there was Judge Marshall, but if Lois Dunlap’s memory was to be trusted Nita had not noticed the elderly Beau Brummel’s picture until after that strange, hysterical excitement had taken possession of her. And if it had been Judge Marshall whom she had come to Hamilton to blackmail would Nita not have guarded her tongue before Lois? The same was true about her extraordinary interest in Flora Miles….