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

by Anne Austin

  Penny’s face was still a brilliant pink as she answered: “I refuse to have my climax spoiled! … When Ralph and I got there at eight, we found that Peter and Lois had dined with Tracey and Flora and that they were delighted at the prospect of bridge, as a relief from endless discussions of the murder. We’d hardly got there when the Marshalls came, poor little Karen not suspecting that she was going to have to play. Then came Johnny Drake alone, with the news that Carolyn was in bed and very miserable with a summer cold. Polly walked over from her house, which is on the next hill to the right, you know. She said Clive had decided to work late at the office, and had promised to call for her about eleven, to take her home.”

  “What about Janet Raymond? Was she left out?” Dundee asked.

  “I told you it wasn’t a planned affair,” Penny reminded him. “But Flora did telephone her, and she said she didn’t feel like coming. She’s been moping about like a sick cat since Nita’s death. We all knew she was idiotically in love with Dexter Sprague, and it must have been an awful blow to her to hear you read aloud that note Nita received from Sprague.”

  “So I noticed,” Dundee nodded, recalling the deathly pallor of the girl’s face as Sprague had glibly explained away that damning note and all its implications.

  “Well,” Penny continued, “Tracey suggested bridge, and at first Karen flatly refused to play, but Hugo finally persuaded her…. Karen would do absolutely anything for that ridiculous old husband of hers! I simply can’t understand it—how she can be in love with him, I mean!”

  “I thought you liked Judge Marshall,” Dundee laughed.

  “Oh, I do—in a way…. But fancy a young girl like Karen being in love with him! … Well, anyway, we all went out to the east porch, which is kept in readiness for bridge all summer. Iron bridge tables, covered with oilcloth, and with oilcloth pouches for the cards and score pads, so there’s never any bother about scurrying in with things on account of rain. It’s a roofed, stone-floored porch, right outside the living-room, and under it are the garages, so it’s high and cool, with a grand view of Mirror Lake down below, and of the city in the distance.” She sighed, and Dundee knew that she was thinking of her own lost home in Brentwood—the fine old Colonial mansion which had been sacrificed to her father’s disastrous Primrose Meadows venture. Then she went on: “I don’t know why I am telling you all this, except that the setting was so pleasant that we should have had a much better time than we did.”

  “You’re an artful minx, Penny!” Dundee chuckled. “You’re working up suspense for the entrance of the villain!”

  “Then let me do it justice,” Penny retorted. “Lois and Peter, Ralph and I, made up one table for bridge; Tracey and Polly, Judge Marshall and Karen the other. Flora said she didn’t want to play, because she wanted to be free to keep an eye on Betty, although she protested she had perfect faith in Lydia, who, Flora says, is proving to be a marvel with the children. And Johnny Drake asked her to play anagrams with him, in between trips to the nursery. Johnny has a perfect pash for anagrams, and is a wow at ’em. So Tracey got the box of anagrams out of the trophy room—”

  “The trophy room?” Dundee repeated, amused.

  “That’s what Tracey calls it,” Penny explained impatiently, “because he has a couple of golf cups and Flora has an immense silver atrocity which testifies to the fact that she was the ‘lady’s tennis champion’ of the state for one year. There are also some mounted fish and some deer heads with incredible antlers, but the room is really used as a catch-all for all the sports things—racquets, golf clubs, skis, ping-pong table, etc…. Anyway, Tracey brought out the box of anagrams, and we were all having a pretty good time when, at half past eight, the butler announced ‘Mr. Dexter Sprague’!”

  “Your tone makes me wish I’d been there,” Dundee acknowledged. “What happened?”

  “You know how slap-em-on-the-back Tracey always is?” Penny asked, grinning. “Well, you should have seen him and heard him as he dismissed poor Whitson—the butler—as if he were giving him notice, instead of letting him off for the night! And the icy dignity with which he greeted poor Sprague—”

  “Poor Sprague?” Dundee echoed.

  “Well, after all, Sprague had been received by all the crowd before Nita’s death,” Penny retorted. “I think it was rather natural for him to think he’d still be welcome. He began to apologize for his uninvited presence, saying he had felt lonesome and depressed and had just ‘jumped into a taxi’ and come along, hoping to find the Mileses in. Flora tried to act the lady hostess, but Peter got up from his bridge table and said in tones even icier than Tracey’s: ‘Will you excuse me, Flora? And will you take my place, Drake? … I’m going into the library. I don’t enjoy the society of murderers!’”

  “Good Lord!” Dundee ejaculated, shocked but admiring. “Did Sprague make a quick exit?”

  “Not just then,” Penny said mysteriously. “Of course everyone was simply stunned, but Sprague retorted cheerfully, ‘Neither do I, Dunlap!’ Peter stalked on into the living room on his way to the library, Johnny took his place at the bridge table, and Tracey, at an urgent signal from Flora, offered his seat at the other table to Sprague, as if he were making way for a leper. Poor Polly had to be Sprague’s partner. Flora, as if she were terrified at what might happen—you know how frightfully tense and nervous she is—made an excuse to run upstairs for a look at Betty.”

  “And something terrible did happen,” Dundee guessed. “You’re looking positively ghoulish. Out with it!”

  “After about half an hour of playing without pivoting,” Penny went on imperturbably, “Hugo bid three spades, Karen raised him—in a trembling voice—to five spades, Hugo of course went to a little slam, and Dexter Sprague, if you can believe me, said: ‘Better not leave the table, Karen. A little slam-bid in spades has been known to be fatal to the dummy!’”

  “No!” Dundee was genuinely shocked, but before he could say more the telephone rang. “Sanderson at last…. Hello! Chicago? … Oh, hello, Captain Strawn! … What’s that? … Oh, my God! … Where did you say the body is?”

  He listened for a long minute, then, with a dazed “Thanks! I’ll be over,” he hung up the receiver.

  “Sprague—murdered!” he answered the horrified question in Penny’s eyes. “Body discovered this morning about nine by one of the Miles’ maids, in what you described just now as the ‘trophy room’…. Shot—just below the breastbone, Captain Strawn says.”

  “The trophy room!” Penny cried. “Then—that’s where he was all the time after he disappeared so strangely last night—”

  “Whoa, Penny!” Dundee commanded. “Get hold of yourself! You’re shaking all over…. I want to know everything you know—as quickly and as accurately as you can tell it. Go right on—”

  “Poor Dexter!” Penny groaned, covering her convulsed face with her hands. “To think that he was dead when we were saying such horrid things about him—”

  “Don’t waste sympathy on him, honey!” Dundee cut in, his voice very gentle but urgent. “If he had heeded my warning Monday he wouldn’t be dead now.”

  “What do you mean?” Penny gasped, but she was already calmer. “Your warning—?”

  “I had a strong suspicion that he was mixed up with Nita in her blackmail scheme and I took the trouble to warn him not to try to carry on with it. Yesterday afternoon I begged Strawn to have him shadowed to see that he kept out of mischief. I was afraid the temptation would be too strong for him, but Strawn wouldn’t listen to me—still clinging to his theory of a New York gunman…. Feeling better now, honey? Can you go on? I want to get out to the Miles house as soon as I can.”

  “You’re getting very—affectionate, aren’t you?” Penny gave him a wobbly smile in which, however, there was no reproof. “I think I can go on now—. Where was I?”

  “Good girl!” Dundee applauded, but his heart was beating hard with something more than excitement over Sprague’s murder. “You’d just told me about Sprague’s warnin
g Karen not to leave the table when she became dummy after Judge Marshall’s little slam bid in spades.”

  “I remember,” Penny said, pressing her fingers into her temples. “But Karen did leave the table. When Sprague said that awful thing, poor Karen burst into tears and ran from the porch into the living room, Hugo started to follow her, but Sprague halted him by apologizing very humbly, and then by adding: ‘I’d really like to see you play this hand, sir. I believe I’ve got the cards to set you with….’ Of course he could not have said anything better calculated to hold Hugo, who, as I said, is a regular fiend when it comes to bridge…. Well, Hugo played the hand and made his little slam, and then he again started to go look for Karen, but Polly, who was Sprague’s partner, you know, told him in that brusque way of hers to go on with the game and give Karen a chance to have her little weep in peace. Probably Hugo would have gone to look for her anyway, but just then Flora came back. She said Betty was asleep at last and that her temperature was normal, and when she heard about Karen, she offered to take her hand until Karen felt like coming back.”

  “What did Drake do then? He’d been playing anagrams with Mrs. Miles, you said,” Dundee interrupted.

  “Don’t you remember?—I told you Johnny had taken Peter’s place at our table after Peter refused to breathe the same air as Dexter Sprague,” Penny reminded him. “Ralph and I, Lois and Johnny were playing together, and just at the time I became dummy, Sprague became dummy at the other table. He rose, saying he had to go telephone for a taxi, and passed from the porch into the living room—”

  “Where is the telephone?”

  “The one the guests use is on a table in the hall closet, where we put our things,” Penny explained. “You can shut the door and hold a perfectly private conversation…. Well, we never saw Dexter Sprague again!”

  “Good Lord! Another bridge dummy murdered!” Dundee groaned. “At least the newspapers will be happy! … Didn’t anyone go to look for him after the hand was played?”

  “Not straight off,” Penny answered, with an obvious effort to remember clearly every detail. “Let’s see—Oh, yes! That hand was played out before Ralph had finished playing his, at our table, so I was free to pay attention to the other table. Flora said that since they couldn’t play another hand until Dexter came back, she thought she’d better hunt up Karen, who hadn’t come back yet.”

  “How long was Mrs. Miles away from the porch?” Dundee asked quickly.

  “Oh, I don’t know—ten minutes, maybe. She came back alone, saying she had found Karen in her bedroom—Flora’s room, of course—crying inconsolably. Flora told Hugo he’d better go up to her himself, since she evidently had her feelings hurt because he hadn’t followed her in the first place. Tracey, who wasn’t playing bridge, you remember, because he had given up his place to Sprague, asked Flora if she’d seen Sprague, and Flora said, in a surprised voice, ‘No! I wonder where he is all this time,’ and Polly said that probably he’d gone to the lavatory, which opens into the main hall and is next to the library…. Well, pretty soon Judge Marshall and Karen came back—”

  “Pretty soon?—Just how long was Judge Marshall gone?” Dundee pressed her, his pencil, which had been flying to take down her every word, poised over the notebook he had snatched from her desk.

  “I can’t say exactly!” Penny protested thornily. “I was playing again at the other table. I suppose it was about ten minutes, for Ralph and I had made another rubber, I remember…. Anyway, Karen was smiling like a baby that has had a lot of petting, but she said Hugo had promised her she wouldn’t have to play bridge any more that evening, so Flora remained at that table, playing opposite Hugo, while Tracey played with Polly. As soon as Tracey became dummy, Flora suggested he go look for Sprague.”

  “And how long was he gone from the porch?” Dundee asked.

  “Less than no time,” Penny assured him. “He was back before Polly had finished playing the hand. He said he’d gone to the hall closet, where Whitson, the butler, would have put Sprague’s hat and stick, and that he had found they were gone…. Well—and you needn’t put down ‘well’ every time I say it!” Penny interrupted herself tartly. “Tracey said he supposed Sprague had ordered his taxi and had decided to walk down the hill to meet it, and he added that that was exactly the kind of courtesy you could expect from a cad and a bounder like Sprague—walking in uninvited, making Karen cry, then walking out, without a word, leaving the game while he was dummy. Flora spoke up then and said it was no wonder Dexter had left without saying good-by, considering how he’d been treated. Then Tracey said something ugly and sarcastic about Flora’s being disappointed because Sprague had decided not to spend the whole evening—”

  “A first-class row, eh?” Dundee interrupted, with keen interest.

  “Rather! Flora almost cried, said Tracey knew good and well that she had only been playing-up to Sprague before Nita’s death, in the hope of getting the lead in the Hamilton movie, if Sprague got the job of directing it, and Tracey said, ‘So you call it playing-up, do you? It looked like high-powered flirting to me—or maybe it was more than a flirtation! …’ Then Flora told him he hadn’t acted jealous at the time, and that he knew he’d have been glad if she’d got the lead…. Well, just then along came Janet—”

  “Janet Raymond?” Dundee ejaculated. “I thought you said she had refused the invitation when Mrs. Miles phoned her.”

  “So she had, but she said she changed her mind, had been blue all evening, and needed cheering up.”

  “How did she get in?”

  “She walked over from her house, which isn’t very far from the Mileses’, and simply came up the path to the porch,” Penny explained. “Tracey asked her if she had seen Sprague on the road—it’s the same road Dexter would have had to take going down the hill to the main road—and she acted awfully queer—”

  “How?” Dundee demanded.

  “Exactly as she would act, since she was in love with him,” Penny retorted. “She turned very red, and asked if Sprague had inquired for her, and Flora quite sharply told her he hadn’t. Then Janet said she was very much surprised that Sprague had been there, and that she couldn’t understand why he had behaved so strangely. Then Lois said she might as well go fetch Peter from the library, since Sprague was no longer there to contaminate the atmosphere. She came back—”

  “After how long a time?”

  “Oh, about five minutes, I suppose,” Penny answered wearily. “She came in, her arm linked with Peter’s, and laughing. Said she had found him reading a ‘Deadwood Dick’ thriller…. One of Tracey’s hobbies—” she broke off to explain, “—is collecting old-fashioned thrillers, like the Nick Carter, Diamond King Brady, Buffalo Bill and Deadwood Dick paper-bound books. Of course he didn’t take up that hobby until a lot of other rich men had done it first. There was never anybody less original than poor Tracey…. Well, Flora gave up her place to Janet, and again played anagrams with Johnny, Peter taking his original place at our table. Suddenly Polly threw down her cards—she’d been having rotten luck and seemed out of sorts—and said she didn’t want to play bridge any more. So poor Flora again had to be the perfect hostess, and switch from anagrams to bridge.”

  “And Polly played anagrams with Drake?” Dundee prompted.

  “No. She said she thought anagrams were silly, and wandered off the porch and down the path, calling over her shoulder that she was going to take a walk. Tracey asked Johnny if he’d mind mixing the highballs and bringing out the sandwiches. Said Whitson had left a thermos bucket of ice cubes on the sideboard, some bottles of ginger ale, and a tray of glasses and sandwiches. Told him he’d find decanters of Scotch and rye, and to bring out both.”

  “So Drake left the room, too,” Dundee mused. “Oh, Lord. I knew I’d find that every last one of the six had a chance to kill Sprague, as well as Nita! … How long was Polly Beale gone on this walk of hers?”

  “She came in with a pink water lily—said she’d been down to the lily ponds, and that Fl
ora had enough to spare her one,” Penny answered. “She couldn’t have been away more than ten minutes, because Johnny was just mixing the highballs, according to our preference for Scotch or rye—or plain ginger ale, which both Ralph and I chose. After we’d had our drinks and the sandwiches, we went on with bridge. Polly and Johnny just wandered about the porch or watched the game at the two tables. And about five minutes after eleven Clive Hammond arrived, coming up the path to the porch, just as Janet had. After he came, there was no more bridge, but we sat around on the porch and talked until midnight. Clive said he was too tired to play bridge—that he’d been struggling all evening with a knotty problem.”

  “I can sympathize with him!” Dundee said grimly, as he rose. “I’ve got my own knotty problem awaiting me…. When that call comes through from Chicago, tell Sanderson the bad news, and say I’ll telephone him later.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  The Miles home, still known in Hamilton as the Hackett place, since it had been built more than thirty years before by Flora’s father, old Silas Hackett, dead these seven years, dominated one of the most beautiful of the wooded hills which encircled Mirror Lake in the Brentwood section. Of modified Tudor architecture, its deep red, mellowed bricks had achieved in three decades almost the same aged dignity and impressiveness as characterized the three-century-old mansion in England which Silas Hackett’s architect had used as an inspiration.

  The big house faced the lake, a long series of landscaped terraces leading down to the water’s edge, but the driveway wound from the state road up a side of the hill, to the main entrance at the rear of the house.