by Anne Austin
“Neither have I,” Dundee agreed. “But what I meant was that you had obligingly furnished the murderer who fits my theory with a theory he—or she—would not have upset for the world! … Listen!” and he bent forward very earnestly: “I’m willing to grant that Sprague was shot from the outside, through the window, when Sprague raised the screen. But there our theories part company. I believe that the murderer was a guest in the Selim home last night, that he or she had made an appointment to meet Sprague there, on the promise of paying the hush money he had demanded, in spite of my warning to him not to carry on with the blackmail scheme. Naturally he or she—and I’ll say ‘he’ from now on, for the sake of convenience—had no intention of being seen entering that room. The bridge game was suggested by Judge Marshall at noon. There was plenty of time for the rendezvous to be made with Sprague. As I see it, the murderer told Sprague to excuse himself from the game when he became dummy, and to go to the trophy room and wait there until the murderer had a chance to slip away and appear beneath the window. Sprague had been promised that, when he raised the screen at a tap or a whispered request, a roll of bills would be handed to him, but—he received a bullet instead.”
“And which one of your six suspects have you picked on?” Strawn asked sarcastically.
“That’s just the trouble. There are still six,” Dundee acknowledged with a wry grin. “After Sprague’s disappearance, every one of the six was absent from the porch at one time or another…. No, by George! There are seven suspects now! I was about to forget Peter Dunlap, who admits he was alone on a fishing trip when Nita was murdered and who left the porch last night to go to the library, as soon as Sprague arrived! … As for the movements of the original six after Sprague disappeared: Polly Beale took a walk about the grounds; Flora Miles went upstairs to hunt for Karen Marshall, and was gone more than ten minutes; Drake went to the dining room to get the refreshments, and no one can say exactly how long he was gone; Judge Marshall went up to get his wife, and had time to make a little trip on the side; Janet Raymond walked over from her home, and passed that very window, arriving after Sprague had disappeared; and, finally, Clive Hammond arrived alone in his car, which he parked within a few feet of that window. This morning he gets married—”
“A telegram, sir!” interrupted a plainclothesman, who had entered without knocking.
Strawn snatched at it, read it, then exulted: “Read this, boy! I guess this settles the business!”
The telegram had been filed half an hour before and was from the city editor of The New York Evening Press:
“WORKING ON YOUR THEORY OF NEW YORK GUNMAN RESPONSIBLE MURDERS OF JUANITA LEIGH SELIM AND DEXTER SPRAGUE THIS PAPER HAS DISCOVERED THAT SELIM WOMAN WAS SEEN AT NIGHT CLUBS SEVERAL TIMES DURING JANUARY FEBRUARY WITH QUOTE SWALLOW TAIL SAMMY END QUOTE UNDERWORLD NAME FOR SAM SAVELLI STOP SAVELLI TAKEN FOR RIDE TUESDAY APRIL TWENTY SECOND TWO DAYS AFTER SELIM WOMAN LEFT NEW YORK STOP POLICE HERE WORKING ON THEORY SAVELLI SLAIN BY OWN GANG AFTER THEY WERE TIPPED OFF SAVELLI WAS DOUBLE CROSSING THEM STOP IN EXCHANGE FOR THIS TIP CAN YOU GIVE US ANY SUPPRESSED INFORMATION YOUR POSSESSION STOP SAVELLI HAD BROTHER WHO IS KNOWN TO US TO HAVE PROMISED REVENGE SWALLOW TAIL SAMMYS MURDER STOP BE A SPORT CAPTAIN.”
“Well, that puts the lid on it, don’t it?” Strawn crowed. “I’ll send Sergeant Turner to New York on the five o’clock train…. Pretty decent of that city editor to wire me this tip, I’ll say!”
“And are you going to reciprocate by wiring him about the $10,000 Nita banked here?” Dundee asked.
“Sure! Why not? There’s no use that I can see to keep it back any longer, now that no one can have any excuse to think as you’ve been doing—that it was blackmail paid by a Hamiltonian.”
“Then,” Dundee began very slowly, “if you really think your case is solved, I’ll make one suggestion: take charge of Lydia Carr and put her in a very safe place.”
“Why?” Strawn looked puzzled.
“Because, when you publish the fact that Nita and Sprague got $10,000 for tipping off Savelli’s gang that he was double-crossing them, and that Nita willed the money to Lydia, the avenger’s next and last job would be to ‘get’ Lydia, since his natural conclusion would be that Lydia had been in on the scheme from the beginning,” Dundee explained.
“God, boy! You’re right!” Strawn exclaimed, and his heavy old face was very pale as he reached for the telephone, and called the number of the Miles residence. “I’m going to put it up to her that it will be best for her to be locked up as a material witness, for her own protection.”
Five minutes later Strawn restored the receiver to the hook with a bang. “Says she won’t budge!” he explained unnecessarily. “Says she ain’t afraid and the Miles kids need her…. Well, it’s her own funeral! But I guess you are convinced at last?”
Dundee slowly shook his head. “Almost—but not quite, chief!”
“Lord, but you’re stubborn! Here’s a water-tight case—”
“A very pretty and a very satisfactory case, but not exactly water-tight,” Dundee interrupted. “There’s just one little thing—”
“What do you mean?” Strawn demanded irritably.
“Have you forgotten the secret shelf behind the guest closet in the Selim house?” Dundee asked.
“I can afford to forget it, since it hasn’t got a thing to do with the case!” Strawn retorted angrily. “There’s not a scrap of evidence—”
“Of course it does not fit into your theory,” Dundee agreed, “for ‘Swallow-tail Sammy’s’ avenging brother could not have known of its existence, but there is one thing about that secret shelf and its pivot door which I don’t believe you can afford to forget, Captain!”
“Yeah?” Strawn snarled.
“Yeah! … I refer, of course, to the complete absence of fingerprints on the door and on the shelf itself! Carraway didn’t even find Nita Selim’s fingerprints. Since Nita would have had no earthly reason for carefully wiping off her fingerprints after she removed the papers she burned on Friday night, it’s a dead sure fact that someone else who had no legitimate business to do so, touched that pivoting panel and the shelf, and carefully removed all traces that he had done so! … And—” he continued grimly, “until I find out who that someone is, I, for one, won’t consider the case solved!”
Fifteen minutes later Dundee was sitting at Penny Crain’s desk in her office of the district attorney’s suite, replacing the receiver upon the telephone hook, after having put in a call for Sanderson, who was still in Chicago, keeping vigil at the bedside of his dying mother.
“Did you find out anything new when you questioned the crowd this morning?” Penny asked. “Besides the fact that Polly and Clive got married this morning, I mean…. I wasn’t surprised when I read about the wedding in the extra. It was exactly like Polly to make up her mind suddenly, after putting Clive off for a year—”
“So it was Polly who held back,” Dundee said to himself. Aloud: “No, I didn’t learn much new, Penny. You’re a most excellent and accurate reporter…. But there were one or two things that came out. For instance, I got Drake to admit to me, in private, that Nita did give him an explanation as to where she got the $10,000.”
“Yes?” Penny prompted eagerly.
“Drake says,” Dundee answered dryly, “that Nita told him it was ‘back alimony’ which she had succeeded in collecting from her former husband. Unfortunately, she did not say who or where the mysterious husband is.”
“Pooh!” scoffed Penny. “Don’t you see? She just said that to satisfy Johnny’s curiosity. After all, it was the most plausible explanation of how a divorcee got hold of a lot of money.”
“So plausible that Drake may have thought of it himself,” Dundee reflected silently. Aloud, he continued his report to the girl who had been of so much help to him: “Among other minor things that came out this morning, and which the papers did not report, was the fact that Janet Raymond tried to commit suicide this morning by drinking shoe polish. Fortunately her fathe
r discovered what she had done almost as soon as she had swallowed the stuff, and made her take ipecac and then sent for the doctor.”
“Oh, poor Janet!” Penny groaned. “She must have been terribly in love with Dexter Sprague, though what she saw in him—”
Dundee made no comment, but continued with his information: “Another minor development was that Tracey Miles admitted that he and Flora had quarreled over Sprague after all of you left, and that Flora took two sleeping tablets to make sure of a night’s rest.”
“She’s been awfully unstrung ever since Nita’s murder,” Penny defended her friend. “She told us all Monday night at Peter’s that the doctor had prescribed sleeping medicine…. Now, you look here, Bonnie Dundee!” she cried out sharply, answering an enigmatic smile on the detective’s face, “if you think Flora Miles killed Nita Selim and Dexter Sprague, because she was in love with Dexter and learned he was Nita’s lover from that silly note—”
“Whoa, Penny!” Dundee checked her. “I’m not linking exactly that. But I’ve just remembered something that had seemed of no importance to me before.”
“And what’s that, Mr. Smart Aleck?” Penny demanded furiously.
“Before I answer that question, will you let me do a little theorizing?” Dundee suggested gently. “Let us suppose that Flora Miles was not in love with Sprague, but that she was being blackmailed by Nita for some scandal Nita had heard gossiped about at the Forsyte School…. No, wait! … Let us suppose further that Nita recognized Flora’s picture in the group Lois Dunlap showed her, as the portrait of the girl whose story she had heard; that she was able, somehow, to secure incriminating evidence of some sort—letters, let us say. Nita tells Sprague about it, and Sprague advises her to blackmail Flora, who, Lois has told Nita, is very rich. So Nita comes to Hamilton and bleeds Flora of $10,000. Not satisfied, Nita makes another demand, the money to be paid to her the day of the bridge luncheon—”
“Silly!” Penny scoffed furiously. “The only evidence you have against poor Flora is that she stole the note Dexter had written to Nita!”
“That’s the crux of the matter, Penny darling!” Dundee assured her in a maddeningly soothing voice, at which Penny clinched her hands in impotent rage. “Flora, seeing Nita receive a letter written on her husband’s business stationery, jumps to the conclusion that Nita had carried out her threat to tell Tracey, or that Nita has at least given Tracey a hint of the truth and that Tracey’s special-messenger note is, let us say, a confirmation of an appointment suggested by Nita…. Very well! Flora goes to Nita’s bedroom at the first opportunity, knowing that Nita will come there to make up for the men’s arrival. Let’s suppose Flora had brought the gun and silencer with her, intending to frighten Nita, rather than kill her. But having had proof, as she believes, that Nita means business, Flora waits in the closet until Nita comes in and sits down at her dressing-table, then steps out and shoots her. Then she recoils step by step, until her foot catches in the slack cord of the bronze lamp, causing the very ‘bang or bump’ which Flora herself describes later, for fear someone else has heard it. Her first concern, of course, is to hide the gun and silencer. She remembers Judge Marshall’s tale of the secret shelf in the guest closet, and not only hides the gun there but seeks in vain for the incriminating evidence Nita has against her. But she also remembers the note she believes Tracey has written to Nita, and which, if found after Nita’s death, may give her away. So she goes to the closet in Nita’s bedroom, finds the note, and faints with horror at her perhaps needless crime when she realizes that the note was written by Sprague, and not Tracey. Of course she is too ill and panic-stricken to leave the closet until the murder is discovered—”
“But you think she was not too panic-stricken to have the presence of mind to retrieve the gun and silencer and walk out with them, under the very eyes of the police,” Penny scoffed.
“No! I think she was!” Dundee amazed her by admitting. “And that is where my sudden recollection of something I had considered unimportant comes in! Let us suppose that Flora, half-suspected by Tracey, confesses to him in their car as they are going to the Country Club for their long-delayed dinner, as were the rest of you. Tracey, loyal to her, decides to help her. He tells her to suggest, at dinner, that Lydia come to them as nurse, so that he can go back to the house and get the gun and silencer from the guest-closet hiding place, if an opportunity presents itself—as it did, since I left Tracey Miles alone in the hall while I went into Nita’s bedroom to talk with Lydia before I permitted her to go with Tracey.”
“You’re crazy!” Penny told him fiercely, when he had finished. “I suppose you are going to ask me to believe that Tracey was a big enough fool to leave the gun and silencer where Flora could get hold of it and kill Sprague last night.”
“Why not let us suppose that Tracey himself killed Sprague to protect his wife, not only from scandal, but from a charge of murder?” Dundee countered. “Tell me honestly: do you think Tracey Miles loves Flora enough to do that for her?”
Suddenly, inexplicably, Penny began to laugh—not hysterically, but with genuine mirth.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
“What are you laughing at?” Dundee demanded indignantly, but the sustained ringing of the telephone bell checked Penny Crain’s mirthful laughter. “My Chicago call! … Hello! … Yes, this is Dundee…. All right, but make it snappy, won’t you? … Hello, Mr. Sanderson! How is your mother? … That’s fine! I certainly hope—Yes, the inquest is slated for tomorrow morning, but there’s no use your leaving your mother to come back for it…. Yes, sir, one important new development. Can you hear me plainly? … Then hold the line a moment, please!”
With the receiver still at his ear, Dundee fumbled in his pocket for a folded sheet of paper. “No, operator! We’re not through! Please keep off the line…. Listen, chief!” he addressed the district attorney at the other end of the long distance wire. “This is a telegram Captain Strawn received this afternoon from the city editor of The New York Evening Press…. Can you hear me? … All right!” and he read slowly, repeating when necessary.
When he had finished reading the telegram, he listened for a long minute, but not with so much concentration that he could not grin at Penny’s wide-eyed amazement and joy. “That’s what I think, sir!” he cried jubilantly. “I’d like to take the five o’clock train for New York and work on the case from that end till we actually get our teeth into something…. Thanks a lot, and my best wishes for your mother!”
“Why didn’t you tell me about this ‘Swallow-tail Sammy’?” Penny demanded indignantly. “Tormenting me with your silly theory about poor Flora and Tracey, when all the time you knew the case was practically solved—”
“I’m afraid I gave the district attorney a slightly false impression,” Dundee interrupted, but there was no remorse in his shining blue eyes. “But just so I get to New York—By the way, young woman, what were you laughing at so heartily? I didn’t know I had made an amusing remark when I asked you if you thought Tracey Miles loved his wife well enough to commit murder for her.”
Penny laughed again, white teeth and brown eyes gleaming. “I was laughing at something else. It suddenly occurred to me, while you were spinning your foolish theory, how flattered Tracey would have been if Flora had confessed to him Saturday night that she had killed Nita because she was jealous!”
“Which was not my theory, if you remember!” Dundee retorted. “But why is the idea so amusing? Deep in his heart, I suppose any man would really be a bit flattered if his wife loved him enough to be that jealous.”
“You don’t know Tracey Miles as well as I do,” Penny assured him, her eyes still mirthful. “He’s really a dear, in spite of being a dreadful bore most of the time, but the truth is, Tracey hasn’t an atom of sex appeal, and he must realize it…. Of course we girls have all pampered his poor little ego by pretending to be crazy about him and terribly envious that it was Flora who got him—”
“But Flora Hackett did marry him,” Dun
dee interrupted. “She must have been a beautiful girl, and she was certainly rich enough to get any man she wanted—”
“You would think so, wouldn’t you?” Penny agreed, her tongue loosened by relief. “I was only twelve years old when Flora Hackett made her debut, but a twelve-year-old has big ears and keen eyes. It is true that Flora was beautiful and rich, but—well, there was something queer about her. She was simply crazy to get married, and if a man danced with her as many as three times in an evening she literally seized upon him and tried to drag him to the altar…. Her eagerness and her intensity repelled every man who was in the least attracted to her, and I think she was beginning to be frightened to death that she wouldn’t get married at all, when she happened to meet Tracey, who had just got a job as salesman in her father’s business. She began to rush him—there’s no other word for it—and none of the other girls minded a bit, because, without Flora, Tracey would have been the perfect male wallflower. They became engaged almost right away, and were married six months or so later. All the girls freely prophesied that even Tracey, flattered by her passion for him as he so evidently was, would get tired of it, but he didn’t, and there were three marriages in ‘the crowd’ that June.”
“Three?” Dundee repeated absently, for his interest was waning.
“Yes…. Lois Morrow and Peter Dunlap; Johnny Drake and Carolyn Swann; and Tracey and Flora,” Penny answered. “Although I was thirteen then and really too old for the role, I had the fun of being flower girl for Lois and Flora both.”
“Do you think Flora was really in love with Tracey?” Dundee asked curiously.