Murder at Bridge

by Anne Austin

  CHAPTER FOUR

  "Pardon! Awfully sorry," Clive Hammond muttered, as he bent to pick upthe fragments of a colored pottery ashtray which he and his fiancee,Polly Beale, had been sharing.

  "Don't worry--about picking it up," Polly commanded in her brusquevoice, but Dundee, listening acutely, was sure of a very slight pausebetween the two parts of her sentence.

  He glanced at the couple--the tall, masculine-looking girl, loungingdeep in an armchair, Clive Hammond, rather unusually good-looking withhis dark-red hair, brown eyes, and a face and body as compactly andsymmetrically designed as one of the buildings which had been pointedout to Dundee as the product of the young architect's genius, nowresuming his seat upon the arm of the chair. His chief concern seemedto be for another ashtray, which Sergeant Turner, with a grin,produced from one of the many little tables with which the room wasprovided.... Rather strange that those two should be engaged, Dundeemused....

  "Go on, Miss Crain," the detective urged, as if he were impatient of thedelay. "About that note or letter--"

  "It was in a blue-grey envelope, with printing or engraving in the upperleft-hand corner," Penny went on, half closing her eyes to recapture thescene in its entirety. "Like business firms use," she amended. "Icouldn't help seeing, since I sat so near Nita. She seemed startled--or,well maybe I'd better say surprised and a little sore, but she tore itopen and read it at a glance almost, which is why I say it must havebeen only a note. But while she was reading it she frowned, then smiled,as if something had amused or--or--"

  "She smiled like any woman reading a love letter," Carolyn Drakeinterrupted positively. "I myself was sure that one of her _many_admirers had broken an engagement, but had signed himself, 'With all mylove, darling--your own So-and-so!'"

  Dundee wondered if even Carolyn Drake's husband, the carefully groomedand dignified John C. Drake, bank vice-president, had ever sent _her_such a note, but he did not let his pencil slow down, for Penny wastalking again:

  "I think you are assuming a little too much, Carolyn.... But let thatpass. At any rate, Nita didn't say a word about the contents of the noteand naturally no one asked a question. She simply tucked it into thepocket of her silk summer coat, which was draped over the back of herchair, and the luncheon went on. Then we all drove over here, and foundPolly waiting in her own coupe, in the road in front of the house. Shetold Nita she had rung the bell, but the maid, Lydia, didn't answer, soshe had just waited.

  "Nita didn't seem surprised; said she had a key, if Lydia hadn't comeback yet.... You see," she interrupted herself to explain to Dundee,"Nita had already told us at luncheon that 'poor, darling Lydia,' as shecalled her, had had to go in to town to get an abscessed toothextracted, and was to wait in the dentist's office until she felt equalto driving herself home again in Nita's coupe.... Yes, Nita had takenher in herself," she answered the beginning of a question from Dundee.

  "At what time?" Dundee queried.

  "I don't know exactly, but Nita said she'd had to dash away at anungodly hour, so that Lydia could make her ten o'clock dentist'sappointment, and so that she herself could get a manicure and a shampooand have her hair dressed, so I imagine she must have left not laterthan fifteen or twenty minutes to ten."

  "How did Mrs. Selim get out to Breakaway Inn, if she left her own carwith the maid?"

  "You saw her arrive with Lois," Penny reminded him.

  "Nita had told us all about Lydia's dentist's appointment when she wasat my house for dinner Wednesday night," Lois Dunlap contributed. "Ioffered to call for her anywhere she said, and take her out to BreakawayInn in my car today. I met her, at her suggestion, in the French hatsalon of the shop where she got her shampoo and manicure--Redmond'sdepartment store."

  "A large dinner party, Mrs. Dunlap?" Dundee asked.

  "Not large at all.... Just twelve of us--the crowd here except for Mr.Sprague, Penny and Janet."

  "Who was Mrs. Selim's dinner partner?" Dundee asked.

  "That's right! He _isn't_ here!" Lois Dunlap corrected herself. "RalphHammond brought her and was her dinner partner."

  "Thank you.... Now, Penny. You were saying the maid had not returned."

  "Oh, but she had!" Penny answered impatiently. "If I'm going to beinterrupted so much--. Well, Nita rang the bell and Lydia came, tying onher apron. Nita kissed her on the cheek that wasn't swollen, and askedher why she hadn't let Polly in. And Lydia said she hadn't heard thebell, because she had dropped asleep in her room in the basement--dopeyfrom the local anesthetic, you know," she explained to Dundee.

  "I--see," Dundee acknowledged, and underlined heavily another note inhis scrawled shorthand.

  "So Lydia took our hats and summer coats and put them in the hallcloset, and then followed Nita, who was calling to her, on into Nita'sbedroom. We thought she either wanted to give directions about themakings for the cocktails and the sandwiches, or to console poor Lydiafor the awful pain she had had at the dentist's, so we didn't intrude.We made a dive for the bridge tables, found our places, and were readyto play when Nita joined us. Nita and Karen--"

  "Just a minute, Penny.... Did any of you, then or later, until Mrs.Marshall discovered the tragedy, go into Mrs. Selim's bedroom?"

  "There was no need for us to," Penny told him. "There's a lavatory witha dressing-table right behind the staircase. I, for one, didn't go intoNita's room until after Karen screamed."

  There was a chorus of similar denials on the part of every womanpresent. At Dundee's significant pressing of the same question upon themen, he was met with either laconic negatives or sharply indignant ones.

  "All right, Penny. Go ahead, please."

  "I was going to tell you how we were seated for bridge, if thatinterests you," Penny said, rather tartly.

  "It interests me intensely," Dundee assured her, smiling.

  "Then it was this way," began Penny, thawing instantly. "Karen and Nita,Carolyn and I were at this table," and she pointed to the table nearerthe hall. "Flora, Polly, Janet and Lois were at the other. We played atthose tables all afternoon. We simply pivoted at our own table after theend of each rubber. When Nita became dummy--"

  "Forgive me," Dundee begged, as he interrupted her again. "I'd like toask a question ... Mrs. Dunlap, since you were at the other table,perhaps you will tell me what your partner and opponents were doing justbefore Mrs. Selim became dummy."

  Lois Dunlap pressed her fingertips into her temples, as if in an effortto remember clearly.

  "It's--rather hard to think of bridge now, Mr. Dundee," she said atlast. "But--yes, of course I remember! We had finished a rubber and haddecided there would be no time for another, since it was so near 5:30--"

  "That last rubber, please, Mrs. Dunlap," Dundee suggested. "Who werepartners, and just when was it finished?"

  "Flora--" Lois turned toward Mrs. Miles, who had sat with her handstightly locked and her great haggard dark eyes roving tensely from oneto another--"you and I were partners, weren't we?... Of course! Rememberyou were dummy and I played the hand? You went out to telephone, didn'tyou?... That's right! I remember clearly now! Flora said she had totelephone the house to ask how her two babies--six and four years old,they are, Mr. Dundee, and the rosiest dumplings--. Well, anyway, Florawent to telephone--"

  "In the little foyer between the main hall and Mrs. Selim's room?"

  "Yes, of course," Lois Dunlap answered, but Dundee's eyes were uponFlora Miles, and he saw her naturally sallow face go yellow under itstoo-thick rouge. "I played the hand and made my bid, although Flora andI had gone down 400 on the hand before," Lois continued, with a ruefultwinkle of her pleasant grey eyes. "When the score was totted up, Ifound I'd won a bit after all. Our winnings go to the Forsyte AlumnaeScholarship Fund," she explained.

  "Yes, I know," Dundee nodded. "And then--?"

  "Polly asked the other table how they stood, and Nita said, 'One game togo on this rubber, provided we make it....' Karen was dealing the cardsthen, and Nita was looking very happy--she'd been winning prettysteadily, I think--"
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  "Pardon, Mrs. Dunlap.... How did the players at your table dispose ofthemselves then--that is, immediately after you had finished playing thelast hand, and Mrs. Marshall was dealing at the other table?"

  Lois screwed up her forehead. "Let me think--I know what _I_ did. I wentover to watch the game at the other table, and stayed there tillTracey--Mr. Miles--came in for cocktails. I can't tell you exactly whatthe other three did."

  There was a strained silence. Dundee saw Polly Scale's hand tightenconvulsively on Clive Hammond's, saw Janet Raymond flush scarlet,watched a muscle jerk in Flora Miles' otherwise rigid face.

  Suddenly he sprang to his feet. "I am going to make what will seem anabsurd request," he said tensely. "I am going to ask you all--the women,I mean--to take your places at the bridge tables. And then--" he pausedfor an instant, his blue eyes hard: "I want to see the death hand playedexactly as it was played while Nita Selim was being murdered!"