Murder at Bridge

by Anne Austin

  CHAPTER FIVE

  "Shame on you, Bonnie Dundee!" cried Penny Crain, her small fistsclenched belligerently. "'Death hand', indeed! You talk like a New Yorktabloid! And if you don't realize that all of us have stood prettynearly as much as we can without having to play the hand at bridge--the_very_ hand we played while Nita Selim was being murdered!--then youhaven't the decency and human feelings I've credited you with!"

  A murmur of indignant approval accompanied her tirade and buzzed on fora moment after she had finished, but it ceased abruptly as Dundee spoke:

  "Who's conducting this investigation, Penny Crain--you or I? You willkindly let me do it in my own fashion, and try to be content when I tellyou that, in my humble opinion, what I propose is absolutely necessaryto the solution of this case!"

  Bickering--Dundee grinned to himself--exactly as if they had known eachother always, had quarreled and made up with fierce intensity for years.

  "Really, Mr. Dundee," Judge Hugo Marshall began pompously, embracing hisyoung wife protectingly, "I must say that I agree with Miss Crain. Thisis an outrage, sir--an outrage to all of us, and particularly to thisfrail little wife of mine, already half-hysterical over the ordeal shehas endured."

  "Take your places!" Dundee ordered curtly. After all, there was a limitto the careful courtesy one must show to Hamilton's "inmost circle ofsociety."

  Penny led the way to the bridge tables, the very waves of her brown bobseeming to bristle with futile anger. But she obeyed, Dundee exulted.The way to tame this blessed little shrew had been solved by old BillShakespeare centuries ago....

  As the women took their places at the two tables, arguing a bit amongthemselves, with semi-hysterical edges to their voices, Dundee watchedthe men, but all of them, with the exception of Dexter Sprague--thattypical son of Broadway, so out of place in this company--had managed atleast a fine surface control, their lips tight, their eyes hard,narrowed and watchful. Sprague slumped into a vacated chair and closedhis eyes, revealing finely-wrinkled, yellowish lids.

  "Where shall we begin?" Polly Beale demanded brusquely. "Remember thistable had finished playing when Karen began to deal what you call the'death hand,'" she reminded him scornfully. "And Flora wasn't here atall--she had been dummy for our last hand--"

  "And had gone out to telephone," Dundee interrupted. "Mrs. Miles, willyou please leave the room, and return exactly when you did return--or asnearly so as you can remember?"

  Dundee was sure that Mrs. Miles' sallow face took on a greyish tinge asshe staggered to her feet and wound an uncertain way toward the hall.Tracey Miles sprang to his wife's assistance, but Sergeant Turner tookit upon himself to lay a detaining hand on the too-anxious husband'sarm. With no more than the lifting of an eyebrow, Dundee made CaptainStrawn understand that Flora Miles' movements were to be kept understrict observation, and the chief of the Homicide Squad as unobtrusivelyconveyed the order to a plainclothesman loitering interestedly in thewide doorway.

  "Now," he was answering Polly Beale's question, "I should like theremaining three of you to behave exactly as you did when your last handwas finished. Did you keep individual score, as is customary incontract?--or were you playing auction?"

  "Contract," Polly Beale answered curtly. "And when we're playing amongourselves like this, one at each table is usually elected to keep score.Janet was score-keeper for us this afternoon, but we all waited, afterour last hand was played, for Janet to give us the result for our tallycards."

  Dundee drew near the table, picked up the three tally cards--ornamentallittle affairs, and rather expensive--glanced over the points recorded,then asked abruptly:

  "Where is Mrs. Miles' tally? I don't see it here."

  There was no answer to be had, so he let the matter drop, temporarily,though his shorthand notebook received another deeply underlined seriesof pothooks.

  "Go on, please, at both tables," Dundee commanded. "Your table--" henodded toward Penny, who was already over her flare of temper, "willplease select the cards each held at the conclusion of Mrs. Marshall'sdeal."

  "Oooh, I'd never remember _all_ my cards in the world," Carolyn Drakewailed. "I know I had five Clubs--Ace, King, Queen--"

  "You had the Jack, not the Queen, for I held it myself," Pennycontradicted her crisply.

  "Until this matter of who held which cards after Mrs. Marshall's deal issettled, I shall have to ask you all to remain as you are now," Dundeesaid to the players seated at the other table.

  At last it was threshed out, largely between Penny Crain and KarenMarshall, the latter proving to have a better memory than Dundee hadexpected. At last even Carolyn Drake's querulous fussiness wassatisfied, or trampled down.

  Both Judge Marshall and John Drake started forward to inspect the cards,which none of the players was trying to conceal, but Dundee waved themback.

  "Please--I want you men--all of you, to take your places outside, andreturn to this room in the order of your arrival this afternoon. Try toimagine that it is now--if I can trust Mr. Miles' apparently excellentmemory--exactly 5:25--"

  "Pretty hard to do, considering it's now a quarter past seven andthere's still no dinner in sight," Tracey Miles grumbled, thenbrightened: "I can come right back in then--at 5:27, can't I?"

  That point settled, and the men sent away, to be watched by severalpairs of apparently indolent police eyes, Dundee turned to the bridgetable, Nita's leaving of which had provided her murderer with hisopportunity.

  "The cards are 'dealt'," Penny reminded him.

  "Now I want you other three to scatter exactly as you did before,"Dundee commanded, hurry and excitement in his voice.

  Lois Dunlap rose, laid down her tally card, and strolled over to theremaining table. After a moment's hesitation, Polly Beale strodemannishly out of the room, straight into the hall. Dundee, watching asthe bridge players earlier that afternoon certainly had not, was amazedto see Clive Hammond beckoning to her from the open door of thesolarium.

  So Clive Hammond had arrived ahead of Tracey Miles! Had somehow enteredthe solarium unnoticed, and had managed to beckon his fiancee to joinhim there! Prearranged?... And why had Clive Hammond failed to enter andgreet his hostess first? Moreover, _how_ had he entered the solarium?

  But things were happening in the living room. Janet Raymond, flushing sothat her sunburned face outdid her red hair for vividness, was slowlyleaving the room also. Through a window opening upon the wide frontporch Dundee saw the girl take her position against a pillar, then--athing she had not done before very probably--press her handkerchief toher trembling lips.

  But the bidding was going on, Karen Marshall piping in her childishtreble: "Three spades!"

  Dundee took his place behind her chair, then silently beckoned to Pennyto shift from her own chair opposite Carolyn Drake to the chair NitaSelim had left to go to her death. She nodded understandingly.

  "Double!" quavered Carolyn Drake, next on the left to the dealer, andmanaged to raise her eyebrows meaningly to Penny, her partner, who hadnot yet changed places.

  Penny, throwing herself into the spirit of the thing, scowled warningly.No exchanging of illicit signals for Penny Crain! But the instant sheslipped into Nita Selim's chair her whole face and body took on adifferent manner, underwent almost a physical change. She _was_ NitaSelim now! She tucked her head, considered her cards, laughed a littlebreathless note, then cried triumphantly:

  "And I say--_five spades_! What do you think of _that_, partner?"

  Then the girl who was giving an amazing imitation of Nita Selim changedas suddenly into her own character as she changed chairs.

  "Nita, I don't think it's quite Hoyle to be so jubilant about thestrength of your hand," she commented tartly. "I pass."

  Karen Marshall pretended to study her hand for a frowning instant, then,under Penny's spell, announced with a pretty air of bravado:

  "Six spades!... Your raise to five makes a little slam obligatory,doesn't it, Nita?"

  Carolyn Drake flushed and looked uneasily toward Penny, a bit of b
y-playwhich Dundee could see had not figured in the original game. But shebridled and shifted her plump body in her chair, as she must have donebefore.

  "I double a little slam!" she declared. Then, still acting the role shehad played in earnest that afternoon, she explained importantly: "Ialways double a little slam on principle!"

  Penny, in the role of Nita, redoubled with an exultant laugh, then, asherself, said, "Pass!" with a murderous glance at Mrs. Drake.

  "Let's see your hand, partner," Karen quavered, addressing a woman whohad been dead nearly two hours; then she shuddered: "Oh, this is toohorrible!" as Penny Crain again slipped into Nita Selim's chair andprepared to lay down the dummy hand.

  And it _was_ horrible--even if vitally necessary--for these three tohave to go through the farce of playing a bridge hand while one of theoriginal players was lying on a marble slab at the morgue, her coldflesh insensible to the coroner's expert knife.

  But Dundee said nothing, for Tracey Miles was already hovering in thedoorway, ready for his cue to enter.

  Penny, or rather "Nita," was saying:

  "How's _this_, Karen darling?" as she laid down the Ace and deuce ofSpades, Karen's trumps.

  "I hope you remember _you_ are vulnerable, as well as we," Carolynremarked in a sorry imitation of her original cocksureness, as sheopened the play by leading the Ace of Clubs.

  "And how's _this_, partner?... A singleton in Clubs!" Nita's imitatordemanded triumphantly, as she continued to lay down her dummy hand,slapping the lone nine of Clubs down beside trumps; "and this littlecollection of Hearts!" as she displayed and arranged the King, Jack,eight and four of Hearts; "_and_ this!" as a length of Diamonds--Ace,Jack, ten, eight, seven and six slithered down the glossy linen cover ofthe bridge table toward Karen Marshall. "Now if you don't make yourlittle slam, infant, don't dare say I shouldn't have jumped you tofive!... I figured you for a blank or a singleton in Diamonds, and atleast the Ace of Hearts, or you--cautious as you are--wouldn't have madean original three Spade bid without the Ace.... Hop to it, darling!"

  "This is where I enter," Tracey Miles whispered to Dundee, and, at a nodfrom the young detective, the pudgy little blond man strode jauntilyinto the living room, proud of himself in the role of actor.

  "Hello, everybody! How's tricks?" he called genially, but there was aquiver of horror in his voice under its blitheness.

  Penny was quite pale when she sprang from her chair, but her voiceseemed to be Nita's very own, as she sang out:

  "It _can't_ be 5:30 already!... Thank heaven I'm dummy, and can run awayand make myself pretty-pretty for you and all the other great big men,Tracey darling!"

  Dundee's keen memory registered the slight difference in the wording ofthe greeting as reported by this pseudo-Nita and the man she was runningto meet. But Penny, as Nita, was already straightening Tracey Miles'necktie with possessive, coquettish fingers, was coaxing, with headtucked alluringly:

  "Tracey, my ownest lamb, won't you shake up the cocktails for Nita? Themakings are all on the sideboard, or I don't know my precious oldLydia--even if her poor jaw does ache most horribly."

  Then Penny, as Nita, was on her way, pausing in the doorway to blow akiss from her fingertips to the fatuously grinning but now quite paleTracey Miles. She was out of sight for only an instant, then reappearedand very quietly retraced her steps to the bridge table.

  Unobtrusively, Dundee drew his watch from his pocket, palmed it as henoted the exact minute, then commanded curtly: "On with the game!"

  As Tracey Miles passed the first bridge table Lois Dunlap linked her armin his, saying in a voice she tried to make gay and natural:

  "I'm trailing along, Tracey. Simply dying for a nip of Scotch! Nita's isthe real stuff--which is more than my fussy old Pete can get half thetime!--and you know I loathe cocktails."

  The two passed on into the dining room, the players scarcely raisingtheir eyes from their cards, which they held as if the game were real.

  Dundee, his watch still in his hand, advanced to the bridge table.Strolling from player to player he made mental photographs of each hand,then took his stand behind Penny's chair to observe the horriblyfarcical playing of it. Poor little Penny! he reflected. She hadn't hada chance against that dumb-bell across the table from her. Fancyanyone's doubling a little slam bid on a hand like Carolyn Drake's--oreven calling an informatory double in the first place! Why hadn't shebid four Clubs after Karen's original three Spade bid, if she simplywanted to give her partner information?... Not that she really had abid--

  Karen's hand trembled as she drew the lone nine of Clubs from the dummy,to place beside Carolyn's Ace, but Penny's fingers were quite steady asshe followed with the deuce of Clubs, to which Karen added, with a traceof characteristic uncertainty, the eight.

  "There's our book!" Carolyn Drake exulted obediently, but she cast anapologetic glance toward Penny. "If we take one more trick we set them."

  "Fat chance!" Penny obligingly responded, and Dundee, relieved, knewthat the farcical game would now be played almost exactly, and with thesame comments, as it had been played while Nita Selim was beingmurdered. Thanks to Penny Crain!

  With a shamefaced glance upward at Dundee, Carolyn Drake then led thedeuce of Diamonds, committing the gross tactical error of leading fromthe Queen. Karen added the Jack from the dummy, and Penny shrugginglycontributed her King, to find the trick, as she had suspected in theoriginal game, trumped by the five of Spades, since Karen had noDiamonds.

  "So _that_ settles _us_, Carolyn!" Penny commented acidly.

  Her partner rose to the role she was playing. "Well, as I said, I alwaysdouble a little slam on principle. Besides, how could I know they wouldhave a chance for cross-ruffing in _both_ Clubs and Diamonds? I thoughtyou would at least hold the Ace of Diamonds and that Karen wouldcertainly have one, as I only had four--"

  Penny shrugged. "Oh, well! Let's play bridge!" for Karen was staring ather cards helplessly. "Sorry, Karen! I realize a post mortem is usuallyheld after the playing of a hand--not before."

  "I--I guess I'd better get my trumps out," Karen--now almost a genuineactress, too--breathed tremulously. "I _do_ wish Nita were playing thishand. I know I'll muff it somehow--"

  "Good kid!" Dundee commented silently, and allowed himself the libertyof patting Karen on her slim shoulder.

  The girl threw an upward glance of gratitude through misty eyes, thenled the six of Spades, Mrs. Drake contributing the four, dummy takingthe trick with the Ace, and Penny relinquishing the three.

  "Let's see--that makes five of 'em in, since I trumped one trick," Karensaid, as she reached across the table to lead from dummy.

  As if the words were a cue--which they probably were--Judge Marshallentered the room at that moment, making a great effort to be as jaunty,debonair, and "young for his age" as he must have thought he looked whenhe made his entrance when the real game was being played.

  At his step Karen lifted her head and greeted her elderly husband with acurious mixture of childlike joy and womanly tenderness:

  "Hullo, darling!... I'm trying to make a little slam I may have beenfoolish to bid, but Nita jumped me from three to five Spades--"

  "Let's have a look, sweetheart," the retired judge suggested pompously,and Dundee gave way to make room for him behind Karen's chair.

  But before Judge Marshall looked at his wife's cards he bent and kissedher on her flushed cheek, and Karen raised a trembling hand to tweak hisgrey mustache. Dundee, with uplifted eyebrow, queried Penny, who noddedshortly, conveying the information that this was the way the scene hadreally been played when there was no question of acting.

  "I'm getting out my trumps, darling," Karen confided sweetly, as shereached for the deuce of Spades--the only remaining trump in the dummy.

  "What's your hurry, child?" her husband asked indulgently. "Lead this!"and he pointed toward the six of Diamonds.

  "I wish you'd got a puncture, Hugo, so you couldn't have butted inbefore this hand was played," Carolyn Drake spluttered. "Remember
thisis a little slam bid, doubled and redoubled--"

  "I should think _you_ would like to forget that, Carolyn!" Pennycommented bitingly. "But I agree with Carolyn, Hugo, that Karen is quitecapable of making her little slam without your assistance."

  "Please don't mind," Karen begged. "Hugo just wanted to help me, becauseI'm such a dub at bridge--"

  "The finest little player in town!" Judge Marshall encouraged hergallantly, but with a jaunty wink at the belligerent Penny.

  Smiling adoringly at him again, Karen took his suggestion and led thesix of Diamonds from the dummy; Penny covered it with the nine; Karenruffed with the seven of Spades from her own hand, and Mrs. Drakelugubriously contributed the four of Diamonds.

  "I can get my trumps out now, can't I, Hugo?" Karen asked deprecatingly,and at her husband's smiling permission, she led the King of Spades,Carolyn had to give up the Jack, which she must have foolishly thoughtwould take a trick; the dummy contributed the deuce, and Penny followedwith her own last trump--the eight.

  Karen counted on her fingers, her eyes on the remaining trumps in herhand, then smiled triumphantly up at her husband.

  "Why not simply tell us, Karen, that the rest of the trumps are in yourown hand?" Penny suggested caustically.

  "I--I didn't mean to do anything wrong," Karen pleaded, as she led nowwith the ten of Hearts, which drew in Carolyn's Queen to cover--Carolynmurmuring religiously: "Always cover an honor with an honor--or should Ihave played second hand low, Penny?"--topped by the King in the dummy,the trick being completed by Penny's three of Hearts.

  At that point John C. Drake marched into the room, strode straight toDundee, and spoke with cold anger:

  "Enough of this nonsense! I, for one, refuse to act like a puppet foryour amusement! If you are so vitally interested in contract bridge, Ishould advise you to take lessons from an expert, not from threeterrified women who are rather poor players at best. I also advise youto get about the business you are supposed to be here for--the findingof a murderer!"