Murder at Bridge

by Anne Austin

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Almost immediately Special Investigator Dundee rose from his crouchingposition on the floor of Nita Selim's closet, and faced the chief of theHomicide Squad of Hamilton's police force.

  "I think," he said quietly, for all the excitement that burned in hisblue eyes, "that we'd better have Mrs. Miles in for a few questions."

  "What have you got there--a dance program?" Strawn asked curiously, butas Dundee continued to stare silently at the thing he held, the olderman strode to the door and relayed the order to a plainclothesdetective.

  "I sent for _Mrs._ Miles," Dundee said coldly, when husband and wifeappeared together, Flora's thin, tense shoulders encircled by Tracey'splump arm.

  "If you're going to badger my wife further, I intend to be present,sir!" Miles retorted, thrusting out his chest.

  "Very well!" Dundee conceded curtly. "Mrs. Miles, why didn't you tell mein the first place that you were _in this room_ when Nita Selim wasshot?"

  "Because I wasn't--in--in the room," Flora protested, clinging with boththin, big-veined hands to her husband's arm.

  "Sir, you have no proof of this absurd accusation, and I shallpersonally take this matter up--"

  "I have the best of proof," Dundee said quietly, and took his hand fromhis pocket. "You recognize this, Mrs. Miles?... You admit that it is thetally card you used while playing bridge this afternoon?"

  "No, no! It isn't mine!" Flora cried hysterically, cringing against herhusband, who began to protest in a voice falsetto with rage.

  Dundee ignored his splutterings. "May I point out that it is identicalwith the other tally cards used at Mrs. Selim's party today, and that onits face it bears your name, 'Flora'?" and he politely extended the cardfor her inspection.

  "I--yes, it _must_ be mine, but I was _not_ in this room when Nitawas--was shot!"

  "But you will admit that you _were_ in her clothes closet at some timeduring the twenty or more minutes that elapsed between your leaving thebridge game, when you became dummy, and the moment when Karen Marshallscreamed?"

  As Flora Miles said nothing, staring at him with great, terrified blackeyes, Dundee went on relentlessly: "Mrs. Miles, when you left the bridgegame, you did not intend to telephone your house. You came _here_--intothis room!--and you lay in wait, hiding in her closet until Nita Selimappeared, as you knew she would, sooner or later--"

  "No, no! That's a lie--a lie, I tell you!" the woman shrilled at him. "I_did_ telephone my house, and I talked to Junior, when the maid put himup to the phone.... You can ask her yourself, if you don't believe me!"

  "But _after_ you telephoned, you stole into this room--"

  "No, no! I--I made up my face all fresh, just as I told you--"

  Dundee did not bother to tell her how well he knew she was lying, forsuddenly something knocked on the door of his mind. He strode to thecloset, searched for a moment among the multitude of garments hangingthere, then emerged with the brown silk summer coat which Nita Selim hadworn to Breakaway Inn that noon. Before the terrified woman's eyes hethrust a hand first into one deep pocket and then another, findingnothing except a handkerchief of fine embroidered linen and a pair ofbrown suede gauntlet gloves.

  "Will you let me have the note, please, Mrs. Miles? The note Nitareceived during her luncheon party, and which she thrust, before youreyes, into a pocket of this coat?... It is in your handbag, I am sure,since you have had no opportunity, unobserved, to destroy it."

  "What ghastly nonsense is this, Dundee?" Tracey Miles demandedfuriously.

  But Dundee again ignored him. His implacable eyes held Flora Miles'until the woman broke suddenly, piteously. She fumbled in the raffia bagwhich had been hanging from her arm.

  "Good God, Flora! What does it all mean?" Tracey Miles collapsed like apricked pink balloon. "That's _my_ stationery--one of my businessenvelopes--"

  Flora Miles dropped the bag which she need no longer watch and clutchwith terror, as she dug her thin fingers into her husband's shouldersand looked down at his puzzled face, for she was a little taller thanhe.

  "Forgive me, darling! Oh, I knew God would punish me for being jealous!I thought _you_ were writing love letters to--to that woman--"

  Dundee did not miss the slightest significance of that scene as heretrieved the blue-grey envelope she had dropped. It was inscribed, in acurious handwriting: "Mrs. Selim, Private Dining Room, Breakaway Inn."

  "Let's see, boy," Strawn said, with respect in his harsh voice.

  Dundee withdrew the single sheet of business stationery, and obliginglyheld it so that the chief of detectives could read it also.

  "Nita, my sweet," the note began, without date-line, "Forgive your badboy for last night's row, but I _must_ warn you again to watch yourstep. You've already gone too far. Of course I love you and understand,_but_--Be good, Baby, and you won't be sorry."

  The note was signed "Dexy."

  Dundee tapped the note for a long minute, while Tracey Miles continuedto console his wife. A new avenue, he thought--perhaps a long, longavenue....

  "Mrs. Miles," he began abruptly, and the tear-streaked face turnedtoward him. "You say you thought this letter to Mrs. Selim had beenwritten by your husband?"

  "Yes!" She gasped. "I'm jealous-natured. I admit it, and when I saw oneof our own--I mean, one of Tracey's business envelopes--"

  "You made up your mind to steal it and read it?"

  "Yes, I did! A wife has a right to know what her husband's doing, ifit's anything--like that--" Her haggard black eyes again implored herhusband for forgiveness, before she went on: "I _did_ slip into Nita'sroom and go into her closet to see if she had left the letter in hercoat pocket. I closed the door on myself, thinking I could find thelight cord, but it was caught in one of the dresses or something, and ittook me a long time to find it in the dark of the closet, but I did findit at last, and was just reading the note--"

  "You _read_ it, even after you saw that the handwriting on the envelopewasn't your husband's?" Dundee queried in assumed amazement.

  Flora's thin body sagged. "I--I thought maybe Tracey had disguised hisHandwriting.... So I read it, and saw it was from Dexter--"

  "Mr. Miles, do you know how some of your business stationery got intoSprague's hands?"

  "He's had plenty of opportunity to filch stationery or almost anythinghe wants, hanging around my offices, as he does--an idler--"

  But Dundee was in a hurry. He wheeled from the garrulity of the husbandto the tense terror of the wife.

  "Mrs. Miles, I want you to tell me exactly what you know, unless youprefer to consult a lawyer first--"

  "Sir, if you are insinuating that _my wife_--"

  "Oh, let me tell him, Tracey," Mrs. Miles capitulated suddenly,completely. "I _was_ in the closet when Nita was killed, I suppose, butI didn't _know_ she was being killed! _Because I was lying in there onthe closet floor in a dead faint!_"

  Dundee stared at the woman incredulously, then suppressed a groan ofalmost unbearable disappointment. If Flora Miles was telling the truth,here went a-flying his only eye-witness, probably, or rather, his onlyear-witness.

  "Just when did you faint, Mrs. Miles?" he asked, struggling forpatience. "Before or after Nita came into this room?"

  "I was just finishing the note, with the light on in the closet, and thedoor shut, when I heard Nita come into the room. I knew it was Nitabecause she was singing one of those Broadway songs she is--was--socrazy about. I jerked off the light, and crouched way back in a cornerof the closet. A velvet evening wrap fell down over my head, and I wasnearly smothering, but I was afraid to try to dislodge it for fear ahanger would fall to the floor and make an awful clatter. And then--andthen--" She shuddered, and clung to her husband.

  "What caused you to faint, Mrs. Miles?"

  "Sir, my wife has heart trouble--"

  "What did you hear, Mrs. Miles?" Dundee persisted.

  "I couldn't hear very well, all tangled up in the coat and 'way back inthe closet, but I did hear a kind of bang or bump--no, no, not a
pistolshot!--and because it came from so near me I thought it was Nita orLydia coming to get something out of the closet, and I'd be discovered,so I--I fainted--" She drew a deep breath and went on: "When I came to Iheard Karen scream, and then people running in--. But all the time thatawful tune was going on and on--"

  "Tune?" Dundee gasped. "Do you mean--Nita Selim's--_song_?"

  Flora Miles seemed to be dazed by Dundee's vehement question.

  "Why, yes--Nita's own tune. That's what she called it--her own tune--"

  "But, Mrs. Miles," Dundee protested, ashamed that his scalp wasprickling with horror, "do you mean to tell me that Nita was not dead_then_--when Karen Marshall screamed?"

  "Dead?" Flora repeated, more bewildered. "Of course she was, or atleast, they all said so--. Oh, I know what you mean! And you don't meanwhat I mean at all--"

  "Steady, honey-girl!" Tracey Miles urged, putting his arm about hiswife. "I'd better tell you, Dundee.... When we all came running into theroom, there was Nita's powder box playing its tune over and over--"

  "Oh!" Dundee wiped his forehead. "You mean it's a musical box?"

  "Yes, and plays when the lid is off," Tracey answered, obviouslydelighted to have the limelight again. "Well, of course, since Nitacouldn't put the lid back on, it was still playing.... What was thetune, honey?" he asked his wife tenderly. "I haven't much ear for musicat best, but at a time like that--"

  "It was playing _Juanita_," Flora answered wearily. "Over andover--_'Nita, Jua-a-n-ita, be my own fair bride_'," she quaveredobligingly. "Only not the words, of course, just the tune. That's whyNita bought the box, I suppose, because it played her namesake song--"

  "Maybe one of her beaus gave it to her," Tracey suggested lightly,patting his wife's trembling shoulder. "Anyway, Dundee, the thing ran onand on, until it ran down, I suppose. I confess I wanted to put the lidback on, to stop the damned thing, but Hugo said we mustn't touchanything--"

  "And quite right!" Dundee cut in. "Now, Mrs. Miles, about that noise youheard.... Did you hear anyone enter the room?... No?... Well, then, didyou hear Nita speak to anyone? You said you thought it might be Lydia,coming to get something out of the closet."

  "I didn't hear Nita speak a word to anybody, though she might have and Iwouldn't have heard, all muffled up in that velvet evening wrap and sofar back in the closet--"

  "Did you hear the door onto the porch--it's _quite_ near the closet--"

  "The door was open when we came in, Dundee," Tracey interposed. "It musthave been open all the time."

  "I didn't hear it open," Mrs. Miles confirmed him wearily. "I tell you Ididn't hear _anything_, except Nita's coming in singing, then the powderbox playing its tune, and that bang or bump I told you about."

  "And just where was that?" Dundee persisted.

  "_I don't know!_" she shrilled, hysteria rising in her voice again. "Itold you it sounded fairly near the closet, as if--as if somebody bumpedinto something. That's what it was like! That's exactly what it waslike. And I was so frightened of being found in the closet that Ifainted, and didn't come to until Karen screamed--"

  She was babbling on, but Dundee was thinking hard. A very convenientfaint--that! For the murderer, at least! But--why not for Mrs. Milesherself? Odd that she should _faint_! Why hadn't she trumped up someexcuse immediately and left the closet as Nita was entering the room?Was it, possibly, because she could think of nothing but the greatrelief of finding that it was Sprague, not her husband, who had beenwriting love letters to Nita Selim?... A jealous woman--

  "Miles," he began abruptly, "I think you'd better tell me how your wifebecame so jealous of you and Nita Selim that she could get herself intosuch a false position."

  Tracey Miles reddened, but a gesture of one of his sunburned handsrestrained his wife's passionate defense of him. "It's the truth thatFlora is jealous-natured. And I suppose--" he faltered a moment, and hiseyes did not meet his wife's, "--that I liked seeing her a little bitjealous of her old man. Sort of makes a man feel--well, big, you know.And pretty important to somebody!"

  "So you were just having a bit of fun with your wife, so far as Mrs.Selim was concerned?" Dundee asked coldly.

  The blood flowed through the thinning blond hair. "We-el, not exactly,"he admitted frankly. "You see, I _did_ take a shine to Nita, and if I dosay so myself, she liked me a lot.... Oh, nothing serious! Just a littleflirtation, like most of our crowd have with each other--"

  "Mrs. Miles," Dundee interrupted with sudden harshness, "are you _sure_you did not know that that letter was from Dexter Sprague before youlooked for it?"

  "Sir, if you are insinuating that _my wife_ carried on a flirtationor--an--an _affair_ with that Sprague insect--" Tracey began to bluster.

  But Dundee's eyes were on Flora Miles, and he saw that her sallow skinhad tightened like greyish silk over her thin cheek bones, and that hereyes looked suddenly dead and glassy.

  "You _fainted_, you say, Mrs. Miles," Dundee went on inexorably. "Was itbecause, by any chance, this note--" and he tapped the sheet which hadcaused so much trouble--"revealed the fact that Nita Selim and DexterSprague were sweethearts or--lovers?"

  It was a battle between those two now. Both ignored Tracey's red-facedrage.

  Flora licked her dry lips. "No--no," she whispered. "_No!_ It wasbecause I was jealous of Tracey and Nita--"

  "Yes, and I'd given her cause to be jealous, too!" Tracey forced himselfinto the conversation. "One night, at the Country Club, Flora saw me andNita stroll off the porch and down onto the grounds, and she had a rightto be sore at me when I got back, because I'd cut a dance with her--myown wife!... And it was only this very morning that I made a point ofdriving--out of my way too--by this house to see Nita. Not that I meantany harm, but I was being a little silly about her--and she was aboutme, too! Not that I'd leave my wife and babies for any Broadway beautyunder the sun--"

  "Oh, Tracey! And you weren't going to tell me--" Was there _real_jealousy now, or just pretense on Flora's part?

  "You understand, don't you, Dundee?" Tracey demanded, man to man. "I wasjust having a little fun on the side--nothing serious, mind you! But ofcourse I didn't tell Flora every little thing--. No man does! There'vebeen other girls--other women--"

  "Tracey isn't worse than the other men!" Flora flamed up. "He's such adarling that all the girls pet him, and spoil him--"

  Dundee could stand no more of Miles' complacent acceptance of his ownrakishness. And certainly a girl like Nita Selim would have been able tobear precious little of it.... Conceited ass! But Flora Miles wasanother matter--and so was Dexter Sprague!

  "You can join me in the living room, if you like," Dundee said shortly,as he wheeled and strode toward the door. Was that quick, passionatekiss between husband and wife being staged for his benefit?

  "Pretty near through, boy?" Strawn, who had been silent and bewilderedfor a long time, asked anxiously, as the two detectives passed into thehall.

  "Not quite. I've got to know several things yet," Dundee answeredabsently.

  But in the living room his mind was wholly upon the business in hand.

  "I'll keep you all no longer than is absolutely necessary," he began,and again the close-knit group--in which only Dexter Sprague was analien--grew taut with suspense. "From the playing out of the 'deathhand' at bridge," he went on, using the objectionable phrase again verydeliberately, "I found that no two of you men arrived together.... Mr.Hammond, you were the first to arrive, I believe?"

  "It seems that I was!" Clive Hammond answered curtly.

  "And yet you did not enter the living room to greet your hostess?"

  "I wanted a private word with Polly--Miss Beale--my fiancee," Hammondexplained briefly.

  "How and when did you arrive?"

  "I don't know the exact time. Never thought of looking at my watch,"Hammond offered. "I came out in my own roadster--that tan Stutz you mayhave noticed in the driveway. As for how I entered the house, I leapedupon the porch and opened a door of the solarium. I walked across thesolarium, saw P
olly just finishing with bridge for the afternoon, andbeckoned to her. She joined me in the solarium, and we stayed thereuntil Karen screamed.... That's all."

  "Have you been engaged long, Mr. Hammond--you and Miss Beale?" Dundeeasked, as if quite casually.

  "Nearly a year,--if it's any of your business, Dundee!"

  "And just when had you seen Miss Beale last, before late thisafternoon?" Dundee asked.

  "I refuse to answer!" Hammond flared. "That at least is none of yourdamned business!"

  "I believe I can answer my own question, Mr. Hammond," Dundee said verysoftly.