Murder at Bridge

by Anne Austin

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  "I'd give a good deal to know which of those two suggested that it wouldbe a good idea to get married the first thing this morning," Dundeemused aloud, as he put down the second extra which _The Hamilton MorningNews_ had had occasion to issue that Thursday.

  It was two o'clock, and the district attorney's "special investigator"sat across the desk from Captain Strawn, in his former chief's office atPolice Headquarters.

  The first extra had screamed in its biggest head type: SECOND BRIDGEDUMMY MURDER! and had carried, in detail, Captain Strawn's comfortingtheory that Dexter Sprague's erstwhile friends had again been made thevictims of a New York gunman's fiendish cleverness in committing hismurders under circumstances which would inevitably involve Hamilton'smost highly respected and socially prominent citizens in the policeinvestigation.

  But the second extra had a more romantic streamer headline: HAMMONDWEDDING DELAYS MURDER QUIZ.

  The story beneath a series of smaller headlines began:

  "At the very moment--9:05 o'clock this morning--when Celia Hunt, maid inthe Tracey Miles home in the Brentwood district of Hamilton, wasscreaming the news of her discovery of the dead body of Dexter Sprague,New York motion picture director, in what is known as the 'trophy room,'Miss Polly Beale and Mr. Clive Hammond were applying for a marriagelicense in the Municipal Building.

  "At 9:30, when Miss Beale and Mr. Hammond were exchanging their vows inthe rectory of St. Paul's Episcopal Church, of which both bride andgroom have been members since childhood, Captain John Strawn of theHomicide Squad was listening to Tracey Miles' account of the strangedisappearance of Dexter Sprague last night from an impromptu bridgegame, after he had announced his intention of taking advantage of thefact that he was 'dummy' to telephone for a taxi.

  "And at 10 o'clock, when the new Mrs. Hammond called her home to breakthe news of her marriage to her aunt, Mrs. Amelia Beale, the bride wasin turn acquainted with the news of Sprague's murder and the fact thatboth she and her husband were wanted at the Miles home for questioningby the police, since both had been guests of Mr. and Mrs. Miles lastnight, although Mr. Hammond did not arrive until about 11 o'clock."

  There followed a revision of the murder story as it had appeared in thefirst extra, with additional details supplied by Strawn, and with a linedrawing of the scene of the crime--the trophy room itself and the forkeddriveway with its tall yew hedges. A dotted line illustrated Strawn'stheory of Sprague's plan to elude the murderer who had followed him tothe Miles home. Because of the curved sweep of the driveway toward themain entrance of the house, the tall hedge was less than two feet fromthe window with the partly opened screen.

  "Captain Strawn's theory," read the text below the large drawing, "isthat Sprague had good cause to fear he was being followed on his way tothe Miles home; that he telephoned for a taxi to wait for him at thefoot of the hill, and that he planned to leave the Miles house by way ofthe trophy room window, so that his lurking pursuer might have noknowledge of his departure. The drawing shows that his proposed flightwould have been protected by hedges until he reached the wooded slope ofthe hill, provided his Nemesis was lurking in the opposite hedge acrossthe driveway, where he could observe every departure from the Mileshome."

  "You've sure got a single-track mind, boy," Strawn chuckled. "So youthink those two got married in such a hurry this morning because the lawsays a husband or a wife can't be made to testify against the other?"

  "Possibly." Dundee grinned, unruffled. "But there is anotherpossibility--which is why I should like to know who suggested thissudden wedding. I mean that we can't overlook the possibility that thesetwo murders made either the bride or the groom feel perfectly safe ingoing on with the marriage. Polly Beale and Clive Hammond had beenengaged for more than a year, you know, with no apparent reason for along engagement.... As for my having a single-track mind, Captain, whatabout you? I have six possible suspects, all of whose names I know, andyou have only one--whose name you do not know, and whose motive you canonly guess at, while _I_ have a perfectly good motive that might fit anyone of my six--blackmail!"

  "Is that so?" Strawn growled. "I'm not telling the papers everything,and if they are satisfied to call these murders '_crimes passionnels_,'it's all right with me. But I'm not forgetting that Nita Selim bankedten thousand dollars cash after she got to Hamilton. My real theory nowthat Sprague has been killed is that Nita and Sprague had cooked up somesort of racket between them, and that when Nita got the chance to cometo Hamilton with Mrs. Dunlap, she jumped at it, and she and Spraguesprung their racket, whatever it was, either just before or just afterNita left New York. Probably it was Nita's tip-off and Sprague did theactual dirty work himself, which explains that telegram that Nita senthim April 24, just three days after she got to Hamilton. Let's see againjust what it says," and Strawn reached for a copy of the night letterwhich Dundee himself had unearthed the day before. "See: '_EverythingJake so far, but would feel safer you here_--'"

  "Yes, I remember the wording quite well," Dundee interrupted. "But youdid not take it so seriously when I showed it to you yesterday. If youhad--"

  "All right! Rub it in!" Strawn snapped, flushing darkly. "If I hadassigned a man to 'tail' Sprague, as you suggested, he wouldn't havebeen murdered--"

  "He probably would have been murdered just the same," Dundee comfortedthe older man, "but we might have been lucky enough to have had aneye-witness."

  "Oh, you and your theory!" Strawn growled. "But let me go on.... Nitameant she would feel safer about Sprague if he was here in Hamilton,too. But the guy they double-crossed in New York, or worked the badgergame on, or something like that, got on their trail. But it took himweeks to do it, and Sprague followed Nita's advice. He got here onSunday April 27, and on Monday the 28th Nita banked the first $5,000!Don't you see it, boy? Sprague brought with him the dough they'd got fortheir stunt, and thought it was safer for Nita to bank it in her name,since it wasn't the name she was known by in New York anyway. We'vechecked up on Sprague pretty thoroughly. He didn't have a bank book,either on his body or in his room, and every bank in town denies he hadan account with them."

  "If that theory is correct, it makes Nita Selim a pretty low character,"Dundee mused aloud. "Not only did she kick him out as a lover, but shedouble-crossed him as her partner in crime, by willing the whole wad toLydia Carr. Sprague must have received quite a shock when he heardNita's will read at the inquest."

  "Yeah," Strawn agreed. "It looks like Mrs. Dunlap picked a sweetspecimen to make a friend out of.... Well, that's my theory, and I thinkit explains everything. Their victim in New York simply hired a gunman,or come down here himself, when he got on their tracks. Of course it wasa good stunt to make it look like a local crime--figured he'd fool _me_just as he fooled _you_! So the murderer simply trailed Nita around, andsaw that whole bunch of society people shooting at a target at JudgeMarshall's place, with a gun equipped with a Maxim silencer. Too good anopportunity to be missed, so he bides his chance to swipe the gun andsilencer. To make sure it will look like a local crime, he pops off Nitawhen that same bunch is at her house, but it takes a few days longerbefore he has the same opportunity to get Sprague. But it come lastnight and he grabbed it."

  "A very plausible theory, and one which, in general, the whole city ofHamilton has been familiar with since the night Nita was murdered,"Dundee remarked significantly.

  "What do you mean?" Strawn demanded. "It's waterproof, ain't it? DocPrice says the bullet--and a .32 caliber one at that--entered Sprague'sbody just below the breastbone and traveled an upward course till itstruck the extreme right side of the heart. The bullet entered exactlywhere it would have to, if the murderer was crouching under that windowwhile Sprague was raising the screen. And we have Carraway's report thatit was Sprague's fingerprints on those nickleplated things you have topress together to make the screen roll up or down. Furthermore, Ihaven't a doubt in the world that the ballistics expert in Chicago willreport that the bullet was fired from the same gun that ki
lled NitaSelim."

  "Neither have I," Dundee agreed. "But what I meant was that you hadobligingly furnished the murderer who fits _my_ theory with a theoryhe--or she--would not have upset for the world!... Listen!" and he bentforward very earnestly: "I'm willing to grant that Sprague was shot fromthe outside, through the window, when Sprague raised the screen. Butthere our theories part company. I believe that the murderer was a guestin the Selim home last night, that he or she had made an appointment tomeet Sprague there, on the promise of paying the hush money he haddemanded, in spite of my warning to him not to carry on with theblackmail scheme. Naturally he or she--and I'll say 'he' from now on,for the sake of convenience--had no intention of being seen enteringthat room. The bridge game was suggested by Judge Marshall at noon.There was plenty of time for the rendezvous to be made with Sprague. AsI see it, the murderer told Sprague to excuse himself from the game whenhe became dummy, and to go to the trophy room and wait there until themurderer 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 awhispered request, a roll of bills would be handed to him, but--hereceived a bullet instead."

  "And which one of your six suspects have you picked on?" Strawn askedsarcastically.

  "That's just the trouble. There are still six," Dundee acknowledged witha wry grin. "After Sprague's disappearance, every one of the six wasabsent from the porch at one time or another.... No, by George! Thereare _seven_ suspects now! I was about to forget Peter Dunlap, who admitshe was alone on a fishing trip when Nita was murdered and who left theporch last night to go to the library, as soon as Sprague arrived!... Asfor the movements of the original six after Sprague disappeared: PollyBeale took a walk about the grounds; Flora Miles went upstairs to huntfor Karen Marshall, and was gone more than ten minutes; Drake went tothe dining room to get the refreshments, and no one can say exactly howlong he was gone; Judge Marshall went up to get his wife, and had timeto make a little trip on the side; Janet Raymond walked over from herhome, and passed that very window, arriving after Sprague haddisappeared; and, finally, Clive Hammond arrived alone in his car, whichhe parked within a few feet of that window. This morning he getsmarried----"

  "A telegram, sir!" interrupted a plainclothesman, who had enteredwithout 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 cityeditor 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 sendSergeant Turner to New York on the five o'clock train.... Pretty decentof that city editor to wire me this tip, I'll say!"

  "And are you going to reciprocate by wiring him about the $10,000 Nitabanked here?" Dundee asked.

  "Sure! Why not? There's no use that I can see to keep it back anylonger, now that no one can have any excuse to think as you've beendoing--that it was blackmail paid by a Hamiltonian."

  "Then," Dundee began very slowly, "if you really think your case issolved, I'll make one suggestion: take charge of Lydia Carr and put herin a very safe place."

  "Why?" Strawn looked puzzled.

  "Because, when you publish the fact that Nita and Sprague got $10,000for tipping off Savelli's gang that he was double-crossing them, andthat Nita willed the money to Lydia, the avenger's next and last jobwould be to 'get' Lydia, since his natural conclusion would be thatLydia had been in on the scheme from the beginning," Dundee explained.

  "God, boy! You're right!" Strawn exclaimed, and his heavy old face wasvery pale as he reached for the telephone, and called the number of theMiles residence. "I'm going to put it up to her that it will be best forher 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'tafraid and the Miles kids need her.... Well, it's her own funeral! But Iguess _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 exactlywater-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 theSelim house?" Dundee asked.

  "I can afford to forget it, since it hasn't got a thing to do with thecase!" 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 itsexistence, but there is one thing about that secret shelf and its pivotdoor 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 onthe door and on the shelf itself! Carraway didn't even find Nita Selim'sfingerprints. Since Nita would have had no earthly reason for carefullywiping off her fingerprints after she removed the papers she burned onFriday night, it's a dead sure fact that someone else who had nolegitimate business to do so, touched that pivoting panel and the shelf,and carefully removed all traces that he had done so!... And--" hecontinued 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 heroffice of the district attorney's suite, replacing the receiver upon thetelephone hook, after having put in a call for Sanderson, who was stillin Chicago, keeping vigil at the bedside of his dying mother.

  "Did you find out anything new when you questioned the crowd thismorning?" Penny asked. "Besides the fact that Polly and Clive gotmarried this morning, I mean.... I wasn't surprised when I read aboutthe wedding in the extra. It was exactly like Polly to make up her mindsuddenly, after putting Clive off for a year----"

  "So it was Polly who held back," Dundee said to himself. Aloud: "No, Ididn't learn much new, Penny. You're a most excellent and accuratereporter.... But there were one or two things that came out. Forinstance, I got Drake to admit to me, in private, that Nita did give himan explanation as to where she got the $10,000."

  "Yes?" Penny prompted eagerly.

  "Drake says," Dundee answered dryly, "that Nita told him it was 'backalimony' 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 satisfyJohnny's curiosity. After all, it was the most plausible explanation ofhow a divorcee got hold of a lot of money."

  "So plausible that Drake may have thought of it himself," Dundeereflected silently. Aloud, he continued his report to the girl who hadbeen of so much help to him: "Among other minor things that came outthis morning, and which the papers did not report, was the fact thatJanet Raymond tried to commit suicide this morning by drinking shoepolish. Fortunately her father discovered what she had done almost assoon as she had swallowed the stuff, and made her take ipecac and thensent for the doctor."

  "Oh, poor Janet!" Penny groaned. "She must have been terribly in lovewith Dexter Sprague, though what she saw in him----"

&nb
sp; Dundee made no comment, but continued with his information: "Anotherminor development was that Tracey Miles admitted that he and Flora hadquarreled over Sprague after all of you left, and that Flora took twosleeping tablets to make sure of a night's rest."

  "She's been awfully unstrung ever since Nita's murder," Penny defendedher friend. "She told us all Monday night at Peter's that the doctor hadprescribed sleeping medicine.... Now, you look here, Bonnie Dundee!" shecried out sharply, answering an enigmatic smile on the detective's face,"if you think Flora Miles killed Nita Selim and Dexter Sprague, becauseshe was in love with Dexter and learned he was Nita's lover from thatsilly note----"

  "Whoa, Penny!" Dundee checked her. "I'm not linking exactly that. ButI've just remembered something that had seemed of no importance to mebefore."

  "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_ inlove with Sprague, but that she was being blackmailed by Nita for somescandal Nita had heard gossiped about at the Forsyte School.... No,wait!... Let us suppose further that Nita recognized Flora's picture inthe group Lois Dunlap showed her, as the portrait of the girl whosestory she had heard; that she was able, somehow, to secure incriminatingevidence of some sort--letters, let us say. Nita tells Sprague about it,and Sprague advises her to blackmail Flora, who, Lois has told Nita, isvery rich. So Nita comes to Hamilton and bleeds Flora of $10,000. Notsatisfied, Nita makes another demand, the money to be paid to her theday of the bridge luncheon----"

  "Silly!" Penny scoffed furiously. "The only evidence you have againstpoor 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 amaddeningly soothing voice, at which Penny clinched her hands inimpotent rage. "Flora, seeing Nita receive a letter written on herhusband's business stationery, jumps to the conclusion that Nita hadcarried out her threat to tell Tracey, or that Nita has at least givenTracey a hint of the truth and that Tracey's special-messenger note is,let us say, a confirmation of an appointment suggested by Nita.... Verywell! Flora goes to Nita's bedroom at the first opportunity, knowingthat Nita will come there to make up for the men's arrival. Let'ssuppose Flora had brought the gun and silencer with her, intending tofrighten Nita, rather than kill her. But having had proof, as shebelieves, that Nita means business, Flora waits in the closet until Nitacomes in and sits down at her dressing-table, then steps out and shootsher. Then she recoils step by step, until her foot catches in the slackcord of the bronze lamp, causing the very 'bang or bump' which Floraherself describes later, for fear someone else has heard it. Her firstconcern, of course, is to hide the gun and silencer. She remembers JudgeMarshall's tale of the secret shelf in the guest closet, and not onlyhides the gun there but seeks in vain for the incriminating evidenceNita has against her. But she also remembers the note she believesTracey has written to Nita, and which, if found after Nita's death, maygive her away. So she goes to the closet in Nita's bedroom, finds thenote, and faints with horror at her perhaps needless crime when sherealizes that the note was written by Sprague, and not Tracey. Of courseshe is too ill and panic-stricken to leave the closet until the murderis discovered----"

  "But you think she was not too panic-stricken to have the presence ofmind to retrieve the gun and silencer and walk out with them, under thevery eyes of the police," Penny scoffed.

  "_No! I think she was!_" Dundee amazed her by admitting. "And that iswhere my sudden recollection of something I had considered unimportantcomes in! Let us suppose that Flora, half-suspected by Tracey, confessesto him in their car as they are going to the Country Club for theirlong-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 cometo them as nurse, so that he can go back to the house and get the gunand silencer from the guest-closet hiding place, if an opportunitypresents itself--as it did, since I left Tracey Miles alone in the hallwhile I went into Nita's bedroom to talk with Lydia before I permittedher to go with Tracey."

  "You're crazy!" Penny told him fiercely, when he had finished. "Isuppose you are going to ask me to believe that Tracey was a big enoughfool to leave the gun and silencer where Flora could get hold of it andkill Sprague last night."

  "Why not let us suppose that Tracey himself killed Sprague to protecthis wife, not only from scandal, but from a charge of murder?" Dundeecountered. "Tell me honestly: do you think Tracey Miles loves Floraenough to do that for her?"

  Suddenly, inexplicably, Penny began to laugh--not hysterically, but withgenuine mirth.