Murder at Bridge

by Anne Austin

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  "I fail to see any necessity for all this secrecy and hocus-pocus,"District Attorney Sanderson protested irritably. "Why the devil don'tyou come clean and give us the low-down--if you have it!--on thismiserable business, instead, of high-handedly summoning Captain Strawnto my office, so that you can give orders to us both?"

  Before Dundee could answer, Captain Strawn came to his assistance.

  "I worked with this boy for pretty near a year, Bill, and never yet didhe fail to make good when he said he had a pot on to boil. If he says itwill boil over this evening, provided we help him, boil over it will, orI don't know Bonnie Dundee!"

  Sanderson scowled but capitulated. "All right! What do you want?"

  "Thanks, chief! And thanks, Captain!" Dundee cried, with heartfeltgratitude. "First, I want to be excused from attending the adjournedinquests into the two murders, scheduled for three o'clock today."

  "O.K." Sanderson agreed shortly.

  "Second, after about an hour of routine stuff, I wish you'd ask foranother adjournment until tomorrow, on the plea that importantdevelopments are expected today."

  "O.K. again!"

  "Third, I'd like you personally to request the appearance of everyperson connected in any way with each of the murders, in your officethis afternoon at four o'clock--so the whole bunch will be kept togetherand have no chance to go to their homes or anywhere else until I amready for them. You can say that, owing to the illness of your motherduring the investigations, you want to question everyone personally."

  "Do you want all the servants brought here, too?" Sanderson asked.

  "None but Lydia Carr," Dundee answered. "After about an hour's innocuousquestioning, please invite them to accompany you to the Selim house. Forthat--" and he grinned, "--is where the pot is scheduled to boil over.I'd like everybody to be there by 5:15."

  "Where do I come in?" Captain Strawn demanded, almost jealously.

  "Now that you are no longer looking for a New York gunman, I suppose youhave plenty of plainclothesmen at your disposal?" Dundee asked, and wasinstantly sorry he had reminded his former chief of the collapse of hischerished and satisfying theory.

  "Plenty," Strawn answered gruffly. "How many will you need?"

  "Enough to keep every person on Mr. Sanderson's invitation list understrictest observation until--the pot boils over," Dundee replied.

  "When do you want them to get on the job?"

  "As soon as they can do so, after you get back to your office."

  "Are they to follow the whole gang clear out to the Selim house?"

  "Most decidedly! After the unwilling guests are safely within the house,your boys must guard the premises so that _no one_ leaves withoutpermission."

  "That's all as good as done," Strawn assured him. "Now--about theminquiries you asked me to make yesterday of the secretary of theAmerican Legion." He drew a scrap of paper from his breast pocket. "Ifind that John Drake, Peter Dunlap and Clive Hammond were all inservice, in the ----th Division, which was held up late in January,1918, for nearly two weeks, in Hoboken, before the War Department couldget transports to send 'em to France. Miles, who enlisted the day warwas declared, was wounded and shipped home late in 1917. He wasdischarged as unfit for further service--spinal operation--from a NewJersey base hospital on January 12, 1918. Furthermore, Judge Marshallwas in New York the whole winter of 1917-'18, attached to the Red Crossin some legal capacity. He donated his services and--"

  "All that doesn't matter now, Captain, but thanks just the same," Dundeeinterrupted. "Now if you will both excuse me, I've got a lot of work todo before five o'clock today!"

  Dundee had not exaggerated. That Monday was one of the busiest days hehad ever spent in all the twenty-seven years of his life. He began,rather strangely, by visiting half a dozen of Hamilton's hardwarestores, exhibiting a peculiar instrument and making annoying inquiriesas to when and to whom it had been sold. But at his sixth port of callsuccess so completely rewarded his efforts that he was jubilant when hebade the mystified proprietor good day, a signed statement reposing inhis wallet.

  Two other calls--both in office buildings--took up only an hour of histime, and a taxicab delivered him at Police Headquarters just as thefactory whistles were sirening the news that it was twelve o'clock.

  He was lucky enough to find the fingerprint expert, Carraway, in hiscubbyhole of an office, his desk almost crowded out by immense filingcabinets.

  Five minutes later Dundee sat at that desk, photographs of DexterSprague's dead body, just as it had been discovered on the floor of thetrophy room in the Miles home, and a labelled set of fingerprints spreadout before him.

  "You're sure there can have been no mistake?" he asked. "No chance thatthese fingerprint photographs were _reversed_ when the prints weremade?"

  "Not a chance--with my system!" Carraway retorted positively.

  "Fine!" Dundee cried. "May I take these photographs?... You have copies,I presume?"

  It was half past two o'clock when Dundee, after a much needed lunch,parked his car in the driveway of one of the most splendid housesoverlooking Mirror Lake--a home whose master and mistress were nowattending an inquest into two murders....

  Half an hour later he climbed into his roadster again, his headspinning. "Did I say _ingenious_?" he marvelled....

  He drove directly to the Selim house, for he had much to do before thearrival of Sanderson's compulsory guests at 5:15.

  His first visit there was to a small room in the basement--a darkcubbyhole next to the coal room. He had locked it carefully afterexploring it the day before, for he had taken no chance on leavingunguarded--as he had found it--treasure worth more to him than itsweight in gold.

  And queer treasure it was that he extracted now--a coiled length ofelectric wire, which he and Ralph Hammond had measured the day before,with triumphant excitement; a box of thumb tacks, many of themsurprisingly bent at the point; an augur with a set of bits of varyingsizes, a step-ladder, and a hammer. If Dexter Sprague had notoverestimated the amount of electric wire needed for the job ofinstalling an alarm bell between Nita's bedroom and Lydia's.... Dundeewas about to close the tool chest when his eyes fell upon a piece ofhardware he had not expected ever to find, although he had known of itsexistence for more than an hour.

  At 5:15 he was entirely ready for D. A. Sanderson, Captain Strawn andtheir party of indignant and unwilling guests....

  "Oh, Mr. Dundee!" Carolyn Drake squealed. "You're not going to make usplay that awful 'death hand' again, are you?"

  They were all crowding about him--the men and women who had been NitaSelim's guests at her last bridge and cocktail party....

  "Not only are the bridge tables exactly where they were at this time onthe evening of May 24," Dundee answered _so_ significantly that allstopped chattering to listen, "_but everything else in the house isprecisely as it was then_. Fortunately, not even the _electricity_ hasbeen cut off! But to make sure I have forgotten nothing, I wish youwould all follow me into Mrs. Selim's bedroom and look for yourselves."

  Like sheep, they crowded into the little foyer and on into the bedroom.There stood the big bronze lamp, set squarely in front of the windowframe and in a direct line with the musical powder box on dead Nita'sdressing table.

  At 5:25, Penny Crain, Karen Marshall, Carolyn Drake, and Flora Miles,who had been requisitioned by Dundee to play the part of the murderedwoman, were seated at table No. 2, and behind Karen's chair stood LoisDunlap. Clive Hammond and his new wife were again together in thesolarium. But there Dundee's restaging of the original scene in thetragic drama ended. Everyone else, including Lydia Carr and PeterDunlap, were huddled together in a far corner of the living room.

  "Now, Mr. Miles!" Dundee called. "Your cue! Never mind the comedy about'How's tricks?' Simply go into the dining room, with Mrs. Dunlap, to mixcocktails. You'll find all the ingredients still on the sideboard,exactly as there were when Mrs. Selim sent you to mix drinks on May24.... And Mrs. Miles, will you, pretending that you
are Nita Selim, goto powder your face at Mrs. Selim's dressing-table?"

  Her face white and drawn, Flora Miles stumbled from the room, just asher husband, dumb for once with rage, entered the dining room with LoisDunlap.

  Dundee was about to follow the latter two when an interruption occurred.Followed by a plainclothesman, a middle-aged man entered the livingroom. Tall, broad-shouldered, determined, he strode to the bridge table,his handsome head upflung, his brown eyes fixed upon the widened browneyes of Penny Crain.

  * * * * *

  "Dad!" the girl breathed; then, joyously: "Oh, Dad! You've come home!"

  But Dundee halted the reconciliation with a stern word of command."Please join the group in the corner, Mr. Crain!"

  Regardless of the ensuing hubbub Dundee strode into the dining room,where Tracey Miles stood at the sideboard, pouring whiskey from analmost empty decanter into a small glass.

  "May I drink the Scotch Tracey has poured for me, Mr. Dundee?" Mrs.Dunlap asked shakily, leaning against the big round table.

  "Yes, but--Silence, please!" he cried, as there came the first faint,tinkling notes of _Juanita_, from Nita's musical powder box, penetratingthe thin wall between the bedroom and dining room.

  "As I have said," the detective spoke loudly and clearly above thetinkle of music, "_everything is now exactly as it was when Nita Selimwas murdered_! Permit me to show you all how that murder wasaccomplished!"

  A chair at the bridge table was overturned. Lois Dunlap almost choked onher drink of Scotch. Women screamed. In a few seconds every person inthe living room, including the district attorney and Strawn, was huddledin the wide opening into the dining room, their eyes fixed in horrorupon Bonnie Dundee.

  He spoke again, his voice very clear, but slow and weighted with adreadful significance:

  _"Mrs. Dunlap, step on the bell beneath the dining table!"_

  Lois Dunlap dropped the empty whiskey glass, her face suddenly wiped ofall expression.

  "Step on that bell, Mrs. Dunlap--_just as you did before_!"

  As if hypnotized, Lois Dunlap began to grope with the toe of her rightpump for the slight bulge under the rug which indicated the position ofthe bell used for summoning the maid from the kitchen.

  With a strangled cry Tracey Miles lunged across the few feet whichseparated the woman and himself, seized her arm and whirled herviolently away from the table.

  "_Do you want to kill my wife, too?_" he panted, his usually florid facethe color of putty. "You--_you_--!"