Spike, naturally, awaited me with happiness and glee. And loud barking and a wagging tail. Spike was such a terrific companion. Spike never groused at me. Spike never had woman troubles. Spike never wailed at me or told me his problems or expected me to save his son's marriage.

Unfortunately, before I was finished thoroughly loving my dog, the blasted telephone rang.

"Bother, Spike. I'd better get that. It's probably for me, anyway."

Spike didn't object. I noticed he was alone in the house. My father had probably gone out to visit with a friend or six. My father is one of those people of whom it is said, "He never met a stranger." He loved everyone. I loved my dog. And my family. I wasn't so sure about the rest of the world.

Nevertheless, I went to the kitchen and to the telephone on the wall, took a deep breath in case it was an hysterical Mrs. Pinkerton, and began speaking. "Gumm-Majesty-"

That's as far as I got, because Harold Kincaid all but shouted into the receiver, "Gloria Lippincott's husband was murdered last night!"

It took me an instant to organize my thoughts. They didn't want to be organized. I guess Harold got tired of me trying to think, because he hollered, "Did you hear me?"

Well, I could at least answer that question. "Yes. I heard you. What was his name?"

"What do you mean, what was his name? It was Lippincott! I just told you that."

I sighed. "I mean his first name. What was his first name, Harold?"

"What difference does that make? For God's sake, stick to the matter at hand, will you?"

"You mean his murder?"

"Of course, I mean his murder!"

"Oh. All right."

"Well, what can you do?"

"What can I do? I can't do anything! It's up to the police now, for heaven's sake, Harold. Good Lord, what do you expect me to do?" My voice was sharp, but that's only because I was shocked and his question had been so stupid.

"Oh, God. Oh, God," said Harold, sounding a teensy bit like his addlebrained mother. "I know you can't do anything. Really, I do. But God, Daisy, do you know what this is going to do to the production?"

For a second or two, I didn't know what he was talking about. Then it hit me like a brick upside the head. "The production? Is that all you can think about at a time like this? For Pete's sake, Harold Kincaid, a man's been murdered!"

Just then a heavy knock came at the door, and Spike went into his "Oh, goody, a friend is coming to call" frenzy. Aw, shoot.

"You're right. I know you're right. I'm sorry, Daisy, I-"

"I can't talk to you any longer, Harold. I have a ghastly feeling my home is about to be invaded by the Pasadena Police Department."

"The Pa-"

But I hung the receiver on its cradle, sucked in a gallon or so of air in preparation for the unpleasantness to come, and walked to the front door. After I'd told my darling dog to sit and stay, which he did, thereby cementing him in my esteem as much superior to most of the human beings on earth. I opened the door.

"H'lo, Sam," said I even before I knew it was he.

"Let me in, dammit," said Sam, growling. He growled a lot. Especially at me.

I stepped aside, pulling the door with me, and told Spike he was free to lavish his affections upon Sam, who was unworthy of them. "No need to swear at me," I said. But I only said it out of... I don't know. Habit? Tradition? I guess one of those was it. I always told him not to swear at me, and he always swore at me, so nothing ever changed.

In spite of that kiss. Crumb.

Because I knew why he was there, I said, "Harold just called and told me."

Sam, who had been kneeling to pay homage to Spike, as was only right, stood and whirled around, making his heavy overcoat twirl out like a cape in a bad melodrama. "Harold called and told you what?"

"That Gloria Lippincott's husband was murdered last night."

"How the hell...?" His voice trailed off, and he pressed a hand to his forehead, dislodging his hat, which he caught with a deft movement. For such a large man, he could move quickly when necessity called for it.

"I don't know how he knows," I said in answer to his unasked question. "I suspect Gloria told him. She's been whining on his shoulder for weeks now. She probably did it. What was his name, anyway?"

"Michael. And why do you say she did it?"

"Come on in and sit down. Hang your coat and hat on the rack. I'll get us some... I don't know. Something to drink."

Sam did part of what I suggested and hung up his hat and coat on the rack by the door. He said, "Is your aunt home?"

I turned and squinted at him. "You know as well as I do that Vi works for the Pinkertons every day, Sam Rotondo. Of course, she's not home."

"In that case, I'll just have a glass of water, please."

I felt my lips press together. Very well. I know I'm a rotten cook. And Sam knows it, because he's tasted the results of some of my disasters in the kitchen. Still, if a man's going to kiss a woman one day, he shouldn't insult her the next, darn it.

But there was no way I was going to tell Sam I thought those things, especially about the kiss. "Milk might go better with the cookies Vi made the other day. She calls them sand tarts. They're made with ground pecans."

"Sounds good. I'll take a glass of milk and some cookies then."

"Sit at the table while I get them."

So Sam sat at the table, making it two males who'd followed my instructions in one day. Only I knew this obedience on Sam's part wouldn't last. Spike, I could depend on.

Nevertheless, I prepared a plate complete with a doily and a pile of Vi's scrumptious sand tarts, and poured two glasses of milk, one for Sam and one for me. I set his milk and the plate of cookies before him on the table. Spike sat at attention at his feet, hoping for a crumb or two.

I saw Sam break a cookie in half and said harshly, "Don't feed that to Spike!"

Sam glanced at me, frowning. No surprise there. "Why not?"

"Because dachshunds shouldn't eat cookies. They get fat easily, and the extra weight is bad for their backs."

"Oh." Sam shrugged and popped the half-cookie he had aimed to feed Spike into his mouth. "Sorry, Spike."

Spike took it like the man he was, and only sat there, alert and on guard. And cookieless. Poor Spike.

"Now, what about Mr. Lippincott?" I asked. "How'd he die?"

"First of all, why did you say Gloria Lippincott did it?"

I should have known he'd zero in on that. "A mere slip of the tongue," said I, and ate a cookie.

"Huh. He was hit by a car outside his club."

"That's odd. Just the other day, Mrs. Lippincott said she'd almost been run down outside Nash's."

"Yeah. I remember. But she didn't do it." Sam frowned at me some more. I was used to it.

"How do you know that? Have the police even bothered to question her?"

"She was taken in to the station and questioned for hours," said Sam.

"Well, how do you know for sure she didn't do it?" I asked, feeling outraged. Dagnabbit, Gloria Lippincott was a slithery snake in the grass who preyed on men. She should have done it!

"She was at a bridge game when the man was killed."

"Oh." Rats. There went my perfect theory. "Well, I'll bet she's in cahoots with whoever did it. Or should that be whomever?"

"How the hell should I know?" Sam thrust another sand tart into his mouth and chewed savagely.

I tried another tack. "Well, can you tell by what's left of him, or on him, what kind or color of automobile did him in?"

"The forensics people are working on that."

"Where's his club?" I asked for the heck of it.

"El Molino Avenue, a little north of Colorado."

"Oh." I tried to visualize the location in my mind. I kind of remembered a building on El Molino north of Colorado that might well have been a men's club.

"So why'd you say his wife did it?" Sam asked, after swallowing.

"I don't know," I told him. "I don't like the woman, and Mrs. Bissel told me just this morning that she's been trying to seduce Dennis. Dennis is her son. The woman's a she-devil."

"You know this how? That she's a she-devil, I mean."

He had me there. "Well, if Mrs. Bissel's right, Mrs. Lippincott is trying to break up her son's marriage. I think that qualifies her as a she-devil."

"If," Sam said. "If. It's a small word, but it carries a lot of weight."

"Yeah, yeah. I know." I was annoyed. Yes, I'd jumped the gun by naming Gloria Lippincott a murderess, but I didn't like her and figured better her than someone I did like. "So how do you know for sure she was at the bridge party? Where was it?"

"I know because the hostess of the bridge party was Mrs. Hastings, and she confirmed Mrs. Lippincott's presence at her home all evening."

"Drat. Mrs. Hastings wouldn't lie for that harpy." Mrs. Hastings was a lovely woman who grew orchids in her astonishingly large estate in the San Rafael hills of Pasadena. Her only son had been murdered several months prior.

"What do you know about this Lippincott dame?" By that time, Sam had demolished the cookies on the plate and finished his glass of milk.

"Not much. She has a beautiful soprano voice, which doesn't seem fair somehow, and she's playing Pitti-Sing in The Mikado. I don't think her husband, from whom she was estranged according to Harold, was cast in the play. She's..." I tried to think of a good word to describe what little I knew about Gloria Lippincott-and I came up with a good one, by gum! "She's sultry."

Sam wrinkled his nose and squinted at me. "Sultry? How so?"

I waved a hand, giving Spike hope, which was wrong of me. I'd give him a treat later to make up for it. "I don't know. She's slinky. Good looking. Elegant. Wears her eyes at half-mast in order to appear alluring, which, for all I know, she is, men being the foolish creatures they are. Older than I am by maybe ten years. Maybe more. Wears a lot of makeup. Flutters her eyelashes at the men and ignores the women. You know. She's that type."

"Great. That gives me a lot to go on."

"Darn it, Sam Rotondo, I don't know the woman!"

"You seem to have her pegged, even if you don't know her."

"I observed her at the rehearsal, and I've seen her at other people's houses. And Harold told me that she told him that her husband was trying to kill her." Drat. And I'd told Harold only days earlier than I never observed anything. Well, neither Sam nor Harold needed to know about my wishy-washiness. "Harold knows her heaps better than I do. Why don't you go and ask him?"

"I will. You say your next rehearsal is tomorrow night?"

I heaved a largish sigh. Thanks to Gloria Lippincott having someone murder her estranged husband-or maybe she didn't. What did I know?-Sam was going to see tomorrow's rehearsal whether I wanted him to or not. "Yes. Seven to nine. Sanctuary at the First Methodist-Episcopal Church on-"

"I know where it is," Sam barked at me.

"Good," I barked back. "If her husband just died, she might not be there," I reminded him.

He said, "Huh," which was typical.

"Well, Harold said they were estranged. Whatever that means. Maybe she doesn't care that he got murdered."

With a roll of his eyes, Sam rose from the table. "Thanks for the cookies and milk."

"You're welcome."

Because Spike had been so very patient and hadn't barked or begged, I said, "Before you go, I want to show you something."

"What?"

"Just a minute, and I'll show you."

I hurried to the kitchen and snatched an arrowroot biscuit from a tin in the cupboard. Arrowroot biscuits might not be dog food, but they were probably better for dachshunds than sand tarts. I broke the biscuit in half as I hurried back to the dining room.

Naturally, Sam hadn't waited for me there, but had gone to the living room, donned his hat and coat, and now stood impatiently before the front door, gazing at me crankily, as if I'd kept him waiting for hours and hours. Nuts to him.

"Watch this," I commanded Sam.

"Yeah. Go on."

I looked down upon my dog, who was in the process of frolicking at Sam's feet. I said, "Spike," and he stopped frolicking and looked up at me. I said, "Spike. Sit." He sat.

Sam grumbled something under his breath, but I ignored him.

"Spike, what's two plus two."

My faithful hound's tail started wagging up a storm. He knew this game. He barked four times and stopped.