"She _did_ love Mrs. Dunlap," Lydia sobbed. "Oh, my poor little girl--"

"And there is also a note for you, which I took the liberty of reading, in which Mrs. Selim minutely describes the clothes in which she wishes to be cremated, as well as the fashion in which her hair is to be dressed--"

"Let me see it!" Lydia plunged forward on her knees and s.n.a.t.c.hed at the papers he held. "For G.o.d's sake, let me see!"

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

"I'll read you the note, Lydia, but I can't let you touch it," Dundee said sternly, taking good care that she should not touch either the paper on which the note to herself had been written or the sheet which contained that strange, informal will. Informal, in spite of the dead woman's obvious effort to couch it in legal phraseology....

Was Lydia's frenzy a.s.sumed? Did she hope to leave fingerprints now which would account for fingerprints she had already left upon it? Was it not possible that Lydia's had been the prying fingers which had opened the envelope after Nita Selim had sealed it with G.o.d only knew what fears in her heart? If so, Lydia Carr had found that she was her mistress' sole legatee.... _Revenge, coupled with greed...._ What better motive for murder could a detective ask? And who had had so good an opportunity as Lydia Carr to dispose of the weapon?

The woman crouched back on her haunches, an agony of pleading in her single eye.

"Lydia, I think you know already what this note tells you," Dundee said slowly.

To his astonishment the maid nodded, the tears starting again. "I asked her once what she wanted to keep that old dress for, and she--she said I'd find out some day, but I never dreamed she'd want it for a--oh, my G.o.d!--for a _shroud_!"

For the second time that evening Lydia Carr completely routed Dundee's carefully worked-up case against her. It was inconceivable, he told himself, that a mind cunning enough to have executed this murder would give itself away in such a fashion. If she had indeed pried among her mistress' papers and found the will and note, would she not, from the most primitive instinct of self-preservation, have pretended total ignorance of the note's contents?

"I'll read the note, Lydia," he said gently. "It is addressed: 'My precious old Lydia'--"

"She was always calling me that!" the maid sobbed.

"And she writes: 'If you ever read this it will be because I'm dead, and you'll know that I've tried to make it up to you the only way I knew. I never could believe you really forgave me, but maybe you will now. And there is one last thing I want you to do for me, Lydia darling. You remember that old royal blue velvet dress of mine that you were always sniffing at and either trying to make me give away or have made over?

And remember that I told you that you'd know some time why I kept it?

Well, I want you to lay me out in it, Lydia. Such a funny old-fashioned shroud, isn't it?... But with dresses long again, maybe it won't look so funny, and there'll be n.o.body but you and Lois to see me in it, because I've said so in my will. And I want my hair dressed as it was the only time I ever wore the royal blue velvet. A French roll, Lydia, with little curls coming out the left side of it and hanging down to the left ear. You brush the hair straight up the back of the head, gather it together and tie a little bit of black shoestring around it, then you twist the hair into a roll and spread it high, pinning it down on each side of the head. _And don't forget the little curls on the left side!_ I hope I have enough hair, but if it hasn't grown long enough, you know where those switches are that I had made when I first bobbed my hair.... You won't mind touching me when I'm dead, will you, Lydia? I do love you.... Nita.'"

Dundee was silent for a minute after he had finished reading the strange note and had returned it to the envelope, along with the will. At last, speaking against a lump in his throat, he broke in on the desolate sobbing of Nita's maid:

"Lydia, how old was your mistress?"

"You won't put it in the papers, will you?" Lydia pleaded. "She--she was--thirty-three. But not a soul knew it except me--"

"And will you tell me how old the royal blue velvet dress is?" he continued. "Also, how long since girls dressed their hair in a French roll?"

"The dress is twelve or thirteen years old," Lydia said, her voice dull now with grief. "I know, because I used to do dressmaking during the war. And it was during the war that girls wore their hair that way--I did mine in a Psyche knot, but the French roll was more stylish."

"Did your mistress ever tell you about the one time she wore the dress?"

Lydia shook her head. "No. She wouldn't talk about it--just said I'd know sometime why she kept it.... Royal blue velvet, it is, the skirt halfway to the ankles, and sleeves with long pointed ends, lined with gold taffeta, and finished off with gold ta.s.sels. It's in a dress bag, hanging in her closet."

"Do you think it was her wedding dress, Lydia?" Dundee suggested, the idea suddenly flashing into his mind.

"I don't know. I didn't ask her that," Lydia denied dully. "Can I take it with me--and the switches she had made out of her curls?"

"I'll have to get authority to remove anything from the house, Lydia,"

Dundee told her. "But I am sure you will be permitted to follow Mrs.

Selim's instructions.... So you're going to accept the Miles' offer of a job as nurse?"

"Yes. I'd rather work. Mr. and Mrs. Miles have always been specially nice to me, and I--I could love their children. They're not--afraid of me--"

"Perhaps you're wise," Dundee agreed. "By the way, Lydia, did Mrs. Selim have a pistol in her possession at any time during the past week?"

The maid shook her head. "Not that I seen. And if she'd got one because she was afraid, she'd a-kept it handy and I'd a-been bound to see it."

Convinced of her sincerity, he was about to let her go to pack her bag when another belated question occurred to him. "Lydia, will you tell me what engagements Mrs. Selim had this last week?"

The woman scowled, fanatically jealous, Dundee guessed, of her mistress'

reputation, but at last she answered defiantly: "Let me see.... Mr.

Sprague had Sunday dinner here, and spent the afternoon, but Sunday night it was young Mr. Ralph Hammond. He come whenever she'd let him.... Monday night?... Oh, yes! She had dinner at the Country Club with the Mileses and the Drakes and the Dunlaps. Mr. Miles brought her home, because Mr. Sprague wasn't invited.... Tuesday night--let me think!... Yes, that's the night Judge Marshall was here. Nita had sent for him to talk about finishing up the attic--"

So that was the "business engagement" which Judge Marshall had hemmed and hawed over, Dundee reflected triumphantly.

"--and Wednesday night," Lydia was continuing, with a certain pride in her mistress' popularity, "she was at a dinner party at the Dunlaps'."

"Did Mr. Peter Dunlap ever call on Mrs. Selim--alone?"

"_Him?_" Lydia was curiously resentful. "He wasn't ever here. Nita said to me she wished Mr. Peter liked her as well as Mis' Lois did."

"Thursday night?"

"Mr. Ralph Hammond took her somewhere to dinner, to some other town, I think, but I wasn't awake when they got home. Nita never would let me set up for her--said I needed my rest. So I always went to bed early."

"And yesterday--Friday?" Dundee demanded tensely. For Friday she had been driven to making her last will and testament....

"She was home all day, but about half past four Mr. Drake came," Lydia said slowly, as if she too were wondering. "She was awfully restless, couldn't set still or eat. I ought to have suspicioned something, but she was often like that--lately. Mr. Drake stayed about an hour. I didn't see him leave, because I was cooking Nita's dinner.... But little good it did, because she didn't eat it, so there was plenty for Mr.

Sprague when he dropped in about seven."

"Did Sprague spend the evening?"

"I guess so, but I don't know. Nita made me take the Ford and drive into town for a picture show. She was in bed when I got back, and--" but she checked herself hastily.

"Did Nita seem strange--troubled, excited? Did she look as if she'd been crying?" Dundee prodded.

"I didn't see her," the maid acknowledged. "I knocked on her door, but she told me to go on to bed, that she wouldn't need me. But now I think back, her voice sounded queer.... Maybe she _was_ crying, but I don't know--"

"And this morning?"

"She seemed all right--just excited about the party and worried about my tooth. Mr. Ralph Hammond come to make the estimates on finishing up the top floor, and we left him here--"

"What was her att.i.tude toward Mr. Miles when he dropped in on her this morning?" Dundee interrupted.

"Mr. Miles?" Lydia echoed, frowning. "He wasn't here this morning, or if he was, it was after Nita and I left for town."

While the maid was packing a bag, which Dundee would examine before she was allowed to take it away with her, the detective rejoined Tracey Miles, who had made himself as comfortable as possible in the living room.