"I worked it out this way," he continued, despite Strawn's grin. "Dexter Sprague was Nita's lover, as I had thought all along. He was in the habit of spending the night here whenever Nita would give him an evening of her company. He was here last night, according to the maid, Lydia Carr. Nita sent her into Hamilton to a picture show. Nita and Sprague quarreled last night, but I am positive he spent the night here anyway.

Certainly there was no actual rupture, since Sprague worded his note to her as he did. I have another strong reason for thinking his belongings were here at least until noon today, but that can wait for the moment.

Furthermore, I am positive that Sprague descended by the backstairs and went around the house to join the c.o.c.ktail party which was to follow the hen bridge party."

"How do you make that out, Bonnie?" Strawn asked, his grin wiped away.

"Try to remember how Sprague looked when you first got here," Dundee suggested. "I saw him twenty minutes after you did, but--_he was wearing an immaculate stiff collar, and there were still traces of talc.u.m powder over a close shave_! And you will remember that he said he had made a half hour's trip by bus, and had walked the quarter of a mile from the bus stop on Sheridan Road to this house. It was a mighty hot afternoon, chief!"

"Not conclusive," Strawn growled.

"Then here's another straw to add to the weight of my conclusion,"

Dundee went on unshaken. "You remember that Janet Raymond was on the front porch _watching for Sprague_, while the 'death hand of bridge' was being played?... Oh, she tried to protect him.... Wait, I'll read you the notes I made when I was questioning her. I looked them up while I was waiting for you.... Here! I had said to Miss Raymond: 'You observed Mr. Sprague toiling down the rutty road, hot and weary, but romantic in the sunset?' And she answered, stammering: 'I--I wasn't looking that way....' And I knew she was lying, knew that she had been taken completely by surprise when Sprague suddenly appeared _from the rear of the house_! What's more, she betrayed herself and him by admitting that she was surprised. Then--because the girl is undoubtedly in love with Sprague and was mortally afraid he had killed Nita Selim, she tried frantically to throw suspicion on Lydia Carr, by telling how Lydia had failed to answer Mrs. Dunlap's first ring--Good Lord! Wait a minute! I want to think!" he interrupted himself to exclaim.

After a full minute, while he had stood very still, with his fingers pressed against his closed eyes, Dundee began slowly:

"I believe that's it.... Listen, boys!" He turned to the two plainclothesmen, urgent pleading in his voice. "Would you both take your oath that there was no bag--say a small Gladstone overnight bag--anywhere in these rooms when you searched them this evening?"

The two detectives glanced at each other, their faces reddening. It was Harmon, the older of the pair, who swallowed hard before answering:

"We'd been told to look for a man hiding, and for a gun--" Then he squared his shoulders as if to receive the blame like a man. "Yes, sir!

There was a little black grip on the closet shelf. I went through it myself, but there wasn't no gun in it. Just a pair of pajamas and a couple of shirts, one of 'em dirty, some socks and collars and a shaving-kit--"

Dundee drew a deep breath, and clapped the red-faced detective on the back in high good humor.

"There simply _had_ to be a bag somewhere!" he laughed.

"This is the way of it, Strawn.... Nita and Sprague rowed last night.

Sprague tried to make it up, but Nita must have been through with him.

Probably told him last night to clear his things out and not come back.

She thought he had done so; probably he did leave before she got up. At any rate she was so sure he was gone and his things with him that she and Lydia went to town this morning and left Ralph Hammond here to go through the place as freely as he liked, making his estimates on the job of finishing up the other half of this floor. And Ralph--but let that wait for the moment."

"Got any real proof that it was Sprague who stayed here and not the Hammond boy?" Strawn interrupted shrewdly.

"I'm coming to the proof," Dundee a.s.sured him, "or rather, the rest of the proof that I haven't already given you. You're d.a.m.ned hard to convince, chief! But let me go on with my theory, which I think covers the facts.... At luncheon, when Nita received that note from Sprague, I imagine she got a hunch that he hadn't taken her seriously, that he had not removed his belongings. You remember Penny Crain said Nita had Lydia follow her into her bedroom, as soon as Nita got home from the luncheon?... Well, it's my hunch that Nita asked Lydia if Sprague's things were gone when she cleaned these rooms this morning, and that Lydia said no. Nita then probably told Lydia to pack them herself, and I feel positive that Lydia did so, for she must have felt safe when she protested to me that Sprague was not Nita's lover. I also feel sure that Sprague arrived at least half an hour before he said he did, by some back path across the meadow; that he came up to these rooms that he considered his, found his things packed, but went about shaving and changing his shirt and collar, regardless. I also feel sure that Lydia followed him upstairs to explain and impress upon him that Nita had meant what she said. And it is quite likely that she was not through picking up after him when he descended by the back stairs and surprised Janet Raymond on the front porch. That accounts, of course, for Lydia's not hearing the kitchen bell the first time Mrs. Dunlap rang."

"Umm," Strawn grunted. "What about the proofs you're holding back?"

"Come along, chief--you, too, Carraway!" Dundee answered, and led the way into the bathroom. "I felt sure these rooms would yield a very definite clue, even though Sprague, when he sneaked back tonight to get his tell-tale bag, apparently made every effort to wipe his fingerprints off the furniture and bathroom fixtures.... Now, Carraway, if you'll step upon this little stool and look along the top of this medicine cabinet, you'll find what I found--and didn't touch."

The fingerprint expert did as he was told. When he stepped down he was holding, between the very tips of his fingers, a safety razor blade.

"No dust on it, you see," Dundee pointed out. "Now if you don't find Dexter Sprague's fingerprints on it, my whole theory topples."

"How am I going to know whose fingerprints they are till we get hold of Sprague?" Carraway asked reasonably.

"We don't need him--for that purpose, at least," Dundee a.s.sured him.

"Downstairs in the living room, on a little table in the southeast corner of the room, you'll find a red gla.s.s ashtray which no one but Dexter Sprague used all evening. It was clean and empty when I saw him use it first. I think you'll find on it all the prints you need."

"So you think Sprague killed her because she was through with him?"

Strawn asked.

Dundee shook his head. "Since I don't like Dexter Sprague a little bit, chief, I'd like to think so, but--"

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Bonnie Dundee's first thought upon awakening that Sunday morning was that it might prove to be rather a pity that his new bachelor apartment, as he loved to call his three rooms at the top of a lodging house which had once been a fashionable private home, faced south and west, rather than east. At the Rhodes House, whose boarding-house clamor and lack of privacy he had abandoned upon taking the flattering job and decent salary of "Special Investigator attached to the District Attorney's office," he had grown accustomed to using the hot morning sun upon his reluctant eyelids as an alarm clock.

But--he continued the train of thought, after discovering by his watch that it was not late; only 8:40--it was pretty darned nice having "diggings" like these. Quiet and private. For he was the only tenant now on the top floor. His pleased, lazy eyes roved over the plain severity but solid comfort of his bedroom, and on past the open door to take in appreciatively the equally comfortable and masculine living room.... Pretty nice! That leather-upholstered couch and armchair had been a real bargain, and he liked them all the better for being rather scuffed and shabby. Then his eyes halted upon a covered cage, swung from a pedestal....

"Poor old Cap'n!... Must be wondering when the devil I'm going to get up!" and he swung out of bed, lounged sleepily into the small living room and whisked the square of black silk from the cage.

The parrot, formerly the property of murdered old Mrs. Hogarth of the Rhodes House, but for the past year the young detective's official "Watson," ruffled his feathers, poked his green-and-yellow head between the bars of his cage and croaked hoa.r.s.ely: "Hullo! Hullo!"

"Hullo, yourself, my dear Watson!" Dundee retorted. "Your vacation is over, old top! It's back on the job for you and me both!... Which reminds me that I ought to be taking a squint at the Sunday papers, to see how much Captain Strawn thought fit to tell the press."

He found _The Hamilton Morning News_ in the hall just outside his living room door.

"Listen, Cap'n.... 'NITA SELIM MURDERED AT BRIDGE'.... Probably the snappiest streamer headline the News has had for many a day.... Now let's see--" He was silent for two minutes, while his eyes leaped down the lesser headlines and the column one, page one story of the murder.

Then: "Good old Strawn! Not a word, my dear Watson, about your absurd master's absurd performance in having 'the death hand at bridge'

replayed. Not a word about Ralph Hammond, the missing guest! Not a word about Mrs. Tracey Miles' being hidden away in the clothes closet while her hostess was being murdered!... In fact, my dear Watson, not a word about anything except Strawn's own theory that a hired gunman from New York or Chicago--preferably Nita's home town, New York, of course--sneaked up, crouched in her window, and b.u.mped her off. _And_ life-size photographs of the big footprints under the window to prove his theory!... By golly, Cap'n! I clean forgot to tell my former chief that I'd found Nita's will and note to Lydia! He'll think I deliberately held out on him.... Well--I can't sit here all day gossiping with you, 'my dear Watson....' Work--much work--to be done; then--Sunday dinner with poor little Penny."

Four hours later a tired and dispirited young detective was climbing the stairs of an ugly, five-story "walk-up" apartment house in which Penny Crain and her mother had been living since the financial failure and flight of the husband and father, Roger Crain.

"h.e.l.lo, there!" It was Penny's friendly voice, hailing him from the topmost landing of the steep stairs. "All winded, poor thing?"

His tired, unhappy eyes drank her in--the freshness and sweetness of a domestic Penny, so different from the th.o.r.n.y little office Penny who prided herself on her efficiency as secretary to the district attorney.... Penny in flowered voile, with a saucy, ruffled white ap.r.o.n.... But there were purplish shadows under her brown eyes, and her gayety lasted only until he had reached her side.

"Sh-h-h!--Have they found Ralph?" she whispered anxiously.

He could only answer "No," and he almost choked on the word.

"Mother's all of a twitter at my having a detective to dinner," she whispered, trying to be gay again. "She fancies you'll be wearing size 11 shoes and a 'six-shooter' at your belt--Yes, Mother! It's Mr.

Dundee!"

She did not look "all of a twitter," this pretty but rather faded middle-aged little mother of Penny's. A gentle dignity and patient sadness, which Dundee was sure were habitual to her, lay in the faded blue eyes and upon the soft, sweet mouth....

But Mrs. Crain was ushering him into the living room, and its charm made him forget for the moment that the Crains were to be pitied, because of their "come-down" in life. For every piece of furniture seemed to be authentic early American, and the hooked rugs and fine, brocaded damasks allied themselves with the fine old furniture to defeat the ugliness with which the Maple Court Apartments' architect had been fiercely determined to punish its tenants.

"'Scuse me! Gotta dish up!" Penny flung over her shoulder as she ran away and left him alone with her mother.

Dundee liked Mrs. Crain for making no excuses about a maid they could not afford, liked the way she settled into a lovely, ancient rocking-chair and set herself to entertain him while her daughter made ready the dinner.

Not a word was said about the horrible tragedy which had occurred the day before in the house which had once been her home. They talked of Penny's work, and the little gentlewoman listened eagerly, with only the faintest of sighs, as Dundee humorously described Penny's fierce efficiency and District Attorney Sanderson's keen delight in her work.

"Bill Sanderson is a nice boy," the woman of perhaps 48 said of Hamilton's 35-year-old district attorney. "It is nice for Penny to work with an old friend of the family, or was--until--"