The detective's angry resentment of Peter Dunlap's att.i.tude lasted until he had circled Mirror Lake and was on the road into Hamilton. Then commonsense intervened. Dunlap was undoubtedly devoted to his wife.

Penny had said that he had "never looked at another woman." It was rather more than natural that he should be in a futile, bl.u.s.tering rage at the outcome of Lois' friendship for the little Broadway dancer....

Free of anger, his mind reverted to the story Lois Dunlap had told him.

For in it, he was sure, was hidden the key to the mystery of Nita Selim's murder. Not at all interested in the proposition to organize a Little Theater in Hamilton, Nita had been seized with a strange excitement as soon as she was shown photographs of a large group of Hamilton's richest and most prominent inhabitants.... But there was the rub! _A large group!_ Would that group of possible suspects never narrow down to one? Of course there was Judge Marshall, but if Lois Dunlap's memory was to be trusted Nita had not noticed the elderly Beau Brummel's picture until _after_ that strange, hysterical excitement had taken possession of her. And if it had been Judge Marshall whom she had come to Hamilton to blackmail would Nita not have guarded her tongue before Lois? The same was true about her extraordinary interest in Flora Miles....

Dundee tried to put himself in Nita's place, confronted suddenly with a group picture containing the likeness of a person--man or woman--against whom she knew something so dreadful and so secret that her silence would be worth thousands of dollars. Would _he_ have chattered of that very person? No! Of anyone else but that particular person! It was easy to picture Nita, her head whirling with possibilities, hitting upon the most conspicuous player in the group--dark, tense, theatrical Flora, already pointed out to her as one of the two female leads in the opera.... But of whom had she really been thinking?

Again a blank wall! For in that group photograph of the cast of "The Beggar's Opera" had appeared every man, woman and girl who had been Nita's guest on the day of her murder....

Dundee, paying more attention to his driving, now that he was in the business section of the city, saw ahead of him the second-rate hotel where Dexter Sprague had been living since Nita had wired him to join her in Hamilton. On a sudden impulse the detective parked his car in front of the hotel and five minutes later was knocking upon Sprague's door.

"Well, what do you want now?" the unshaven, pallid man demanded ungraciously.

Dundee stepped into the room and closed the door. "I want you to tell me the name of the man Nita Selim came here to blackmail, Sprague."

"Blackmail?" Sprague echoed, his pallid cheeks going more yellow.

"You're crazy! Nita came here to take a job--"

"She came here to blackmail someone, and I am convinced that she sent for you to act as a partner in her scheme.... No, wait! I'm _convinced_, I tell you," Dundee a.s.sured him grimly. "But I'll make a trade with you, in behalf of the district attorney. Tell me the name of the person she blackmailed, and I will promise you immunity from prosecution as her accomplice."

"Get out of my room!" and Dexter Sprague's right forefinger trembled violently as it pointed toward the door in a melodramatic gesture.

"Very well, Sprague," Dundee said. "But let me give you a friendly warning. _Don't try to carry on the good work._ Nita got ten thousand dollars, but she also got a bullet through her heart. And the gun which fired that bullet is safely back in the hands of the killer.... You're not going to get that movie job, and I was just afraid you might be tempted!... Good afternoon!"

CHAPTER TWENTY

It was Wednesday evening, four whole days since Nita Leigh Selim, Broadway dancer, had been murdered while she was dummy at bridge.

Plainclothesmen, in pairs, day and night shifts, still guarded the lonely house in Primrose Meadows, but Dundee had taken no interest in the actual scene of the crime since Carraway, fingerprint expert, had reported negatively upon the secret shelf between Nita's bedroom closet and the guest closet. So far as any tangible evidence went, only Dundee's fingers had pressed upon the pivoting panel and explored the narrow shelf.

The very lack of fingerprints had of course confirmed Dundee's belief that the murderer's hand had pressed upon that swinging panel, had quested in vain for the incriminating doc.u.ments or letters which had been the basis of Nita's blackmail scheme, had deposited upon the shelf the gun and silencer with which the murder had been accomplished, and had later retrieved the weapon in perfect safety. A hand loosely wrapped in a handkerchief or protected by a glove.... The hand of a cunning, careful, cold-blooded murderer--or murderess.... But--who? _Who?_

Bonnie Dundee, brooding at his desk in the living room of his small apartment, reflected bitterly that he was no nearer the answer to that question than he had been an hour after Nita Selim's death.

"Well, 'my dear Watson'," he addressed his caged parrot finally. "What do you say?... Who killed Nita Selim?"

The parrot stirred on his perch, thrust out his hooked beak to nip his master's prodding finger, then disdainfully turned his back.

"I don't blame you, Cap'n," Dundee chuckled. "You must be as sick of that question as I am.... And what a pity it ever had to be asked! If the murderer had not been so hasty--or so pressed for time that he really could not wait to listen to Nita--he would have learned from Nita herself that she had decided to be a very good girl, and had burned the 'papers'--all because she was genuinely in love with Ralph Hammond.... One comfort we have, 'my dear Watson': the murderer still does not know that Nita burned the papers Friday night. Sooner or later, when he believes police vigilance has been relaxed, he'll go prowling about that house, and to Captain Strawn, who doesn't take the slightest stock in my theory, will go credit for the arrest.... Unless--"

Dundee reached for a telegraph form and again scanned the pencilled message. Only that afternoon had it occurred to him to ask the telegraph company for a copy of the wire by which Dexter Sprague, according to his own story, had been summoned to Hamilton by Nita Selim.

The manager had been obliging, had looked up the message and copied it with his own hand. It was a night letter, and had been filed in Hamilton April 24--the third day after Nita's arrival. Addressed to Dexter Sprague, at a hotel in the theatrical district, New York City, the message read:

"EVERYTHING JAKE SO FAR BUT WOULD FEEL SAFER YOU HERE CHAMBER OF COMMERCE PLANNING BOOSTER MOVIE FOUNDING AND DEVELOPMENT OF HAMILTON LOOKING GOOD DIRECTOR WHY NOT TRY FOR JOB AS GOOD EXCUSE ALL MY LOVE--NITA"

Dundee laid the paper on his desk, locked his hands behind his head, and addressed the parrot again. The habit of using the bird for an audience and as an excuse for puzzling and mulling aloud had grown on him during the year he had owned the doughty old Cap'n.

"As I was about to say, 'my dear Watson', Captain Strawn's boys out at the Selim house will have their chance to nab our man--or woman--unless Dexter Sprague ignores my warning, pretends to have the papers himself, and tries to carry on the blackmail scheme, which he undoubtedly knew all about and which, most probably, he encouraged Nita to undertake--the 'friend' she had to consult, you know, before she decided to accept Lois Dunlap's offer."

The parrot interrupted with a hoa.r.s.e cackle.

"Have you gone over to the enemy, Cap'n?" Dundee reproved the bird. "You sound exactly like Strawn when he laughed at my interpretation of this message this afternoon. My late chief contends--and it is just possible, of course, that he is right--that Nita was afraid she couldn't swing the job of organizing and directing Lois' Little Theater, and wanted Sprague here, both as lover and unofficial a.s.sistant. But that's a pretty thin explanation, don't you think, 'my dear Watson'?... Oh, all right! Laugh, d.a.m.n you! But I'd feel better if Strawn had taken my advice and set a d.i.c.k to trail Sprague, to see that he keeps out of mischief.... All this, however, gets us no nearer to answering that eternal question--'Who?'"

With a deep sigh the troubled young special investigator reached for the "Time Table" he had drafted from his notes made during the grisly replaying of the "death hand at bridge," and scanned it again:

5:20--Flora Miles, dummy, Table No. 1, leaves living room to telephone.

5:22--Clive Hammond arrives and goes directly into solarium.

5:23--End of rubber at Table No. 1. Players: Polly Beale, Janet Raymond, Lois Dunlap, Flora Miles (dummy). Polly Beale leaves living room to join Clive Hammond in solarium.

5:24--Janet Raymond leaves room; says she went straight to front porch.

5:25--Tracey Miles parks car at curb; walks up to the house, hangs up hat in clothes closet and at (his estimate)

5:27--Miles enters living room, talks with Nita, who, as dummy, has just laid down her cards at Table No. 2. Players: Karen Marshall, Penny Crain, Carolyn Drake.

5:28--Nita leaves living room, goes to her bedroom to make up.

5:28-1/2--Lois Dunlap and Miles go into dining room, Miles to make c.o.c.ktails.

5:31--Judge Marshall enters living room, interrupts bridge game.

5:33--John C. Drake enters living room, having walked from Country Club, which he says he left at 5:10, and which is only three-quarters of a mile from the Selim house.

5:36--Karen finishes playing of hand, and Dexter Sprague and Janet Raymond enter from front porch, proceeding into dining room.

5:37--Penny Crain finishes scoring, and Karen leaves room to tell Nita the score.

5:38--Karen screams upon discovering the dead body at the dressing-table.

Dundee laid aside the typed sheet and reached for another, the typing of which was perfect, since Penny's efficient fingers had manipulated the keys.

When he had telephoned to the office just before five o'clock Monday afternoon to see if anything had come up, Dundee had learned from Penny that Peter Dunlap had issued an informal call to "the crowd" for a meeting at his home that evening.

"You're going, of course?" Dundee had asked. "Then, during the discussion of the case, I wish you'd try to get the answers to some questions which need clearing up--if you can do so without getting yourself 'in Dutch' with your friends.... Fine! Got a pencil?... Here goes!"

And now he was re-reading the "report" she had conscientiously written and left on his desk Tuesday morning:

"Peter, declaring he wanted to get at the bottom of this case, presided almost like a judge on the bench, and asked nearly every question you wanted the answer to. Everyone in the crowd adores gruff old Peter and no one dreamed of resenting his barrage of questions. What a detective _he_ would make!

"First: Janet admitted that she did not go directly to the front porch when she left the living room after her table finished the last rubber.

Went first to the hall lavatory to comb her hair and renew her make-up.

Said she was there alone about five minutes, then went to the front porch. (Revised her story after Tracey had said he did not see her on the porch when he arrived.)