But Dundee said nothing, for Tracey Miles was already hovering in the doorway, ready for his cue to enter.

Penny, or rather "Nita," was saying:

"How's _this_, Karen darling?" as she laid down the Ace and deuce of Spades, Karen's trumps.

"I hope you remember _you_ are vulnerable, as well as we," Carolyn remarked in a sorry imitation of her original c.o.c.ksureness, as she opened the play by leading the Ace of Clubs.

"And how's _this_, partner?... A singleton in Clubs!" Nita's imitator demanded triumphantly, as she continued to lay down her dummy hand, slapping the lone nine of Clubs down beside trumps; "and this little collection of Hearts!" as she displayed and arranged the King, Jack, eight and four of Hearts; "_and_ this!" as a length of Diamonds--Ace, Jack, ten, eight, seven and six slithered down the glossy linen cover of the bridge table toward Karen Marshall. "Now if you don't make your little slam, infant, don't dare say I shouldn't have jumped you to five!... I figured you for a blank or a singleton in Diamonds, and at least the Ace of Hearts, or you--cautious as you are--wouldn't have made an original three Spade bid without the Ace.... Hop to it, darling!"

"This is where I enter," Tracey Miles whispered to Dundee, and, at a nod from the young detective, the pudgy little blond man strode jauntily into the living room, proud of himself in the role of actor.

"h.e.l.lo, everybody! How's tricks?" he called genially, but there was a quiver of horror in his voice under its blitheness.

Penny was quite pale when she sprang from her chair, but her voice seemed to be Nita's very own, as she sang out:

"It _can't_ be 5:30 already!... Thank heaven I'm dummy, and can run away and make myself pretty-pretty for you and all the other great big men, Tracey darling!"

Dundee's keen memory registered the slight difference in the wording of the greeting as reported by this pseudo-Nita and the man she was running to meet. But Penny, as Nita, was already straightening Tracey Miles'

necktie with possessive, coquettish fingers, was coaxing, with head tucked alluringly:

"Tracey, my ownest lamb, won't you shake up the c.o.c.ktails for Nita? The makings are all on the sideboard, or I don't know my precious old Lydia--even if her poor jaw does ache most horribly."

Then Penny, as Nita, was on her way, pausing in the doorway to blow a kiss from her fingertips to the fatuously grinning but now quite pale Tracey Miles. She was out of sight for only an instant, then reappeared and very quietly retraced her steps to the bridge table.

Un.o.btrusively, Dundee drew his watch from his pocket, palmed it as he noted the exact minute, then commanded curtly: "On with the game!"

As Tracey Miles pa.s.sed the first bridge table Lois Dunlap linked her arm in his, saying in a voice she tried to make gay and natural:

"I'm trailing along, Tracey. Simply dying for a nip of Scotch! Nita's is the real stuff--which is more than my fussy old Pete can get half the time!--and you know I loathe c.o.c.ktails."

The two pa.s.sed on into the dining room, the players scarcely raising their eyes from their cards, which they held as if the game were real.

Dundee, his watch still in his hand, advanced to the bridge table.

Strolling from player to player he made mental photographs of each hand, then took his stand behind Penny's chair to observe the horribly farcical playing of it. Poor little Penny! he reflected. She hadn't had a chance against that dumb-bell across the table from her. Fancy anyone's doubling a little slam bid on a hand like Carolyn Drake's--or even calling an informatory double in the first place! Why hadn't she bid four Clubs after Karen's original three Spade bid, if she simply wanted to give her partner information?... Not that she really had a bid--

Karen's hand trembled as she drew the lone nine of Clubs from the dummy, to place beside Carolyn's Ace, but Penny's fingers were quite steady as she followed with the deuce of Clubs, to which Karen added, with a trace of characteristic uncertainty, the eight.

"There's our book!" Carolyn Drake exulted obediently, but she cast an apologetic glance toward Penny. "If we take one more trick we set them."

"Fat chance!" Penny obligingly responded, and Dundee, relieved, knew that the farcical game would now be played almost exactly, and with the same comments, as it had been played while Nita Selim was being murdered. Thanks to Penny Crain!

With a shamefaced glance upward at Dundee, Carolyn Drake then led the deuce of Diamonds, committing the gross tactical error of leading from the Queen. Karen added the Jack from the dummy, and Penny shruggingly contributed her King, to find the trick, as she had suspected in the original game, trumped by the five of Spades, since Karen had no Diamonds.

"So _that_ settles _us_, Carolyn!" Penny commented acidly.

Her partner rose to the role she was playing. "Well, as I said, I always double a little slam on principle. Besides, how could I know they would have a chance for cross-ruffing in _both_ Clubs and Diamonds? I thought you would at least hold the Ace of Diamonds and that Karen would certainly have one, as I only had four--"

Penny shrugged. "Oh, well! Let's play bridge!" for Karen was staring at her cards helplessly. "Sorry, Karen! I realize a post mortem is usually held after the playing of a hand--not before."

"I--I guess I'd better get my trumps out," Karen--now almost a genuine actress, too--breathed tremulously. "I _do_ wish Nita were playing this hand. I know I'll m.u.f.f it somehow--"

"Good kid!" Dundee commented silently, and allowed himself the liberty of patting Karen on her slim shoulder.

The girl threw an upward glance of grat.i.tude through misty eyes, then led the six of Spades, Mrs. Drake contributing the four, dummy taking the trick with the Ace, and Penny relinquishing the three.

"Let's see--that makes five of 'em in, since I trumped one trick," Karen said, as she reached across the table to lead from dummy.

As if the words were a cue--which they probably were--Judge Marshall entered the room at that moment, making a great effort to be as jaunty, debonair, and "young for his age" as he must have thought he looked when he made his entrance when the real game was being played.

At his step Karen lifted her head and greeted her elderly husband with a curious mixture of childlike joy and womanly tenderness:

"Hullo, darling!... I'm trying to make a little slam I may have been foolish to bid, but Nita jumped me from three to five Spades--"

"Let's have a look, sweetheart," the retired judge suggested pompously, and Dundee gave way to make room for him behind Karen's chair.

But before Judge Marshall looked at his wife's cards he bent and kissed her on her flushed cheek, and Karen raised a trembling hand to tweak his grey mustache. Dundee, with uplifted eyebrow, queried Penny, who nodded shortly, conveying the information that this was the way the scene had really been played when there was no question of acting.

"I'm getting out my trumps, darling," Karen confided sweetly, as she reached for the deuce of Spades--the only remaining trump in the dummy.

"What's your hurry, child?" her husband asked indulgently. "Lead this!"

and he pointed toward the six of Diamonds.

"I wish you'd got a puncture, Hugo, so you couldn't have b.u.t.ted in before this hand was played," Carolyn Drake spluttered. "Remember this is a little slam bid, doubled and redoubled--"

"I should think _you_ would like to forget that, Carolyn!" Penny commented bitingly. "But I agree with Carolyn, Hugo, that Karen is quite capable of making her little slam without your a.s.sistance."

"Please don't mind," Karen begged. "Hugo just wanted to help me, because I'm such a dub at bridge--"

"The finest little player in town!" Judge Marshall encouraged her gallantly, but with a jaunty wink at the belligerent Penny.

Smiling adoringly at him again, Karen took his suggestion and led the six of Diamonds from the dummy; Penny covered it with the nine; Karen ruffed with the seven of Spades from her own hand, and Mrs. Drake lugubriously contributed the four of Diamonds.

"I can get my trumps out now, can't I, Hugo?" Karen asked deprecatingly, and at her husband's smiling permission, she led the King of Spades, Carolyn had to give up the Jack, which she must have foolishly thought would take a trick; the dummy contributed the deuce, and Penny followed with her own last trump--the eight.

Karen counted on her fingers, her eyes on the remaining trumps in her hand, then smiled triumphantly up at her husband.

"Why not simply tell us, Karen, that the rest of the trumps are in your own hand?" Penny suggested caustically.

"I--I didn't mean to do anything wrong," Karen pleaded, as she led now with the ten of Hearts, which drew in Carolyn's Queen to cover--Carolyn murmuring religiously: "Always cover an honor with an honor--or should I have played second hand low, Penny?"--topped by the King in the dummy, the trick being completed by Penny's three of Hearts.

At that point John C. Drake marched into the room, strode straight to Dundee, and spoke with cold anger:

"Enough of this nonsense! I, for one, refuse to act like a puppet for your amus.e.m.e.nt! If you are so vitally interested in contract bridge, I should advise you to take lessons from an expert, not from three terrified women who are rather poor players at best. I also advise you to get about the business you are supposed to be here for--the finding of a murderer!"

CHAPTER SIX