Before Drake had reached his side, his purpose plain upon his stern, rather ascetic features, Dundee had taken a hasty glance at the watch cupped in his palm and noted the exact minute and second of the interruption. Time out!

"One moment, Mr. Drake," he said calmly. "I quite agree with you--from your viewpoint. What mine is, you can't be expected to know. But believe me when I say that I consider it of vital importance to the investigation of the murder of Mrs. Selim that this particular bridge hand, with all its attending remarks, the usual bickering, and its interruptions of arriving guests for c.o.c.ktails, be played out, exactly as it was this afternoon. I thought I had made myself clear before. If you don't wish me to believe that _you have something to conceal_ by refusing to take part in a rather grisly game--"

"Certainly I have nothing to conceal!" John C. Drake snorted angrily.

"Then please bow as gracefully as possible to necessity," Dundee urged without rancor. "And may I ask, before we go on, if you made your entrance at this time, and the facts of your arrival?"

Drake considered a moment, gnawing a thin upper lip. Beads of sweat stood on his high, narrow forehead.

"I walked over from the Country Club, after eighteen holes of golf with your _superior_, the district attorney," Drake answered, with nasty emphasis. "I left the clubhouse at 5:10, calculating that it would take me about twenty minutes for the walk of--of about a mile."

Dundee made a mental note to find out exactly how far from this lonely house in Primrose Meadows the Country Club actually was, but his next question was along another line:

"You _walked_, Mr. Drake?--after eighteen holes of golf on a warm day?"

Drake flushed. "My wife had the car. I had driven out with Mr.

Sanderson, but he was called away by a long distance message. I lingered at the club for a while, chatting and--er--having a cool drink or two, then I set out afoot."

"No one offered you a lift?" Dundee inquired suavely.

"No. I presume my fellow-members thought I had my car with me, and I asked no one for a lift, for I rather fancied the idea of a walk across the meadows."

"I see," said Dundee thoughtfully. "Now as to your arrival here--"

"I walked in. The door had been left on the latch, as it usually is, when a party is on," Drake explained coldly. "And I was just entering the room when I heard my wife make the remark about covering an honor with an honor, and then her question of Penny as to whether she should have played second hand low."

"So you entered this time at the correct moment," said Dundee. "Now, Mr.

Drake, I am going to ask you to re-enter the room and do exactly as you did upon your arrival at approximately 5:33. I am sure you would not willingly hamper me--or _my superior_--in this investigation."

Drake wheeled, ungraciously, and returned to the doorway, while Dundee again consulted his watch, mentally subtracting the minutes which had been wasted upon this interruption, from the time he had marked upon his memory as the moment at which Drake had interfered. But an undercurrent of skepticism nagged at his mind. Why had Drake chosen to _walk_? And why had it taken him from 5:10 to approximately 5:33 to walk a mile or less? The average walker, and especially one accustomed to playing golf, could easily have covered a mile in fifteen minutes, instead of the twenty-three minutes Drake had admitted to.... If it _was_ a mile!... Was it possible that the banker loved wildflowers?

With head up aggressively, Drake was undoubtedly making an effort to throw himself into the role--or perhaps into a role chosen on the spot!

"Where's everybody?" he called from the doorway. "Am I early?"

"Don't interrupt, please, dear," Carolyn Drake answered, her voice trembling now, where before it must have been sharp and querulous.

Silently Drake took his place behind his wife's chair, laying a hand affectionately upon her shoulder. Dundee, watching closely, saw Penny's eyes widen with something like shocked surprise. So Drake _was_ trying to deceive him, counting on the oneness of this group, his closest friends!

Karen, obviously fl.u.s.tered, too, reached to the dummy for the Ace of Diamonds, to which Penny played the three, Karen herself discarding the ten of Clubs, and Mrs. Drake the five of Diamonds.

"You asked no questions, Mr. Drake?" Dundee interpolated.

The banker flushed again. "I--yes, I believe I did. Carolyn--Mrs.

Drake--explained that Karen was playing for a little slam in Spades, and that she had doubled--'on principle'," he added acidly--a voice which Mrs. Drake must be very well accustomed to, Dundee surmised.

"And when I told you that Nita had redoubled and it looked as if she was going to make it," Carolyn Drake whimpered and shifted her short, stout body in the little bridge chair, "you said--why not tell the truth?--you said it was just like me and I might as well take to tatting at bridge parties."

"That was said jokingly, my dear," Drake retorted, with a coldness that tried to be affectionate warmth.

"Play bridge!" Dundee commanded, sure that the approximate length of the previous dispute had now been taken up, whatever retort Carolyn Drake had made. Then he checked himself, again looking at his watch: "And just what did you answer to your husband's little joke, Mrs. Drake?"

"I--I--" The woman looked helplessly around the table, her slate-colored eyes reddened with tears, then she plunged recklessly, after a fearful glance at Dundee's implacable face. "I said that if it was Nita he was talking to, he wouldn't speak in that tone; that she could make all the foolish mistakes of over-bidding or revoking or doubling that she wanted to, and he wouldn't say a word except to praise her--"

"Then I may as well confess," Drake said acidly, "that I answered substantially as follows: 'Nita is an _intelligent_ bridge player as well as a charming woman, my dear!...' Now make the most of that little family tiff, sir--and be d.a.m.ned to you!"

"Did that end the scene, Mrs. Drake?" Dundee asked gently.

"I--I said something about all the men thinking Nita was perfect," Mrs.

Drake confessed, "and I cried a little, but we went on with the hand.

And Johnny--Mr. Drake went away, walking up and down the room, waiting for Nita to come back, I suppose!"

"Then go on with the game," Dundee ordered.

Silently now, as silently as the real game must have been played, because of the embarra.s.sing scene between husband and wife, the sinister game was carried to its conclusion. Karen led the Jack of Hearts from the dummy, Penny played her seven, Karen contributed her own deuce, and Mrs. Drake followed suit with the five.

Again Karen led from the dummy, with the four of Hearts, followed by Penny's nine, taking it with her own Ace, Mrs. Drake throwing off the five of Clubs. Karen then led the six of Hearts, Carolyn Drake discarded the six of Clubs, dummy took the trick with the eight of Hearts, and Penny sloughed the three of Clubs.

With a faint imitation of the triumph with which she had played the hand the first time, Karen threw down her remaining three trumps.

"I've made it--a little slam!" she tried to sound very triumphant.

"Doubled and redoubled!... How much did I--did Nita and I make, Penny?"

"Plenty!" But before putting pencil to score pad, Penny cupped her chin in her hands and stared at Carolyn Drake. "I'd like to know, Carolyn, if it isn't one of your most cherished secrets, _what_ possessed you to double in the first place?"

Carolyn Drake flushed scarlet as she protested feebly: "I thought of course I could take two Club tricks with my Ace and King.... That's why I doubled the little slam, of course. And my first double simply meant that I had one good suit.... I thought if you could bid at all that my two doubletons--"

"Oh, what's the use?" Penny groaned. "But may I remind you that it is _not_ bridge to lead from a Queen?... You led the deuce of Diamonds, when of course the play, since you had seen the Ace in the dummy, was to lead your Queen, forcing the Ace and leaving my King guarded to take a trick later."

"But Karen didn't have any Diamonds at all," Carolyn defended herself.

"A secret you weren't in on when you led from your Queen," Penny reminded her. "Oh, well! We'll pay up and shut up!" and she made a pretense of totting up the score, while Karen, who had risen, stood over her like a bird poised for flight.

At that instant Dexter Sprague began to advance into the room, Janet Raymond at his side, her face flaming.

"Behave exactly as you did before!" Dundee commanded in a harsh whisper.

No time for coddling these people now!

Dexter Sprague's face took on a yellower tinge, but he obeyed.

"Greetings!" he called in the jaunty, over-cordial tones of a man who knows himself not too welcome. "Where's Nita--and everybody? Isn't that the c.o.c.ktail shaker I hear?"

Having received no answer from anyone present, Sprague strolled through the living room and on into the dining room, Janet following. Judge Marshall had nodded stiffly, and John C. Drake had muttered the semblance of a greeting.... Were they all overdoing it a bit--this reacting of their hostility to the sole remaining outsider of their compact little group?... Dundee stroked his chin thoughtfully.

But Penny was saying in her abrupt, husky voice: "Above the line, 1250; below the line 720, making a total of 1970 on this hand, Karen."

"Won't Nita be glad?" Karen gasped, then began to run totteringly, calling: "Nita! Nita!" But in the hall she collapsed, shuddering, crying in a child's whimper: "No, no! I--can't--go in there--again!"