Murder at Bridge Part 13

"One of my friends gave me a lift from town," Judge Marshall volunteered pompously. "Chap named Sampson. You may have heard of him--fine fellow, splendid lawyer. We played billiards together at the Athletic Club, and when I was about to call a taxi--my wife having the car here--he offered to drop me here on his way to the Country Club.... N-no, I don't remember the exact time, did not consult my watch."

"You came directly from the road into the house, Judge Marshall?"

"Certainly, sir!"

"Did you--er, see anyone?"

"You mean, sir, did anyone see _me_?" Judge Marshall demanded with pompous indignation. "No, no one, sir! If my word is not good enough for you, you can think what you d.a.m.ned please!"

"I think we are all getting a little too tired, Mr. Dundee," Penny Crain suggested, almost humble in her weariness.

"I'm truly sorry," the young detective apologized. "But I can't leave things like this ... Mr. Drake, you have said you walked over from the Country Club. You must have approached the house from the driveway side, the side of the house which contains Mrs. Selim's bedroom.... Is that right?"

"More or less, except that I skirted the house rather widely and arrived from the road, stepping upon the front porch, and walking directly into the hall. I saw no one outside or near the house when I arrived," Drake answered, with less than his usual nastiness.

"And saw no one running away across the meadows?" Dundee pressed.

"No one at all," Drake retorted. "I wish to G.o.d I could truthfully say that I saw a gunman, with a mask and a smoking revolver, skulking through the wildflowers, but the absolute truth is that I saw no one."

"Thank you, Mr. Drake.... Now--Mr. Sprague, 'of New York'!"

Sprague's nervously twitching face reddened darkly. "I--I took a bus. I have no car of my own. I got off the bus on Sheridan Road, at the entrance to Primrose Meadows."

"I see. And you walked the quarter of a mile to this house?"

Sprague's hand fumbled with his cravat. "I--of course I did!"

"I see.... Now, Miss Raymond," Dundee pounced unexpectedly, so that the red-haired girl went very white beneath her freckles, "you observed Mr.

Sprague toiling down the rutty road, hot and weary, but romantic in the sunset?"

Mrs. Drake let out a nervous giggle, then clapped her hand over her mouth.

"I--I wasn't looking that way," Janet Raymond stammered. "I--I just went out on the porch for a breath of fresh air--"

"And you were _completely_ surprised when Mr. Sprague came walking up the flagstone path?" Dundee persisted, for he knew she was lying, knew that she had stationed herself there to watch for Sprague.

"I--yes, I was! He stopped and talked for a while, before we came in and joined Tracey and Lois in the dining room, where Tracey was mixing c.o.c.ktails.... But," she flared suddenly, "I don't see why you have to badger all of us, when it _must_ have been Lydia, the maid, who killed Nita, because--"

"Oh, Janet! Shame on you!" Penny cried furiously.

"Where is the maid now, Captain Strawn?" Dundee asked. "I haven't seen her yet--"

"Because she's in her room in the bas.e.m.e.nt, Bonnie," Strawn answered.

"Sort of forgot about her, didn't you?" and he chuckled at the younger man's discomfiture. "But _I_ got her story out of her, you bet! Nothing to it, though. One of my boys--Collins, it was--found her in that short, dark hall that runs between the Selim woman's bedroom and the kitchen.

Sicker'n a pup she was; it was a mess. Said she'd--"

"I'd better have her up and question her, if she's well enough," Dundee interrupted, as tactfully as possible. "It seems that she had an abscessed tooth out today, with gas and a local anesthetic.... Now, Miss Raymond, will you tell me exactly what you meant by saying it must have been Lydia who killed her mistress?"

"I certainly will!" the red-haired girl cried defiantly. "What I can't see is why Tracey and Lois and Dex--Mr. Sprague--didn't think of it, too. It's as plain as--"

"Yes, as the nose on my face," Dundee cut in grimly, but with a glance at Strawn. "Just stick to the facts, however, Miss Raymond, and maybe we can all agree with you."

"Well, when Mr. Sprague and I went into the dining room, there were Lois and Tracey cutting up like a couple of children," Janet began, determined to take her time. "When they saw us, Lois said: 'Good Lord, Tracey! Get busy! Or your job as bartender will be taken away from you,'

and Tracey began to shake c.o.c.ktails at the sideboard--"

"Guess I'd better tell it, Janet, for what it's worth," Lois cut in impatiently. "It's nothing more nor less than that I had to ring twice for poor Lydia before she came," she explained to Dundee. "Tracey is full of original ideas about c.o.c.ktails, and wanted some sort of bitters.

He was going to shout for Lydia, but I stepped on the b.u.t.ton under the dining table, and the poor thing--in the bas.e.m.e.nt nursing her jaw, probably--didn't hear. Tracey and I got to kidding, as Janet says, and had scarcely noticed how long Lydia was in coming. I rang again, and she came.... That's all!"

"That isn't all!" Janet denied angrily. "I was there when Lydia came in, and she was looking white as a ghost--except for her swollen jaw.

What's more, she acted so dumb Tracey had to tell her twice what he wanted.... And then she said Nita didn't have any of those bitters anyway."

"An open-and-shut case against poor Lydia!" Penny Crain broke in derisively. "Go pluck daisies, Janet! You'd be of a lot more help!"

"Here's your maid, Bonnie," Captain Strawn announced lazily, as one of his plainclothesmen appeared in the arch between dining and living room, dragging by the hand a woman who was resisting strangely, her ap.r.o.n pressed to her face.

"You are Lydia?" Dundee asked, his voice kinder than it had been for many minutes. "Oh, it's Lydia Carr, Captain Strawn? Thank you.... Don't be afraid. And I'm sorry about the tooth.... Come along in. I'll not keep you long."

The woman's knees seemed about to fail her, but with a sudden effort she released the detective's grip on her wrist. Very tall she was, very bony in her black cotton dress. Pathetic, too, with her thin, iron-grey hair, and that ap.r.o.n concealing the left half of her face. It was odd, Dundee thought, that it was not the swollen jaw she chose to cover.

Mrs. Dunlap sprang to her feet and hurried across the room.

"Don't mind, Lydia, please. You must not be so sensitive," she said gently, and even more gently pulled down the concealing ap.r.o.n....

"Good G.o.d!" Dundee breathed, and Strawn nodded his understanding of the younger man's horror.

For the left half of Lydia Carr's face was drawn and puckered and ridged almost out of human semblance. Even the eye was ruined--a milky ball which the puckered, hairless eyelid could never cover again.

"Poor Lydia is ashamed of her scarred face," Lois Dunlap explained, her arm still about the maid's shoulder. "She isn't quite used to it yet, but none of _us_ mind--"

"You were burned recently, Lydia?" Dundee asked pityingly.

"That's my business!" the woman astounded him by retorting harshly.

"How did it happen, Lydia?" Dundee persisted, puzzled.

"I had an accident. It was my own fault."

Lois Dunlap's kind grey eyes caught and held Dundee's firmly. "I think, if Nita could speak to you now, Mr. Dundee, that she would beg you not to try to force Lydia's confidence on this subject. Nita was devoted to Lydia--we can all testify to that!--and one of the sweetest things about her was her constant effort to protect Lydia from questions and curious glances. I, for one, know that Nita often begged Lydia to submit to a skin-grafting operation, regardless of expense--"

When that kind voice choked on tears, Dundee abruptly abandoned his intention to press the matter further.

"Lydia, your mistress had been married, or was still married, wasn't she?"

The woman's single, slate-grey eye stared into his expressionlessly.

"She had 'Mrs.' in front of her name, to use when she felt like it.

That's all I know. I never saw her husband--if she had one. I only worked for her about five years."

"You say she used her married name 'when she felt like it....' What do you mean by that, Lydia?"