Murder at Bridge Part 20

"Then I'm in luck, and I think Lydia is, too--poor old girl!... You see, Dundee," Miles began to explain, as he took off his new straw hat to mop his perspiring forehead, "the crowd all ganged up when our various cars reached Sheridan Road, and by unanimous vote we elected to drive over to the Country Club for a meal in one of the small private dining rooms--to escape the questions of the morbidly curious, you know--"

"Yes.... What about it?" Dundee interrupted impatiently.

"Well, I admit we were all pretty hungry, in spite of--well, of course we were all fond of Nita, but--"

"What about Lydia?" Dundee cut him short.

"I'm getting to it, old boy," Miles protested, with the injured air of an unappreciated small boy. "While we were waiting for our food, somebody said, 'Poor Lydia! What's going to become of _her_?' And somebody else said that it was harder on her--Nita's death, I mean--than on anybody else, because Nita was all she had in the world, and then Lois--Lois is always practical, you know--ran to telephone Police Headquarters, to see what had been done with Lydia, and to see if it would be all right for Flora and me to take her home with us--"

"Just a minute, Miles! Whom did Mrs. Dunlap talk to at Headquarters?"

"Why, Captain Strawn, of course," Miles answered. "He told Lois that you were still out here, questioning Lydia again, and that it was all right with him, whatever you decided. So as soon as I had finished eating, I drove over--"

"Is Mrs. Miles with you?" Dundee interrupted again.

"Well, no," Miles admitted uncomfortably. "You see, the girls felt a little squeamish about coming back, even on an errand of mercy--"

Dundee grinned. He had no doubt that Flora Miles had emphatically refused the possibility of another gruelling interview.

"Why do you and Mrs. Miles want to take Lydia home with you?" he asked.

"To give her a home and a job," Miles answered promptly. "She knows us, we're used to her poor old scarred face, and the youngsters, Tam and Betty, are not a bit afraid of her. In fact, Betty pats that scarred cheek and says, over and over, 'Poo Lyddy! Poo Lyddy! Betty 'oves Lyddy!' and Tam--he's T. A. Miles, junior, you know, and we call him Tam, from the initials, because he hates being called Junior and two Tracey's are a nuisance--"

"I gather that you want to hire Lydia as a nurse for the children,"

Dundee interrupted the fond father's verbose explanations.

"Right, old man! You see, our nurse left us yesterday--"

"Wait here, Miles. I'll speak to Lydia. She's in Mrs. Selim's bedroom.... By the way, Miles, since you and your wife are kind enough to want to take Lydia in and give her a home and a job, I think it only fair to tell you that it is highly improbable that Lydia Carr will take any job at all."

"You mean--?" Miles gasped, his ruddy face turning pale. "I say, Dundee, it's absurd to think for a minute that good old faithful Lydia had a thing to do with Nita's murder--"

"I rather think you're right about that, Miles," Dundee interrupted.

"Now will you excuse me?"

He found Lydia where he had left her--in her dead mistress' bedroom. The tall, gaunt woman was crouching beside the chaise longue, her arms outstretched to encircle a little pile of the gifts she claimed to have given Nita Selim to prove that she bore no grudge for the terrible injury her mistress had done her. At Dundee's entrance she flung up her head, and the detective saw that tears were streaming from both the sightless eye and the unharmed one.

Taking his seat on the chaise longue, Dundee explained gently but briefly the offer which Tracey Miles had just made.

"They want--_me_?" she gasped brokenly, incredulously, and her fingers faltered to her horrible cheek. "I didn't think anybody but my poor girl would have me around--"

"It is true they want you," Dundee a.s.sured her. "But you don't have to take a job now unless you wish, Lydia."

"What do you mean?" the maid demanded harshly, her good eye hardening with suspicion.

"Lydia," the young detective began slowly, and almost praying that he was doing the right thing, "when I woke you up tonight to question you, I said that Nita herself had just told me that it was she who had burned your face.... And you asked me if she had also given you a message--"

"Yes, sir!" the maid interrupted with pitiful eagerness. "And you'll tell me now? You don't still think _I_ killed her, do you?"

"No, I don't think you killed your mistress, Lydia, but I think, if you would, you could help me find out who did," Dundee a.s.sured her gravely.

"No, wait!" and he drew from his pocket the envelope inscribed: "To Be Opened In Case of My Death--Juanita Leigh Selim."

"Do you recognize this handwriting, Lydia?"

"It was wrote by her own hand," the maid answered, her voice husky with tears. "Is that the message, sir?"

"You never saw it before?" Dundee asked sharply.

"No, no! I didn't know my poor girl was thinking about death," Lydia moaned. "I thought she was happy here. She was tickled to pieces over being taken up by all them society people, and on the go day and night----"

"Lydia, this is Mrs. Selim's last will and testament," Dundee interrupted, withdrawing the sheets slowly and unfolding them. "It was written yesterday, and it begins:

"'Knowing that any of us may die any time, and that I, Juanita Leigh Selim, have good cause to fear that my own life hangs by a thread that may break any minute--'"

"What did my poor girl mean?" Lydia Carr cried out vehemently. "She wasn't sick, ever--"

"I think, Lydia, that she feared exactly what happened today--murder!

And I want you to tell me who it was she feared. _For I believe you know!_"

The woman shrank from him, until she was sitting on her lean haunches, her hands flattening against her cheeks. For a long minute she did not attempt to answer. Her right eye widened enormously, then slowly grew as expressionless as the milky left ball.

"I--don't--know," she said dully. Then, with vehement emphasis: "_I don't know!_ If I did, I'd kill him with my own hands!"

Dundee had no choice but to take her word.

"You said there was a message for me," Lydia reminded him.

"I'll read you her will first," Dundee said quietly, lifting the sheets again: "I am herewith setting down my last will and testament, in my own handwriting. I do here and now solemnly will and bequeath to my faithful and beloved maid, Lydia Carr, all property, including all moneys, stocks and personal belongings of which I die possessed--"

"To--_me_?" Lydia whispered. "To me?"

"To you, Lydia," Dundee a.s.sured her gravely.

"Then I can have all her pretty clothes to keep always?"

"And her money, to do as you like with, if the court accepts this will for probate--as I think it will, regardless of the fact that it is very informal and was not witnessed."

"But--she didn't have any money," Lydia protested. "Nothing but what Mrs. Dunlap paid her in advance for the work she was going to do--"

"Lydia, your mistress died possessed of nearly ten thousand dollars!"

Dundee fixed her bewildered grey eye with his blue ones. "_Ten thousand dollars!_ All of which she got right here in Hamilton! And I want you to tell me how she got it!"

"But--I don't know! I don't believe she had it!"

Dundee shrugged. Either this woman would perjure her soul to protect her mistress' name from scandal, or she really knew nothing.

"That is all of the will itself, Lydia," he went on finally, "except her command that her body be cremated without funeral services of any kind, and that n.o.body be allowed to accompany the remains to the crematory except yourself and Mrs. Peter Dunlap, in case her death takes place in Hamilton--"