Murder at Bridge Part 22

"Lydia's going with you, and is grateful for your wife's kindness,"

Dundee informed him, and felt his heart warm to the boresome, egotistical little cherub of a man when he saw how Miles' face lit up with real pleasure. "By the way, Miles, you saw Ralph Hammond when you called here this morning, didn't you?"

"Yes," Miles answered with some reluctance. "He answered the door when I rang and told me Lydia and Nita had gone into town."

"Mr. Miles," Dundee began slowly, throwing friendliness and persuasion into his voice, "I know how all you folks stick together, but I'd appreciate it a lot if you'd tell me frankly whether you noticed anything unusual in Hammond's manner this morning."

"Unusual?" Miles repeated, frowning. "He was a little short with me because he was busy, and, I suspect, a little jealous because I'd come calling on Nita--" He broke off abruptly, in obvious distress. "Look here, Dundee! I didn't mean to say that, but I suppose you'll find out sooner or later.... Well, the fact is, the whole crowd knows Ralph Hammond was absolutely mad about Nita Selim. Wanted to marry her, and made no secret of it, though we all thought or hoped it would be little Penny Crain. He's been devoted to Penny for years, and since Roger Crain made a mess of things and skipped out, leaving Penny and her poor mother high and dry, we've all done our best to throw Penny and Ralph together.

But since Nita came to town--"

"Was Nita in love with Ralph?" Dundee cut in, rather curtly, for he had a curious distaste for hearing Penny Crain discussed in this manner.

"Sometimes we were sure she was," Miles answered. "She flirted with all of us men--had a way with her of making every man she talked to think he was the only pebble on the beach. But there was something special in the way she looked at Ralph.... Yes, I think she _was_ in love with him! But then again," he frowned, "she would treat him like a dog. Seemed to want to drive him away from her--but she always called him back--Oh, Lord!"

he interrupted himself with a groan. "Now I suppose I _have_ put my foot in it! You've got the d.a.m.nedest way of making a chap tell everything he would cut his tongue out rather than spill, Dundee! But just because a young man's in love, and happens not to show up at a party, is no reason to think he sneaked up to the house and killed the woman he loved and wanted to marry. For I'm not so dumb that I haven't seen the drift of your d.a.m.nable questions, Dundee!... Do you know Ralph Hammond, by any chance?" he concluded, his round face red with anger.

"No--but I should like to meet him," Dundee retorted. "He seems quite hard to locate this evening."

"Well, when you do meet him," Tracey Miles began violently, his blue eyes blazing with anger, "you'll soon find you've been barking up the wrong tree! There's not a cleaner, finer, straighter--"

"In fact, he is a friend of yours, Miles," Dundee answered soothingly, "and I respect you for every word you've said.... By the way, did all of you go to the Country Club for dinner after you left here?"

Somewhat mollified, Miles answered: "All of us but Clive Hammond. He said he was going to have a look around for Ralph himself. Seemed to have an idea where he might find him.... And, oh, yes, Sprague disappeared in the scramble. He hasn't a car and n.o.body thought of offering him a lift. Guess he took a bus into Hamilton.... Ah! Here's Lydia!... h.e.l.lo, Lydia!" he called heartily to the woman who was standing, tall and gaunt, in the doorway. "Mighty glad you're coming to look after the kids!"

From behind the black veil which draped her ugly black hat and hid her scarred face, Lydia answered in the dull, harsh voice that was characteristic of her:

"Thank you, sir. I'll do my best."

She made no protest when Dundee, with a word of embarra.s.sed apology, went rapidly through the heavy suitcase she had brought up from the bas.e.m.e.nt with her. And when he had finished his fruitless search, she knelt and silently smoothed the coa.r.s.e, utilitarian garments he had disarranged.

Five minutes later Dundee was alone in the house where murder had been committed under such strange and baffling circ.u.mstances that afternoon.

He was not nervous, but again he made a tour of inspection of the first floor and bas.e.m.e.nt, looking into closets, and testing windows to make sure they were all locked. Everywhere there were evidences of the thoroughness of the police detectives who had searched for the weapon with which Nita Selim had been murdered. In the bas.e.m.e.nt, as he had subconsciously noted on his headlong dash to question Lydia Carr, the furnace doors swung open, and the lids of the laundry tubs had been left propped up, after the unavailing search....

He plodded wearily up the bas.e.m.e.nt stairs and on into the kitchen.

Perhaps the ice-box had something fit to eat in it--the fruit intended for Nita's and Lydia's Sunday breakfast. Those caviar and anchovy sandwiches had certainly not stuck with him long....

He was making his way toward the electric refrigerator when he stopped as suddenly as if he had been shot.

The kitchen door, which he had taken especial pains to a.s.sure himself was locked, when he had made the rounds immediately after the departure of Captain Strawn and his men, was standing slightly ajar!

_Someone had entered this house!_

Dundee stared blankly at the door, which was equipped with a Yale lock.

Someone with a key.... But why had the door been left ajar? _To make escape more noiseless?_

With the toe of his shoe Dundee pushed the door to and heard the click of the lock, then, all thought of food routed from his mind, made a quick but almost silent dash into the dining room to secure one of the pair of tall wax tapers, which, in their silver candlesticks, served as ornaments for the sideboard.

If the intruder was still in the house he could be nowhere but in that unfinished half of the gabled top story. The nearer stairs were those in the back hall, and Dundee took them two at a time, regardless of the noise. Who had preceded him stealthily?... By the aid of his lighted candle he discovered an electric switch at the head of the stairs, flicked it on, and found himself in a wide hall, one wall of which was finished with buff-tinted plaster and with three doors, the other of rough boards with but a single door.

With his candle held high, so that its light should not blind him, and well aware that it made him a perfect target, Dundee opened the unpainted door and found himself in the dark, musty-smelling room that had served Nita Selim and the Crains before her as a storeroom. From the ceiling dangled a green cord ending in a cheap, clear-gla.s.s bulb, but its light was sufficient to penetrate even the farthest low nooks made by the three gables. He blew out his candle and dropped it, as useless now.

A quick tour convinced him that nothing human was concealed behind one of Nita Selim's empty wardrobe trunks, or behind one of the several pieces of heavy old furniture, undoubtedly left behind by the dispossessed Crain family.

Big footprints on the thick dust which coated the floor showed him that he was being no more thorough than Captain Strawn's brace of plainclothes detectives had been much earlier that evening. Two pairs of giant footprints....

With an exclamation he discovered a smaller, narrow pair of prints, and followed their winding trail all around and across the attic. And then he remembered.... Ralph Hammond's footprints, of course, made that morning as he went about his legitimate business of measuring and estimating for the job of turning the storeroom into bedrooms and bathrooms.

Dundee had not realized that he was frightened until he was in the hall again, facing one of the three doors in the plastered wall. With surprise, and some amus.e.m.e.nt, he became aware that his hands were trembling, and that his knees had a curious tendency to buckle.

The fact that the door directly in front of him was open about two inches served, for some odd reason, to steady his nerves. Pus.h.i.+ng the door wide open with his foot--for he never forgot the possibility of incriminating fingerprints which might easily be obliterated, he discovered a light switch near the door frame.

The instant illumination from a ceiling cl.u.s.ter revealed a large bedroom, and less clearly, another and smaller room beyond it, facing as the house faced--toward the south. Knees and hands steady again, he investigated the finished portion of the gabled story swiftly. A charming layout, he told himself. Had Penny Crain once enjoyed this delightful little sitting-room, with its tiny balcony built out upon the sloping roof?... And it gave him pleasure to think that this big, well-furnished but not fussily feminine bedroom had once been hers, as well as the small but perfect bathroom whose high narrow window overlooked the back garden. The closets, dresser drawers and highboy drawers were completely empty, however, of any traces of her occupancy or that of any other....

With these rooms going to waste, why--he suddenly asked himself--had Nita Selim coaxed Judge Marshall to have the unfinished half of the gabled attic turned into bedrooms and baths? Why couldn't Lydia have slept up here, if Nita thought so much of her "faithful and beloved maid"?

But even as he asked himself the question Dundee realized that the answer to it had been struggling to attract his attention.

_These rooms had not been wasted!_ Someone had been occupying them as late as last night! Weaving swiftly through the three rooms, like a bloodhound on the scent, Dundee collected the few but sufficient proofs to back up his intuitive conviction. A copy of _The Hamilton Evening Sun_, dated Friday, May 23, left in an armchair in the sitting-room. All windows raised about six inches from the bottom, so that the night breeze stirred the hand-blocked linen drapes. And, clinging to these drapes, the faint but unmistakable odor of cigarette smoke. Finally, with a low cry of triumph, Bonnie Dundee flung back the colored linen spread which covered the three-quarter bed and discovered that the sheets and pillow cases, though clean, had, beyond the shadow of a doubt, been slept upon.

Bending so that his nose almost touched a pillow case he sniffed.

_Pomade!..._ Who was the man who had slept in this bed last night?

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

With the thrill of his discovery singing blithely along his nerves, Bonnie Dundee, Special Investigator for the District Attorney, had at first hugged the intention of following the new trail alone. Hadn't Captain Strawn taunted him not too good-naturedly about his ability to get along without the younger man's help?

But he was glad, both selfishly and unselfishly, when, half an hour later, he threw open the front door of dead Nita's house to the chief of the Homicide Squad, Carraway, the fingerprint expert, and the two plainclothesmen who had searched the top floor for the missing weapon or the murderer himself soon after the murder had been committed. For if Strawn needed his help, Dundee needed the expert machinery which Strawn captained. And it was good to feel the grip of grat.i.tude in the old chief's handclasp and to see the almost shy twinkle of apology in his hard old grey eyes....

Dundee led the way up the front stairs to the upper floor, glad to hear the heavy tread of official feet behind him.

"I guess you've got it all doped out who the Selim woman's gentleman friend was," Strawn commented genially, as he followed Dundee into the pleasant, big bedroom.

"I believe I have, but I need Carraway to prove my hunch," Dundee acknowledged.

Eagerly, swiftly, he displayed his first tangible finds--the open windows, the drapes smelling of cigarette smoke, the evening paper of the day before, the faint odor and greasiness of barber's pomade upon the pillow case of the bed which had clearly been slept in since the linen was changed.

"Now, Collins--Harmon--" Dundee whirled upon the two silent plainclothesmen, "I want to know what you saw in these rooms when you searched them early this evening that you don't see now. You looked into the closets and drawers, of course?"

"Yes, sir," Collins answered. "And they was all empty, Dundee. Me and Harmon didn't waste time smelling pillow cases, and I admit we didn't pay no attention to that there newspaper--"

"_Empty!_" Dundee echoed. "Are you sure?... You, too, Harmon?"

"What are you driving at, boy?" Captain Strawn asked indulgently.

Briefly, with disappointment flattening his voice, Dundee told of his finding the kitchen door ajar, after he had made sure it was locked on his first rounds of the house.