Murder at Bridge Part 30

Emerging from the closet he closed his eyes in an effort to recall in exact detail the architect's blueprint of the lower floor, which Coroner Price had submitted to his jury at the inquest that morning. Yes, that was right! The inner end wall of Nita's clothes closet was also the back of the guest closet in the little foyer that lay between Nita's bedroom and the main hall.

Within ten minutes, much laying-on of the tape measure had produced a startling result. Instead of having a wall in common, the guest closet and Nita's clothes closet were separated by exactly eleven inches! Why the waste s.p.a.ce? The blueprint, bearing the imprint of the architects, Hammond & Hammond, showed no such walled-up cubbyhole!

Exultantly, Dundee again entered Nita's closet and went over every inch of the narrow, horizontal cedar boards, which formed the end wall. But he met with no reward. Not through this workmanlike, solidly constructed wall had an opening been made....

But in the foyer closet he read a different story. Its back wall had an amateurish look. This closet was not cedar-lined, as was Nita's, but was painted throughout in soft ivory. But it was the back wall of the closet in which Dundee was interested. Unlike the other walls, which were of plaster, the back was constructed of six-inch-wide boards--the cheapness of the lumber not concealed by its coat of ivory paint. No self-respecting builder had put in that wall of broad, horizontal boards....

And then, directly beneath the shelf which was set regulation height, just above the pole on which swung a dozen coat hangers, Dundee found what he was looking for.

A short length of the cheap board, a queer sc.r.a.p to have been used even in so shoddy a job as that wall was.... Eight inches long. And set square in the center of the wall, just below the shelf and pole. If he had not been looking for something odd, however, Dundee acknowledged to himself, he would not have noticed it. Did anyone ever notice the back walls of closets?

Sure of the result, he pressed with his finger tips upon the lower end of that short piece of board. And slowly it swung inward, the top slanting outward.

_He had found the secret hiding place._ And Dundee silently agreed with Judge Marshall that it was "the simplest and most ingenious arrangement you ever saw," for it was nothing more nor less than a shelf set between the two closets, in those eleven inches of unaccounted for s.p.a.ce!

"I take off my hat to Roger Crain!" Dundee reflected. "No burglar in the world would ever have thought of pressing upon a short piece of board in a foyer closet, in search of a safe.... But how did Judge Marshall know of its existence?"

The only answer Dundee could think of was that Crain, overseeing the building of his house, had suddenly conceived this brilliant and simple plan, and had tipped one of the carpenters to carry it out for him.

Possibly, or probably, he had bragged to Clive or Ralph Hammond, his architects, of his clever invention. And the Hammond boys had pa.s.sed on the information to Judge Marshall, when, after Crain's failure and flight, the house had become the property of the ex-judge.

These thoughts rushed through his mind as his flashlight explored the shelf through the tilted opening. The gun and silencer _must_ be here, since they could be no place else!... But the shelf was bare except for a small bra.s.s box, fastened only by a clasp. In his acute disappointment Dundee took little interest in the collection of pretty but inexpensive jewelry--Nita's trinkets, undoubtedly--which the bra.s.s box contained.... No wedding ring among them....

In spite of his chagrin at not finding the gun, Dundee studied the simple mechanism which Roger Crain's ingenuity had conceived. From the outside, the eight-inch length of board fitted smoothly, giving no indication whatever that it was otherwise than what it seemed--part of a cheaply built wall. But Dundee's flashlight played upon the beveled edges of both the short board and the two neighboring planks between which it was fitted. The pivoting arrangement was of the simplest, the small nickel-plated pieces being set into the short board and the other two planks with small screws which did not pierce the painted outside surface.

His curiosity satisfied, Dundee stepped out of the closet into the tiny foyer. He was about to leave when a terrific truth crashed through his mind and froze his feet to the floor.

_Of course the gun and silencer were not there!_

This was the _guest closet_! In it had hung the hat of every person who had been Nita's guest, either for bridge or c.o.c.ktails, that fatal Sat.u.r.day afternoon!

_And to this closet, to retrieve hat, stick or--in the case of the women, summer coat and hat--had come every person who had been questioned and then searched by the police._

Dundee tried to recapture the picture of the stampede which had followed upon his permission for all guests to go to their homes. But it was useless. He had stayed in the living room with Strawn, had taken not the slightest interest in the scramble for hats, coats and sticks. For Strawn had previously a.s.sured him that the guest closet had been thoroughly searched.

So quickly that he felt slightly dizzy, Dundee's thoughts raced around the new discovery. This changed everything, of course. Any one of half a dozen persons could have arrived with the gun and silencer--not screwed together, of course, because of the ungainly length--and seized the opportunity presented by Nita's being alone in her bedroom to shoot her.

What easier, then, than to hide the weapon on this secret shelf, the "door" of which yielded to the slightest pressure? And what easier than to retrieve the weapon after permission had been granted to all to return to their homes? Easy enough to manage to go alone to the closet for a hat, the extra minute of time unnoticed in the general excitement.

It had been vitally necessary, too, to retrieve the weapon, since any innocent member of that party might have remembered later to mention the secret hiding place to the police--secret no longer since Judge Marshall had gossiped about it....

Then another thought boiled up and demanded attention. In the new theory, what place did the "bang or b.u.mp" have--that noise which Flora Miles, concealed in Nita's closet, had dimly heard? Dundee had been positive, when Lydia had discovered the shattered electric bulb in the big bronze lamp that its position in Nita's room indicated the progress of the flight of the murderer--flight diagonally across the room toward the back hall. But now--

A little dashed, Dundee returned to the bedroom. The big lamp was where he had first seen it--about a foot beyond the window nearest the porch, and at the head of the chaise longue which was set between the two west windows, where, according to Lydia, the lamp always stood. The too-long cord lay slackly along the floor near the west wall, and extended to the double outlet on the baseboard behind the bookcase.... _A slack cord!_

Down on his hands and knees Dundee went, to peer under the low bottom shelf of the bookcase.... Yes! The p.r.o.nged plug of the lamp cord had been jerked almost out of the baseboard outlet! It was easy to visualize what had happened: The murderer, after firing the shot, had involuntarily taken a step or even several steps backward, until his foot had caught in the loop of electric cord, causing the big lamp to be thrown violently against the wall near which it stood.... But who?

_Any one of half a dozen people!_ But--_who_?

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Having ticketed the big bronze lamp, which he had brought with him from the Selim house, and locked it away in the room devoted to "exhibits for the state," Bonnie Dundee hurried into Penny's office, primed with the news of his discovery of the secret hiding place and eager to lay his new theory before the district attorney.

"Bill's gone," Penny interrupted her swift typing to inform him. "To Chicago. He had only fifteen minutes to make the three o'clock train, after he received a wire saying his mother is not expected to live. He tried to reach you at the Selim house, but one of Captain Strawn's men said you had left."

"I stopped on my way in to get a bite to eat," Dundee explained mechanically. "I'd dashed off without my lunch, you know."

"Did you find the gun and silencer?" Penny asked.

"No. Whoever used it Sat.u.r.day afternoon walked out of the house with it, in plain view of the police, and still has it.... Very convenient, too, in case another murder seems to be expedient--or amusing."

"Don't joke!" Penny shuddered. "But what in the world do you mean?"

Briefly Dundee told her, minimizing the hard work, the concentrated thinking, and the meticulous use of a tape measure which had resulted in the discovery of the shelf between Nita's bedroom closet and the guest closet in the little foyer.

"I see," Penny agreed, her husky voice slow and weighted with horror.

She sat in dazed thought for a minute. "That rather brings it home to my crowd--doesn't it?... To think that Dad--!... Probably everyone at the party--except me--had heard all about Dad's 'simple and ingenious'

arrangement for hiding the securities he sent on to New York before he ran away.... And no outsiders--n.o.body but _us_--had a legitimate excuse for entering that closet.... Not even Dexter Sprague. It's one of his affectations not to wear a hat--"

"Is it?" Dundee pounced. "You're sure he wore no hat that afternoon? Did you notice him when he left after I had dismissed you all?"

"Yes," Penny acknowledged honestly. "I paid attention to him, because I was hating him so. I believed then that he was the murderer, and I was furious with you and Captain Strawn for not arresting him.... He was the first to leave--just walked straight out; wouldn't even stop to talk with Janet Raymond, who was trying to get a word with him. I saw him start toward Sheridan Road--walking. He had no car, you know."

"Did you observe the others?" Dundee demanded eagerly. "Do you know who went _alone_ to the guest closet?"

Penny shook her head. "Everybody was milling around in the hall, and I paid no attention. Lois said she would drive me home, and then I went in to ask you to let me stay behind with you--"

"I remember.... Listen, Penny! I'm going to tell you something else that n.o.body knows yet but Sanderson, Lydia and me. I don't have to ask you not to tell any of your friends. You know well enough that anything you learn from either Sanderson or me is strictly confidential."

Penny nodded, her face very white and her brown eyes big with misery.

"I have every reason to believe that Nita Selim was a blackmailer, that she came to Hamilton for the express purpose of bleeding someone she had known before, or someone on whom she had 'the goods' from some underworld source or other.... At any rate, Nita banked ten thousand mysterious dollars--$5,000 on April 28, and $5,000 on May 5. I talked to Drake last night, and I have his word for it that the money was in bills of varying denomination--none large--when Nita presented it for deposit.

Therefore it seems clear to me that Nita got the money right here in Hamilton; otherwise it would have come to her in the form of checks or drafts or money orders. And it seems equally clear to me that she did not bring that large amount of cash from New York with her, or she would have deposited it in a lump sum in the bank immediately after her arrival."

"Yes," Penny agreed. "But why are you telling _me_?... Of course I'm interested--"

"Because I want you to tell me the financial status of each of your friends," Dundee said gently. "I know how hard it is for you--"

"You could find out from others, so I might as well tell you," Penny interrupted, with a weary shrug. "Judge Marshall is well-to-do, and Karen's father--her mother is dead--settled $100,000 on her when she married. She has complete control of her own money.... The Dunlaps are the richest people in Hamilton, and have been for two or three generations. Lois was 'first-family' but poor when she married Peter, but he's been giving her an allowance of $20,000 a year for several years--not for running the house, but for her personal use. Clothes, charities, hobbies, like the Little Theater she brought Nita here to organize--"

"I wouldn't say she spends a great deal of it on dress," Dundee interrupted with a grin.

"Lois doesn't give a hang how she looks or what anyone thinks of her--which is probably one reason she is the best-loved woman in our crowd," Penny retorted loyally. "The Miles' money is really Flora's, and she has the reputation of being one of the shrewdest business 'men' in town. When she married Tracey nearly eight years ago, he was just a salesman in her father's business--the biggest dairy in the state ... 'Cloverblossom' b.u.t.ter, cream, milk and cheese, you know.... Well, when Flora married Tracey, her father retired and let Tracey run the business for Flora, and he's still managing it, but Flora is the real head.... Now, let's see.... Oh, yes, the Drakes!... Johnny is vice president of the Hamilton National Bank, as you know, and owns a big block of the stock. Carolyn has no money of her own, except what Johnny gives her, and I rather think he isn't any too generous--"

"They don't get along very well together, do they?"

"N-no!" Penny agreed reluctantly. "You see, Johnny Drake was simply not cut out for love and marriage. He's a born ascetic, would have been a monk two or three centuries ago, but he cares as much for Carolyn as he could for any woman.... The Hammond boys have some inherited money, and Clive has made a big financial success of architecture.... That leaves only Janet and Polly, doesn't it?... Polly's an orphan and has barrels of money, and will have barrels more when her aunt, with whom she lives, dies and leaves her the fortune she has always promised her."