Murder at Bridge Part 31

"And Janet Raymond?"

"Janet's father is pretty rich--owns a big wire-fence factory, but Janet has only a reasonable allowance," Penny answered. "As for me--I'm _very_ rich: I get thirty-five whole dollars a week, to support myself and Mother on."

Dundee remained thoughtfully silent for a long minute. Then: "All you girls are alumnae of Forsyte-on-the-Hudson, and Nita Selim came here immediately after she had directed a Forsyte play.... Tell me, Penny--was any of the Hamilton girls ever in disgrace while in the Forsyte School?"

Penny's face flamed. "I'm sorry to disappoint you, but so far as I know there was never anything of the sort. Of course we all graduated different years, except Karen and I, and I might not have heard--But no!" she denied vehemently. "There wasn't any scandal on a Hamilton girl ever! I'm sure of it!"

But her very vehemence convinced Bonnie Dundee that she was not at all sure....

He looked at his watch. Four o'clock.... By this time Nita Selim--tiny cold body, royal blue velvet dress, black curls piled high in an old-fas.h.i.+oned "French roll," bullet-torn heart--were nothing more than a little heap of grey ashes.... Would Lydia Carr have them put in a sealed urn and carry them about with her always?

"I'm going out now, Penny, and I shan't be back today," he told the girl who had returned to her furious typing. "I'll telephone in about an hour to see if anything has come up.... By the way, how do I get to the Dunlap house?"

"It's in the Brentwood section. You know--that cl.u.s.ter of hills around Mirror Lake. Most of the crowd live out there--the Drakes, the Mileses, the Beales, the Marshalls. The Dunlap house stands on the highest hill of all. It's grey stone, a little like a French chateau. We used to live out there, too, in a Colonial house my mother's father built, but Dad persuaded Mother to sell, when he went into that Primrose Meadows venture. The Raymonds bought it.... But why do you want to see Lois?"

"Thanks much, Penny. I don't know what I should do without you," Dundee said, without answering her question, and reached for his hat.

After ten minutes of driving, the last mile of which had circled a smooth silver coin of a lake, Dundee stopped his car and let his eyes rove appreciatively. He had made this trip the day before to question Lydia, already installed as nurse for the Miles children, but he had been in too great a hurry then to see much of this section consecrated to Hamilton's socially elect....

Georgian "cottage," Spanish hacienda, Italian villa, Tudor mansion--that was the Miles home; Colonial mansion where Penny had once lived; grey stone chateau.... Not one of them blatantly new or marked with the dollar sign. Dundee sighed a little enviously as he turned his car into the winding driveway that led up the highest hill to the Dunlap home.

Lois Dunlap betrayed no surprise when the butler led Dundee to the flag-stoned upper terrace overlooking Mirror Lake, where she was having tea with her three children and their governess. For a moment the detective had the illusion that he was in England again....

"How do you do, Mr. Dundee?... This is Miss Burden.... My three offspring--Peter the third, Eleanor, and Bobby.... Will you please take the children to the playroom now, Miss Burden?... Thank you!... Tea, Mr.

Dundee? Or shall I order you a highball?"

"Nothing, thanks," Dundee answered, grateful for her friendliness but nonplussed by it. Not for the first time he felt a sick distaste for the profession he had chosen....

"It's all over," Lois Dunlap said in a low voice, as the butler retreated. "Lydia made her look very beautiful.... I thought it would be rather horrible, having to see her, as the poor child requested in her note to Lydia, but I'm glad now I did. She looked as sweet and young and innocent as she must have been when she first wore the royal blue velvet."

"I'm glad," Dundee said sincerely. Then he leaned toward her across the tea table. "Mrs. Dunlap, will you please tell me just how you persuaded Mrs. Selim to come to Hamilton--so far from Broadway?"

"Why certainly!" Lois Dunlap looked puzzled. "But it really did not take much persuasion after I showed her some group photographs we had made when we Forsyte girls put on 'The Beggar's Opera' here last October--a benefit performance for the Forsyte Alumnae Scholars.h.i.+p fund."

With difficulty Dundee controlled his excitement. "May I see those photographs, please?"

"I had to hunt quite a bit for them," his hostess apologized ten minutes later, as she spread the glossy prints of half a dozen photographs for Dundee's inspection. "Do you know 'The Beggar's Opera'?"

"John Gay--eighteenth century, isn't it?... As I remember it, it is quite--" and Dundee hesitated, grinning.

"Bawdy?" Lois laughed. "Oh, very! We couldn't have got away with it if it hadn't been a cla.s.sic. As it was, we had to tone down some of the naughtiest pa.s.sages and songs. But it was lots of fun, and the boys enjoyed it hugely because it gave them an opportunity to wear tight satin breeches and lace ruffles.... This is my husband, Peter. He adored being the highwayman, 'Robin of Bagshot'," and she pointed out a stocky, belligerent-looking man near the end of the long row of costumed players, in a photograph which showed the entire cast.

"You say that Mrs. Selim accepted your proposal _after_ she saw these photographs?" Dundee asked. "Had she refused before?"

"Yes. I'd gone to New York for the annual Easter Play which the Forsyte School puts on, because I'm intensely interested in semi-professional theatricals," Lois explained. "Nita had done a splendid job with the play the year before, and I spoke to her, after this year's show was over, about coming to Hamilton. She was not at all interested, but polite and sweet about it, so I invited her to have lunch with me the next day, and showed her these photographs of our own play in the hope that they would make her take the idea more seriously. We had borrowed a Little Theater director from Chicago and I knew we had done a really good job of 'The Beggar's Opera.' The local reviews--"

"These 'stills' look extremely professional. I don't wonder that they interested Nita," Dundee cut in. "Will you tell me what she said?"

"She rather startled me," Lois Dunlap confessed. "I first showed her this picture of the whole cast, and as I was explaining the play a bit--she didn't know 'The Beggar's Opera'--she almost s.n.a.t.c.hed the photograph out of my hands. As she studied it, her lovely black eyes grew perfectly enormous. I've never seen her so excited since--"

"What did she say?" Dundee interrupted tensely.

"Why, she said nothing just at first, then she began to laugh in the queerest way--almost hysterically. I asked her why she was laughing--I was a little huffy, I'm afraid--and she said the men looked so adorably conceited and funny. Then she began to ask the names of the players. I told her that 'Macheath'--he's the highwayman hero, you know--was played by Clive Hammond; that my Peter was 'Robin of Bagshot', that Johnny Drake was another highwayman, 'Mat of the Mint', that Tracey Miles played the jailor, 'Lockit'--"

"Did she show more interest in one name than another?"

"Yes. When I pointed out Judge Marshall as 'Peachum', the fence, she cried out suddenly: 'Why, I know him! I met him once on a party.... Is he really a _judge_?' and she laughed as if she knew something very funny about Hugo--as no doubt she did. He was an inveterate 'lady-killer' before his marriage, as you may have heard."

"Do you think her first excitement was over seeing Judge Marshall among the players?" Dundee asked.

"No," Lois answered, after considering a moment. "I'm sure she didn't notice him until I pointed him out. The face in this group that seemed to interest her most was Flora Miles'. Flora played the part of 'Lucy Lockit', the jailor's daughter, and Karen Marshall the other feminine lead, 'Polly Peachum', you know. But it was Flora's picture she lingered over, so I showed her this picture," and Lois Dunlap reached for the portrait of Flora Miles, unexpectedly beautiful in the eighteenth century costume--tight bodice and billowing skirts.

"She questioned you about Mrs. Miles?" Dundee asked.

"Yes. All sorts of questions--her name, and whether she was married and then who her husband was, and if she had had stage experience," Lois answered conscientiously. "She explained her interest by saying Flora looked more like a professional actress than any of the others, and that we should give her a real chance when we got our Little Theater going. I asked her if that meant she was going to accept my offer, and she said she might, but that she would have to talk it over with a friend first.

Just before midnight she telephoned me at my hotel that she had decided to accept the job."

Dundee's heart leaped. It was very easy to guess who that "friend" was!

But he controlled his excitement, asked his next question casually:

"Did she show particular interest in any other player?"

"Yes. She asked a number of questions about Polly Beale, and seemed incredulous when I told her that Polly and Clive were engaged. Polly played 'Mrs. Peachum', and was a riot in the part.... But Nita's intuition was correct. Flora carried off the acting honors.... Oh, yes, she also asked, quite navely, if all my friends were rich, too, and could help support a Little Theater. I rea.s.sured her on that point."

"And," Dundee reflected silently, "upon a point much more important to Nita Selim." Aloud he said: "I don't see _you_ among the cast."

"Oh, I haven't a grain of talent," Lois Dunlap laughed. "I can't act for two cents--can I, Peter darling?... Here's the redoubtable 'Robin of Bagshot' in person, Mr. Dundee--my husband!"

The detective rose to shake hands with the man he had been too absorbed to see or hear approaching.

"You're the man from the district attorney's office?" Peter Dunlap scowled, his hand barely touching Dundee's. "I suppose you're trying to get at the bottom of the mystery of why my wife brought that Selim woman--"

"Don't call her 'that Selim woman', Peter!" Lois Dunlap interrupted with more sharpness than Dundee had ever seen her display. "You never liked the poor girl, were never just to her--"

"Well, it looks as if my hunch was correct, doesn't it?" the stocky, rugged-faced man retorted. "I told you at the beginning to pay her off and send her back to New York--"

"You knew I couldn't do that, even to please you, dear," Lois said. "But please don't let's quarrel about poor Nita again. She's dead now, and I want to do anything I can to help bring her murderer to justice."

"There's nothing you can do, Lois, and I hope Mr.--ah--Dundee will not find it necessary to quiz you again."

Dundee reached for his hat. "I hope so, too, Mr. Dunlap.... By the way, you are president of the Chamber of Commerce, aren't you?"

"Yes, I am! And we're having a meeting tonight, at which that Sprague man's bid on making a historical movie of Hamilton will be turned down--unanimously. Now that the Selim woman isn't here to vamp my fellow-members into doing anything she wants, I think I can safely promise you that Dexter Sprague will have no further business in Hamilton--unless it is police business!"

"Thanks for the tip, Mr. Dunlap," Dundee said evenly. "I hope you enjoyed your fis.h.i.+ng trip. Where do you fish, sir?"

"A tactful way of asking for my alibi, eh?" Dunlap was heavily sarcastic. "I left Friday afternoon for my own camp in the mountains, up in the northwest part of the state. I drove my own car, went alone, spent the week-end alone, and got back this noon. I read of the murder in a paper I picked up in a village on my way home. I didn't like Nita Selim, and I don't give a d.a.m.n about her being murdered, except that my wife's name is in all the papers.... Any questions?"

"None, thanks!" Dundee answered curtly, then turned to Lois Dunlap who was watching the two men with troubled, embarra.s.sed eyes. "I am very grateful to you, Mrs. Dunlap, for your kindness."