Murder at Bridge. Anne Austin
architecture and transplanted shrubbery, but its stucco walls were of a rather more violent raspberry color than is considered quite esthetic in Spain or Mexico.
"There's Lois Dunlap's car just driving up," Penny cried, her face softening with the adoration she had freely professed for her friend. But it clouded again almost instantly. "And Nita Selim. I suppose Nita was a little ashamed to drive up in her own Ford coupe."
As Dundee helped his new friend to alight his eyes were upon the two women being assisted by a uniformed chauffeur from Lois Dunlap's limousine.
In a moment the four were a laughing, exclamatory group.
"Oh, what a tall, grand man you've got yourself, Penny darling!" the tiny, beautiful creature who could only be Mrs. Selim cried out happily. "May I meet him?"
"I shouldn't let you," Penny answered frankly, "but I will. … Mrs. Selim, Mr. Dundee. … And Mrs. Dunlap, Mr. Dundee. … How are you, Lois? And Peter and the brats?"
"All well, Penny. Petey's off on a week-end fishing trip, and not one of the brats has measles, scarlet fever or hay fever, thank God," Dundee heard Mrs. Dunlap say in the comfortable, affectionate voice that went with her comfortable, pleasant face and body. … Nice woman!
But his eyes were of necessity upon Nita Selim, for that miniature Venus was, as Penny had predicted, almost tucked under his arm by this time, her black-pansy eyes wide and wistful, her soft black curls falling forward as she coaxed:
"You'll come to the cocktail party at my house at 5:30, won't you, Mr. Dundee?"
"Afraid I can't make it," Dundee smiled down at her. "I'm a busy man, Mrs. Selim. … You see, I'm Special Investigator attached to the District Attorney's office," he explained very deliberately.
"O-o-oh!" Nita Selim breathed. Than, step by step, she withdrew, so that he was no longer submitted to the temptation to put his arm about her too intriguing little body. And as she retreated, Dundee's keen eyes noted a hardening of the black-pansy eyes, the sudden throbbing of a pulse in her very white neck. …
"No, don't mind about calling for me," Penny protested a moment later. "Ralph has already volunteered. … Thanks awfully!"
As Dundee backed out of the driveway his last glance was for a very small figure in a brown silk summer coat and palest yellow chiffon frock, slowly rejoining Penelope Crain and Lois Dunlap. What the devil had frightened her so? For she had been almost terrified. … Of course she might be one of those silly women who shudder at the sight of a detective, because they've smuggled in a diamond from Paris or a bottle of Bacardi from Havana. …
But long before his car made the distance back to the city Dundee had shrugged off the riddle and was concentrating on all the facts he knew regarding the Maginty case. It was his first real assignment from Sanderson, and he was determined to make good.
Four hours later he was interrupted in his careful reading of the trial of Rufus Maginty by the ringing of the telephone bell. That made four times he had had to snap out the fact that District Attorney Sanderson was playing some well-earned golf on the Country Club links, Dundee reflected angrily, as he picked up the receiver.
But the call was for Dundee himself, and the voice on the other end of the wire was Penny Crain's, although almost unrecognizable.
"Speak more slowly, Penny!" Dundee urged. "What's that again. … Good Lord! You say that Nita Selim. … "
After a minute of listening, and a promise of instant obedience, Dundee hung up the receiver.
"My God!" he said slowly, blankly. "Of all things—murder at bridge!"
CHAPTER TWO
As Special Investigator Dundee drove through the city of Hamilton at a speed of sixty miles an hour, his way being cleared by traffic policemen warned by the shrill official siren which served him as a horn, he had little time to think connectedly of the fact that Nita Selim had been murdered during a bridge game in her rented home in Primrose Meadows.
Even after the broad sleekness of Sheridan Road stretched before him he could do little more than try to realize the shock which had numbed him. … "Lovely Nita," as the society editor of The Morning News had called her, was—dead! How, why, he did not know. He had asked no details of Penny Crain. … Funny, thorny little Penny! Loyal little Penny!
"Judge Marshall has telephoned Police Headquarters," she had told him breathlessly over the telephone, "but I made him let me call you as soon as he had hung up. I wanted our office to be in on this right from the first."
Beautiful, seductive Nita Selim, almost cuddling under his arm within three minutes of meeting him—dead! A vision of her black-pansy eyes, so wide and luminous and wistful as they had looked sideways and upward to his, pleading for him to join her after-bridge cocktail party, nearly made him crash into a lumbering furniture van. Those eyes were luminous no longer, could never again snap the padlocks of slave chains upon any man—as Penny had expressed it. … Dead! And she had been so warmly alive, even as she had retreated from him at his mention of the fact that he was attached to the office of the district attorney as a special investigator. What had she feared then? Was her death a payment for some recent or long-standing crime? Or had she simply been withdrawing from contamination with a "flat-foot"? … No! She had been afraid—horribly afraid of some ulterior purpose behind his innocent courtesy in driving Penelope Crain to Breakaway Inn.
Well, speculation now was idle, he told himself, as he noted that his speedometer had dropped from sixty to thirty in his preoccupation. He speeded again, but was soon forced to stop and ask his way into Primrose Meadows. The vague directions of a farmer's son lost him nearly eight precious minutes, during which his friend, Captain Strawn of the Homicide Squad, might be bungling things rather badly. But at last he found the ornate pair of pillars spanned by the painted legend, "Primrose Meadows," and drove through them into what soon became a rutted lane. Almost a quarter of a mile from the entrance he found the isolated house, unmistakable because of the line-up of private cars parked before the short stretch of paved sidewalk, and the added presence of police cars and motorcycles.
Dundee turned his own car into the driveway leading from the street along the right side of the house toward the two-car garage in the rear. Ahead of his roadster were two other cars, and a glance toward the open garage showed that a Ford coupe was housed there.
As he was descending Captain Strawn's voice hailed him from an open window of the room nearest the garage.
"Hello, Bonnie! Been expecting you. … Damnedest business you ever saw. … There's a door from this room onto the porch. Hop up and come on in."
Dundee obeyed. Driving in he had noted that a wide porch, upheld by round white pillars, stretched across the front of the gabled brick house and extended halfway along its right side, past a room which was obviously a solarium, with its continuous windows, gay awnings, and—visible through the glittering panes—orange-and-black wicker furniture.
It was easy to swing himself up to the floor of the porch. Strawn flung open the door which led into the back room, remarking with a grin:
"Don't be afraid I'm gumming up any fingerprints. Carraway has already been over the room. … The Selim woman's bedroom," he explained. "The room she was killed in."
"You have been on the job," Dundee complimented his former chief.
"Sure!" Strawn acknowledged proudly. "Can't be too quick on our stumps when it's one of these 'high sassiety' murders. Dr. Price will be here any minute now, and my men have been all over the premises, basement to attic. Of course it was an outside job—plain as the nose on your face—and we haven't found a trace of the murderer."
Although Mrs. Selim had taken the house furnished, it was obvious that this big bedroom of hers was not exactly as the Crain family had