Part 36 (2/2)
”G.o.d, boy! You're right!” Strawn exclaimed, and his heavy old face was very pale as he reached for the telephone, and called the number of the Miles residence. ”I'm going to put it up to her that it will be best for her to be locked up as a material witness, for her own protection.”
Five minutes later Strawn restored the receiver to the hook with a bang.
”Says she won't budge!” he explained unnecessarily. ”Says she ain't afraid and the Miles kids need her.... Well, it's her own funeral! But I guess _you_ are convinced at last?”
Dundee slowly shook his head. ”Almost--but not quite, chief!”
”Lord, but you're stubborn! Here's a water-tight case----”
”A very pretty and a very satisfactory case, but not exactly water-tight,” Dundee interrupted. ”There's just one little thing----”
”What do you mean?” Strawn demanded irritably.
”Have you forgotten the secret shelf behind the guest closet in the Selim house?” Dundee asked.
”I can afford to forget it, since it hasn't got a thing to do with the case!” Strawn retorted angrily. ”There's not a sc.r.a.p of evidence----”
”Of course it does not fit into _your_ theory,” Dundee agreed, ”for 'Swallow-tail Sammy's' avenging brother could not have known of its existence, but there is one thing about that secret shelf and its pivot door which I don't believe you can afford to forget, Captain!”
”Yeah?” Strawn snarled.
”Yeah!... I refer, of course, to the complete absence of fingerprints on the door and on the shelf itself! Carraway didn't even find Nita Selim's fingerprints. Since Nita would have had no earthly reason for carefully wiping off her fingerprints after she removed the papers she burned on Friday night, it's a dead sure fact that someone else who had no legitimate business to do so, touched that pivoting panel and the shelf, and carefully removed all traces that he had done so!... And--” he continued grimly, ”until I find out who that someone is, I, for one, won't consider the case solved!”
Fifteen minutes later Dundee was sitting at Penny Crain's desk in her office of the district attorney's suite, replacing the receiver upon the telephone hook, after having put in a call for Sanderson, who was still in Chicago, keeping vigil at the bedside of his dying mother.
”Did you find out anything new when you questioned the crowd this morning?” Penny asked. ”Besides the fact that Polly and Clive got married this morning, I mean.... I wasn't surprised when I read about the wedding in the extra. It was exactly like Polly to make up her mind suddenly, after putting Clive off for a year----”
”So it was Polly who held back,” Dundee said to himself. Aloud: ”No, I didn't learn much new, Penny. You're a most excellent and accurate reporter.... But there were one or two things that came out. For instance, I got Drake to admit to me, in private, that Nita did give him an explanation as to where she got the $10,000.”
”Yes?” Penny prompted eagerly.
”Drake says,” Dundee answered dryly, ”that Nita told him it was 'back alimony' which she had succeeded in collecting from her former husband.
Unfortunately, she did not say who or where the mysterious husband is.”
”Pooh!” scoffed Penny. ”Don't you see? She just said that to satisfy Johnny's curiosity. After all, it was the most plausible explanation of how a divorcee got hold of a lot of money.”
”So plausible that Drake may have thought of it himself,” Dundee reflected silently. Aloud, he continued his report to the girl who had been of so much help to him: ”Among other minor things that came out this morning, and which the papers did not report, was the fact that Janet Raymond tried to commit suicide this morning by drinking shoe polish. Fortunately her father discovered what she had done almost as soon as she had swallowed the stuff, and made her take ipecac and then sent for the doctor.”
”Oh, poor Janet!” Penny groaned. ”She must have been terribly in love with Dexter Sprague, though what she saw in him----”
Dundee made no comment, but continued with his information: ”Another minor development was that Tracey Miles admitted that he and Flora had quarreled over Sprague after all of you left, and that Flora took two sleeping tablets to make sure of a night's rest.”
”She's been awfully unstrung ever since Nita's murder,” Penny defended her friend. ”She told us all Monday night at Peter's that the doctor had prescribed sleeping medicine.... Now, you look here, Bonnie Dundee!” she cried out sharply, answering an enigmatic smile on the detective's face, ”if you think Flora Miles killed Nita Selim and Dexter Sprague, because she was in love with Dexter and learned he was Nita's lover from that silly note----”
”Whoa, Penny!” Dundee checked her. ”I'm not linking exactly that. But I've just remembered something that had seemed of no importance to me before.”
”And what's that, Mr. Smart Aleck?” Penny demanded furiously.
”Before I answer that question, will you let me do a little theorizing?”
Dundee suggested gently. ”Let us suppose that Flora Miles was _not_ in love with Sprague, but that she was being blackmailed by Nita for some scandal Nita had heard gossiped about at the Forsyte School.... No, wait!... Let us suppose further that Nita recognized Flora's picture in the group Lois Dunlap showed her, as the portrait of the girl whose story she had heard; that she was able, somehow, to secure incriminating evidence of some sort--letters, let us say. Nita tells Sprague about it, and Sprague advises her to blackmail Flora, who, Lois has told Nita, is very rich. So Nita comes to Hamilton and bleeds Flora of $10,000. Not satisfied, Nita makes another demand, the money to be paid to her the day of the bridge luncheon----”
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