Murder at Bridge | Page 6

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