ering his arm to Karen, when one of
his underlined notes thrust itself upon his memory:

"May I see your bridge tally, please, Mrs. Miles?"

"My--bridge tally!" she echoed blankly. "Why--it must be on the table
where I was playing--"

"It is not," Dundee assured her quietly. "Perhaps it is in your
handbag?" and he glanced at the rather large raffia bag that lay on the
table.

She snatched it up, slightly averting her body as she looked hastily
through its contents.

"It--isn't here.... Oh, I don't know _where_ it is! What does it
matter?"

Without replying, Dundee escorted the trembling little discoverer of
Nita Selim's body into the large ornate bedroom, murmuring as he did so:

"Don't be frightened, Mrs. Marshall. The bod--I mean Mrs. Selim isn't
here now.... And you shan't have to scream. I'll give the signal myself.
I just want you to go through the same motions you did before." On jerky
feet the girl advanced to Nita's now deserted vanity dresser.

"I--I was calling to her all the time," she whispered. "I didn't even
wait to knock, and I--I began to tell her how much we'd made off that
hand, when I--when she didn't answer.... I didn't touch her, but I
saw--I saw--" Again she gripped her face with her hands and was about to
scream.

"I know," Dundee assured her gently. Then he shouted: "Ready!"

Herded by Strawn, the small crowd of men and women came running into the
room, Judge Marshall leading the way, Penny being second in line. Penny
_second_! Why not Flora Miles, who had been nearer to that room than any
of the others, if her story was true--Dundee asked himself. But all had
crowded into the room, including Polly Beale and Clive Hammond, before
Mrs. Miles crept in.

"Is this the order of your arrival?" Dundee asked them all.

Penny, who was standing against the wall, just inside the doorway, spoke
up, staring at Flora with frowning intentness.

"You're sort of mixed up, aren't you, Flora? I was standing right here
until the worst of it was over--I didn't even go near Nita, and I know
you didn't pass me. I remember that Tracey stepped away from the--body,
and called you, and you weren't here. And then almost the next minute I
saw you coming toward him from--from--_over there_!"

And Penny pointed toward that corner of the room which held, on one
angle, the door leading to the porch, and on its other angle the window
from which, or from near which Nita Selim had been shot.

"You're lying, Penny