lawyer first--"

"Sir, if you are insinuating that _my wife_--"

"Oh, let me tell him, Tracey," Mrs. Miles capitulated suddenly,
completely. "I _was_ in the closet when Nita was killed, I suppose, but
I didn't _know_ she was being killed! _Because I was lying in there on
the closet floor in a dead faint!_"

Dundee stared at the woman incredulously, then suppressed a groan of
almost unbearable disappointment. If Flora Miles was telling the truth,
here went a-flying his only eye-witness, probably, or rather, his only
ear-witness.

"Just when did you faint, Mrs. Miles?" he asked, struggling for
patience. "Before or after Nita came into this room?"

"I was just finishing the note, with the light on in the closet, and the
door shut, when I heard Nita come into the room. I knew it was Nita
because she was singing one of those Broadway songs she is--was--so
crazy about. I jerked off the light, and crouched way back in a corner
of the closet. A velvet evening wrap fell down over my head, and I was
nearly smothering, but I was afraid to try to dislodge it for fear a
hanger would fall to the floor and make an awful clatter. And then--and
then--" She shuddered, and clung to her husband.

"What caused you to faint, Mrs. Miles?"

"Sir, my wife has heart trouble--"

"What did you hear, Mrs. Miles?" Dundee persisted.

"I couldn't hear very well, all tangled up in the coat and 'way back in
the closet, but I did hear a kind of bang or bump--no, no, not a pistol
shot!--and because it came from so near me I thought it was Nita or
Lydia coming to get something out of the closet, and I'd be discovered,
so I--I fainted--" She drew a deep breath and went on: "When I came to I
heard Karen scream, and then people running in--. But all the time that
awful tune was going on and on--"

"Tune?" Dundee gasped. "Do you mean--Nita Selim's--_song_?"

Flora Miles seemed to be dazed by Dundee's vehement question.

"Why, yes--Nita's own tune. That's what she called it--her own tune--"

"But, Mrs. Miles," Dundee protested, ashamed that his scalp was
prickling with horror, "do you mean to tell me that Nita was not dead
_then_--when Karen Marshall screamed?"

"Dead?" Flora repeated, more bewildered. "Of course she was, or at
least, they all said so--. Oh, I know what you mean! And you don't mean
what I mean at all--"

"Steady, honey-girl!" Tracey Miles urged, putting his arm about his
wife. "I'd better tell you, Dundee.... When we all came