I made a point of
driving--out of my way too--by this house to see Nita. Not that I meant
any harm, but I was being a little silly about her--and she was about
me, too! Not that I'd leave my wife and babies for any Broadway beauty
under the sun--"

"Oh, Tracey! And you weren't going to tell me--" Was there _real_
jealousy now, or just pretense on Flora's part?

"You understand, don't you, Dundee?" Tracey demanded, man to man. "I was
just having a little fun on the side--nothing serious, mind you! But of
course I didn't tell Flora every little thing--. No man does! There've
been other girls--other women--"

"Tracey isn't worse than the other men!" Flora flamed up. "He's such a
darling that all the girls pet him, and spoil him--"

Dundee could stand no more of Miles' complacent acceptance of his own
rakishness. And certainly a girl like Nita Selim would have been able to
bear precious little of it.... Conceited ass! But Flora Miles was
another matter--and so was Dexter Sprague!

"You can join me in the living room, if you like," Dundee said shortly,
as he wheeled and strode toward the door. Was that quick, passionate
kiss between husband and wife being staged for his benefit?

"Pretty near through, boy?" Strawn, who had been silent and bewildered
for a long time, asked anxiously, as the two detectives passed into the
hall.

"Not quite. I've got to know several things yet," Dundee answered
absently.

But in the living room his mind was wholly upon the business in hand.

"I'll keep you all no longer than is absolutely necessary," he began,
and again the close-knit group--in which only Dexter Sprague was an
alien--grew taut with suspense. "From the playing out of the 'death
hand' at bridge," he went on, using the objectionable phrase again very
deliberately, "I found that no two of you men arrived together.... Mr.
Hammond, you were the first to arrive, I believe?"

"It seems that I was!" Clive Hammond answered curtly.

"And yet you did not enter the living room to greet your hostess?"

"I wanted a private word with Polly--Miss Beale--my fiancee," Hammond
explained briefly.

"How and when did you arrive?"

"I don't know the exact time. Never thought of looking at my watch,"
Hammond offered. "I came out in my own roadster--that tan Stutz you may
have noticed in the driveway. As for how I entered the house, I leaped
upon the porch and opened a door of the solarium. I walked across the
solarium, saw Polly just