ed top story finished up.
Wanted a maid's room and bath, and a guest room and bath added to the
living quarters already completed. I gave the commission, for an
estimate, at least, to the Hammond firm, since they had built the house
originally for Crain--Penny's father."

"I see," Dundee agreed. "And you sent your brother, Mr. Hammond?"

"He was the natural one to send," Clive Hammond retorted. "Small job.
All he had to do was to get together an estimate on additional furnace
lines and radiators, electric wiring, plumbing, plastering, etc."

"Go on, Miss Beale," Dundee directed.

"Thanks!" There was sarcasm in her brusque voice. "But that's really
about all I have to tell. Ralph complained that he was hungry and
charged me with giving him too little of my time--the usual thing. I
picked up Nita's phone, called Clive and made the date for the three of
us. Then I called Breakaway Inn, cancelled the luncheon part of the
bridge party with Nita, and Ralph and I drove back to Hamilton."

Dundee studied her strong, clever, almost plain face for a long minute.
Certainly Polly Beale did not look like a liar--but he would have taken
his oath that she was lying now. Or rather not revealing the whole truth
behind the actual facts of her movements that day. For instance, could a
simple plea of her future brother-in-law make her do so discourteous a
thing as to break a luncheon appointment, especially when such a course
would not only disappoint her hostess and her friends but disarrange the
seating plan of a rather formal party?

Of course the explanation was obvious. She had wanted, first, to see
Nita and remonstrate privately with her for having so enslaved Ralph
Hammond, when he was tacitly known to "belong" to Penny Crain--one of
the sacred crowd. Failing that, she had found Ralph himself, and had not
expected to find him; had talked with him about Nita, and had quarreled
a bit with him, perhaps, over his love-sodden behavior. And the crisis
had become so acute that Polly had arbitrarily called upon Clive Hammond
and then had forced Ralph to accompany her.

"Do you know, Miss Beale, why Ralph Hammond did not keep _his_
engagement with Mrs. Selim this afternoon? Or rather, his promise to
appear for cocktails and to be Miss Crain's partner for the rest of the
evening--dinner and dancing at the Country Club?"

"I do not!" Polly said crisply.

"Hammond?"

"Neither do I," Hammond retorted angrily.

"Then it was not to di