medy," Lydia
answered. "Sometimes she had a real part and sometimes she only danced.
She was a good hoofer and a good trouper," she added, the Broadway terms
falling strangely from those austere lips. "And when she wasn't in a
show she sometimes got a job in the pictures. She never had a real
chance in the movies, though, because they mostly wanted her to double
for the star in long shots, where dancing comes into the picture, or in
close-ups where they just show the legs, you know."

"I see," Dundee agreed gravely. "Where were you during the fifteen
minutes or so before your mistress was shot, Lydia?"

"I was down in my room in the basement," the woman answered. "Nita--I
mean Miss Nita was going to get Judge Marshall to build me a room on the
top floor. She hated for me to have to sleep in the basement, but I
didn't mind."

"You were not required to be on duty for the party?"

"No," she answered in her harsh, flat voice. "I'd fixed the sandwiches
and put out the liquors for the cocktails--set them all out on the
dining table and sideboard, and Miss Nita had told me to go and lie down
as soon as I was through. So I did. I had an abscessed tooth pulled this
morning, and I was feeling sick."

"Did you hear the kitchen bell at all?" Dundee went on.

"I dropped off to sleep--that fool dentist had shot me full of dope--but
I did hear the bell and I come up to answer it. Mrs. Dunlap said she'd
rung twice, and I said I was sorry--"

"Lydia, did you go into your mistress' bedroom before or after you
answered that bell?" Dundee asked with sudden sharpness.

"I did not! I didn't even know she was in her bedroom, until I saw her
sitting at her dressing-table--dead." The harsh voice hesitated over the
last word, but it did not break.

"And just when did you first see her--after she was dead?"

"I went into the kitchen, thinking something else might be needed. Then
I heard a scream. It sounded like it come from Nita's--Miss Nita's
bedroom, and I run along the back hall that leads from the kitchen to
her bedroom. I heard a lot of people running and yelling. Nobody paid
any attention to me."

"You came into the room?"

"No, sir, I did not. I stopped in the doorway. I heard Mr. Sprague say
she was dead. I was sick and dizzy anyway, and I couldn't move for a
minute. I sort of slipped down to the floor, and I guess I must have
passed out. And then I was sick to my stomach, and--I didn't seem to
care if I never moved again.