ta Selim's murder,
and it _was_ beastly to have to hold them like this.... _But one was
guilty!_

"You knew Mrs. Selim in New York, Sprague?" he asked, whirling suddenly
upon the man with the Broadway stamp.

"I met Nita Leigh, as I always heard her called, when I was assistant
director in the Altamont Studios, out on Long Island," Sprague answered,
his black eyes trying to meet Dundee's with an air of complete
frankness. "Wonderful little girl, and a great dancer ... Screened
damned well, too. I had hoped to give her a break some day, at something
better than doubling for stars who can't dance. But it happened that
Nita, who never forgot even a casual friend, had a chance to give me a
leg up herself--a chance to show what I can really do with a camera."

"I knew I'd seen your name somewhere!" Dundee exclaimed. "So you're the
man the Chamber of Commerce is dickering with.... Going to make a movie
of the founding, growth and beauties of the city of Hamilton, aren't
you?"

"If I get the contract--yes," Sprague answered with palpably assumed
modesty. "My plans, naturally, call for a great deal of research work, a
large expenditure of money, a very careful selection of 'stars'--"

"I see," Dundee interrupted. Then his tone changed, became slow and
menacing in its terrible emphasis: "_And you really couldn't let even a
good friend like Nita Selim upset those fine plans of yours, could you,
Sprague?_"

Even as he put the sinister question, the detective was exulting to
himself: "Light at last! Now I know why this Broadway bounder was
received into an exclusive crowd like this! Every last female in the
bunch hoped to be the star of Sprague's motion picture!"

"I don't know what you're driving at, Dundee!" Sprague was on his feet,
his black eyes blazing out of a chalky face. "If you're accusing me
of--of--"

"Of killing Nita Selim?" Dundee asked lazily. "Oh, no! Not--yet,
Sprague! I was just remembering a rather puzzling note of yours I
happened to read this afternoon.... That note you sent by special
messenger to Breakaway Inn this noon, you know."

He had little interest for the sudden crumpling of Dexter Sprague into
the chair from which he had risen. Instead, as Dundee drew the note from
his coat pocket, his eyes swept around the room, noted the undisguised
relief on every face, the almost ghoulish satisfaction with which that
close-knit group of friends seized upon an outsider as the probable
murderer of that o