s he munched the drying sandwiches and sipped charged water--the
various liquors for cocktails on the sideboard offered a temptation
which he sternly resisted--Dundee's thought boiled and churned, throwing
up picture after picture of Nita Selim, alive and then dead; of Penny
Crain--bless her!--helping him at the expense of her loyalty to
life-long friends; of Flora Miles, lying desperately and then confessing
to a shameful theft; of Karen Marshall gallantly playing out the "death
hand"; of Karen's stricken, childish face when she learned that her
elderly husband had met and at least flirted with Nita Selim at a chorus
girls' party....

At that last picture Dundee flushed so that his skin prickled. Had he
made a fool of himself, or was he right in his suspicion that Hugo
Marshall had given Nita Selim this cottage rent free? That point should
be easily settled, at any rate....

Ruefully reflecting that appetizers do not make a satisfactory meal he
betook himself to the dead woman's bedroom.... Yes, his memory had
served him well. Here was her desk--a small feminine affair of rosewood,
set in the corner of the room nearest the porch door.

The desk was not locked. As Dundee let down the slanting lid, whose
polish was marred with many fingerprints, he saw that its contents were
in a hopeless jumble. So Strawn had beaten him to this, too! Had he
found an all-important clue in one of the many little pigeon-holes and
drawers, stuffing it into his pocket just before a bumptious young
"special investigator" had arrived?

But Dundee's returning gloom was instantly dispelled. Here was Nita's
checkbook, a flutter of filled-in stubs attached to only one remaining
blank check. So Nita had banked with the Hamilton National Bank, of
which John C. Drake--who apparently hated his fattish, fussy wife--was a
vice president! Another tiny fact to be tucked away.... She had opened
her account, apparently, on April 21, the day of her arrival in
Hamilton--the guest and employe of Mrs. Peter Dunlap. Probably Lois
Dunlap had advanced her the two hundred dollars as first payment for her
prospective work in organizing a Little Theater movement in Hamilton.

Turning rapidly through stubs, Dundee stopped twice, whistling softly
with amazement each time. For on April 28th, and again on May 5th, Nita
Selim had deposited $5,000! Where had she got the money? Were the sums
transfers from accounts in New York banks? But it was hardly likely that
a lit