don't forget the little curls on the left side!_
I hope I have enough hair, but if it hasn't grown long enough, you
know where those switches are that I had made when I first bobbed my
hair.... You won't mind touching me when I'm dead, will you, Lydia? I do
love you.... Nita.'"

Dundee was silent for a minute after he had finished reading the strange
note and had returned it to the envelope, along with the will. At last,
speaking against a lump in his throat, he broke in on the desolate
sobbing of Nita's maid:

"Lydia, how old was your mistress?"

"You won't put it in the papers, will you?" Lydia pleaded. "She--she
was--thirty-three. But not a soul knew it except me--"

"And will you tell me how old the royal blue velvet dress is?" he
continued. "Also, how long since girls dressed their hair in a French
roll?"

"The dress is twelve or thirteen years old," Lydia said, her voice dull
now with grief. "I know, because I used to do dressmaking during the
war. And it was during the war that girls wore their hair that way--I
did mine in a Psyche knot, but the French roll was more stylish."

"Did your mistress ever tell you about the one time she wore the dress?"

Lydia shook her head. "No. She wouldn't talk about it--just said I'd
know sometime why she kept it.... Royal blue velvet, it is, the skirt
halfway to the ankles, and sleeves with long pointed ends, lined with
gold taffeta, and finished off with gold tassels. It's in a dress bag,
hanging in her closet."

"Do you think it was her wedding dress, Lydia?" Dundee suggested, the
idea suddenly flashing into his mind.

"I don't know. I didn't ask her that," Lydia denied dully. "Can I take
it with me--and the switches she had made out of her curls?"

"I'll have to get authority to remove anything from the house, Lydia,"
Dundee told her. "But I am sure you will be permitted to follow Mrs.
Selim's instructions.... So you're going to accept the Miles' offer of a
job as nurse?"

"Yes. I'd rather work. Mr. and Mrs. Miles have always been specially
nice to me, and I--I could love their children. They're not--afraid of
me--"

"Perhaps you're wise," Dundee agreed. "By the way, Lydia, did Mrs. Selim
have a pistol in her possession at any time during the past week?"

The maid shook her head. "Not that I seen. And if she'd got one because
she was afraid, she'd a-kept it handy and I'd a-been bound to see it."

Convinced of her sincerity, he was about to let her go to pack