her bag
when another belated question occurred to him. "Lydia, will you tell me
what engagements Mrs. Selim had this last week?"

The woman scowled, fanatically jealous, Dundee guessed, of her mistress'
reputation, but at last she answered defiantly: "Let me see.... Mr.
Sprague had Sunday dinner here, and spent the afternoon, but Sunday
night it was young Mr. Ralph Hammond. He come whenever she'd let
him.... Monday night?... Oh, yes! She had dinner at the Country Club
with the Mileses and the Drakes and the Dunlaps. Mr. Miles brought her
home, because Mr. Sprague wasn't invited.... Tuesday night--let me
think!... Yes, that's the night Judge Marshall was here. Nita had sent
for him to talk about finishing up the attic--"

So that was the "business engagement" which Judge Marshall had hemmed
and hawed over, Dundee reflected triumphantly.

"--and Wednesday night," Lydia was continuing, with a certain pride in
her mistress' popularity, "she was at a dinner party at the Dunlaps'."

"Did Mr. Peter Dunlap ever call on Mrs. Selim--alone?"

"_Him?_" Lydia was curiously resentful. "He wasn't ever here. Nita said
to me she wished Mr. Peter liked her as well as Mis' Lois did."

"Thursday night?"

"Mr. Ralph Hammond took her somewhere to dinner, to some other town, I
think, but I wasn't awake when they got home. Nita never would let me
set up for her--said I needed my rest. So I always went to bed early."

"And yesterday--Friday?" Dundee demanded tensely. For Friday she had
been driven to making her last will and testament....

"She was home all day, but about half past four Mr. Drake came," Lydia
said slowly, as if she too were wondering. "She was awfully restless,
couldn't set still or eat. I ought to have suspicioned something, but
she was often like that--lately. Mr. Drake stayed about an hour. I
didn't see him leave, because I was cooking Nita's dinner.... But little
good it did, because she didn't eat it, so there was plenty for Mr.
Sprague when he dropped in about seven."

"Did Sprague spend the evening?"

"I guess so, but I don't know. Nita made me take the Ford and drive into
town for a picture show. She was in bed when I got back, and--" but she
checked herself hastily.

"Did Nita seem strange--troubled, excited? Did she look as if she'd been
crying?" Dundee prodded.

"I didn't see her," the maid acknowledged. "I knocked on her door, but
she told me to go on to bed, that she wouldn't need me. But now I thin