d only until he had reached her side.

"Sh-h-h!--Have they found Ralph?" she whispered anxiously.

He could only answer "No," and he almost choked on the word.

"Mother's all of a twitter at my having a detective to dinner," she
whispered, trying to be gay again. "She fancies you'll be wearing size
11 shoes and a 'six-shooter' at your belt--Yes, Mother! It's Mr.
Dundee!"

She did not look "all of a twitter," this pretty but rather faded
middle-aged little mother of Penny's. A gentle dignity and patient
sadness, which Dundee was sure were habitual to her, lay in the faded
blue eyes and upon the soft, sweet mouth....

But Mrs. Crain was ushering him into the living room, and its charm made
him forget for the moment that the Crains were to be pitied, because of
their "come-down" in life. For every piece of furniture seemed to be
authentic early American, and the hooked rugs and fine, brocaded damasks
allied themselves with the fine old furniture to defeat the ugliness
with which the Maple Court Apartments' architect had been fiercely
determined to punish its tenants.

"'Scuse me! Gotta dish up!" Penny flung over her shoulder as she ran
away and left him alone with her mother.

Dundee liked Mrs. Crain for making no excuses about a maid they could
not afford, liked the way she settled into a lovely, ancient
rocking-chair and set herself to entertain him while her daughter made
ready the dinner.

Not a word was said about the horrible tragedy which had occurred the
day before in the house which had once been her home. They talked of
Penny's work, and the little gentlewoman listened eagerly, with only the
faintest of sighs, as Dundee humorously described Penny's fierce
efficiency and District Attorney Sanderson's keen delight in her work.

"Bill Sanderson is a nice boy," the woman of perhaps 48 said of
Hamilton's 35-year-old district attorney. "It is nice for Penny to work
with an old friend of the family, or was--until--"

And that was the nearest she came to mentioning the murder before Penny
summoned them to the little dining room.

Because Penny was watching him and was obviously proud of her skill as a
cook--skill recently acquired, he was sure--Dundee ate as heartily as
his carefully concealed depression would permit. There was a beautifully
browned two-rib roast of beef, pan-browned potatoes, new peas,
escalloped tomatoes, and, for dessert, a gelatine pudding which Penny
proudly announced was "Spanish cream