is dead?_"

"Did you ask him where he was?" Dundee asked finally.

"No. I just told him to come on over, and he said I could depend on it
that he wouldn't waste any time.... Oh, Bonnie! What shall we _do_?"

"Listen, Penny!" Dundee urged rapidly. "You must realize that I've got
to see and hear, but I don't want Ralph Hammond to see _me_ until after
he's had a talk with you. Will you let me eavesdrop behind these
portieres?... I know it's a beastly thing to do, but--"

Penny agreed at last, and within ten minutes after that amazing
telephone call Dundee, from behind the portieres that separated the
dining and living room, heard Penny greeting her visitor in the little
foyer. She had played fair; had not gone out into the hall to whisper a
warning--if any warning was needed.

He had seen Ralph Hammond enter the dining room of the Stuart House the
day before, in company with Clive Hammond and Polly Beale, when the
three had been strangers to him; but Dundee told himself now that he
would hardly have recognized the young man whom Penny was preceding into
her living room. The Ralph Hammond of Saturday had had a white, drawn
face and sick eyes. But this boy....

Like his older brother, Clive, Ralph Hammond had dark-red, curling hair.
But unlike his brother's, his eyes were a wide, candid hazel--the green
iris thickly flecked with brown. A little shorter than Clive, a trifle
more slender. But that which held the detective's eyes was something
less tangible but at once more evident than superlative masculine good
looks. It was a sort of shy joyousness and buoyance, which flushed the
tan of his cheeks, sang in his voice, made his eyes almost unbearably
bright....

Before Penny Crain, very pale and quiet, could sink into the chair she
was groping toward, Ralph Hammond was at her side, one arm going out to
encircle her shoulders.

"Don't look like that, Penny!" Dundee heard him plead, his voice
suddenly humble. "You've every right to be sore at me, honey, but please
don't be. I know I've been an awful cad these last few weeks, but I'm
myself again. I'm cured now, Penny--"

"Wait, Ralph!" Penny protested faintly, holding back as he would have
hugged her hard against his breast. "What about--Nita?"

Dundee saw the young man's face go darkly red, but heard him answer
almost steadily: "I hoped you'd understand without making me put it into
words, honey.... I'm cured of--Nita. I can't express it any other way
except to say