m a safe deposit box, because he didn't have one," and
Sanderson pressed a button on the edge of his desk....

"Penny, do you know whether there is a concealed safe in the Selim
house?"

The girl, startled, began to shake her head, then checked herself. "Not
that I ever saw, or knew of when Dad and Mother and I lived there,
but--" She hesitated, her cheeks turning scarlet.

"Out with it, Penny!" Sanderson urged, his voice very kind.

"It's just that, if you really think there's a secret hiding place in
the house, I believe I understand something that puzzled me when it
happened," Penny confessed, her head high. "I was at the Country Club
one night--a Saturday night when the whole crowd is usually there for
the dinner and dance. I'd been dancing with--with Ralph, and when the
music stopped we went out on the porch, where several of our crowd were
sitting. It was--just two or three weeks after--after Dad left town.
Lois wouldn't let me drop out of things.... Anyway, it was dark and I
heard Judge Marshall saying something about 'the simplest and most
ingenious arrangement you ever saw. Of course that's where the rascal
kept his securities--...' I knew they were talking about Dad, from the
way Judge Marshall shut up and changed the subject as soon as he saw
me."

"Who was on the porch, Penny?" Dundee asked tensely.

"Why, let's see--Flora, and Johnny Drake, and Clive," she answered
slowly. "I think that was all, besides Judge Marshall. The others hadn't
come out from dancing.... Of course I don't know whether or not it was
some 'arrangement' in the house--"

"Where are you going, boy?" Sanderson checked Dundee, who was already on
his way to the door.

"To find that gun, of course!"

"Well, if it's tucked away in the 'simplest and most ingenious
arrangement you ever saw' it will stay put for a while," Sanderson said.
"Lydia's due here within half an hour, and you don't want to miss her,
do you?"

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

It was exactly twelve o'clock when Lydia Carr, accompanied by Detective
Collins of the Homicide Squad carrying a small suitcase, arrived at the
district attorney's office.

"I kept my eye on her every minute of the time, to see that there wasn't
no shenanigans," Collins informed Dundee and Sanderson importantly,
callous to the fact that the maid could hear him. "But I let her bring
along everything she said she needed to lay the body out in.... Was that
right?"

"Right!" agreed the distric