id. "But let me give you a friendly
warning. _Don't try to carry on the good work._ Nita got ten thousand
dollars, but she also got a bullet through her heart. And the gun which
fired that bullet is safely back in the hands of the killer.... You're
not going to get that movie job, and I was just afraid you might be
tempted!... Good afternoon!"

CHAPTER TWENTY

It was Wednesday evening, four whole days since Nita Leigh Selim,
Broadway dancer, had been murdered while she was dummy at bridge.
Plainclothesmen, in pairs, day and night shifts, still guarded the
lonely house in Primrose Meadows, but Dundee had taken no interest in
the actual scene of the crime since Carraway, fingerprint expert, had
reported negatively upon the secret shelf between Nita's bedroom closet
and the guest closet. So far as any tangible evidence went, only
Dundee's fingers had pressed upon the pivoting panel and explored the
narrow shelf.

The very lack of fingerprints had of course confirmed Dundee's belief
that the murderer's hand had pressed upon that swinging panel, had
quested in vain for the incriminating documents or letters which had
been the basis of Nita's blackmail scheme, had deposited upon the shelf
the gun and silencer with which the murder had been accomplished, and
had later retrieved the weapon in perfect safety. A hand loosely wrapped
in a handkerchief or protected by a glove.... The hand of a cunning,
careful, cold-blooded murderer--or murderess.... But--who? _Who?_

Bonnie Dundee, brooding at his desk in the living room of his small
apartment, reflected bitterly that he was no nearer the answer to that
question than he had been an hour after Nita Selim's death.

"Well, 'my dear Watson'," he addressed his caged parrot finally. "What
do you say?... Who killed Nita Selim?"

The parrot stirred on his perch, thrust out his hooked beak to nip his
master's prodding finger, then disdainfully turned his back.

"I don't blame you, Cap'n," Dundee chuckled. "You must be as sick of
that question as I am.... And what a pity it ever had to be asked! If
the murderer had not been so hasty--or so pressed for time that he
really could not wait to listen to Nita--he would have learned from
Nita herself that she had decided to be a very good girl, and had burned
the 'papers'--all because she was genuinely in love with Ralph
Hammond.... One comfort we have, 'my dear Watson': the murderer still
does not know that Nita burned the papers