that damning note and
all its implications.

"Well," Penny continued, "Tracey suggested bridge, and at first Karen
flatly refused to play, but Hugo finally persuaded her.... Karen would
do absolutely _anything_ for that ridiculous old husband of hers! I
simply can't understand it--how she can be in love with him, I mean!"

"I thought you liked Judge Marshall," Dundee laughed.

"Oh, I do--in a way.... But fancy a young girl like Karen being in love
with him!... Well, anyway, we all went out to the east porch, which is
kept in readiness for bridge all summer. Iron bridge tables, covered
with oilcloth, and with oilcloth pouches for the cards and score pads,
so there's never any bother about scurrying in with things on account of
rain. It's a roofed, stone-floored porch, right outside the living-room,
and under it are the garages, so it's high and cool, with a grand view
of Mirror Lake down below, and of the city in the distance." She sighed,
and Dundee knew that she was thinking of her own lost home in
Brentwood--the fine old Colonial mansion which had been sacrificed to
her father's disastrous Primrose Meadows venture. Then she went on: "I
don't know why I am telling you all this, except that the setting was so
pleasant that we should have had a much better time than we did."

"You're an artful minx, Penny!" Dundee chuckled. "You're working up
suspense for the entrance of the villain!"

"Then let me do it justice," Penny retorted. "Lois and Peter, Ralph and
I, made up one table for bridge; Tracey and Polly, Judge Marshall and
Karen the other. Flora said she didn't want to play, because she wanted
to be free to keep an eye on Betty, although she protested she had
perfect faith in Lydia, who, Flora says, is proving to be a marvel with
the children. And Johnny Drake asked her to play anagrams with him, in
between trips to the nursery. Johnny has a perfect pash for anagrams,
and is a wow at 'em. So Tracey got the box of anagrams out of the trophy
room--"

"The trophy room?" Dundee repeated, amused.

"That's what Tracey calls it," Penny explained impatiently, "because he
has a couple of golf cups and Flora has an immense silver atrocity which
testifies to the fact that she was the 'lady's tennis champion' of the
state for one year. There are also some mounted fish and some deer heads
with incredible antlers, but the room is really used as a catch-all for
all the sports things--racquets, golf clubs, skis, ping-pong tabl