n stairs with Lydia, to the servants' sitting room in the
basement. Now he continued along the main driveway to the more
impressive entrance, whose flanking, slim turrets frowned down upon a
line of police cars and motorcycles.

His approach must have been expected and observed, for it was the master
of the house who opened the great, iron-studded doors and invited the
detective into the broad main hall, at the end of which, down three
steps, lay the immense living room. The detective's first glance took in
stately armchairs of the Cromwell period, thick, mellow-toned rugs, and,
in the living room beyond, splendid examples of Jacobean furniture.

"A horrible thing to happen in a man's home, Dundee," Miles was saying,
his plump, rosy face blighted with horror. "I can't realize yet that we
actually slept as usual with a corpse lying down here all night! And I
have only myself to blame--"

"What do you mean?" Dundee asked.

"Why, that the--the body wasn't discovered sooner," Miles explained. "If
it had occurred to me that Whitson hadn't closed the trophy room
windows, I should have gone in to close and lock them when I made the
rounds of living room, dining room and library, after our guests were
gone last night."

A pale-faced, bald-headed butler had materialized while his master was
speaking. "Beg pardon, sir, but I did not close the trophy room windows
because I thought you might be using the room again.... You see, sir,"
and Whitson turned to Dundee, "Mr. Miles and Mr. Dunlap played ping-pong
in the trophy room after dinner until the other guests began to arrive,
and I did not want them to find the room stuffy--it was a warm night--if
any of the guests--"

"I see," Dundee interrupted. "Who, to your knowledge, was the last
person to enter the trophy room last night, Mr. Miles?"

"I was, except Sprague, of course, and I had no idea he'd gone there.
Drake wanted to play anagrams, and before the bridge game started, I
went to the trophy room to get the box," Miles explained. "I turned off
the light when I left, and there was no light burning in there this
morning when Celia, the parlor maid, went there to put the anagram box
back in the cabinet, and found the body.... Flora--Mrs. Miles--had
brought the anagrams in from the porch and left them on a table in the
living room, as our guests were getting ready to leave. There was
nothing else to bring in, in case of rain. The bridge tables are of
iron, covered with oilc