urse it was
a good stunt to make it look like a local crime--figured he'd fool _me_
just as he fooled _you_! So the murderer simply trailed Nita around, and
saw that whole bunch of society people shooting at a target at Judge
Marshall's place, with a gun equipped with a Maxim silencer. Too good an
opportunity to be missed, so he bides his chance to swipe the gun and
silencer. To make sure it will look like a local crime, he pops off Nita
when that same bunch is at her house, but it takes a few days longer
before he has the same opportunity to get Sprague. But it come last
night and he grabbed it."

"A very plausible theory, and one which, in general, the whole city of
Hamilton has been familiar with since the night Nita was murdered,"
Dundee remarked significantly.

"What do you mean?" Strawn demanded. "It's waterproof, ain't it? Doc
Price says the bullet--and a .32 caliber one at that--entered Sprague's
body just below the breastbone and traveled an upward course till it
struck the extreme right side of the heart. The bullet entered exactly
where it would have to, if the murderer was crouching under that window
while Sprague was raising the screen. And we have Carraway's report that
it was Sprague's fingerprints on those nickleplated things you have to
press together to make the screen roll up or down. Furthermore, I
haven't a doubt in the world that the ballistics expert in Chicago will
report that the bullet was fired from the same gun that killed Nita
Selim."

"Neither have I," Dundee agreed. "But what I meant was that you had
obligingly furnished the murderer who fits _my_ theory with a theory
he--or she--would not have upset for the world!... Listen!" and he bent
forward very earnestly: "I'm willing to grant that Sprague was shot from
the outside, through the window, when Sprague raised the screen. But
there our theories part company. I believe that the murderer was a guest
in the Selim home last night, that he or she had made an appointment to
meet Sprague there, on the promise of paying the hush money he had
demanded, in spite of my warning to him not to carry on with the
blackmail scheme. Naturally he or she--and I'll say 'he' from now on,
for the sake of convenience--had no intention of being seen entering
that room. The bridge game was suggested by Judge Marshall at noon.
There was plenty of time for the rendezvous to be made with Sprague. As
I see it, the murderer told Sprague to excuse himself from the g