take ipecac and then
sent for the doctor."

"Oh, poor Janet!" Penny groaned. "She must have been terribly in love
with Dexter Sprague, though what she saw in him----"

Dundee made no comment, but continued with his information: "Another
minor development was that Tracey Miles admitted that he and Flora had
quarreled over Sprague after all of you left, and that Flora took two
sleeping tablets to make sure of a night's rest."

"She's been awfully unstrung ever since Nita's murder," Penny defended
her friend. "She told us all Monday night at Peter's that the doctor had
prescribed sleeping medicine.... Now, you look here, Bonnie Dundee!" she
cried out sharply, answering an enigmatic smile on the detective's face,
"if you think Flora Miles killed Nita Selim and Dexter Sprague, because
she was in love with Dexter and learned he was Nita's lover from that
silly note----"

"Whoa, Penny!" Dundee checked her. "I'm not linking exactly that. But
I've just remembered something that had seemed of no importance to me
before."

"And what's that, Mr. Smart Aleck?" Penny demanded furiously.

"Before I answer that question, will you let me do a little theorizing?"
Dundee suggested gently. "Let us suppose that Flora Miles was _not_ in
love with Sprague, but that she was being blackmailed by Nita for some
scandal Nita had heard gossiped about at the Forsyte School.... No,
wait!... Let us suppose further that Nita recognized Flora's picture in
the group Lois Dunlap showed her, as the portrait of the girl whose
story she had heard; that she was able, somehow, to secure incriminating
evidence of some sort--letters, let us say. Nita tells Sprague about it,
and Sprague advises her to blackmail Flora, who, Lois has told Nita, is
very rich. So Nita comes to Hamilton and bleeds Flora of $10,000. Not
satisfied, Nita makes another demand, the money to be paid to her the
day of the bridge luncheon----"

"Silly!" Penny scoffed furiously. "The only evidence you have against
poor Flora is that she stole the note Dexter had written to Nita!"

"That's the crux of the matter, Penny darling!" Dundee assured her in a
maddeningly soothing voice, at which Penny clinched her hands in
impotent rage. "Flora, seeing Nita receive a letter written on her
husband's business stationery, jumps to the conclusion that Nita had
carried out her threat to tell Tracey, or that Nita has at least given
Tracey a hint of the truth and that Tracey's special-messenger note