is,
let us say, a confirmation of an appointment suggested by Nita.... Very
well! Flora goes to Nita's bedroom at the first opportunity, knowing
that Nita will come there to make up for the men's arrival. Let's
suppose Flora had brought the gun and silencer with her, intending to
frighten Nita, rather than kill her. But having had proof, as she
believes, that Nita means business, Flora waits in the closet until Nita
comes in and sits down at her dressing-table, then steps out and shoots
her. Then she recoils step by step, until her foot catches in the slack
cord of the bronze lamp, causing the very 'bang or bump' which Flora
herself describes later, for fear someone else has heard it. Her first
concern, of course, is to hide the gun and silencer. She remembers Judge
Marshall's tale of the secret shelf in the guest closet, and not only
hides the gun there but seeks in vain for the incriminating evidence
Nita has against her. But she also remembers the note she believes
Tracey has written to Nita, and which, if found after Nita's death, may
give her away. So she goes to the closet in Nita's bedroom, finds the
note, and faints with horror at her perhaps needless crime when she
realizes that the note was written by Sprague, and not Tracey. Of course
she is too ill and panic-stricken to leave the closet until the murder
is discovered----"

"But you think she was not too panic-stricken to have the presence of
mind to retrieve the gun and silencer and walk out with them, under the
very eyes of the police," Penny scoffed.

"_No! I think she was!_" Dundee amazed her by admitting. "And that is
where my sudden recollection of something I had considered unimportant
comes in! Let us suppose that Flora, half-suspected by Tracey, confesses
to him in their car as they are going to the Country Club for their
long-delayed dinner, as were the rest of you. Tracey, loyal to her,
decides to help her. He tells her to suggest, at dinner, that Lydia come
to them as nurse, so that he can go back to the house and get the gun
and silencer from the guest-closet hiding place, if an opportunity
presents itself--as it did, since I left Tracey Miles alone in the hall
while I went into Nita's bedroom to talk with Lydia before I permitted
her to go with Tracey."

"You're crazy!" Penny told him fiercely, when he had finished. "I
suppose you are going to ask me to believe that Tracey was a big enough
fool to leave the gun and silencer where Flora could