e possible effect of her cattiness on Dundee, she
defended herself volubly: "Of course I _liked_ Nita, but she _did_ think
so terribly much about her effect on men--and all that, and was always
fixing her make-up, and besides--you _can't_ suspect me, because I was
playing against Karen and Nita--"

"Thank you, Mrs. Drake," Dundee cut in. "Does anyone know the exact time
Mrs. Selim left the room, when she became dummy?"

"I can tell you, because I had just arrived--the first of the men to get
here," Tracey Miles volunteered, obviously glad of the chance to talk--a
characteristic of the man, Dundee decided. "I looked at my watch just
after I stepped out of my car, because I like to be on time to the dot,
and Nita--Mrs. Selim--had said 5:30.... Well, it was exactly 5:25, so I
had five minutes to spare."

"Yes?" Dundee speeded him up impatiently.

"Well, I came right into the hall, and hung my hat in the closet out
there, and then came in here. It must have been about 5:27 by that
time," he explained, with the meticulousness of a man on the witness
stand. "I shouted, 'Hello, everybody! How's tricks?...' That's a joke,
you know. 'How's tricks?'--meaning tricks in bridge--"

"Yes, yes," Dundee admitted, frowning, but the rest of the company
exchanged indulgent smiles, and Flora Miles patted her husband's hand
fondly.

"Well, Nita jumped up from the bridge table--that one right there,"
Miles pointed to the table nearer the arched doorway, "and she said,
'Good heavens! Is it half past five already? I've got to run and make
myself 'pretty-pretty' for just such great big men as you, Tracey--"

"'Tracey, darling'!" Judge Marshall corrected, with a chuckle that
sounded odd in the tensely silent room.

Tracey Miles flushed a salmon pink, and his wife's fingers clutched at
his hand warningly. "Oh, Nita called everybody 'darling,' and didn't
mean anything by it, I guess," he explained uneasily. "Just one of her
cute little ways--. Well, anyway, she came up to me and straightened
my necktie--another one of her funny little ways--and said, 'Tracey,
my _own_ lamb, won't you shake up the cocktails for poor little
Nita?...' You know, a sort of way she had of coaxing people--"

"Yes, I know," Dundee agreed, with a trace of a grin. "Go on as rapidly
as you can, please."

"I thought you wanted to know everything!" Miles was a little peevish;
he had evidently been enjoying himself. "Of course I said I'd make the
cocktails--she said