d managed at
least a fine surface control, their lips tight, their eyes hard,
narrowed and watchful. Sprague slumped into a vacated chair and closed
his eyes, revealing finely-wrinkled, yellowish lids.

"Where shall we begin?" Polly Beale demanded brusquely. "Remember this
table had finished playing when Karen began to deal what you call the
'death hand,'" she reminded him scornfully. "And Flora wasn't here at
all--she had been dummy for our last hand--"

"And had gone out to telephone," Dundee interrupted. "Mrs. Miles, will
you please leave the room, and return exactly when you did return--or as
nearly so as you can remember?"

Dundee was sure that Mrs. Miles' sallow face took on a greyish tinge as
she staggered to her feet and wound an uncertain way toward the hall.
Tracey Miles sprang to his wife's assistance, but Sergeant Turner took
it upon himself to lay a detaining hand on the too-anxious husband's
arm. With no more than the lifting of an eyebrow, Dundee made Captain
Strawn understand that Flora Miles' movements were to be kept under
strict observation, and the chief of the Homicide Squad as unobtrusively
conveyed the order to a plainclothesman loitering interestedly in the
wide doorway.

"Now," he was answering Polly Beale's question, "I should like the
remaining three of you to behave exactly as you did when your last hand
was finished. Did you keep individual score, as is customary in
contract?--or were you playing auction?"

"Contract," Polly Beale answered curtly. "And when we're playing among
ourselves like this, one at each table is usually elected to keep score.
Janet was score-keeper for us this afternoon, but we all waited, after
our last hand was played, for Janet to give us the result for our tally
cards."

Dundee drew near the table, picked up the three tally cards--ornamental
little affairs, and rather expensive--glanced over the points recorded,
then asked abruptly:

"Where is Mrs. Miles' tally? I don't see it here."

There was no answer to be had, so he let the matter drop, temporarily,
though his shorthand notebook received another deeply underlined series
of pothooks.

"Go on, please, at both tables," Dundee commanded. "Your table--" he
nodded toward Penny, who was already over her flare of temper, "will
please select the cards each held at the conclusion of Mrs. Marshall's
deal."

"Oooh, I'd never remember _all_ my cards in the world," Carolyn Drake
wailed. "I know I had five Club