s--Ace, King, Queen--"

"You had the Jack, not the Queen, for I held it myself," Penny
contradicted her crisply.

"Until this matter of who held which cards after Mrs. Marshall's deal is
settled, I shall have to ask you all to remain as you are now," Dundee
said to the players seated at the other table.

At last it was threshed out, largely between Penny Crain and Karen
Marshall, the latter proving to have a better memory than Dundee had
expected. At last even Carolyn Drake's querulous fussiness was
satisfied, or trampled down.

Both Judge Marshall and John Drake started forward to inspect the cards,
which none of the players was trying to conceal, but Dundee waved them
back.

"Please--I want you men--all of you, to take your places outside, and
return to this room in the order of your arrival this afternoon. Try to
imagine that it is now--if I can trust Mr. Miles' apparently excellent
memory--exactly 5:25--"

"Pretty hard to do, considering it's now a quarter past seven and
there's still no dinner in sight," Tracey Miles grumbled, then
brightened: "I can come right back in then--at 5:27, can't I?"

That point settled, and the men sent away, to be watched by several
pairs of apparently indolent police eyes, Dundee turned to the bridge
table, Nita's leaving of which had provided her murderer with his
opportunity.

"The cards are 'dealt'," Penny reminded him.

"Now I want you other three to scatter exactly as you did before,"
Dundee commanded, hurry and excitement in his voice.

Lois Dunlap rose, laid down her tally card, and strolled over to the
remaining table. After a moment's hesitation, Polly Beale strode
mannishly out of the room, straight into the hall. Dundee, watching as
the bridge players earlier that afternoon certainly had not, was amazed
to see Clive Hammond beckoning to her from the open door of the
solarium.

So Clive Hammond had arrived ahead of Tracey Miles! Had somehow entered
the solarium unnoticed, and had managed to beckon his fiancee to join
him there! Prearranged?... And why had Clive Hammond failed to enter and
greet his hostess first? Moreover, _how_ had he entered the solarium?

But things were happening in the living room. Janet Raymond, flushing so
that her sunburned face outdid her red hair for vividness, was slowly
leaving the room also. Through a window opening upon the wide front
porch Dundee saw the girl take her position against a pillar, then--a
thing she had not done bef