"Let me think--I know what _I_ did. I went
over to watch the game at the other table, and stayed there till
Tracey--Mr. Miles--came in for cocktails. I can't tell you exactly what
the other three did."
There was a strained silence. Dundee saw Polly Scale's hand tighten
convulsively on Clive Hammond's, saw Janet Raymond flush scarlet,
watched a muscle jerk in Flora Miles' otherwise rigid face.
Suddenly he sprang to his feet. "I am going to make what will seem an
absurd request," he said tensely. "I am going to ask you all--the women,
I mean--to take your places at the bridge tables. And then--" he paused
for an instant, his blue eyes hard: "I want to see the death hand played
exactly as it was played while Nita Selim was being murdered!"
CHAPTER FIVE
"Shame on you, Bonnie Dundee!" cried Penny Crain, her small fists
clenched belligerently. "'Death hand', indeed! You talk like a New York
tabloid! And if you don't realize that all of us have stood pretty
nearly as much as we can without having to play the hand at bridge--the
_very_ hand we played while Nita Selim was being murdered!--then you
haven't the decency and human feelings I've credited you with!"
A murmur of indignant approval accompanied her tirade and buzzed on for
a moment after she had finished, but it ceased abruptly as Dundee spoke:
"Who's conducting this investigation, Penny Crain--you or I? You will
kindly let me do it in my own fashion, and try to be content when I tell
you that, in my humble opinion, what I propose is absolutely necessary
to the solution of this case!"
Bickering--Dundee grinned to himself--exactly as if they had known each
other always, had quarreled and made up with fierce intensity for years.
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