"Nita, I don't think it's quite Hoyle to be so jubilant about the
strength of your hand," she commented tartly. "I pass."
Karen Marshall pretended to study her hand for a frowning instant, then,
under Penny's spell, announced with a pretty air of bravado:
"Six spades!... Your raise to five makes a little slam obligatory,
doesn't it, Nita?"
Carolyn Drake flushed and looked uneasily toward Penny, a bit of by-play
which Dundee could see had not figured in the original game. But she
bridled and shifted her plump body in her chair, as she must have done
before.
"I double a little slam!" she declared. Then, still acting the role she
had played in earnest that afternoon, she explained importantly: "I
always double a little slam on principle!"
Penny, in the role of Nita, redoubled with an exultant laugh, then, as
herself, said, "Pass!" with a murderous glance at Mrs. Drake.
"Let's see your hand, partner," Karen quavered, addressing a woman who
had been dead nearly two hours; then she shuddered: "Oh, this is too
horrible!" as Penny Crain again slipped into Nita Selim's chair and
prepared to lay down the dummy hand.
And it _was_ horrible--even if vitally necessary--for these three to
have to go through the farce of playing a bridge hand while one of the
original players was lying on a marble slab at the morgue, her cold
flesh insensible to the coroner's expert knife.
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