"Everyone I've talked
to this morning, including Sprague, seems sure that Ralph Hammond was
mad about Nita Selim."
"So of course he would kill her!" Penny scoffed bitterly.
"Yes, Penny--when he discovered Sprague's easily-recognized cravats
draped over the mirror frame in a bedroom in Nita's house.... For they
were there to be seen when Ralph went into that bedroom yesterday
morning."
"How do you know he saw them?"
"Because he left this behind him," Dundee admitted reluctantly, and
wiped his hands before drawing an initialed silver pencil from his
breast pocket. "I found it under the edge of the bed. The initials are
R. H."
"Yes, I recognize it," Penny admitted, turning sharply away. "I gave it
to him myself, for a Christmas present. I thought I could afford to give
silver pencils away then. Dad hadn't bolted yet--" She crooked an elbow
and leaned her face against it for a moment. Then she flung up her brown
bobbed head defiantly. "Well?"
"Ralph must have been--well, in a pretty bad way, since he loved Nita
and wanted to--marry her," Dundee persisted painfully. "Remember that
Polly Beale found him still there when she stopped to offer Nita a lift
to Breakaway Inn. It is not hard to imagine what took place. We _know_
that Polly curtly cancelled her luncheon engagement with Nita and the
rest of you, and went into town with Ralph, after making sure that Clive
would join them.
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