The concluding
sentence of the wire was:
"SUGGEST YOU PACIFY PRESS WITH ONLY VAGUEST OF HINTS."
Sanderson's wire, with its confession of an interview on Dundee's trip
to New York, had upset him and left him with a cold, sick feeling of
fear that, stumbling half in darkness, the district attorney had
unwittingly warned the murderer of Nita Selim and Dexter Sprague that
his special investigator was on the right track. But he consoled himself
with the hope that the final sentence of his answering telegram would
prevent any further damage.
But he was wrong. An hour before he reached his destination on Sunday
morning he went into the dining car and found a copy of _The Hamilton
Morning News_ beside his plate. And on the front page was a photograph
of dead Nita, her black hair in a French roll, her slim, recumbent body
clad in the royal blue velvet dress. Beneath the picture was the
caption:
"What part does the outmoded royal blue velvet dress which Nita Selim
chose as a shroud play in the solution of her murder?... That is the
question which Special Investigator Dundee, attached to the district
attorney's office, who is due home this morning from fruitful detective
work in New York, is undoubtedly prepared to answer."
Dundee was still seething with futile rage when he climbed the stairs to
his apartment.
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