That the big lamp, when he, following Strawn, had first examined the
scene of Nita's murder, had not stood in front of the window frame, did
not dampen Dundee's excitement in the least. After Karen Marshall's
scream that room had been filled with excited people, who had rushed
about, looking out of the window for the murderer and doing all the
other things which terror-stricken people do in such a crisis. No, the
murderer--or murderess--had found no difficulty in shifting the big lamp
one foot nearer the chaise longue, to the place it had always occupied
before.
But--_how_ had the gun been fired from the lamp? Electrically? Another
picture flashed into Dundee's mind. He saw himself stooping, on Monday
afternoon, to see if the plug of the lamp's cord had been pulled from
the socket, saw it again as it was then--nearly out, so that no current
could pass from the baseboard outlet under the bookcase into the bronze
lamp. How far from the truth his conclusion that Monday had been!
But what was the _real_ truth?
Suddenly Dundee flung back the moss-green Wilton rug which almost
entirely covered the bedroom floor and revealed the bell which Dexter
Sprague had rigged up so that Nita might summon Lydia from her basement
room, in case of dire need--a precaution with which the murderer was
probably familiar, since Lois Dunlap might innocently have spread the
news of its existence.
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