"Fine!" Dundee cried. "May I take these photographs?... You have copies,
I presume?"
It was half past two o'clock when Dundee, after a much needed lunch,
parked his car in the driveway of one of the most splendid houses
overlooking Mirror Lake--a home whose master and mistress were now
attending an inquest into two murders....
Half an hour later he climbed into his roadster again, his head
spinning. "Did I say _ingenious_?" he marvelled....
He drove directly to the Selim house, for he had much to do before the
arrival of Sanderson's compulsory guests at 5:15.
His first visit there was to a small room in the basement--a dark
cubbyhole next to the coal room. He had locked it carefully after
exploring it the day before, for he had taken no chance on leaving
unguarded--as he had found it--treasure worth more to him than its
weight in gold.
And queer treasure it was that he extracted now--a coiled length of
electric wire, which he and Ralph Hammond had measured the day before,
with triumphant excitement; a box of thumb tacks, many of them
surprisingly bent at the point; an augur with a set of bits of varying
sizes, a step-ladder, and a hammer. If Dexter Sprague had not
overestimated the amount of electric wire needed for the job of
installing an alarm bell between Nita's bedroom and Lydia's.
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