"Please join the group in the corner, Mr. Crain!"
Regardless of the ensuing hubbub Dundee strode into the dining room,
where Tracey Miles stood at the sideboard, pouring whiskey from an
almost empty decanter into a small glass.
"May I drink the Scotch Tracey has poured for me, Mr. Dundee?" Mrs.
Dunlap asked shakily, leaning against the big round table.
"Yes, but--Silence, please!" he cried, as there came the first faint,
tinkling notes of _Juanita_, from Nita's musical powder box, penetrating
the thin wall between the bedroom and dining room.
"As I have said," the detective spoke loudly and clearly above the
tinkle of music, "_everything is now exactly as it was when Nita Selim
was murdered_! Permit me to show you all how that murder was
accomplished!"
A chair at the bridge table was overturned. Lois Dunlap almost choked on
her drink of Scotch. Women screamed. In a few seconds every person in
the living room, including the district attorney and Strawn, was huddled
in the wide opening into the dining room, their eyes fixed in horror
upon Bonnie Dundee.
He spoke again, his voice very clear, but slow and weighted with a
dreadful significance:
_"Mrs. Dunlap, step on the bell beneath the dining table!"_
Lois Dunlap dropped the empty whiskey glass, her face suddenly wiped of
all expression.
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