Well, it was exactly 5:25, so I had five minutes to spare."

"Yes?" Dundee speeded him up impatiently.

"Well, I came right into the hall, and hung my hat in the closet out there, and then came in here. It must have been about 5:27 by that time," he explained, with the meticulousness of a man on the witness stand. "I shouted, 'Hello, everybody! How's tricks?...' That's a joke, you know. 'How's tricks?'—meaning tricks in bridge—"

"Yes, yes," Dundee admitted, frowning, but the rest of the company exchanged indulgent smiles, and Flora Miles patted her husband's hand fondly.

"Well, Nita jumped up from the bridge table—that one right there," Miles pointed to the table nearer the arched doorway, "and she said, 'Good heavens! Is it half past five already? I've got to run and make myself 'pretty-pretty' for just such great big men as you, Tracey—"

"'Tracey, darling'!" Judge Marshall corrected, with a chuckle that sounded odd in the tensely silent room.

Tracey Miles flushed a salmon pink, and his wife's fingers clutched at his hand warningly. "Oh, Nita called everybody 'darling,' and didn't mean anything by it, I guess," he explained uneasily. "Just one of her cute little ways—. Well, anyway, she came up to me and straightened my necktie—another one of her funny little ways—and said, 'Tracey, my own lamb, won't you shake up the cocktails for poor little Nita?...' You know, a sort of way she had of coaxing people—"

"Yes, I know," Dundee agreed, with a trace of a grin. "Go on as rapidly as you can, please."

"I thought you wanted to know everything!" Miles was a little peevish; he had evidently been enjoying himself. "Of course I said I'd make the cocktails—she said everything was ready on the sideboard. That's the dining room right behind this room," he explained unnecessarily, since the French doors were open. "Well, Nita blew me a kiss from her fingertips, and ran out of the room.... Now, let's see," he ruminated, creasing his sunburned forehead beneath his carefully combed blond hair, "that must have been at exactly 5:30 that she left the room. I went on into the dining room, and Lois—I mean, Mrs. Dunlap came with me, because she said she was simply dying for a caviar sandwich and a nip of—of—"

"Of Scotch, Tracey," Lois Dunlap cut in, grinning. "I'm sure Mr. Dundee won't think I'm a confirmed tippler, so you might as well tell the 

 Prev. P 20/214 next