So Clive Hammond had arrived ahead of Tracey Miles! Had somehow entered the solarium unnoticed, and had managed to beckon his fiancée to join him there! Prearranged?... And why had Clive Hammond failed to enter and greet his hostess first? Moreover, how had he entered the solarium?

But things were happening in the living room. Janet Raymond, flushing so that her sunburned face outdid her red hair for vividness, was slowly leaving the room also. Through a window opening upon the wide front porch Dundee saw the girl take her position against a pillar, then—a thing she had not done before very probably—press her handkerchief to her trembling lips.

But the bidding was going on, Karen Marshall piping in her childish treble: "Three spades!"

Dundee took his place behind her chair, then silently beckoned to Penny to shift from her own chair opposite Carolyn Drake to the chair Nita Selim had left to go to her death. She nodded understandingly.

"Double!" quavered Carolyn Drake, next on the left to the dealer, and managed to raise her eyebrows meaningly to Penny, her partner, who had not yet changed places.

Penny, throwing herself into the spirit of the thing, scowled warningly. No exchanging of illicit signals for Penny Crain! But the instant she slipped into Nita Selim's chair her whole face and body took on a different manner, underwent almost a physical change. She was Nita Selim now! She tucked her head, considered her cards, laughed a little breathless note, then cried triumphantly:

"And I say—five spades! What do you think of that, partner?"

Then the girl who was giving an amazing imitation of Nita Selim changed as suddenly into her own character as she changed chairs.

"Nita, I don't think it's quite Hoyle to be so jubilant about the strength of your hand," she commented tartly. "I pass."

Karen Marshall pretended to study her hand for a frowning instant, then, under Penny's spell, announced with a pretty air of bravado:

"Six spades!... Your raise to five makes a little slam obligatory, doesn't it, Nita?"

Carolyn Drake flushed and looked uneasily toward Penny, a bit of by-play which Dundee could see had not figured in the original game. But she bridled and shifted her plump body in her chair, as she must have done before.

 Prev. P 33/214 next