running into the
room, there was Nita's powder box playing its tune over and over--"

"Oh!" Dundee wiped his forehead. "You mean it's a musical box?"

"Yes, and plays when the lid is off," Tracey answered, obviously
delighted to have the limelight again. "Well, of course, since Nita
couldn't put the lid back on, it was still playing.... What was the
tune, honey?" he asked his wife tenderly. "I haven't much ear for music
at best, but at a time like that--"

"It was playing _Juanita_," Flora answered wearily. "Over and
over--_'Nita, Jua-a-n-ita, be my own fair bride_'," she quavered
obligingly. "Only not the words, of course, just the tune. That's why
Nita bought the box, I suppose, because it played her namesake song--"

"Maybe one of her beaus gave it to her," Tracey suggested lightly,
patting his wife's trembling shoulder. "Anyway, Dundee, the thing ran on
and on, until it ran down, I suppose. I confess I wanted to put the lid
back on, to stop the damned thing, but Hugo said we mustn't touch
anything--"

"And quite right!" Dundee cut in. "Now, Mrs. Miles, about that noise you
heard.... Did you hear anyone enter the room?... No?... Well, then, did
you hear Nita speak to anyone? You said you thought it might be Lydia,
coming to get something out of the closet."

"I didn't hear Nita speak a word to anybody, though she might have and I
wouldn't have heard, all muffled up in that velvet evening wrap and so
far back in the closet--"

"Did you hear the door onto the porch--it's _quite_ near the closet--"

"The door was open when we came in, Dundee," Tracey interposed. "It must
have been open all the time."

"I didn't hear it open," Mrs. Miles confirmed him wearily. "I tell you I
didn't hear _anything_, except Nita's coming in singing, then the powder
box playing its tune, and that bang or bump I told you about."

"And just where was that?" Dundee persisted.

"_I don't know!_" she shrilled, hysteria rising in her voice again. "I
told you it sounded fairly near the closet, as if--as if somebody bumped
into something. That's what it was like! That's exactly what it was
like. And I was so frightened of being found in the closet that I
fainted, and didn't come to until Karen screamed--"

She was babbling on, but Dundee was thinking hard. A very convenient
faint--that! For the murderer, at least! But--why not for Mrs. Miles
herself? Odd that she should _faint_! Why hadn't she trumped up some
excuse immediately and lef