nd you, sir, that opportunity alone is not sufficient;
that _motive_--"

"Since Mrs. Selim is dead, murdered by the weapon which was stolen, we
can assume, Judge Marshall, that someone had motive," Dundee reminded
him implacably, for in his mind there was no doubt that the ballistics
expert would bear him out.

There was a heavy, throbbing silence. The group that, with the exception
of Dexter Sprague, had been so united, so cemented with long-sustained
friendship, again dissolved visibly before Dundee's eyes into eleven
individuals, each shrinking into himself, mentally drawing away from any
possible contamination with a murderer....

"You have said, Judge Marshall," Dundee went on at last, "that Miss
Crain and Mr. Sprague were not at your home for target practice Sunday.
Has either of them been in your home during this past week?"

"Penny--Miss Crain--spent an evening with my wife when I was--er--away
from home on business. That was last Tuesday, I believe--"

"Yes, it was Tuesday, Hugo," Penny Crain interrupted firmly. "And Karen
can vouch for the fact that I did not go into the gun room."

"Don't be silly, Penny!" Carolyn Drake scolded, as if she had long been
bursting to speak. "Giving an alibi! As if _any_ of us who were playing
bridge while that woman was being shot _needs_ any alibi!... But I'll
tell you what _I_ think, Mr. Detective! I think Nita herself stole the
gun and the silencer, to kill Dexter Sprague with, and that _he_ stole
it from her and murdered _her_! Nobody else has the slightest scrap of a
motive, and that note he wrote her ought to be enough to hang him on!"

Dexter Sprague had struggled to his feet during the woman's hysterical
attack, his face like chalk, his eyes blazing. But Dundee waved him
aside peremptorily.

"One more question, Judge Marshall," he said suavely, as if he had not
heard a word that Carolyn Drake had said. "You knew Mrs. Selim before
her arrival in Hamilton with Mrs. Dunlap, I believe.... Just when and
where did you meet her?"

CHAPTER ELEVEN

"You are damned impertinent, sir!" Judge Marshall shouted, the ends of
his waxed grey mustache trembling with anger.

"Then I take it that you do not wish to divulge the circumstances of
your friendship with Mrs. Selim?" Dundee asked.

"Friendship!" the old man snorted. "Your implications, sir, are
dastardly! I met Mrs. Selim, or rather, Nita Leigh, as she was
introduced to me, only once, several years ago when I