knocking of the big lamp against the wall. Undoubtedly the one who had
bumped into the lamp was Nita's murderer--or murderess--in frantic haste
to make an escape.

_And that meant that the murderer had fled toward the back hall, not
through the window in front of which he had stood, not through the door
leading onto the front porch...._ A little progress, at least!

But Lydia was not through proving that she had forgiven her mistress.
She was snatching things from Nita's clothes closet--

"See these mules with ostrich feathers?--I give 'em to my girl!... And
this bed jacket? I embroidered the flowers on it with my own hands--"

Through her flood of proof Dundee heard the whir of a car's engine, then
the loud banging of a car's door.... Running footsteps on the flagstone
path.... Dundee reached the front door just as the bell pealed shrilly.

"Hello, Dundee! Awfully glad I caught you before you left.... Is poor
Lydia still here?"

"Come in, Mr. Miles," Dundee invited, searching with a puzzled frown the
round, blond face of Tracey Miles. "Yes, Lydia is still here.... Why?"

"Then I'm in luck, and I think Lydia is, too--poor old girl!... You see,
Dundee," Miles began to explain, as he took off his new straw hat to mop
his perspiring forehead, "the crowd all ganged up when our various cars
reached Sheridan Road, and by unanimous vote we elected to drive over to
the Country Club for a meal in one of the small private dining rooms--to
escape the questions of the morbidly curious, you know--"

"Yes.... What about it?" Dundee interrupted impatiently.

"Well, I admit we were all pretty hungry, in spite of--well, of course
we were all fond of Nita, but--"

"What about Lydia?" Dundee cut him short.

"I'm getting to it, old boy," Miles protested, with the injured air of
an unappreciated small boy. "While we were waiting for our food,
somebody said, 'Poor Lydia! What's going to become of _her_?' And
somebody else said that it was harder on her--Nita's death, I mean--than
on anybody else, because Nita was all she had in the world, and then
Lois--Lois is always practical, you know--ran to telephone Police
Headquarters, to see what had been done with Lydia, and to see if it
would be all right for Flora and me to take her home with us--"

"Just a minute, Miles! Whom did Mrs. Dunlap talk to at Headquarters?"

"Why, Captain Strawn, of course," Miles answered. "He told Lois that you
were still out here, questioning Lydia again