coaxed Judge Marshall to have the unfinished half of the
gabled attic turned into bedrooms and baths? Why couldn't Lydia have
slept up here, if Nita thought so much of her "faithful and beloved
maid"?

But even as he asked himself the question Dundee realized that the
answer to it had been struggling to attract his attention.

_These rooms had not been wasted!_ Someone had been occupying them as
late as last night! Weaving swiftly through the three rooms, like a
bloodhound on the scent, Dundee collected the few but sufficient proofs
to back up his intuitive conviction. A copy of _The Hamilton Evening
Sun_, dated Friday, May 23, left in an armchair in the sitting-room. All
windows raised about six inches from the bottom, so that the night
breeze stirred the hand-blocked linen drapes. And, clinging to these
drapes, the faint but unmistakable odor of cigarette smoke. Finally,
with a low cry of triumph, Bonnie Dundee flung back the colored linen
spread which covered the three-quarter bed and discovered that the
sheets and pillow cases, though clean, had, beyond the shadow of a
doubt, been slept upon.

Bending so that his nose almost touched a pillow case he sniffed.
_Pomade!..._ Who was the man who had slept in this bed last night?

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

With the thrill of his discovery singing blithely along his nerves,
Bonnie Dundee, Special Investigator for the District Attorney, had at
first hugged the intention of following the new trail alone. Hadn't
Captain Strawn taunted him not too good-naturedly about his ability to
get along without the younger man's help?

But he was glad, both selfishly and unselfishly, when, half an hour
later, he threw open the front door of dead Nita's house to the chief of
the Homicide Squad, Carraway, the fingerprint expert, and the two
plainclothesmen who had searched the top floor for the missing weapon or
the murderer himself soon after the murder had been committed. For if
Strawn needed his help, Dundee needed the expert machinery which Strawn
captained. And it was good to feel the grip of gratitude in the old
chief's handclasp and to see the almost shy twinkle of apology in his
hard old grey eyes....

Dundee led the way up the front stairs to the upper floor, glad to hear
the heavy tread of official feet behind him.

"I guess you've got it all doped out who the Selim woman's gentleman
friend was," Strawn commented genially, as he followed Dundee into the
pleasant, big be