awn growled.

"Then here's another straw to add to the weight of my conclusion,"
Dundee went on unshaken. "You remember that Janet Raymond was on the
front porch _watching for Sprague_, while the 'death hand of bridge' was
being played?... Oh, she tried to protect him.... Wait, I'll read you
the notes I made when I was questioning her. I looked them up while I
was waiting for you.... Here! I had said to Miss Raymond: 'You observed
Mr. Sprague toiling down the rutty road, hot and weary, but romantic in
the sunset?' And she answered, stammering: 'I--I wasn't looking that
way....' And I knew she was lying, knew that she had been taken
completely by surprise when Sprague suddenly appeared _from the rear of
the house_! What's more, she betrayed herself and him by admitting that
she was surprised. Then--because the girl is undoubtedly in love with
Sprague and was mortally afraid he had killed Nita Selim, she tried
frantically to throw suspicion on Lydia Carr, by telling how Lydia had
failed to answer Mrs. Dunlap's first ring--Good Lord! Wait a minute! I
want to think!" he interrupted himself to exclaim.

After a full minute, while he had stood very still, with his fingers
pressed against his closed eyes, Dundee began slowly:

"I believe that's it.... Listen, boys!" He turned to the two
plainclothesmen, urgent pleading in his voice. "Would you both take your
oath that there was no bag--say a small Gladstone overnight
bag--anywhere in these rooms when you searched them this evening?"

The two detectives glanced at each other, their faces reddening. It was
Harmon, the older of the pair, who swallowed hard before answering:

"We'd been told to look for a man hiding, and for a gun--" Then he
squared his shoulders as if to receive the blame like a man. "Yes, sir!
There was a little black grip on the closet shelf. I went through it
myself, but there wasn't no gun in it. Just a pair of pajamas and a
couple of shirts, one of 'em dirty, some socks and collars and a
shaving-kit--"

Dundee drew a deep breath, and clapped the red-faced detective on the
back in high good humor.

"There simply _had_ to be a bag somewhere!" he laughed.

"This is the way of it, Strawn.... Nita and Sprague rowed last night.
Sprague tried to make it up, but Nita must have been through with him.
Probably told him last night to clear his things out and not come back.
She thought he had done so; probably he did leave before she got up. At
any rate she was