e fatuously grinning but now quite pale
Tracey Miles. She was out of sight for only an instant, then reappeared
and very quietly retraced her steps to the bridge table.

Unobtrusively, Dundee drew his watch from his pocket, palmed it as he
noted the exact minute, then commanded curtly: "On with the game!"

As Tracey Miles passed the first bridge table Lois Dunlap linked her arm
in his, saying in a voice she tried to make gay and natural:

"I'm trailing along, Tracey. Simply dying for a nip of Scotch! Nita's is
the real stuff--which is more than my fussy old Pete can get half the
time!--and you know I loathe cocktails."

The two passed on into the dining room, the players scarcely raising
their eyes from their cards, which they held as if the game were real.

Dundee, his watch still in his hand, advanced to the bridge table.
Strolling from player to player he made mental photographs of each hand,
then took his stand behind Penny's chair to observe the horribly
farcical playing of it. Poor little Penny! he reflected. She hadn't had
a chance against that dumb-bell across the table from her. Fancy
anyone's doubling a little slam bid on a hand like Carolyn Drake's--or
even calling an informatory double in the first place! Why hadn't she
bid four Clubs after Karen's original three Spade bid, if she simply
wanted to give her partner information?... Not that she really had a
bid--

Karen's hand trembled as she drew the lone nine of Clubs from the dummy,
to place beside Carolyn's Ace, but Penny's fingers were quite steady as
she followed with the deuce of Clubs, to which Karen added, with a trace
of characteristic uncertainty, the eight.

"There's our book!" Carolyn Drake exulted obediently, but she cast an
apologetic glance toward Penny. "If we take one more trick we set them."

"Fat chance!" Penny obligingly responded, and Dundee, relieved, knew
that the farcical game would now be played almost exactly, and with the
same comments, as it had been played while Nita Selim was being
murdered. Thanks to Penny Crain!

With a shamefaced glance upward at Dundee, Carolyn Drake then led the
deuce of Diamonds, committing the gross tactical error of leading from
the Queen. Karen added the Jack from the dummy, and Penny shruggingly
contributed her King, to find the trick, as she had suspected in the
original game, trumped by the five of Spades, since Karen had no
Diamonds.

"So _that_ settles _us_, Carolyn!" Penny commented acid