"Let me see it!" Lydia plunged forward on her knees and snatched at the papers he held. "For God's sake, let me see!"
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
"I'll read you the note, Lydia, but I can't let you touch it," Dundee said sternly, taking good care that she should not touch either the paper on which the note to herself had been written or the sheet which contained that strange, informal will. Informal, in spite of the dead woman's obvious effort to couch it in legal phraseology....
Was Lydia's frenzy assumed? Did she hope to leave fingerprints now which would account for fingerprints she had already left upon it? Was it not possible that Lydia's had been the prying fingers which had opened the envelope after Nita Selim had sealed it with God only knew what fears in her heart? If so, Lydia Carr had found that she was her mistress' sole legatee.... Revenge, coupled with greed.... What better motive for murder could a detective ask? And who had had so good an opportunity as Lydia Carr to dispose of the weapon?
The woman crouched back on her haunches, an agony of pleading in her single eye.
"Lydia, I think you know already what this note tells you," Dundee said slowly.
To his astonishment the maid nodded, the tears starting again. "I asked her once what she wanted to keep that old dress for, and she—she said I'd find out some day, but I never dreamed she'd want it for a—oh, my God!—for a shroud!"
For the second time that evening Lydia Carr completely routed Dundee's carefully worked-up case against her. It was inconceivable, he told himself, that a mind cunning enough to have executed this murder would give itself away in such a fashion. If she had indeed pried among her mistress' papers and found the will and note, would she not, from the most primitive instinct of self-preservation, have pretended total ignorance of the note's contents?
"I'll read the note, Lydia," he said gently. "It is addressed: 'My precious old Lydia'—"