Free of anger, his mind reverted to the story Lois Dunlap had told him. For in it, he was sure, was hidden the key to the mystery of Nita Selim's murder. Not at all interested in the proposition to organize a Little Theater in Hamilton, Nita had been seized with a strange excitement as soon as she was shown photographs of a large group of Hamilton's richest and most prominent inhabitants.... But there was the rub! A large group! Would that group of possible suspects never narrow down to one? Of course there was Judge Marshall, but if Lois Dunlap's memory was to be trusted Nita had not noticed the elderly Beau Brummel's picture until after that strange, hysterical excitement had taken possession of her. And if it had been Judge Marshall whom she had come to Hamilton to blackmail would Nita not have guarded her tongue before Lois? The same was true about her extraordinary interest in Flora Miles....
Dundee tried to put himself in Nita's place, confronted suddenly with a group picture containing the likeness of a person—man or woman—against whom she knew something so dreadful and so secret that her silence would be worth thousands of dollars. Would he have chattered of that very person? No! Of anyone else but that particular person! It was easy to picture Nita, her head whirling with possibilities, hitting upon the most conspicuous player in the group—dark, tense, theatrical Flora, already pointed out to her as one of the two female leads in the opera.... But of whom had she really been thinking?
Again a blank wall! For in that group photograph of the cast of "The Beggar's Opera" had appeared every man, woman and girl who had been Nita's guest on the day of her murder....
Dundee, paying more attention to his driving, now that he was in the business section of the city, saw ahead of him the second-rate hotel where Dexter Sprague had been living since Nita had wired him to join her in Hamilton. On a sudden impulse the detective parked his car in front of the hotel and five minutes later was knocking upon Sprague's door.
"Well, what do you want now?" the unshaven, pallid man demanded ungraciously.
Dundee stepped into the room and closed the door. "I want you to tell me the name of the man Nita Selim came here to blackmail, Sprague."
"Blackmail?" Sprague echoed, his pallid cheeks going more yellow. "You're crazy! Nita came here to take a job—"
"She came here to blackmail someone, and I am convinced that she sent for you to act as a partner in her scheme.... No, wait! I'm convinced, I tell you," Dundee assured him grimly. "But I'll make a trade with you, in behalf of the district attorney. Tell me the name of the person she blackmailed, and I will promise you immunity from prosecution as her accomplice."
"Get out of my room!" and Dexter Sprague's right forefinger trembled violently as it pointed toward the door in a melodramatic gesture.
"Very well, Sprague," Dundee said. "But let me give you a friendly warning. Don't try to carry on the good work. Nita got ten thousand dollars, but she also got a bullet through her heart. And the gun which fired that bullet is safely back in the hands of the killer.... You're not going to get that movie job, and I was just afraid you might be tempted!... Good afternoon!"