"Before I answer that question, will you let me do a little theorizing?" Dundee suggested gently. "Let us suppose that Flora Miles was not in love with Sprague, but that she was being blackmailed by Nita for some scandal Nita had heard gossiped about at the Forsyte School.... No, wait!... Let us suppose further that Nita recognized Flora's picture in the group Lois Dunlap showed her, as the portrait of the girl whose story she had heard; that she was able, somehow, to secure incriminating evidence of some sort—letters, let us say. Nita tells Sprague about it, and Sprague advises her to blackmail Flora, who, Lois has told Nita, is very rich. So Nita comes to Hamilton and bleeds Flora of $10,000. Not satisfied, Nita makes another demand, the money to be paid to her the day of the bridge luncheon——"
"Silly!" Penny scoffed furiously. "The only evidence you have against poor Flora is that she stole the note Dexter had written to Nita!"
"That's the crux of the matter, Penny darling!" Dundee assured her in a maddeningly soothing voice, at which Penny clinched her hands in impotent rage. "Flora, seeing Nita receive a letter written on her husband's business stationery, jumps to the conclusion that Nita had carried out her threat to tell Tracey, or that Nita has at least given Tracey a hint of the truth and that Tracey's special-messenger note is, let us say, a confirmation of an appointment suggested by Nita.... Very well! Flora goes to Nita's bedroom at the first opportunity, knowing that Nita will come there to make up for the men's arrival. Let's suppose Flora had brought the gun and silencer with her, intending to frighten Nita, rather than kill her. But having had proof, as she believes, that Nita means business, Flora waits in the closet until Nita comes in and sits down at her dressing-table, then steps out and shoots her. Then she recoils step by step, until her foot catches in the slack cord of the bronze lamp, causing the very 'bang or bump' which Flora herself describes later, for fear someone else has heard it. Her first concern, of course, is to hide the gun and silencer. She remembers Judge Marshall's tale of the secret shelf in the guest closet, and not only hides the gun there but seeks in vain for the incriminating evidence Nita has against her. But she also remembers the note she believes Tracey has written to Nita, and which, if found after Nita's death, may give her away. So she goes to the closet in Nita's bedroom, finds the note, and faints with horror at her perhaps needless crime when she realizes that the note was written by Sprague, and not Tracey. Of course she is too ill and panic-stricken to leave the closet until the murder is discovered——"
"But you think she was not too panic-stricken to have the presence of mind to retrieve the gun and silencer and walk out with them, under the very eyes of the police," Penny scoffed.
"No! I think she was!" Dundee amazed her by admitting. "And that is where my sudden recollection of something I had considered unimportant comes in! Let us suppose that Flora, half-suspected by Tracey, confesses to him in their car as they are going to the Country Club for their long-delayed dinner, as were the rest of you. Tracey, loyal to her, decides to help her. He tells her to suggest, at dinner, that Lydia come to them as nurse, so that he can go back to the house and get the gun and silencer from the guest-closet hiding place, if an opportunity presents itself—as it did, since I left Tracey Miles alone in the hall while I went into Nita's bedroom to talk with Lydia before I permitted her to go with Tracey."
"You're crazy!" Penny told him fiercely, when he had finished. "I suppose you are going to ask me to believe that Tracey was a big enough fool to leave the gun and silencer where Flora could get hold of it and kill Sprague last night."
"Why not let us suppose that Tracey himself killed Sprague to protect his wife, not only from scandal, but from a charge of murder?" Dundee countered. "Tell me honestly: do you think Tracey Miles loves Flora enough to do that for her?"
Suddenly, inexplicably, Penny began to laugh—not hysterically, but with genuine mirth.