But Dundee halted the reconciliation with a stern word of command. "Please join the group in the corner, Mr. Crain!"
Regardless of the ensuing hubbub Dundee strode into the dining room, where Tracey Miles stood at the sideboard, pouring whiskey from an almost empty decanter into a small glass.
"May I drink the Scotch Tracey has poured for me, Mr. Dundee?" Mrs. Dunlap asked shakily, leaning against the big round table.
"Yes, but—Silence, please!" he cried, as there came the first faint, tinkling notes of Juanita, from Nita's musical powder box, penetrating the thin wall between the bedroom and dining room.
"As I have said," the detective spoke loudly and clearly above the tinkle of music, "everything is now exactly as it was when Nita Selim was murdered! Permit me to show you all how that murder was accomplished!"
A chair at the bridge table was overturned. Lois Dunlap almost choked on her drink of Scotch. Women screamed. In a few seconds every person in the living room, including the district attorney and Strawn, was huddled in the wide opening into the dining room, their eyes fixed in horror upon Bonnie Dundee.
He spoke again, his voice very clear, but slow and weighted with a dreadful significance:
"Mrs. Dunlap, step on the bell beneath the dining table!"
Lois Dunlap dropped the empty whiskey glass, her face suddenly wiped of all expression.
"Step on that bell, Mrs. Dunlap—just as you did before!"