"Yes, sir," she quavered, while her husband's arm encircled her shoulders in courtly fashion. "As Tracey told you, Nita was dummy, and I was declarer—that is, I got the bid, and played the hand. It—it was quite an exciting end for me to the afternoon of bridge, for I'm not usually awfully lucky, so when Penny had figured up the score, because I'm not good at arithmetic, and I knew Nita and I had rolled up an awfully big score, I jumped up and ran into her room to tell her the good news, because she hadn't come back. And—and—there she was—all bowed over her dressing-table, and she—she was—was—"
"She was dead when you reached her?" Dundee assisted her.
"Yes," Karen Marshall answered faintly, and turned to hide her face against her elderly husband's breast.
Dundee's swift eyes took in the varying degrees of whiteness and sick horror that claimed every face in the room as surely as if all present had not already heard Karen tell her story to Captain Strawn. Tracey Miles looked as if he would have no immediate craving for his dinner, and Judge Marshall's fine, thin face no longer looked so "well-preserved" as he prided himself that it did. As for Dexter Sprague, he almost folded up against the coral brocade draperies. It was the women, oddly enough, who kept the better control over their emotions.
"Of course you all rushed in when Mrs. Marshall screamed?" he asked casually.
Twelve heads nodded mutely.
"Did any or all of you touch the body, or things in the room?"
"Mr. Sprague touched her hair, and—and lifted one of her hands," Penny contributed quietly. "But you know how it must have been! We can't any of us tell exactly every move we made, but there was some rushing about. The men, mostly, looking for—for whoever did it—"
"Mrs. Marshall, did you see anyone—anyone at all—in or near that room when you entered it?"
The white-faced young wife lifted her head, and looked at him dazedly with drowned blue eyes. "There wasn't anyone in—in that room, I know," she faltered. "It felt horrible—being in there with—with her—all alone—"