"That's right—that's right!" Judge Marshall agreed hastily. "Nita—Mrs. Selim—wanted the unfinished half of the gabled top story finished up. Wanted a maid's room and bath, and a guest room and bath added to the living quarters already completed. I gave the commission, for an estimate, at least, to the Hammond firm, since they had built the house originally for Crain—Penny's father."
"I see," Dundee agreed. "And you sent your brother, Mr. Hammond?"
"He was the natural one to send," Clive Hammond retorted. "Small job. All he had to do was to get together an estimate on additional furnace lines and radiators, electric wiring, plumbing, plastering, etc."
"Go on, Miss Beale," Dundee directed.
"Thanks!" There was sarcasm in her brusque voice. "But that's really about all I have to tell. Ralph complained that he was hungry and charged me with giving him too little of my time—the usual thing. I picked up Nita's phone, called Clive and made the date for the three of us. Then I called Breakaway Inn, cancelled the luncheon part of the bridge party with Nita, and Ralph and I drove back to Hamilton."
Dundee studied her strong, clever, almost plain face for a long minute. Certainly Polly Beale did not look like a liar—but he would have taken his oath that she was lying now. Or rather not revealing the whole truth behind the actual facts of her movements that day. For instance, could a simple plea of her future brother-in-law make her do so discourteous a thing as to break a luncheon appointment, especially when such a course would not only disappoint her hostess and her friends but disarrange the seating plan of a rather formal party?
Of course the explanation was obvious. She had wanted, first, to see Nita and remonstrate privately with her for having so enslaved Ralph Hammond, when he was tacitly known to "belong" to Penny Crain—one of the sacred crowd. Failing that, she had found Ralph himself, and had not expected to find him; had talked with him about Nita, and had quarreled a bit with him, perhaps, over his love-sodden behavior. And the crisis had become so acute that Polly had arbitrarily called upon Clive Hammond and then had forced Ralph to accompany her.
"Do you know, Miss Beale, why Ralph Hammond did not keep his engagement with Mrs. Selim this afternoon? Or rather, his promise to appear for cocktails and to be Miss Crain's partner for the rest of the evening—dinner and dancing at the Country Club?"
"I do not!" Polly said crisply.
"Hammond?"