"Oh, Janet! Shame on you!" Penny cried furiously.
"Where is the maid now, Captain Strawn?" Dundee asked. "I haven't seen her yet—"
"Because she's in her room in the basement, Bonnie," Strawn answered. "Sort of forgot about her, didn't you?" and he chuckled at the younger man's discomfiture. "But I got her story out of her, you bet! Nothing to it, though. One of my boys—Collins, it was—found her in that short, dark hall that runs between the Selim woman's bedroom and the kitchen. Sicker'n a pup she was; it was a mess. Said she'd—"
"I'd better have her up and question her, if she's well enough," Dundee interrupted, as tactfully as possible. "It seems that she had an abscessed tooth out today, with gas and a local anesthetic.... Now, Miss Raymond, will you tell me exactly what you meant by saying it must have been Lydia who killed her mistress?"
"I certainly will!" the red-haired girl cried defiantly. "What I can't see is why Tracey and Lois and Dex—Mr. Sprague—didn't think of it, too. It's as plain as—"
"Yes, as the nose on my face," Dundee cut in grimly, but with a glance at Strawn. "Just stick to the facts, however, Miss Raymond, and maybe we can all agree with you."
"Well, when Mr. Sprague and I went into the dining room, there were Lois and Tracey cutting up like a couple of children," Janet began, determined to take her time. "When they saw us, Lois said: 'Good Lord, Tracey! Get busy! Or your job as bartender will be taken away from you,' and Tracey began to shake cocktails at the sideboard—"
"Guess I'd better tell it, Janet, for what it's worth," Lois cut in impatiently. "It's nothing more nor less than that I had to ring twice for poor Lydia before she came," she explained to Dundee. "Tracey is full of original ideas about cocktails, and wanted some sort of bitters. He was going to shout for Lydia, but I stepped on the button under the dining table, and the poor thing—in the basement nursing her jaw, probably—didn't hear. Tracey and I got to kidding, as Janet says, and had scarcely noticed how long Lydia was in coming. I rang again, and she came.... That's all!"
"That isn't all!" Janet denied angrily. "I was there when Lydia came in, and she was looking white as a ghost—except for her swollen jaw. What's more, she acted so dumb Tracey had to tell her twice what he wanted.... And then she said Nita didn't have any of those bitters anyway."
"An open-and-shut case against poor Lydia!" Penny Crain broke in derisively. "Go pluck daisies, Janet! You'd be of a lot more help!"