"You are damned impertinent, sir!" Judge Marshall shouted, the ends of his waxed grey mustache trembling with anger.
"Then I take it that you do not wish to divulge the circumstances of your friendship with Mrs. Selim?" Dundee asked.
"Friendship!" the old man snorted. "Your implications, sir, are dastardly! I met Mrs. Selim, or rather, Nita Leigh, as she was introduced to me, only once, several years ago when I was in New York. Naturally—"
"Just a moment, Judge. You say she was introduced to you as Nita Leigh. Then you knew her as an actress, I presume?"
"I refuse to submit to such a cowardly attack, sir!"
"Attack, Judge?" Dundee repeated with assumed astonishment. "I merely thought you might be able to shed a little light on the past of the woman who has been murdered here today, with a weapon you admit to having owned.... However—"
The elderly ex-judge stared at his tormentor for a moment as if murder was in his heart. He gasped twice, then suddenly his whole manner changed.
"I apologize, Dundee. You must realize how—But that is beside the point. I met Nita Leigh at—er—at a social gathering, arranged by some New York friends of mine. She was young, attractive, more refined than—er—than the average young woman in musical comedy. Naturally I told her if she was ever in Hamilton to look me up. And she did."
"And because she was 'more refined than the average young woman in musical comedy'—than the average chorus girl, to put it simply," Dundee took him up, "you co-operated with Mrs. Dunlap to introduce her to your most intimate friends—including your wife?"
"Oh, Hugo! Why didn't you tell me?" Karen Marshall wailed.