Murder at Bridge Page 16

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  "Of course I recognized his voice instantly when he said, 'That you,Penny?' and it's a wonder I didn't scream," said Penny Crain, fightingher way up through dazed bewilderment to explain in detail, in answer toDundee's pelting questions. "I said, 'Of course, Ralph.... Where _have_you been?...' And _he_ said, in that coaxing, teasing voice of his thatI know so well: 'Peeved, Penny?... I don't blame you, honey. You reallyought not to let me come over and explain why I stood you up last night,but you will, won't you?... Ni-i-ze Penny!...' That's exactly how hetalked, Bonnie Dundee! Exactly! _Oh, don't you see he couldn't know thatNita is dead?_"

  "Did you ask him where he was?" Dundee asked finally.

  "No. I just told him to come on over, and he said I could depend on itthat he wouldn't waste any time.... Oh, Bonnie! What shall we _do_?"

  "Listen, Penny!" Dundee urged rapidly. "You must realize that I've gotto see and hear, but I don't want Ralph Hammond to see _me_ until afterhe's had a talk with you. Will you let me eavesdrop behind theseportieres?... I know it's a beastly thing to do, but--"

  Penny agreed at last, and within ten minutes after that amazingtelephone call Dundee, from behind the portieres that separated thedining and living room, heard Penny greeting her visitor in the littlefoyer. She had played fair; had not gone out into the hall to whisper awarning--if any warning was needed.

  He had seen Ralph Hammond enter the dining room of the Stuart House theday before, in company with Clive Hammond and Polly Beale, when thethree had been strangers to him; but Dundee told himself now that hewould hardly have recognized the young man whom Penny was preceding intoher living room. The Ralph Hammond of Saturday had had a white, drawnface and sick eyes. But this boy....

  Like his older brother, Clive, Ralph Hammond had dark-red, curling hair.But unlike his brother's, his eyes were a wide, candid hazel--the greeniris thickly flecked with brown. A little shorter than Clive, a triflemore slender. But that which held the detective's eyes was somethingless tangible but at once more evident than superlative masculine goodlooks. It was a sort of shy joyousness and buoyance, which flushed thetan of his cheeks, sang in his voice, made his eyes almost unbearablybright....

  Before Penny Crain, very pale and quiet, could sink into the chair shewas groping toward, Ralph Hammond was at her side, one arm going out toencircle her shoulders.

  "Don't look like that, Penny!" Dundee heard him plead, his voicesuddenly humble. "You've every right to be sore at me, honey, but pleasedon't be. I know I've been an awful cad these last few weeks, but I'mmyself again. I'm cured now, Penny--"

  "Wait, Ralph!" Penny protested faintly, holding back as he would havehugged her hard against his breast. "What about--Nita?"

  Dundee saw the young man's face go darkly red, but heard him answeralmost steadily: "I hoped you'd understand without making me put it intowords, honey.... I'm cured of--Nita. I can't express it any other wayexcept to say I was sick, and now I'm cured--"

  "You mean--" Penny faltered, but with a swift, imploring glance towardDundee, "--you don't love Nita any more? You can't deny you wereterribly in love with her, Ralph. Lois told us--told _me_ last nightthat Nita had told her in strictest confidence that she had promised tomarry you, just Thursday night--"

  The boy's face was very pale as he dropped his hands from Penny'sshoulders, but Dundee, from behind the portieres, was not troubling tospy for the moment. He was too indignant with Penny for having withheldfrom him the vital fact of Nita's engagement to Ralph Hammond....

  "That's true, Penny," Ralph was saying dully. "You have a right to know,because I'm asking _you_ to marry me now.... I did propose to Nita againThursday night, and she did accept me. I confess now I was wild withhappiness--"

  "Why did she refuse you before?" Penny cut in, and Dundee silentlythanked her for asking the question he would have liked to ask himself."Was it because she wasn't sure she was in love with you?"

  "You're making it awfully hard for me, honey," the boy protested,then admitted humbly, "Of course you want to know, and you shouldknow.... No, she said all along, almost from the first that she lovedme more than I could love her, but that there were--reasons.... _Tworeasons_, she always said, and once I asked her jealously if they wereboth men, but she looked so startled and then laughed so queerly that Ididn't ask again.... Then I thought it might be because I was youngerthan she was, though I can't believe she is more than twenty-three or so,and I'm twenty-five, you know. And once I got cold-sick because I thoughtshe might still be married, but she said her husband was married again,and I wasn't to ask questions or worry about him--"

  "But she _did_ accept you Thursday night?" Penny persisted.

  "Yes," the boy admitted, his face darkly flushed again. "This is awfullyhard, honey, but I'll tell you once for all and get it over with.... Itook her to dinner. We drove to Burnsville because she said she was sickof Hamilton. When we were driving back she suddenly became veryqueer--reckless, defiant.... And she asked me if I still wanted to marryher, and I said I did. I asked her right then to say when, and she saidshe'd marry me June first, but she added--" and the boy, to Dundee'swatching eyes, seemed to be genuinely puzzled again by what must havesounded so odd at the time--"that she'd marry me June first _if shelived to see the day_."

  "Oh!" Penny gasped, then, controlling her horror, she asked with whatsounded like real curiosity, "Then what--happened, Ralph? Why do youpropose to _her_ on Thursday and to _me_ on--on Sunday?"

  "A gorgeous actress sacrificed to the typewriter," Dundee told himself,as he waited for Ralph Hammond's reluctant reply.

  "Can't we forget it, honey?... You do love me a little, don't you? Can'tyou take my word for it that--I'm cured now--forever?"

  Penny's hands went up to cover her face, and Dundee had the grace tofeel very sorry indeed for her--sorry even if she intended to give herpromise to Ralph Hammond, as a sick feeling in his stomach prophesiedthat she was about to do....

  "How can I know you're really--cured, if I don't know what cured you?"

  "I suppose you're right," the boy admitted miserably. "There's no needto ask you not to tell anyone else. Although I don't want to see heragain ever--. Why, Penny, I wouldn't even tell Polly and Cliveyesterday, after it happened, though Polly guessed and went upstairs--.I tried to keep her back--."

  "I don't--quite understand, Ralph," Penny interrupted. "You meansomething happened when you were at Nita's house yesterday morning?"

  "Yes. Judge Marshall had promised Nita to have the unfinished half ofthe top story turned into a maid's bedroom and bath and a guest bedroomand bath. Clive let me go to make the estimates. Of course I was glad ofthe chance to see Nita again--I hadn't been with her since Thursdaynight. But she had to take Lydia in for a dentist's appointment, andthey left me alone in the house. I had to go into the finished half tomake some measurements, and in the bedroom I found--oh, God!" hegroaned, and pressed a fist against his trembling mouth.

  "You found that Dexter Sprague was staying there, was using the bedroomthat used to be mine--didn't you?" Penny helped him at last, indesperation.

  "How did you know?" The boy stared at the girl blankly for a moment,then seemed to crumple as if from a new blow. "I suppose it was commongossip that Nita and Sprague were lovers, and I was the only one shefooled!... My God! To think all of you would stand by and let me _marry_her--a cheap little gold-digger from Broadway, living with a cheapfour-flusher she couldn't get along without and had to send for--"

  "Did you--want to kill her, Ralph?" Penny whispered, touching one of hisknotted fists with a trembling hand.

  "Kill her?... Good Lord, _no_!" the boy flung at her violently. "I'm notsuch an ass as that! You girls are all alike! Polly had so little senseas to think I'd want to kill Nita and Sprague both! She couldn't see,and neither could Clive, that all I wanted was to get away fromeverybody and get so drunk I could forget what a fool I'd been--"

  "What _did_ you do, Ralph?" Penny asked urgently.

  "Why, I got drunk, of course," the boy
answered, as if surprised at herpersistence. "Darling, you wouldn't believe me if I told you how muchrot-gut Scotch it took to put me under, but that filthy bootlegginghotel clerk would have charged me twice what he did for the stuff if hehad known how much good it would do me."

  "Hotel?" Penny snatched at the vital word. "Where did you go to getdrunk, Ralph?"

  "I never realized before you had so much curiosity, honey," the boygrinned at her. "After I shook Clive--Polly went on to Nita's bridgeparty, because she couldn't throw her down at the last minute--Iwandered around till I came to the Railroad Men's Hotel, down on StateStreet, you know, the other side of the tracks. It's a miserable dump,but I sort of hankered for a place to hide in that was as miserable andcheap as I felt--"

  "Did you register under your own name?"

  "Ashamed of me, Penny?... No, I registered under my first twonames--Ralph Edwards. And the rat-faced, filthy little hotel clerkturned out to be a bootlegger.... Well, when I woke up about eleven thismorning I give you my word I wasn't sick and headachy, though God knowsI'd drunk enough to put me out for a week.... Penny, I woke upfeeling--well, I can't explain it but to say I felt light and newand--and clean.... All washed-up! At first I thought my heart wasempty--it felt so free of pain. But as I lay there thanking God that_that was that_, I found my heart wasn't empty at all. It was brimmingfull of love--Gosh, honey! I sound like a Laura Jean Libbey hero, don'tI?... But before I rang you from the lunch room where I ate breakfast Iwrote Nita a special delivery note, telling her it was all off. I had tobe free actually, before I could ask you.... You _will_ marry me, won'tyou, Penny honey?... I knew this morning I had never really loved anyoneelse--"

  Penelope Crain remained rigid for a moment, then very slowly she laidboth her hands on his head, for he had knelt and buried his face againsther skirt. But as she spoke, her brown eyes, enormous in her white face,were upon Dundee, who had stepped silently from behind the portieres.

  "Yes. I'll marry you, Ralph!... You may come in now, Mr. Dundee!"