CHAPTER TWELVE
Lydia Carr, still clothed in the black cotton dress and white apron ofher maid's uniform, struggled to a sitting position on the edge of herbasement room bed.
"No, no! That's a lie! It was an accident, I tell you--my ownfault!... Who dared to say Nita--Miss Nita--did it?"
"Better lie down, Lydia," Dundee suggested gently. "I won't want youfainting. You've had a hard day with the abscessed tooth, the dope thedentist gave you, and--other things. I don't wonder that you lost yourhead, went a little crazy, perhaps--"
The detective's sinister implication seemed to make no impression at allupon the woman with the scarred face.
"I asked you--" she gasped, her single eye glaring at him, "who daredsay Nita burned me?"
"It was Nita herself who told me," Dundee answered softly. "Just a fewminutes ago."
"Holy Mother!" the maid gasped, and crossed herself dazedly.
Let her think the dead woman had appeared to him in a vision, Dundeetold himself. Perhaps her confession would come the quicker--
The maid began to rock her gaunt body, her arms crossed over her flatchest. "My poor little girl! Even in death she thinks of me, she'ssorry--. She sent me a message, didn't she? Tell me! She was alwaystrying to comfort me, sir! The poor little thing couldn't believe I'dforgiven her as soon as she done it--. Tell me!"
"Yes," Dundee agreed, his eyes watching her keenly. "She sent you amessage--of a sort.... But I can't give it to you until you have told meall about the--accident in which you were burned."
"I'll tell," Lydia promised eagerly. Gone were the harshness andsecretiveness with which she had met his earlier questioning.... "Yousee, sir, I loved Miss Nita--I called her Nita, if you don't mind, sir.I loved her like she was my own child. And she was fond of me, too,fonder of me than of anybody in the world, she used to tell me, whensome man had hurt her bad.... And there was always some man or other,she was so sweet and so pretty.... Well, I found her in the bathroom oneday, just ready to drink carbolic acid, to kill her poor little self--"
"When was that, Lydia?" Dundee interrupted.
"It was in February--Sunday, the ninth of February," Lydia went on,still rocking in an agony of grief. "I tried to take the glass out ofher hands. She'd poured a lot of the stuff out of the bottle.... Yousee, she was already in a fit of hysterics, or she'd never have tried tokill herself.... It was my own fault, trying to take the glass away fromher, like I did--"
"She flung the acid into your face?" Dundee asked, shuddering.
"She didn't know what she was doing!" the woman cried, glaring at him."Nearly went out of her mind, they told me at the hospital, becauseshe'd hurt me.... A private room in the best hospital in New York shegot for me, trained nurses night and day, and so many doctors fussingaround me I wanted to fire the whole outfit and save some of my poorgirl's money--which I don't know till this day how she got hold of--"
Dundee let her sob and rock her arms for a while unmolested. In FebruaryNita Selim had had to borrow money to pay doctor and hospital bills. Hadborrowed it or "gold-dug" it.... And in May she had been rich enough tohave $9,000 to invest!
"Lydia, you never forgave Nita Selim for ruining your life as well asyour face!" Dundee charged her suddenly.
"You're a liar!" she cried passionately. "I know what I felt. It's _my_face and _my_ life, ain't it? I tell you I didn't even bear a grudgeagainst her--the poor little thing! Eating her heart out with sorrow forwhat she'd done--till the very day of her death! Always trying to makeit up to me--paying me too much money for the handful of work I had todo, what with her eating out nearly all the time and throwing awaystockings the minute they got a run in 'em--. Forgive her? I'd havecrawled from here to New York on my hands and knees for Nita Leigh!"
Dundee studied her horribly scarred face, made more horrible now by whatlooked like genuine grief.
"Lydia, who was the man over whom your mistress wanted to commitsuicide?"
The single, tear-reddened eye glared at him suspiciously, then becamewary. "I don't know."
"Was it Dexter Sprague, Lydia?"
"Sprague?" She spat the name out contemptuously. "No! She didn't knowhim then, except to speak to at the moving picture studio."
"When did he become her--lover, Lydia?" Dundee asked casually.
The woman stiffened, became menacingly hostile. "Who says he was herlover? You can't trick me, Mr. Detective! I'd cut my tongue out beforeI'd let you make me say one word against my poor girl!"
Dundee shrugged. He knew a stone wall when he ran up against one.
"Lydia," he began again, after a thoughtful pause, "I have proof thatNita Selim was sure you had never forgiven her for the injury she didyou." His fingers touched the letter in his pocket--that incredible"Last Will and Testament" which Nita had written the day before she wasmurdered....
"And that's another lie!" the woman cried, shaking with anger. Shestruggled to her feet, stood swaying dizzily a moment. "Come upstairswith me to her room, and I'll show _you_ some proof that I had forgivenher!... Come along, I tell you!... Trying to make me say _I_ killed mypoor girl, when I'd have died for her--Come on, I tell you!"
And Dundee, wondering, beginning to doubt his own conviction alittle--that conviction which had sprung full-grown out of Nita'sstrange, informal will, and which had seemed to explaineverything--followed Lydia Carr from her basement room to the bedroom inwhich Nita had been murdered....
"See this!" and Lydia Carr snatched up the powder box from thedressing-table. Her long, bony fingers busied themselves with frantichaste, and suddenly, into the silence of the room came the tinkle ofmusic. "_I_ bought her this--for a present, out of my own money, soon asI got out of the hospital!" the maid's voice shrilled, over the slow,sweet, tinkly notes. "It's playing her name song--_Juanita_. It wasplaying that song when she died. I stood there in the doorway and heardit--" and she pointed toward the door leading from Nita's room into theback hall. "She loved it and used it all the time, because I gave it toher.... And _this_!"
She set the musical powder box upon the dressing-table and rushed acrossthe room to one of the several lamps that Dundee had noticed on hisfirst survey of the room. It was the largest and gaudiest of thecollection--a huge bowl of filigreed bronze, set with innumerablestones, as large as marbles, or larger. Red, yellow and green stonesthat must have cast a strange radiance over the pretty head that hadbeen wont to lie just beneath it, on the heaped lace pillows of thechaise lounge, Dundee reflected.
As if Lydia had read his thoughts, she jerked at the little chain whichhung from the bottom of the big bronze bowl against the heavy metalstandard.
"I gave her this--saved up for it out of my own money!" she was assuringhim with savage triumph in proving her point. "And she loved it so shebrought it with us when we came from New York--It won't light! It wasworking all right last night, because my poor little girl was lyingthere, looking so pretty under the colored lights--"
With strong twists of her big hands Lydia began to unscrew the filigreedbronze bowl. As she lifted it off she exclaimed blankly:
"Why, look! The light bulb's--_broke_!"
But Dundee had already seen--not only the broken light bulb but theexplanation of the queer noise that Flora Miles had describedhysterically over and over, as "a bang or a bump." The chaise loungestood between the two windows that opened upon the drive. And at thehead of it stood the big lamp, just a few inches from the wall and onlya foot from the window frame upon which Dr. Price had pencilled thepoint to indicate the end of the imaginary line along which the shotwhich killed Nita Leigh Selim had traveled.
The "bang or bump" which Flora Miles had heard had been made by theknocking of the big lamp against the wall. Undoubtedly the one who hadbumped into the lamp was Nita's murderer--or murderess--in frantic hasteto make an escape.
_And that meant that the murderer had fled toward the back hall, notthrough the window in front of which he had stood, not through the doorleading onto the front porch...._ A little progress, at least!
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But Lydia was not through proving that she had forgiven her mistress.She was snatching things from Nita's clothes closet--
"See these mules with ostrich feathers?--I give 'em to my girl!... Andthis bed jacket? I embroidered the flowers on it with my own hands--"
Through her flood of proof Dundee heard the whir of a car's engine, thenthe loud banging of a car's door.... Running footsteps on the flagstonepath.... Dundee reached the front door just as the bell pealed shrilly.
"Hello, Dundee! Awfully glad I caught you before you left.... Is poorLydia still here?"
"Come in, Mr. Miles," Dundee invited, searching with a puzzled frown theround, blond face of Tracey Miles. "Yes, Lydia is still here.... Why?"
"Then I'm in luck, and I think Lydia is, too--poor old girl!... You see,Dundee," Miles began to explain, as he took off his new straw hat to mophis perspiring forehead, "the crowd all ganged up when our various carsreached Sheridan Road, and by unanimous vote we elected to drive over tothe Country Club for a meal in one of the small private dining rooms--toescape the questions of the morbidly curious, you know--"
"Yes.... What about it?" Dundee interrupted impatiently.
"Well, I admit we were all pretty hungry, in spite of--well, of coursewe were all fond of Nita, but--"
"What about Lydia?" Dundee cut him short.
"I'm getting to it, old boy," Miles protested, with the injured air ofan unappreciated small boy. "While we were waiting for our food,somebody said, 'Poor Lydia! What's going to become of _her_?' Andsomebody else said that it was harder on her--Nita's death, I mean--thanon anybody else, because Nita was all she had in the world, and thenLois--Lois is always practical, you know--ran to telephone PoliceHeadquarters, to see what had been done with Lydia, and to see if itwould be all right for Flora and me to take her home with us--"
"Just a minute, Miles! Whom did Mrs. Dunlap talk to at Headquarters?"
"Why, Captain Strawn, of course," Miles answered. "He told Lois that youwere still out here, questioning Lydia again, and that it was all rightwith him, whatever you decided. So as soon as I had finished eating, Idrove over--"
"Is Mrs. Miles with you?" Dundee interrupted again.
"Well, no," Miles admitted uncomfortably. "You see, the girls felt alittle squeamish about coming back, even on an errand of mercy--"
Dundee grinned. He had no doubt that Flora Miles had emphaticallyrefused the possibility of another gruelling interview.
"Why do you and Mrs. Miles want to take Lydia home with you?" he asked.
"To give her a home and a job," Miles answered promptly. "She knows us,we're used to her poor old scarred face, and the youngsters, Tam andBetty, are not a bit afraid of her. In fact, Betty pats that scarredcheek and says, over and over, 'Poo Lyddy! Poo Lyddy! Betty 'ovesLyddy!' and Tam--he's T. A. Miles, junior, you know, and we call himTam, from the initials, because he hates being called Junior and twoTracey's are a nuisance--"
"I gather that you want to hire Lydia as a nurse for the children,"Dundee interrupted the fond father's verbose explanations.
"Right, old man! You see, our nurse left us yesterday--"
"Wait here, Miles. I'll speak to Lydia. She's in Mrs. Selim'sbedroom.... By the way, Miles, since you and your wife are kind enoughto want to take Lydia in and give her a home and a job, I think it onlyfair to tell you that it is highly improbable that Lydia Carr will takeany job at all."
"You mean--?" Miles gasped, his ruddy face turning pale. "I say, Dundee,it's absurd to think for a minute that good old faithful Lydia had athing to do with Nita's murder--"
"I rather think you're right about that, Miles," Dundee interrupted."Now will you excuse me?"
He found Lydia where he had left her--in her dead mistress' bedroom. Thetall, gaunt woman was crouching beside the chaise longue, her armsoutstretched to encircle a little pile of the gifts she claimed to havegiven Nita Selim to prove that she bore no grudge for the terribleinjury her mistress had done her. At Dundee's entrance she flung up herhead, and the detective saw that tears were streaming from both thesightless eye and the unharmed one.
Taking his seat on the chaise longue, Dundee explained gently butbriefly the offer which Tracey Miles had just made.
"They want--_me_?" she gasped brokenly, incredulously, and her fingersfaltered to her horrible cheek. "I didn't think anybody but my poor girlwould have me around--"
"It is true they want you," Dundee assured her. "But you don't have totake a job now unless you wish, Lydia."
"What do you mean?" the maid demanded harshly, her good eye hardeningwith suspicion.
"Lydia," the young detective began slowly, and almost praying that hewas doing the right thing, "when I woke you up tonight to question you,I said that Nita herself had just told me that it was she who had burnedyour face.... And you asked me if she had also given you a message--"
"Yes, sir!" the maid interrupted with pitiful eagerness. "And you'lltell me now? You don't still think _I_ killed her, do you?"
"No, I don't think you killed your mistress, Lydia, but I think, if youwould, you could help me find out who did," Dundee assured her gravely."No, wait!" and he drew from his pocket the envelope inscribed: "To BeOpened In Case of My Death--Juanita Leigh Selim."
"Do you recognize this handwriting, Lydia?"
"It was wrote by her own hand," the maid answered, her voice husky withtears. "Is that the message, sir?"
"You never saw it before?" Dundee asked sharply.
"No, no! I didn't know my poor girl was thinking about death," Lydiamoaned. "I thought she was happy here. She was tickled to pieces overbeing taken up by all them society people, and on the go day andnight----"
"Lydia, this is Mrs. Selim's last will and testament," Dundeeinterrupted, withdrawing the sheets slowly and unfolding them. "It waswritten yesterday, and it begins:
"'Knowing that any of us may die any time, and that I, Juanita LeighSelim, have good cause to fear that my own life hangs by a thread thatmay break any minute--'"
"What did my poor girl mean?" Lydia Carr cried out vehemently. "Shewasn't sick, ever--"
"I think, Lydia, that she feared exactly what happened today--murder!And I want you to tell me who it was she feared. _For I believe youknow!_"
The woman shrank from him, until she was sitting on her lean haunches,her hands flattening against her cheeks. For a long minute she did notattempt to answer. Her right eye widened enormously, then slowly grew asexpressionless as the milky left ball.
"I--don't--know," she said dully. Then, with vehement emphasis: "_Idon't know!_ If I did, I'd kill him with my own hands!"
Dundee had no choice but to take her word.
"You said there was a message for me," Lydia reminded him.
"I'll read you her will first," Dundee said quietly, lifting the sheetsagain: "I am herewith setting down my last will and testament, in my ownhandwriting. I do here and now solemnly will and bequeath to my faithfuland beloved maid, Lydia Carr, all property, including all moneys, stocksand personal belongings of which I die possessed--"
"To--_me_?" Lydia whispered. "To me?"
"To you, Lydia," Dundee assured her gravely.
"Then I can have all her pretty clothes to keep always?"
"And her money, to do as you like with, if the court accepts this willfor probate--as I think it will, regardless of the fact that it is veryinformal and was not witnessed."
"But--she didn't have any money," Lydia protested. "Nothing but whatMrs. Dunlap paid her in advance for the work she was going to do--"
"Lydia, your mistress died possessed of nearly ten thousand dollars!"Dundee fixed her bewildered grey eye with his blue ones. "_Ten thousanddollars!_ All of which she got right here in Hamilton! And I want you totell me how she got it!"
"But--I don't know! I don't believe she had it!"
Dundee shrugged. Either this woman would perjure her soul to protect hermistress' name from scandal, or she really knew nothing.
"That is all of the will itself, Lydia," he wen
t on finally, "except hercommand that her body be cremated without funeral services of any kind,and that nobody be allowed to accompany the remains to the crematoryexcept yourself and Mrs. Peter Dunlap, in case her death takes place inHamilton--"
"She _did_ love Mrs. Dunlap," Lydia sobbed. "Oh, my poor little girl--"
"And there is also a note for you, which I took the liberty of reading,in which Mrs. Selim minutely describes the clothes in which she wishesto be cremated, as well as the fashion in which her hair is to bedressed--"
"Let me see it!" Lydia plunged forward on her knees and snatched at thepapers he held. "For God's sake, let me see!"