Murder at Bridge

Murder at Bridge, by Anne
Austin

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Title: Murder at Bridge
Author: Anne Austin

Release Date: September 28, 2006 [eBook #19403]
Language: English
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MURDER AT BRIDGE
A Mystery Novel
by
ANNE AUSTIN
Author of "Murder Backstairs"

Grosset & Dunlap Publishers New York Set up and electrotyped.
Published February, 1931. Reprinted March, April, 1931; February,
1932. Printed in the United States of America

For ARLINE AND F. HUGH HERBERT

[Illustration: Ground-floor plan of Nita Selim's house in Primrose
Meadows, showing the bedroom in which the murder was committed.]
CHAPTER ONE
Bonnie Dundee stretched out a long and rather fine pair of legs,
regarding the pattern of his dark-blue socks with distinct satisfaction;
then he rested his black head against the rich upholstery of an armchair
not at all intended for his use.
His cheerful blue eyes turned at last--but not too long a last--to the
small, upright figure seated at a typewriter desk in the corner of the

office.
"Good morning, Penny," he called out lazily, and good-humoredly
waited for the storm to break.
"Miss Crain--to you!" The flying fingers did not stop an instant, but
Dundee noticed with glee that the slim back stiffened even more rigidly
and that there was a decided toss of the brown bobbed head.
"But Penny is so much more like you," Dundee protested, unruffled.
"And why should I be forced always to think of you as a long-legged
bird, when even our mutual boss, District Attorney William S.
Sanderson, has the privilege of calling you what you are--a bright and
shining new penny?"
"I've known Bill Sanderson since I was born," the unseen lips informed
him truculently, even as the unseen fingers continued their fiercely
staccato typing.
"Ah! That explains a lot!" Dundee conceded handsomely. "I just
wondered, amidst all this bonhommie of 'Bill' and 'Penny,' why I--"
"I only call Mr. Sanderson 'Bill' when I forget!" the small creature
defended herself sharply. "Goodness knows I try to be an efficient
private secretary! And I could be a lot more efficient if lazy strangers
didn't plump themselves down in our best visitors' chair, and try to flirt
with me. I don't flirt! Do you hear?--I don't flirt with anybody!"
"Flirt with you, you funny little Penny?" Dundee's voice was a little sad,
the voice of a man who finds himself grievously misunderstood. "I only
want you to like me, if you can, and be a little nice to me, for after all
I--"
"Oh, I know!" Penny Crain jerked the finished letter from her
typewriter and spun about on her narrow-backed swivel chair to face
him. "I know you are 'Mr. James F. Dundee, Special Investigator
attached to the office of the District Attorney,' and that you have a right
to drive me crazy if you want to."

"Crazy?" Dundee was genuinely amazed, contrite. "I beg your pardon
most humbly, Miss Crain. I'll go back to my cell--"
"Your office is almost as big and nice as this one," Penny retorted, but
her sharp, bright brown eyes--really almost the color of a new
penny--softened until they took on a velvety depth.
Dundee did not fail to notice the softening, nor did the little
heart-shaped face, with its low widow's-peak, its straight, short nose,
and its pointed little chin, made almost childish by the deep cleft which
cut through its obvious effort to look mature and determined, fail to
please him any more acutely than on the other days of the one short
week he had been privileged at intervals to gaze upon it.
"But the files, and--other things--are in this office," he told her, his blue
eyes twinkling happily once more.
"Don't you dare touch my files again!" Penny cried, springing to her
feet and running toward the wall which was completely concealed by
drawers, cabinets and shelves, filled with the records of which she was
the proud custodian. "That's why I said just now that you were driving
me crazy. Thursday you took a whole folder of correspondence out of
the letter files and put it back under the wrong initial. I had to hunt for
it for two hours, with Bill--I mean,