The Indianapolis times. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1922-1965, 1931-01-10
CHAPTER FoRTY-s1x


nUNDEE laughed, the parrot
- which had saved his life echo
ing his mirth raucously, as his eyes
nit upon the following lines Of fine
print halfway down the third COL
umn of page 40 Of Who's Who in
America:
BURNS. william John, detective;
D Baltimore, Oct. 10, 1861
"A taunt and a joke which turned
sour. my dear Watson" he ex-
ulted to the parrot. "A joke I was
no. intended TO live to laugh
overln
He closed the book and replaced
It in the bookcase, careless Of flng-
erprints, for he was sure the muir
derer had been too clever to leave
any behind him in that room-or
upon the gun and silencer either,
Tor that matter.
Interestedly, Dundee. surveyed
the scene of his attempted murder.
II he had gone up unsuspectingly to
the high shelf to reach for the book
he would have stood so close to the
register that there would have been
powder burns on his shirt front
lust as there had been on Dexter
Sprague's.
And he would have been shot
so near an open window-no chance
Tor fingerprints there, either, since
he had not closed the windows on
cg-ff1 FOR -
wishing to return to a stuffy apart
ment-that the police would have
been justified in thinking he had
been shot from outside.
It was an old-fashioned house in
more ways than in the manner of
It's heating. Outside of one of his
two unscreened windows there was
an iron grating-the topmost land
Ing Of fire escape.
Dundee could imagine Captain
Strawn's positiveness in placing the
murder there-crouching in wait for
his victim.
Yes, damned ingenious, this at
tempted murder. Undoubtedly
Strawn would have dismissed the
note as the work of crank, not
hitting upon the fact that it had
been written in that very room. on
Dundee's own typewriter and sta
tionery.
StraWn even might have got a
mournful sort Of amusement out of
the fact that Dundee had been ed
vised to call upon a greater detec-
tive than himself for assistancel
Yes, ingenious indeed! And
so amazingly simple
Suddenly the young detective
snatched for his hat. If the muir
derer were so ingenious in this case.
might he not have been equally
clever in planning and executing
the murder of Nita Leigh Selim?
TWENTY minutes later he
Il parked his car in the rutty
road before the Selim house in
Primrose Meadows, and honked his
horn loudly to attract the attention
of the plainclothesman Captain
StraWn had detailed immediately
after the murder to guard the
premises during the day.
There was no answer. And a
violent ringing of the doorbell also
brought no response. The guard
had been withdrawn, probably to
Join the small army of plain
clothesmen and patrolmen who had
been searching foolishly and futilely
for the New York gunman-the
keystone of Captain Strawn's ex-
ploded theory.
With an oath, Dundee used his
skeleton key to release the front
door lock. Straight down the main
hall and into the little foyer be-
tween the hall and Nita's bedroom.
He snatched up the telephone. To
his relief, it was not dead. He gave
the number of Captain Strawn's
home. and had the pleasure Of
learning that he had interrupted
his former chief at a late Sunday
breakfast.
when did you withdraw the
guard from the Selim house?" he
Strawn's cordial welcome home.
Late Thursday afternoon" the
chief of the homicide squad an
swered belligerently. "I needed all
my men. and the Selim house had
been gone over with fine tooth
comb half dozen times. .
Why?"
"Oh, nothing" Dundee retorted
YEARLY, and hung up the receiver
after assuring his old friend that
he would call on him later in the
day.
No use to explain now to Strawr
that he had given the murderer
every chance to remove any betray-
ing traces of his crime.
Besides, his first excited hunct
after his own attempted murder
might very well be a wild, ground
less one. In his case the impossi-