MURDER AT BRIDGE***
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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.
