"It's possible, I suppose. I've been all over. West Coast, East Coast, and everywhere in between, including a few years after college when I led tour groups around Europe. Maybe he was on one of those tours."

"Maybe," Sigrid conceded and made a mental note to mention that point when she spoke with Mrs. Sutton. "What college, if I may ask?"

"Oh, a little denominational school out in Michigan that you probably never even heard of. Carlyle Union. It's defunct now."

Lieutenant Knight had listened quietly until then and now leaned forward to ask, "Excuse me, Mr. Flythe, but were you ever in the military?"

"Nope. That's one experience I missed."

Sigrid paused, expecting Knight to pursue his question. When he settledb ack in his chair without doing so, she said, "For the record, Mr. Flythe, had you met any of the other victims? Zachary Wolferman, Commander Dixon, or Detective Tildon?"

"For the record, no, Lieutenant." He hesitated. "I heard that one of those seriously hurt was a policeman. Did you know him?"

"Yes," she said tightly and the curtness of her tone froze the conventional expressions of sympathy Flythe started to voice. "Ms. Baldwin had told us about the seating chart being brought up early from the calligrapher's. How did you arrive at those pairings?"

"Not me," said Flythe. "It's all done by computer. There's a space on the entry blank where a contestant can list anybody he doesn't want to play against-his, wife, say, or a friend-whoever he's traveling with. That's so both of them have an equal chance of staying alive." Hearing what he'd just said, Flythe grimaced. "Bad choice of words. Sorry. What I mean is, if two friends play each other, one of them is definitely going to be eliminated, right? Whereas if each plays as tranger, there's a good chance, or at least a possibility, that both can advance."

Logical, thought Sigrid. "So your computer ensures that spouses or friends don't play each other."

"At least not in the earlier rounds. Towards the end it can't be helped. Of course, we have consolation games, too. The main tournament will go on until tomorrow night, but in another hour or so we'll be in a sort of mini-tournament for people who've been eliminated so far. Tonight we'll start a couple of smaller pools where losers can buy in for five or ten dollars. Our policy is to let as many people keep playing as long as they want to."

"When were the first pairings made?"

"The deadline for entries was two weeks ago. Our corporate office handles all that. I got the printout Monday and sent it over to Miss Baldwin here-was it that afternoon, Molly?"

The girl had been following his every word and Sigrid noted how she colored faintly at the intimacy of his smile, recovered quickly, and said, "The messenger brought it Tuesday morninga nd I hand-carried it straight down to our graphics studio with a rush order. They sent it back up sometime Thursday morning because it was there in the hall when I came by after lunch and that's when I set it inside the d'Aubigné Room."

"Which means that anyone passing through the hall could have seen it and learned who was to sit where for the opening round," Sigrid mused.

"Yes," Molly Baldwin nodded. "Ted-Mr. Flythe told me it was to be kept confidential, but I forgot to tell them downstairs and-"

She looked so miserable that Flythe reached over to pat her hand consolingly. "Don't blame yourself, Molly. For my money, the bomber probably didn't know where to put it till just before we started last night."

"Why do you say that, Mr. Flythe?" Lieutenant Knight asked.

In answer, Flythe caught the eye of one of the Graphic Games crew and signaled for her to come over.

"This is Kelly Underbill," he told them. "Keeper of our cribbage boards.

Now, Kelly, I want you to tell Lieutenant Harald exactly what you told me this morning."

"Sure, Mr. Flythe," beamed the freckle-faced youngster, thrilled to be in the spotlight. Stretching out her shining moment as long as possible, she told her audience that she was entrusted with keeping tabs on the expensive cherry cribbage boards. "The losers can keep the cards if they like, but they have to return the boards because they cost too much to give away."

Graphic Games had provided two hundred and seventy-five boards packed in eleven boxes. That was twenty-five to the box, she explained, and they were packed in five rows with five boards to each stack so it was easy to keep a running count.

"I gave Mr. Flythe three boards on Thursday to put in those glass display cases and when one of them got stolen, I gave him another board to make up for it; so that left me with two hundred and seventy-one.

"Then last night, we had two hundred fifty set out to play with, which left mew ith twenty-one boards, see?"

She waited for their confirmation, and receiving Knight's nod, went on eagerly.

"Well, this morning, when the players decided to go on with the tournament and the policeman in the other room said we could move our stuff, we packed up all the boards and brought them in here. Some of the pegs got lost-we had to send over to the office for extras-but I found two hundred and seventy boards. Of course two of them were broken-from the explosion, I guess.

"I didn't think anything about having that many because I knew one of them'd had the bomb in it; but Nancy Kaiser knew I was worried about keeping up with all the boards-anything missing comes out of my pocket, see?-and she told me that the police had taken one of them for comparison tests or something."

She held out the crumpled receipt her friend had been given by someone in Forensics. Sigrid examined it and then handed it back.

"Well, don't you see?" said the girl. "After one board got stolen, I had twoh undred and seventy-four. There're three on display, one board blew up and the police took one, so I should have only two hundred and sixty-nine." She stopped triumphantly.

"I do see," said Sigrid, leaning back in the gilt-legged chair, conscious of pain returning to her wounded arm. "Whoever stole the first cribbage board brought it back again. Undoubtedly with the bomb inside."

"And switched boards after the tables were set up," concluded Ted Flythe.

"Which was when?"

"Late Friday afternoon," Kelly Underhill replied, hurt by Lieutenant Harald's lack of response to her clever discovery. "We finished around five."

"Then I locked the doors myself," said Molly Baldwin, "and they weren't unlocked until I opened the service door at seven so the stewards could prepare the hospitality table."

"When were the hall doors unlocked?"

"At seven-thirty."

"So it would appear that the switch was made sometime between seven and nine," said Sigrid.

"Assuming no one from Graphic Games was involved," observed Lieutenant Knight.

Before Ted Flythe could take exception to his insinuation, Sigrid felt someone touch her on the shoulder and heard a merry voice say, "Ciao, Sigrid! I thought that was you."