She jerked the door of her private office shut, stamped back to the swivel chair, then suddenly thought of the other visitor in the outer office. She got up, walked back to the door, and jerked it open just in time to see the door of the outer office close.
“Where’s Droopy Lids?” she asked Elsie Brand, motioning toward the chair where the lackadaisical young man had been seated.
Elsie Brand said, “He got up right after the insurance adjuster went out and followed him down the hall.”
Bertha’s face darkened as the full significance of this move dawned upon her. “Why, damn his dehydrated soul,” she said with fervor. “The two-time, chiseling, double-crossing crook! Well, I’ll just fix him. I’ll beat it down to Josephine Dell and get her lined up before that buttinsky can chisel in on the job.”
Bertha grabbed up her hat, clapped it firmly on her silver-grey hair, and was just starting for the door when it opened. A uniformed messenger stood in the doorway with a fat envelope. “Telegram for Bertha Cool,” he said, “sent collect.”
“Who’s it from?” Bertha Cool asked.
The messenger looked at a memorandum “From Donald Lam, and it was sent from San Francisco,” he said.
Bertha snatched at the envelope, jerked her head toward Elsie Brand, and said to the messenger boy, “Collect from her. Give him the money out of the petty cash drawer, Elsie.”
Bertha Cool flounced back to her inside office and ripped open the still moist seal of the envelope. She took out a folded message which read:
LEFTER RECEIVED ALSO PHOTOSTAT OF WILL. CALL YOUR ATTENTION TO MARKED CHANGE IN LITERARY STYLE BETWEEN CERTAIN PORTIONS OF WILL. FIRST PAGE INDICATES DISTINCTIVE EXPRESSION OF POSITIVE INDIVIDUALITY. SECOND PAGE CONTAINS SOME MATTER DOUBTLESS COPIED FROM SOME OTHER DOCUMENT, BUT LANGUAGE USED IN CONNECTION WITH BEQUESTS TO DELL, CRANNING AND HANBERRY IS FORM OF EXPRESSION SOMEWHAT ILLITERATE PERSON WOULD USE IN ATTEMPTING DISPOSE PROPERTY. ALSO ENTIRE CLAUSE ATTEMPTING NOMINATE EXECUTRIX. THESE PORTIONS INCONSISTENT WITH ARTICULATE SMOOTHNESS CHARACTERIZING EXPRESSIONS IN BALANCE OF DOCUMENT. INVESTIGATE POSSIBILITY INK ERADICATOR TO REMOVE PORTION OF WILL AND OTHER MATTER INSERTED. REGARDS AND BEST WISHES.
Bertha sat staring at the telegram, muttering under her breath, “Fry me for an oyster — the brainy little bastard!”
The door opened. Elsie Brand asked, “Is there any reply?”
“Yes,” Bertha said indignantly. “Send a letter to Donald Lam at that San Francisco address. Ask him what the hell he means by putting in all those extra words about regards and best wishes when he’s sending a telegram collect.”
Chapter XI
Bertha Cool pressed her thumb against the bell marked Josephine Dell, picked up the earpiece, and placed her lips near the mouthpiece of the telephone so as to be in a position to answer as soon as she heard a voice. After seconds had elapsed, Bertha pressed her thumb against the button once more. A worried look appeared on her face.
When the third pressure against the bell brought no response, Bertha rang the bell marked Manager.
After a few moments, a heavy-set woman whose flesh seemed to have no more consistency than jelly on a plate opened the door and smiled at Bertha. “We have some very nice vacancies,” she said in a high-pitched voice as though reciting a piece she had learned by heart. “There’s one very nice southern exposure, another apartment on the east. Both of these get plenty of sunlight and—”
“I don’t want an apartment,” Bertha Cool said. “I’m looking for Josephine Dell.”
The cordiality left the manager’s face as though she had reached up and lifted off a mask. “Well, there’s her bell,” she said irritably. “Ring it.”
“I have. She isn’t home.”
“All right, there’s nothing I can do about it.”
She turned away.
Bertha Cool said, “Wait a minute. I’m trying to get some information about her.”
“What do you want?”
“It’s very important that I get in touch with her, very important indeed.”
“There’s nothing I can do about it.”
“Can’t you tell me where she is, where I could locate her, or how I could get a message to her? Hasn’t she left any instructions with you at all?”
“None whatever. She has a young woman in the apartment with her, Myrna Jackson. If anyone will know where she is, it’ll be Miss Jackson.”
“How can I reach Miss Jackson, then?”
“She isn’t in?”
“No. No one answers the bell.”
“Then she isn’t in. There’s nothing I can do. Good day.”
The door slammed.
Bertha scribbled a note on the back of one of her cards. Miss Dell, call me immediately. It’s very important. There’s money in it for you.
She dropped this note into the box and was turning away when a taxicab slewed around the corner and came to a stop.
The nameless young man who had answered Bertha’s ad calling for witnesses to the accident alighted from the cab, poked at the meter, and stood with his back to the sidewalk, raking change for the cab driver.
Bertha marched purposefully toward him.
The cab driver, seeing her approach and thinking he had another fare, jumped out from behind the wheel to run around and hold the door open.
Bertha was within three feet of the passenger when he turned around and recognized her.
Bertha Cool said, with every evidence of satisfaction, “Well, that’s about what I thought you’d do. It isn’t going to do you any good; I got here first.” There was consternation on the man’s face.
“Where to?” the cabby asked.
Bertha gave him the address of her office, turned to grin triumphantly at the droopy man.
“So you beat me to it?”
“Yes.”
“How much did they offer?”
“None of your business,” Bertha told him.
“You got her address from me on the distinct understanding that you weren’t going to represent her.”
Bertha Cool said, “I can’t help it if an insurance company comes in and drops things into my life...”
“That isn’t fair to me.”
“Baloney,” Bertha Cool said. “You tried to play both ends against the middle.”
“I’m entitled to be in on this.”
The cab driver said to Bertha, “Are you ready to start or do I charge waiting time?”
“I’m ready to start,” Bertha said.
“Wait a minute. This is my cab.”
“No, it isn’t,” Bertha told him. “You’ve paid it off.”
“Did you see her and actually get her signed up?” the man asked.
Bertha grinned at him, a grin of complete satisfaction. Then the man suddenly hopped into the cab beside Bertha and said, “All right. I’ll ride back. I want to talk with her. We’ll both take the cab. Go ahead.”
The cab driver slammed the door, walked around, and got in beside the wheel.
Bertha said, “I’ve got nothing to talk over with you.”
“I think I have.”
“I don’t.”
“You’d never have got in on this at all if it hadn’t been for me.”
“Baloney. I put an ad in the paper. You thought you could make something out of it. You’ve chiselled in all the way along the line, trying to cash in on something.”
“They offered a thousand, didn’t they?”
“What makes you think so?”
“From what the adjuster said.”
“Oh, you followed him from my office and pumped him then?”
“I rode down in the elevator with him.”