“I thought you would.”
“Now, look, you can’t do this to me.”
“Why not?”
“You can get more than a thousand if you play it right. I’ll bet you could get twenty-five hundred inside of ten days.”
“A thousand suits me,” Bertha said, “and suits my client. After all, a thousand berries for a headache isn’t to be sneezed at.”
“But she could get a lot more. I saw the whole thing.”
“Whose fault was it?”
“You can’t pump me on that. She’s entitled to a lot more She had concussion.”
“Who told you so?”
“Her room-mate.”
“Well, it’s all settled now,” Bertha told him, “so there’s nothing for you to worry about.”
“I ought to have something out of this anyway. It wouldn’t hurt you any to cut me in for a hundred dollars.”
“Cut yourself in,” Bertha told him.
“I may, at that.”
Bertha said, “I’ll tell you what I’ll do. I’ll make you exactly the same proposition I made in the first place. Twenty-five dollars and you forget the whole business and fade out of the picture.”
He settled back against the cushions with a sigh. “Okay,” he said. “It’s highway robbery, but you’ve made a deal.”
Bertha Cool entered the office and said to Elsie Brand, “Elsie, make out a receipt for this man to sign. Twenty-five dollars in full for account of any and all claims of any sort, nature, or description covering present claims and any contingencies that may arise from future developments. Follow the form of that receipt Donald Lam made out for the man to sign in that case a couple of months back.”
Elsie Brand whipped a letter out of her typewriter, jerked a sheet of paper out of the drawer in her desk, fed it into the roller and said, “What’s his name?”
“Damned if I know,” Bertha said, turning to the man.
“What’s your name?”
“Jerry Bollman.”
Bertha Cool said, “Sit down. I’ll get you the twenty-five.”
Bertha went into her private office, unlocked the desk, took out the cash box, unlocked it, took out twenty-five dollars, but waited to take it back to the outer office until her ears told her that Elsie Brand’s typewriter had quit clacking. Then she came marching out, took the receipt Elsie handed her, read it, pushed it in front of Jerry Bollman and said, “All right, sign here.”
He read the receipt and said, “My God, this signs away my soul.”
“More than that,” Bertha told him facetiously. “Otherwise it wouldn’t be worth the twenty-five bucks.”
He grinned at her maliciously, saying, “You’re damn smart, aren’t you?” and took the fountain pen Bertha Cool extended him. He signed the receipt with a flourish, gave it to her with his left hand, and held out his right for the two tens and the five which Bertha gave him.
Bertha handed the receipt to Elsie Brand. “File this.”
Bollman said, “I could go broke working for you.”
Bertha said, “Most witnesses tell what they know just by way of being decent.”
“I know,” Bollman said wearily. “I got cured of that a long time ago. Well, I’ll go down and buy a package of cigarettes. That and the expenses will just use up the twenty-five. Perhaps we can do business again some day.”
“Perhaps,” Bertha said, and watched him walk out.
“Thank God, he didn’t want to shake hands,” she told Elsie Brand. “Now ring up the residence of Harlow Milbers. Ask for Mrs. Nettie Cranning. Tell her Bertha Cool wants to speak with her on the telephone. Buzz my office when you get her.”
Bertha went into her private office and settled down to% a cigarette in her long, carved ivory holder. When the buzzer sounded, she picked up the receiver, said, “Hello,” and heard Mrs. Cranning’s voice saying, “Hello, Mrs. Cool.”
Bertha instantly radiated cordiality. “How do you do, Mrs. Cranning? I’m very sorry I bothered you, but I wanted to get in touch with Josephine Dell right away. I thought she might be out there. I hope I haven’t bothered you.”
“Not at all,” Mrs. Cranning said with equal cordiality. “She was here until about half an hour ago, then a man rang up and asked her to meet him. I didn’t get all that it was, but it was something very important about an automobile accident.”
“A man?” Bertha Cool asked.
“Yes.”
Bertha Cool was frowning. “You didn’t catch the name, did you?”
“Yes, I did, but I’ve forgotten it. I remember she wrote it down. Wait a minute— Eva, what was that name, the one who called Josephine Dell? How is that? Okay, thanks. Mrs. Cool wanted to know.”
Mrs. Cranning said into the telephone, “I have that name for you, Mrs. Cool. It was Mr. Jerry Bollman. She went somewhere to meet him.”
Bertha said, “Thank you,” hung up the telephone, and was halfway through the outer office before she realized the futility of her errand.
“What’s the matter?” Elsie Brand asked.
“The dirty, damn, double-crossing, two-timing pretzel. That guy’s so crooked he could use a corkscrew, for a straight edge.”
“What did he do?” Elsie Brand asked.
“Do!” Bertha said, her eyes glittering cold fire. “He invested fifty cents in taxicab fare to hook me for twenty-five smackers. He knew where I’d be. Probably followed me. Just because I saw him getting out of the taxicab and fumbling around for the fare, I thought he was one step behind me. In place of that, he was two paragraphs ahead.”
“But I don’t get it,” Elsie Brand said.
“Right now,” Bertha Cool said, “that guy is getting Josephine Dell’s signature on a dotted line that cuts himself a piece of cake to the tune of five hundred dollars. I thought I’d fooled him by pretending to be coming out of Josephine Dell’s apartment. I pretended I had her all signed up. He knew all along she wasn’t home. It was damn sharp practice — a dirty crook.”
“Who’s a crook?” Elsie asked.
“He is, Jerry Bollman. The son of a bitch deceived me.”
Chapter XII
The blind man’s sensitive ears picked Bertha Cool’s steps out of a medley of other noises. He didn’t turn his head toward her, but a smile softened the man’s features. He said, “Hello, I was hoping you’d stop by here. Look what I have to show you.”
He opened a bag and brought out a wooden music box which he wound with a little crank. He opened the cover, and, with remarkable clarity and sweetness of tone, the music box began to play “Bluebells of Scotland.”
The face of the blind man was enraptured. “I told her once,” he said, “that I liked these old-fashioned music boxes, and that we used to have one that played ‘Bluebells of Scotland.’ I’ll bet this cost her something. They’re not so easy to find now, not those that are in good condition. There isn’t a single note missing, and I can feel how smooth the finish on the wood is. Isn’t it beautiful?”
Bertha Cool agreed that it was. “Josephine Dell sent it to you?”
“Of course. A messenger brought it and said that he’d been instructed to deliver it to me from a friend. But I know who the friend is all right. That isn’t all,” he said. “She sent me some flowers.”
“Flowers!”
“Yes.”
Bertha started to say something, then caught herself.
“I know,” the blind man went on. “It’s rather peculiar to send flowers to a blind man, but I can enjoy the fragrance anyway. I think she mainly wanted me to have the note that went with them, and she thought she could send it with flowers. The music-box is expensive, and she didn’t want me to know she’d done that for me.”