Chapter XVIII
Sergeant Sellers hesitated only for a moment, then said, “Pardon me;” and moved the flashlight. “So this man’s name is Bollman?”
“Yes.”
“And how long have you known him?”
“About — a week or so.”
“Oh yes,” Sergeant Sellers said, “and how long have you known Kosling?”
“Six or seven days.”
“In other words, you’ve known Kosling and Bollman just about the same length of time?”
“Yes.”
“This is Sunday night. Now think hard. Did you know both of them last Sunday?”
“Yes.”
“What was the connection between them?”
“They didn’t have any.”
“But you met Bollman in connection with the matter Kosling employed you to investigate?”
“Well, only indirectly.”
“And Bollman tried to chisel in on it?”
“Not on that. On something else.”
“On what?”
Bertha said, “Nothing that would have anything to do with Kosling, nothing that would account for his death.”
“What was it?”
“I’m not certain that I’m going to tell you.”
“I think you are, Mrs. Cool. What was it?”
Bertha said, “It had to do with an automobile accident. That’s something that I’m working on, and I don’t think my clients would want any information made public right at the present time.”
“You’re not making it public. You’re making it to me.”
“I know, but you have a way of making reports that get into the newspapers.”
“This is murder, Mrs. Cool.”
“I know, but what I know about him doesn’t have anything to do with this murder.”
“How do you know?”
“It wasn’t anything anyone would kill him about.”
“But you say he’s a blackmailer and a chiseler?”
“Yes.”
“What makes you say that?”
“His methods.”
“What’s wrong with them?”
“Everything.”
Sergeant Sellers said, “All right, we’ll go outside and talk in the car for a little while. This is the address Rodney Kosling gave you?”
“Yes.”
“Is there anything that you know that would make you think this man, Bollman, lived here?”
“No.”
“You don’t know where he lived?”
Bertha Cool said impatiently, “Of course not. Why ask me all that stuff? How about the man’s driving licence? How about his registration card? How about—”
“That,” Sergeant Sellers said, “is just the point. Either someone had frisked him and taken everything that could have possibly been a means of identification, or he emptied his pockets of everything except money. Apparently his money hasn’t been touched. It had evidently been taken from a wallet and pushed hurriedly down into the pockets. You wouldn’t know anything about that, would you, Mrs. Cool?”
“Why should I?”
“I don’t know,” Sellers said. “It opens the door to some interesting speculation. The fact that the murder was committed with a trap gun indicates that the murderer wanted to claim his victim while he was far away, building up an alibi for himself. But quite evidently after the man’s death, someone went through his pockets — unless the man cached the stuff from his pockets somewhere. There couldn’t have been a very great margin of time, and you admit that you were here. Therefore, I ask you if you know anything about what was in his pockets?”
“No, I don’t.”
Sergeant Sellers said, “Well, we may as well go back to the automobile. All right, come on boys. Charlie, you can stay here and keep an eye on the place. Usual instructions — sew it up tight. Let no one in without a pass until after the fingerprint men have finished with the place; then we’ll give the newspapers a tumble and move the body. All right, Mrs. Cool, you come with us.”
In the automobile Bertha Cool answered questions with monosyllables or, at times, with a tight-lipped silence. She steadfastly refused to give any information as to her connection with Jerry Bollman or the reason she had for characterizing him as a blackmailing chiseler.
Sergeant Sellers gave it up after a while. He said, “I can’t force you to answer these questions, Mrs. Cool, but a grand jury can.”
“No, they can’t. I have a right to treat certain communications as confidential.”
“Not the way I look at it.”
Bertha Cool said, “I’m in business. I’m running a detective agency. People hire me to do things. If they wanted to tell their troubles to the law, they’d go to police headquarters in the first place.”
“All right,” Sellers said. “If you’re thinking so much of your future business, you might remember that police goodwill is an asset for a private detective agency and, on the other hand, the ill-will of the police isn’t going to make you any money.”
“I’ve told you absolutely everything I know that would help clear up the case. The things I’m withholding are private matters that have absolutely nothing to do with it.”
“I’d prefer to have you answer all my questions and let me be the judge of what’s pertinent and relative and what isn’t.”
“I know,” Bertha said, “but I prefer to handle it my way.”
Sergeant Sellers settled himself back against the cushions. “All right,” he said to the chauffeur, “we’ll drive Mrs. Cool home. I’ll telephone headquarters, and we’ll put out a general pick-up order for this blind man. Strange he isn’t home. He can undoubtedly throw some light on what’s happened. Let’s go, Mrs. Cool.”
Bertha Cool maintained an aloof; discreet silence until Sergeant Sellers had deposited her at the door of her apartment.
“Good night,” he said.
“Good night,” Bertha Cool announced, biting off the end of the word. She marched with unforgiving hostility across the sidewalk and up to the entrance leading to her apartment house. The police car drove away.
Almost instantly Bertha Cool left the apartment house, walked rapidly down to the drugstore at the corner, summoned a taxicab, and once she had pulled herself into the interior, said to the driver, “I want to get to the Bluebonnet Apartments out on Figueroa Street, and I haven’t any time to waste.”
At the Bluebonnet Apartments, Bertha Cool pushed peremptorily at the bell button of Josephine Dell’s apartment, and it was with a feeling of relief that she heard Josephine Dell’s voice saying in the earpiece, “Who is it, please?”
“This is Mrs. Cool.”
“I’m afraid I haven’t time to talk with you, Mrs. Cool. I’m packing.”
“I must see you.”
“I have this new job, and I’m packing to take a plane. I—”
“I’ll talk to you while you pack,” Bertha said. “It will only take a few minutes, and—”
“Oh, all right.” The electric buzzer released the door catch.
Bertha Cool went on up and found Josephine Dell in the midst of that seemingly hopeless confusion which comes at moving time.
A trunk in the middle of the floor was two-thirds full. A suitcase on the bed was already filled, and there were other clothes laid out apparently to be taken along. A small bag was on the floor by the bed, and a large pasteboard carton was about half full of a miscellaneous assortment of odds and ends.
Josephine Dell, attired in blue silk pyjamas, was literally standing in the middle of things.
“Hello,” she said to Bertha Cool as though barely seeing her. “I’ve got all this packing to do before midnight. Going to store most of my stuff and get out of the apartment. Never realized what a hopeless job it was. Going to cram things in somehow, then take a bath, dress, and catch a midnight plane. I didn’t want to be rude, but if you’ve ever done any moving, you know exactly how I feel.”