Josephine Dell laughed, a musical, tinkling bit of laughter. “Oh, but I am. It was the most peculiar experience. This man struck me and knocked me down, and he seemed like a very nice young man. I didn’t think I was hurt at the time, but the next morning when I got up, I began to be a little dizzy and had a headache. I called a doctor, and the doctor said it looked like concussion. He advised a complete rest and—”
“Wait a minute,” Bertha said. “Did this man drive you home?”
“He wanted to, and I decided to let him. At the time I didn’t think I was hurt at all. I just thought I’d been knocked over, and felt a little sheepish about it, because — well, after all, while I was in the right, so far as the signal was concerned. I really wasn’t watching where I was going. I had some things on my mind that day, and — well, anyway, he insisted that I must go to a hospital for a check-up; and when I refused that, he said he was going to drive me home anyway.”
Bertha Cool looked as though she were seeing ghosts. “What happened?”
“Well, the man seemed like very much of a gentleman, but I hadn’t been riding with him very long before I realized he had been drinking. Then I saw he was quite intoxicated, and then the veneer of being a gentleman wore through. He started making offensive remarks, and finally started pawing. I slapped his face, got out of the car, and took a streetcar home.”
“You hadn’t told him where you lived?”
“No, just the direction to start driving.”
“And he didn’t have your name?”
“I gave it to him, but he was too drunk to remember it. I’m absolutely certain of that.”
Bertha did everything but rub her eyes. “Now,” she said, “all you need to do to make the thing completely cockeyed is to tell me that you were living in the Bluebonnet Apartments.”
“But I was — I still am. The Bluebonnet Apartments out on Figueroa. How did you know?”
Bertha Cool put her hand to her head.
“What’s the matter?” Josephine Dell asked.
“Fry me for an oyster,” Bertha said, “pickle me for a herring, and can me for a sardine. I’m a poor fish.”
“But I don’t understand.”
“Just go ahead. Tell me the rest of it.”
“Well, that’s about all there is to it. I got up the next morning and felt dizzy. I called the doctor, and he suggested I should take a complete rest. I didn’t have any money on hand, but I had a little money coming. I thought that perhaps I could arrange something so I could— Well, I knew that Mrs. Cranning, the housekeeper, had a housekeeping fund from which she paid bills; and I thought perhaps I could get a little salary advance on that. I suppose I should tell you the man I was working for had died rather suddenly—”
“I know all about that,” Bertha said. “Tell me about the money angle.”
“Well, I went to Mrs. Cranning, and she didn’t have enough to spare to enable me to do just what I wanted to do, but she told me to go in and lie down and she’d see what she could do. Well, she certainly did a splendid job. The insurance company made a perfectly splendid adjustment.”
“And what did it do?”
“They agreed with my doctor that what I needed was a complete rest for a month or six weeks, and that I should go to some place where I wouldn’t have a thing in the world to worry about, where I wouldn’t have any of my old contacts or associations to bother me. My employer had died, and I was going to be out of a job, anyway. Well, the insurance company agreed to send me here, pay every cent of expenses, give me my salary for the two months I was here. When I left, they were to give me a cheque for five hundred dollars and guarantee to find me a job. Isn’t that generous?”
“Did you sign anything?” Bertha asked.
“Oh yes, a complete agreement — a release I guess it’s called.”
Bertha said, “Good God!”
“But I don’t understand. Can’t you tell me what’s the matter? What I’m telling you seems to distress you.”
“The insurance company,” Bertha said, “was the Inter-mutual Indemnity Company, and the agent was P. L. Fosdick?”
“Why, no.”
“Who was it?” Bertha Cool asked.
“It was an automobile club. I’ve forgotten the exact name of it, but I think it was the Auto Parity Club. I know the agent’s name was Milbran. He’s the one who made all the arrangements.”
“How did you cash the cheque?” Bertha asked.
“The settlement was made in the form of cash, because it was on Saturday afternoon. The banks were closed, and Mr. Milbran thought I should come right out here where it was quiet. He said that he was making a generous settlement with me because of the circumstances. Do you know what he told me — after the agreement had been signed, of course?”
“No,” Bertha said. “What?”
She laughed. “Said that his client was so drunk that he actually didn’t know he had hit anyone. He admitted that he’d been drinking heavily and was driving the car home; but he doesn’t even remember having been in that particular section of the city where he hit me, and certainly doesn’t remember the accident. It came as a shock to him when—”
“Wait a minute,” Bertha Cool interrupted. “How did you get in touch with the insurance company then?”
“That was through Mrs. Cranning.”
“I know, but how did she get in touch with it? What—?”
“Well, I remembered this man’s licence number.”
“Did you write it down?” Bertha asked.
“No, I didn’t write it down. I just remembered it, and I told Mrs. Cranning what it was. Of course, I wrote it down after I got home. When I say I didn’t write it down, I mean I didn’t stand right there in front of the automobile and write it down. I didn’t want to be disagreeable about the thing, but I just looked at his licence number so as to— Why, what’s the matter?”
Bertha Cool said, “You’ve done the damnedest thing.”
“I have?”
“Yes.”
“What? I don’t understand.”
“You got the licence number wrong,” Bertha Cool said, “and just as a pure coincidence your wrong licence number happened to be that of a man who was also driving a car at that time and was also drunk.”
“You mean that the man — that the Club—”
“That’s exactly what I mean,” Bertha said. “You got hold of a man who happened to have been too drunk at the time to know what he was doing but who realized he might have hit someone. When Mrs. Cranning got in touch with him and told him about the accident, he rang up his insurance carrier and reported to them, and the insurance carrier came dashing out to make the best settlement he could.”
“And you mean this man didn’t hit me at all?”
“Not the one you made the claim against.”
“But that’s impossible!”
“I know it’s impossible,” Bertha observed doggedly, “but it’s exactly what happened.”
“And where does that leave me?”
Bertha said, “It leaves you sitting on top of the world.”
“I’m afraid I don’t understand.”
Bertha Cool opened her purse, pulled out one of her agency cards, and put on her best smile. “Here,” she said, “is one of my cards. Cool and Lam, Confidential Investigators. I’m Bertha Cool.”
“You mean — that you’re a detective?”
“Yes.”
“How exciting!”
“Not very.”
“But don’t you— Oh, you must have unusual experiences. You must work at odd hours, have sleepless nights—”
“Yes,” Bertha interrupted, “we have unusual experiences and sleepless nights. I had an unusual experience yesterday and a particularly sleepless night. And now I’ve found you.”
“But why were you looking for me?”