“Why, Mrs. Cool! How can you say anything like that about your partner?”
“Damned if I know,” Bertha said. “I’m just talking.”
“Weren’t you working on a lot of cases together?”
“Certainly.”
“Well, couldn’t you tell from the way he acted?”
“Hell’s bells,” Bertha said, “our arrangement was a business partnership. I didn’t sleep with him.”
“That isn’t what I meant,” Claire Bushnell said.
“Well, I thought I’d head you off,” Bertha said, “because that’s what you were going to get around to. So you haven’t seen him?”
“No. Have you been in your office, Mrs. Cool?”
“Off and on,” Bertha said. “I had to go out to San Robles on a job there. I kept the radio tuned in on the news broadcast and heard about Donald on the radio. I came back to the office, and everybody had heard it. The girls were having hysterics.”
“What girls?”
“The secretaries,” Bertha said. “That Elsie Brand, the one that’s Donald’s private secretary, was fighting mad. She was white-faced she was so damn indignant. She said that she’d stake her life Donald was absolutely innocent, said she’d buy him a dozen stockings and turn out the lights with him any time.”
Claire Bushnell took advantage of the situation to rub it in on me. She said musingly, “Well, of course, there is something funny. I had a talk with Mr. Lam yesterday. He came in the apartment and caught me rather informally.”
The bell rang again insistently, stridently, and kept on ringing. Claire Bushnell went over to the speaking tube. I heard her say, “Who is it?” then there was a long moment of silence.
“Well, who was it?” Bertha Cool said. “My God, you’re white as a sheet.”
“A man by the name of Sellers,” she said, “Sergeant Sellers, of the police.”
“That’ll be Frank,” Bertha said. “He’s a good egg. He’s on Homicide. I wonder what the hell he’s doing here.”
I sat tight. A few moments later I heard the bang of Sellers’s imperative knuckles on the apartment door, and then Claire went across and opened it. Sellers said, “You’re Claire Bushnell?”
“That’s right.”
“Hello, Frank,” Bertha said.
“Hel-lo, Bertha!” Sellers exclaimed. “I sure hated to do it, Bertha, but that’s the way the chips fell.”
“Well, I don’t blame you,” Bertha said. “If what I heard over the radio is right, I guess the little bastard is caught dead to rights. I guess that’s been the trouble with him all along. One of those over-developed brains. He always did keep to himself, sort of.”
“Never had any normal relations with women?” Sellers asked.
“How the hell would I know?” Bertha demanded truculently. “Women fall all over themselves falling in love with him... Take that little secretary he’s got. She’s nuts over him, and Donald treats her as though she might be his kid sister. Her eyes light up like automobile headlights every time he comes into the room. She follows him all around with those eyes. Donald doesn’t even seem to notice it. But he’s always been nice to her, always tried to give her the breaks. He fought to get her raises in salary and make the work easier for her.”
“Typical symptoms,” Sellers said with all the smug finality of an amateur psychoanalyst. “Hell, I should have smelled it a long time ago.”
“May I ask what you’re talking about?” Claire Bushnell said.
“Her partner, Donald Lam,” Sellers said. “He’s a murderer — sex murder. What do you know about him?”
“Why, I’ve met him,” Claire Bushnell said.
Sellers said, “Hell, let’s quit beating around the bush. Where is he?”
“What do you mean?”
“You know what I mean,” Sellers said. “You’ve got him up here, hiding.”
“Why, what are you talking about?” Claire Bushnell exclaimed indignantly.
“Phooey,” Sellers said. “I knew damn well that as soon as this thing broke Donald would be too smart to come to the office. He’d go some place where he didn’t think anybody would look for him and telephone Bertha to come and join him, so I simply stuck around and shadowed Bertha. When she started out here, I tagged along. I knew damn well she came out here to meet Donald Lam. He’s either here now or else he’s going to come in later and meet Bertha Cool.”
Bertha said, “You’re nuts, Frank, I haven’t talked with Donald. I don’t know where the hell the little runt is.”
“You’re not kidding me a damn bit, Bertha,” Sellers answered. “You may think he’s a murderer or you may not, but you’ve got business together and you sure as hell aren’t going to let him get locked up until you’ve had a chance to find out everything he knows about that case he’s working on, so you can carry on and make some mazuma out of it.”
Bertha said, “It would have been a good idea; if I’d known where to get in touch with him I would have. I came out here because this little lady gave us a two-hundred-dollar cheque that bounced.”
“Yeah, I know,” Sellers said. “I’ll just look around.”
“Look around,” Bertha Cool told him. “If you want to make a bet, I’ll bet you don’t find him, because he isn’t here.”
“What’ll you bet?” Sellers asked.
“Fifty bucks,” Bertha said quickly. “Come on, is it a go?”
I could see that that bothered Sellers. He hesitated for a minute then said, “I’m not betting, but I’m taking a look around, just the same.”
“You can’t search my apartment,” Claire Bushnell said.
“Oh, oh,” Sellers observed. “That’s the pay off.”
“Well, you can’t. You haven’t a warrant and you just can’t come barging in here. How do I know you’re an officer?”
“Bertha knows I’m an officer,” Sellers said. “Why don’t you want me to search the place, sister?”
“Because it’s my place. I don’t like the idea of police barging in here and going through it just any time they happen to feel like it.”
“Still want to bet?” Sellers asked Bertha.
There was a long interval of silence, then Bertha said dubiously, “I’ll bet you ten bucks.”
“Make it twenty-five,” Sellers said.
“No, ten,” Bertha said. “That’s my limit.”
“You’ve come down forty bucks.”
“You’ve changed your tune,” Bertha told him.
“Okay,” Sellers said, “I’ll bet you ten bucks. Get out of my way, sister. What’s behind this door?”
I could hear her struggling with Sellers. Sellers merely laughed.
“Damn you!” she panted. “You can’t do that. You…”
“Out of the way, sister, out of the way,” Sellers said.
The door latch clicked. The door swung open and the wall-bed pushed me out to one side.
“Well, well, well,” Sellers said. “First rattle out of the box. Come on out, Lam.”
I walked out into the room.
Bertha jumped up, her eyes blazing. “Why, you damned little son-of-a-bitch!” she screamed at me. “You’ve cost me ten bucks!”
Frank Sellers threw back his head and roared with laughter. “This is good,” he said. “This really is good.”
“Why, you ungrateful little…” Bertha’s voice choked with emotion.
Claire looked at me helplessly.
I said, “It’s all right, Claire. I’m sorry. I came up the stairs. You must have been out telephoning or something. The door was open. I came in here and waited for you to come back and then the door-bell began to ring. I didn’t know who it was so I slipped in here and pulled the door shut behind me.”