WHEREFORE, plaintiff prays judgment against the said defendants in the sum of fifty thousand dollars actual damages, and in an additional sum of fifty thousand dollars as punitive or exemplary damages, making a total of one hundred thousand dollars, and plaintiff prays for her costs of suit incurred herein.
All of the sea-breeze vitality oozed out of Bertha Cool. She sat down in a chair across from Elsie Brand’s desk with knee-buckling finality. “Fry me for an oyster!” she exclaimed.
“But how can she sue you?” Elsie Brand demanded indignantly. “My heavens! You didn’t have her arrested or anything.”
Bertha said, “She’s crazy! It was all straightened up right there in Belder’s office before we left. Sally Brentner had been writing the letters. God only knows why. You can’t conceive of her writing poison-pen letters directing Mrs. Belder’s attention and suspicion to her, but that’s just what she did. No one will ever know why she did it. But Imogene has no beef coming. It was all straightened out before we left.”
“Did you apologize to her?” Elsie asked.
“Hell, no. I hadn’t done her any damage, except make her spill a few synthetic tears.”
“But she says in that complaint that Belder discharged her,” Elsie Brand said. “Why would he have fired her if it was all cleared up?”
“I don’t know,” Bertha said, “but he must have had it in for her over something else. They’d been having a fight before Sellers and I got to his office that morning.”
“How do you know?”
“I could tell she’d been crying. Damn it, you don’t suppose that fourflusher used what I said just as an excuse to get rid of the girl, do you?”
“He may have.”
“Well, I’m going to settle that right now,” Bertha Cool said.
“How can she sue the partnership on this?” Elsie asked. “Donald didn’t have anything to do with it.”
Bertha said, “The partnership’s still alive. They’ll claim that I was acting for myself and also for and on behalf of the partnership. I can stall the case off on account of Donald being in the service. No... Damned if I will. I’ll appear for myself and the partnership. Donald isn’t going to have this to worry about. It’ll all be over before he knows anything about it.”
Bertha glanced at her wrist-watch. “I’m going to see Everett Belder and give him something to think about. I’ll damn soon find out what’s behind this. He can’t use me as a stalking-horse and get away with it. That’s what comes of trying to lead the simple life. I pick up what I think is an easy case, try to let go of it when it gets tough, and get sued for a hundred thousand dollars’ worth of damages.”
“Did you,” Elsie asked as Bertha Cool started for the door, “call her a twerp?”
Bertha Cool jerked the door open, turned and said, “You’re goddamned right I called her a twerp,” and pounded her way indignantly down the corridor, managing to find a vacant taxi in front of the building.
“Rockaway Building,” she said as she hauled herself into the cab, “and make it snappy.”
Bertha Cool found a new secretary in the office of Everett G. Belder, a tall, thin woman somewhere in the forties, with a thin face, muddy complexion, a pointed chin, prominent high-bridged nose, and an austere manner. “Good morning.”
“Mr. Belder in?”
“Who is calling, please.” The words were articulated with conscious care, making the simple request seem long and formal.
“Bertha Cool.”
“Do you have a card, Miss Cool?”
“Mrs. Cool,” Bertha said, raising her voice. “I want to see him about business. I don’t have an appointment, and I’ve been here before. Practice your elocution on someone else. And— Oh, the hell with that stuff. I’m going in.”
Bertha strode across the room, heedless of the protests which the tall, angular woman made with a frigid formality.
She jerked the door open.
Everett Belder was tilted back in his chair, his feet up on the desk, ankles crossed, an open newspaper held in front of his face.
“It’s all right, Miss Horrison,” he said. “Just put the letters on the desk. I’ll sign them later.”
He turned the page of the paper.
Bertha Cool slammed the door shut with a jar that shook the pictures on the wall.
Everett Belder lowered his newspaper in surprised irritation. “Good heavens! It’s Mrs. Cool! Why didn’t you let Miss Horrison announce you?”
“Because I’m in a hurry,” Bertha said, “and she took too goddamned long pronouncing her words. Get that newspaper out of the way, and tell me what in hell you mean by firing Imogene Dearborne.”
Belder slowly folded the newspaper, frowned at Bertha.
“She’s my employee. I believe I have the right to terminate the employment any time I wish, Mrs. Cool.”
Bertha said angrily, “Don’t be so damned formal. You must be trying to live up to that new secretary. I don’t care when you fire her, or how you fire her, just so you leave me out of it. But she’s sued me for a hundred thousand bucks, claiming that I defamed her character and you fired her on account of that.”
Belder sat forward in his chair, putting his feet down on the floor with a thud. “What do you say she did, Mrs. Cool?”
“Sued me for a hundred thousand.”
“I can’t believe it.”
“Well, she did. Papers were served on me this morning.”
“Exactly what does she claim?”
“That I called her a twerp, said she was in love with you, and that she sent those letters. She claims you fired her on the strength of it.”
“Why, the damned little liar! She knows better than that.”
Bertha settled back comfortably in her chair. For the first time the tense lines about her eyes relaxed. “That,” she said, “is what I came over here to find out. Why did you fire her?”
“There wasn’t anything personal about it,” Belder said. “That is, in a way.”
Bertha said angrily, “Quit beating around the bush. Why did you fire her?”
“Well, for one reason, she was too good-looking. She carried herself in a provocative manner. It’s hard to explain. She was not only good-looking, but conscious of her good looks.”
“What’s that got to do with it?”
“Well, when you have a sister-in-law who is as observing as Carlotta Goldring, and a mother-in-law as suspicious as Theresa Goldring, it has a lot to do with it.”
“Did they tell you to fire her?”
“No, no. Now don’t misunderstand me, Mrs. Cool. They didn’t make any definite suggestions. Imogene was a very nice secretary. A very competent young woman, but she had certain habits, certain—”
Bertha leaned forward in her chair, her eyes boring into those of the sales engineer. “Of all the damned wishy-washy excuses,” she said. “Now, come on. Out with it. You’d been having an argument with her before Sergeant Sellers and I got here yesterday morning. She’d been crying. That’s when you told her she was fired, wasn’t it?”
“Well, no. Not exactly.”
Bertha said, “Now listen, I know you’d been having an argument. If you told her she was fired, or that you weren’t going to keep her, before I arrived on the scene, it would help a lot in showing that this suit is just a trumped-up piece of blackmail. Can’t you see? I’ve got to show that she didn’t get fired because of what I said.”