“Then what the hell do you want to put in more time on more study for? If you don’t know how to handle this case say so, and I’ll get someone who does.”
“My dear Mrs. Cool! You simply—”
“The hell with that stuff,” Bertha interrupted. “I don’t want any demurrers. I don’t want to pay fancy prices to gain time I’m going to have to pay for. I simply want to file an answer telling this goddamned little twerp where she gets off.”
“My dear Mrs. Cool! Please! I ask you as your attorney, don’t keep referring to the plaintiff as a twerp.”
“She’s a damned gold-digging little bitch,” Bertha said, angrily raising her voice. “She’s a mealy-mouthed hypocrite.”
“Mrs. Cool! Mrs. Cool! You’ll ruin your chances of defending this lawsuit.”
“You know what she is as well as I do. She—”
“Mrs. Cool! Please. Now I am going to tell you something once and for all. If you even think of the plaintiff in this action in that way, you’re going to lose your temper in court and throw your entire case out of the window. Those words show malice. I instruct you as your lawyer, I warn you, that you must studiously make a habit of referring to this young woman as a thoroughly estimable young lady, otherwise you’re going to regret it.”
“You mean I’ve got to let her throw this action in my face and still like her?”
“She’s misguided. She took offence where none was meant. She’s high-strung and her lawyers have taken advantage of an unusual situation to try and collect an excessive amount. But the young woman in the case, the plaintiff herself is, so far as you know, a thoroughly estimable young woman, and you must school yourself to refer to her as such.”
Bertha took a deep breath.
“How much?”
“For just drawing an answer?”
“Yes.”
“Well, I would say that in order to do that we’d need to have a preliminary discussion as to the facts of the case, and—”
“How much?”
“Oh, say seventy-five dollars.”
“For just drawing an answer? Why I’ll bet I could get somebody to just draw an answer for—”
“But we’d have to discuss the facts with you first.”
“Facts nothing,” Bertha said. “All I want is an answer that will call this — this estimable young woman a goddamned liar. An answer that will claim that she didn’t get fired because of anything I said, that whatever I said was what you call a privileged communication, and all that stuff.”
“Well,” Drumson said with obvious reluctance, “I guess perhaps, under those circumstances, a charge of twenty-five dollars... But you understand, Mrs. Cool, we wouldn’t accept any responsibility for anything in connection with the case. We wouldn’t want our name to appear on the pleading. It would simply be an answer that we would draw, and you could sign, appearing in propria persona.”
“What does that mean?” Bertha asked.
“That’s a legal expression that means a person is appearing without a lawyer. That is, that the party filing the pleading is acting as his own lawyer.”
Bertha said, “That’s what I want. Draw up the answer. I’ll sign it myself, and appear myself, representing myself. And I want to get it by Monday morning. I’ll file that and have it off my mind.”
Drumson watched her leave the office. Then with a sigh he pressed the button which summoned his stenographer.
12
All Wool And—
Sergeant Sellers tilted back a somewhat battered, uncushioned swivel chair at Headquarters and grinned across at Bertha Cool. “You’re looking great, Bertha. What’s this about that Dearborne girl filing suit against you?”
Bertha said, “The little—” and stopped.
“Go ahead,” Sellers remarked grinning. “I’ve probably heard all of the words you know. Get them off your chest, you’ll feel better.”
Bertha said, “I’ve just come from my lawyer’s. Any names I call her might show malice, and that might hurt my lawsuit. So far as I’m concerned, she’s a very estimable young lady, mistaken perhaps, misguided certainly; but a very charming young bitch of unquestioned virtue.”
Sellers threw back his head and laughed. He pulled a cigar from his pocket and Bertha took a cigarette from her purse. Sellers leaned across the table to hold a match to her cigarette.
“We’re getting polite,” Bertha said.
“Oh, hell,” Sellers observed cheerfully. “We know the conventional obligations of a host. We just don’t pay attention to them most of the time.”
He dropped the match into a large-mouthed polished brass cuspidor which sat on a rubber mat by the side of the big table. All over the table and on the floor around the cuspidor, ribbons of black had been burnt into the wood, places where cigarettes had been allowed to lie neglected, or tossed carelessly in the general direction of the cuspidor, and had burnt themselves out.
Sergeant Sellers followed Bertha’s glance, and grinned. “You always see that around Police Headquarters,” he said. “A man could write a book about the stories back of those cigarette marks. Sometimes you put a cigarette down to answer the telephone. It’s a homicide, and you go busting out and forget all about your cigarette. Sometimes you’re pouring questions at a guy and he begins to crack. He starts wanting cigarettes, just a whiff or two, and then tosses them away. He’s nervous, he couldn’t hit the mouth of the spittoon if it were four feet in diameter. And those short marks— Well, they’re caused by the boys getting careless. Toss ’em in the general direction you want ’em to go, and forget ’em. What do you want me to do with this Dearborne girl?”
“What can you do with her?”
“Plenty.”
“I don’t get you.”
Sellers said, “You gave me a break in that case involving the blind man. I’ll never forget it, Bertha. We don’t forgive our enemies, or forget our friends up here. Now, that girl sues you for slander. She’s asking for damages for her reputation. That means she puts her reputation into the issues. We’ll go back over her past with a fine-toothed comb. We’ll dig up things that will make her squirm. Then your lawyers can let her lawyers know that you have the dope on her, and she’ll quit.”
Bertha said, “I’m my own lawyer, and don’t tell me I’ve got a fool of a client.”
“What’s the idea acting as your own lawyer?”
“The lawyer who does my work wanted five hundred bucks for a retainer, then had the crust to tell me I could pay more when trial came up.”
Sergeant Sellers whistled.
“That’s just the way I felt about it,” Bertha said.
“Well, let me talk with him, Bertha. Perhaps I can do something about it.”
“I’ve already talked with him about it,” Bertha said. “Something’s been done about it.”
“Then he’s going to represent you?”
“No. He’s going to draw an answer. I’m going to file the answer and pay him twenty-five dollars. From then on I’m on my own.”
Sellers said, “Well, let me go to work on Imogene. Perhaps I can dig something up. A girl who runs an office that way and files suit against you almost before the words are off your lips is apt to have something in her past she won’t want dragged out into the open.”
Bertha said, “Damn her. If I get my hands on her, I’ll slap her to sleep. The goddamned — estimable young lady!”
Sellers grinned. “I know just how you feel.”
“What have you found out about the Belder business?” Bertha asked.
“I think it’s murder.”
“Didn’t you think so all along?”
“Not quite so strongly as I do now. An autopsy shows that she died of carbon monoxide poisoning. She’s been dead for some little time — perhaps an hour or two before the knife was stuck into her.”