“Know the exact time?” Bertha asked.
“Why, yes. Mr. Belder doesn’t like to wait. He comes in during the slack time — along about eleven o’clock in the morning. He was a little late Wednesday; got in just before half-past eleven. I remember now. There was a high fog that day with a raw wind. He had his overcoat with him. The sun came out shortly after he got in the chair and we talked about the wind blowing the fog away. When he left, he left his overcoat. That’s it hanging on the hook over there. I rang him up and told him I had it, and he said he’d come by and pick it up... Say, what difference does it make? Why are you checking up on him?”
“I’m not checking up on him,” Bertha said. “I’m just trying to help him.”
“He hiring you?”
Bertha said, “I told you I’m trying to help him. Has anyone else been in here asking questions about him?”
The man shook his head.
“They probably will,” Bertha said.
“I remember seeing in the papers, now, there’d been some trouble up at his house. A maid fell down the cellar stairs and killed herself, didn’t she?”
“Something like that.”
“This anything to do with that?”
Quite apparently the man had been too tired to give much thought to Bertha’s first questions. He had answered them while changing his clothes, anxious to get rid of her so he could finish up with the afternoon rush. Now, as he turned inquisitor, he was beginning to become suspicious.
Bertha glared him into submission. “What possible connection would there be between the time that he came by your barber shop and a maid falling down the stairs?”
The barber thought that over while he was buttoning the white jacket. “Nothing, I guess. I was just wondering. That’s all I know about Belder’s last visit here.”
Bertha followed him out of the little room with a meek docility which would have aroused Sergeant Sellers’ instant suspicions, but the barber had already forgotten her by the time he took up his position behind his chair.
“Who’s next?” he asked.
A man got up, started for the barber’s chair. Bertha, her hand on the doorknob, said, “I left my purse in there,” and started for the back room.
The barber glanced after her, then devoted his attention to whipping a white cloth around the neck of his customer. “Hair trim?” he asked.
Bertha had all the time she needed in the back room. She went over to where Everett Belder’s overcoat was hanging and began a methodical search of the pockets.
There was a handkerchief and a half-used paper of matches in the left pocket. The right-hand pocket held a pair of gloves and a spectacle case of the kind that snaps shut.
Bertha casually opened the spectacle case.
There were no glasses on the inside — only a removable gold bridge containing two teeth.
Bertha picked up the purse she had purposely left on the small table, opened it, dropped in the spectacle case and walked out through the barber shop.
“Good day,” the man said mechanically. “Come again.”
“Thank you,” Bertha told him, “I will.”
16
A Body in a Car
Early evening traffic had brisked up as Bertha Cool cruised down the boulevard, carefully watching her speedometer. She slowed for the intersection where she had lost Mrs. Belder, brought the car to a full stop, then slammed home the gears, and pushed the throttle all the way down, keeping in her mind a mental picture of just how the car ahead had proceeded; about how fast, and about how much headstart it had had when it turned the corner.
Bertha swung around the corner, speeded up to the next corner, then brought her car to a stop and surveyed the street ahead, the street to the left, and the street to the right. She then realized something that had not dawned on her before. The blocks to the left and right were double blocks with no streets cut through the boulevard.
Bertha parked her car at the kerb and did mental arithmetic.
If Mrs. Belder’s machine had stayed on the road straight ahead, Bertha would certainly have seen it as she turned the corner from the boulevard. Bertha had been gaining on the car for the last hundred yards before she lost it. It might have made either a right or a left turn on a single block, but the possibilities that it could have done so on a double block were negligible.
Faced with the knowledge that the car couldn’t have evaporated into thin air, and now realizing the importance of what had originally seemed to be merely a routine shadowing job, Bertha cudgeled her mind, trying to think of something which might furnish a possible clue to that which had taken place.
From the depths of her memory came the hazy recollection that someone had been standing at a garage door somewhere in the block as Bertha had swung in from the boulevard. At the time Bertha had been intent only on getting to the corner.
She tried to remember just where the garage had been. Somewhere on the left-hand side of the street.
Bertha swung her car in a U-turn and cruised slowly down the street.
The second house from the corner looked about right — 709 North Harkington Avenue. It was, of course, a forlorn hope — a chance of one in a thousand, but Bertha was gunning for big game now, and one chance in a thousand couldn’t be overlooked.
Bertha stopped her car, marched up the cement walk and pushed the bell button of the house. From the interior she could hear the faint sound of electric chimes.
She waited fifteen seconds then pushed the bell again. There was no sound of motion from the interior of the house.
Bertha stepped back from the door to make a more careful appraisal of the house. There was about it almost a deserted atmosphere. The shades were pulled about two-thirds of the way down. There was an accumulation of dust in the corner of the threshold where the front door was recessed from the porch.
Disappointed, Bertha jabbed her thumb against the door-button once again and turned to appraise the neighbourhood.
The sun, shielded by a low-hanging bank of clouds in the west, had given the effect of an early twilight. The day had, however, been warm. In a yard across the street some children were playing — a girl eight or nine, and a boy a couple of years younger.
Bertha walked across to them. “Who lives in that house across the street?” she asked.
It was the girl who answered the question. “Mr. and Mrs. Cuttring.”
“They don’t seem to be home.”
The girl hesitated.
The boy blurted out, “They went away for a ten-day vacation.”
The girl said, “Mother told you not to say anything about that. Burglars get in when they know people aren’t home.”
Bertha smiled reassuringly. “I had heard they wanted to rent their garage; do you know anything about it?”
“Why, no. They have a car. They took it with them.”
“Thank you,” Bertha told them courteously. “I’ll just take a look in the garage. They want to rent it.”
She retraced her steps, more confidently this time, crossing the street and walking up the cement driveway to the garage. Behind her the children watched her for a moment, and then went on with their play. By the time Bertha had reached the garage, they had entirely forgotten her, and the shrill treble of children’s voices raised in screaming play reached Bertha’s ears.
Bertha tentatively tried the garage door, expecting it to be locked.
It swung smoothly on well-oiled hinges.
Bertha pushed the door back a few cautious inches. She didn’t intend to go inside unless—
She saw a car on the inside of the garage.
There was something vaguely familiar about the back of the car. Bertha glanced at the license number.