“I can understand exactly how you feel, Mrs. Cool,” and there was a half-smile in Elsie Brand’s eyes. “I thought at the time that Sergeant Sellers was starting something.”
“I was sore,” Bertha admitted. “Good and sore. I made up my mind I’d see him in hell before I even gave him so much as a pleasant thought in the future. Then something happened, and I put two and two together and got this clue. I suppose I could blame Donald for that if I really tried good and hard.”
“Why blame him because you got a clue?”
“Not that,” Bertha said, “but the way I got it. The way I went about the whole thing. I used to run just a simple detective agency. I never thought of holding out on the police. Hell, I never had any reason to hold out on them. I never had anything to hold. I tagged along with a little detective agency, doing odd jobs here and there, picking up a little money, pinching every penny until the Indian head yelled for mercy. Then, along comes Donald.”
Bertha stopped long enough for a deep draw at the cigarette. “A brainy little devil if ever there was one,” she went on. “Money just didn’t mean a damn thing to him. He spent it like water and damned if he didn’t have the knack of making it run like water coming through a leaky roof. I never saw so much money in my life. And he never played anything the way he was supposed to, or the way it looked as though he was playing it. He was always two or three jumps ahead of everybody, playing the cards close to his chest, getting all ready for that final big blow-off when Donald would bob up with the right answer that he’d had all along, and a fistful of money that came to us because he had known the right answer long before anyone else had even guessed it.”
“Well, I hated to admit that Donald was better at it than I was. So when I had a chance to play them close to my chest in this case, I just kept quiet. I should have talked. Now, it’s too late to talk. I’ve got a bear by the tail. I can’t let go, and I don’t know what to do.”
“If it’s going to make you feel any better, tell me about it,” Elsie said.
Bertha said, “Her husband killed her, there’s no mystery about that. The point is, he did it in such a clever way they can never convict him of murder. Even if they get the goods on him, they probably can’t convict him of anything — but he had a woman accomplice. Now then, who was this woman accomplice?”
Elsie Brand smiled. “I’m not guessing. You want to talk, go ahead and talk.”
“Talking makes me feel better,” Bertha admitted, “and gets the thing more clear in my mind. He had a female accomplice. Who? I thought for a while it was Carlotta’s mother, but it couldn’t have been, because they must be working at cross purposes.”
“She was the one who was in here yesterday?”
“Yes. She wanted to find out who did Belder’s barber work. I found out. I got fifty dollars for finding out. After that, all I had to do was to telephone a certain number. When someone answered the phone, I was to mention the name of the barber’s shop and then hang up.”
“You have that phone number?” Elsie asked.
“I have it — I checked it. It’s a pay station in a downtown drug-store. Someone was waiting there to pick up the information. Perhaps Carlotta’s mother.”
Elsie’s nod was sympathetic.
“But,” Bertha said, “I did a little thinking. I tried to figure it the way Donald Lam would. I said to myself, ‘Now why does she want to know Belder’s barber? What does Belder’s barber have to do with it?’ So I thought back about Belder, trying to place the last time I’d noticed him being all slicked up as though he had been to a barber’s shop, and I remembered it was Wednesday morning.”
“I went down to the barber shop and asked a few questions. The barber who ran the place remembered Belder had been in there, had been wearing an overcoat, and had forgotten and left it there when he walked out. It occurred to me Carlotta’s mother knew about that and wanted to search the overcoat. I beat her to it. I found something in the overcoat pocket that’s a clue.”
“What?” Elsie asked.
“I’m not saying,” Bertha said. “I’m not telling even you that, Elsie. Not that Bertha doesn’t think she can trust you, but it’s something she doesn’t dare tell anyone.”
“I understand,” Elsie said sympathetically.
“It might help Sergeant Sellers convict Belder of murder — it might not. I don’t know. I do know that Carlotta’s mother wanted this thing. I snatched it right out from under her hand. She couldn’t have been Belder’s accomplice, or she wouldn’t have needed to have come to me in the first place.”
“Unless it suited Belder’s purpose to have you get this thing, and you were just walking into a trap,” Elsie said.
“That possibility occurred to me about two o’clock this morning,” Bertha admitted. “That’s why I didn’t get any sleep.”
“Why don’t you go to Sergeant Sellers, put all your cards on the table and—”
“Because that’s the logical thing to do,” Bertha said. “That’s what I should do. That’s what the average detective agency would do, and if I do, I’ll wind up behind the eight ball with the fee that an average detective agency would make.”
“To hell with that stuff. I’m pinch-hitting for Donald. He’s over there in the Navy pushing Japs around, and being pushed around. When he comes back, he’s going to need dough. What’s more, he’s going to need a business that will give him some earning capacity. Damn me, I’m going to have both all ready for him.”
“I can understand just how you feel.”
“If I tell Sergeant Sellers about this, the sergeant will take over. That will be all there is to it. He’ll bawl hell out of me because I didn’t tell him sooner; then I’ll be a witness in a murder trial and the lawyers will start picking me to pieces, asking me why I didn’t do something about this as soon as I got it, intimating that I was first planning blackmail, that I have it in for Belder and am trying to get him convicted of murder on the strength of it— The whole damn line of stuff that lawyers hand out.”
“I know,” Elsie said. “I was a witness once.”
Bertha thought things over for nearly a minute. “Well,” she said, “I’ve started out and I’ve got to paddle my own canoe. Carlotta’s mother knows that I beat her to it, and have the thing she was looking for. I can count on her trying to get it. If Everett Belder knows I’ve got it, he’ll — well, he’ll probably try to kill me. Somewhere along the line I’ve got to play both ends against the middle and come out on top. And from where I’m sitting right now, it looks like a hopeless job.”
“If there’s anything I can do,” Elsie said, “you can count on me.”
Bertha couldn’t keep the surprise from her face. “I didn’t know you felt that way.”
Elsie Brand’s eyes misted. “I keep thinking of Donald out there on the firing-line and — and—”
Bertha’s eyes suddenly became intent. “My God, don’t tell me you’re in love with him, too! All the other women he’s met fall—”
“No, it’s not that. It’s — well, if there’s anything I can do—”
Bertha heaved herself wearily to her feet, “Well,” she announced, “there’s Dolly Cornish. She’s the forgotten woman in this whole business, and somehow I have a hunch—”
“Somebody coming. Damn it, every time I sit down out here somebody catches me before I can—”