“I do that,” Bertha agreed. “And what’s more, once I take a case for a person, I stay with it. I’m something of a bulldog. I keep tugging and worrying until I finally shake a result out of the situation — the result my clients want. That’s the way I work.”
“I’ve heard that you are very competent,” Carlotta acknowledged.
Mrs. Goldring lowered her handkerchief from her eyes. “Intensely loyal,” she supplemented. “You have an excellent reputation, Mrs. Cool, and I should think that your clients would want to see that you were very well compensated.”
“Some of them do. Sometimes you get hold of one you have to argue with.” Bertha beamed across at her visitors. “But do you know,” she went on, “I have found that the more intelligent my clients are, the more they appreciate that I have to be well paid.”
“Yes, I can see where that would be the case,” Carlotta said, glancing quickly at her mother and then going on, “Well, Mrs. Cool, you’re exceedingly busy, so we’ll get right down to brass tacks.”
“I’ll tell her,” Mrs. Goldring said.
“That’s the way I like to do things,” Bertha said. “Shoot fast. Of course, in this case there are complications — but I’m a fast worker at that.”
“So I understand.”
Bertha oozed smiling approval “Suppose you explain just what it is you want, if you feel up to it.”
Carlotta looked at Mrs. Goldring expectantly.
Mrs. Goldring sighed, dabbed her handkerchief to her nose, lowered it, said, “I believe you understand that my daughter’s husband is a sales engineer. It’s a business that’s very speculative. I don’t know just what it is that he does, but occasionally he takes complete charge of the distribution of some line of merchandise on a percentage basis.”
Bertha wasted no time making comments while the preliminaries were coming in.
“Of course, recently, there haven’t been any sales problems. It’s been a problem of getting materials. Manufacturers had more market than they knew what to do with. They couldn’t get the stuff to manufacture — and Everett Belder had some rather sharp reverses.”
Bertha contented herself with a nod.
“Some time ago he placed all his property in my daughter’s name.”
Bertha did not even nod, simply sat behind her desk, her eyes watching Mrs. Goldring in glittering concentration.
“Of course,” Mrs. Goldring went on, “it would be reasonable to suppose that he simply placed the property in Mabel’s name so that he would be safe from his creditors, but he took the witness-stand and denied upon oath that such was his intention in making the transfer. I don’t understand the law very well, Mrs. Cool, but as I understand it, the intention with which the transfer is made has a lot to do with it. If a person intends to defraud his creditors, the transfer is void. If he has some other, and legitimate, intent, the transfer stands up.”
“And this stood up?” Bertha asked.
“This stood up.”
“Then upon your daughter’s death the property which she held was her sole and separate property?”
“That’s right.”
“Rather considerable?” Bertha asked, tentatively feeling the way.
“Quite considerable,” Mrs. Goldring said in a tone of cold finality which slammed the door of that particular conversational corridor in Bertha Cool’s face.
For a moment there was silence, then Carlotta Goldring said quickly, “What actually happened, Mrs. Cool, is that Mabel and Everett Belder hadn’t been getting along very well together for the past few months, and when she had reason to believe that Everett was — well, you know, was — I mean, that he was—”
“Playing around?” Bertha interjected.
“Yes.”
“All right. She thought he was stepping out, so what happened?”
“She made a will leaving all her property to my mother and myself,” Carlotta said positively.
“How do you know?”
“She told us so. That is, she told us she was making such a will. She told my mother so over the telephone. She said she was drawing it up on her own typewriter. She knew she’d require two witnesses. I feel confident that Sally Brentner was one. We don’t know who the other witness was.”
“Where’s that will now?”
“That’s just the point, Mrs. Cool,” Mrs. Goldring announced. “My son-in-law burned that will up.”
“How do you know?”
Mrs. Goldring’s smile was triumphantly inclusive. “I think you can help us there, Mrs. Cool.”
“Perhaps I can,” Bertha admitted cautiously.
“If we could prove that the will was burned after Mabel’s death, then we could introduce other evidence to show what was in the will — Mabel’s telephone conversation for instance.”
“When was it dated?” Bertha asked.
“We have reason to believe it was made the day before her death, April sixth.”
A look of pleased anticipation made Bertha Cool seem positively cherubic. “Yes, Mrs. Goldring, I think I can help you.”
“Oh, I’m so glad,” Mrs. Goldring said.
“It will make so much difference to us,” Carlotta interjected. “You just can’t imagine what a relief this is. I told Mother you could help us. I said, ‘Mother, if there’s anyone who can help us, it will be the delightful woman with the strong personality who was there in Everett’s office when I walked in.’ ”
Bertha Cool picked up a pencil and toyed with it cautiously. “Well, now,” she said, “just what did you have in mind?”
Mrs. Goldring said, “Simply that you tell what you know, fearlessly and accurately. You can go to my lawyer and make a preliminary affidavit and then when you get on the witness-stand you can testify to what you saw when you entered the office, because we know that Everett burnt up that will just before you and Sergeant Sellers entered the office.”
Bertha struggled with sheer incredulity. “You mean that you want me as a witness, and that’s all?”
Carlotta nodded brightly. “You see, Mrs. Cool, we have found ashes in Everett’s little grate there in the office. An expert is testing those ashes, reconstructing them in some way that they have, fitting them together so that he can prove absolutely that it was my sister’s will that Everett had been burning. And those ashes were on top of all the others, showing that the will was the last thing put on the fire. We feel certain that Imogene Dearborne knows a lot more about this than she’s willing to state. I’m afraid she won’t help us voluntarily. But we feel certain that you could help us, that you’d remember papers were burning in the fireplace when you first entered the office. That’s all you need to remember, Mrs. Cooclass="underline" the papers were burning at that time. I came in later, you’ll remember, and I can testify that when I entered the room the fire was—”
“Wait a minute,” Bertha said, the smile definitely gone from her face, her eyes cold and hard. “What’s in all this for me?”
The women looked at each other, then Carlotta said, “Why, the usual witness fee, Mrs. Cool — and we’d pay you something for your time in going to our lawyer’s office.”
Bertha, struggling to keep her voice level, said, “Then you came here simply to arrange for my testimony as a witness, is that it?”
“That’s it exactly,” Carlotta said, once more turning on the full force of her personality. “We would, of course, be glad to pay you for your time in going up to the lawyer’s office and making a statement — whatever it’s worth. I suppose five or ten dollars. Of course, it couldn’t be anything unusual or it would look as though we were trying to buy your testimony, and we couldn’t either one of us afford that, could we, Mrs. Cool?”