“Well?”
“Nothing happened, damn you. You took it for granted that I was right. You thought I was the kind that would do a trick like that, didn’t you?”
“That’s what you said.”
“You should have known I was trying to get a rise out of you.”
I watched her clean up the traces of her tears. “I’d kill myself before I’d do anything like that for a man who befriended me. Darn few of them have ever taken the trouble, unless they wanted something very obviously and very immediately.”
I still didn’t say anything.
She flashed me one look still hot with hurt and anger. Then she snapped her purse shut, adjusted herself in the driver’s seat with a quick angry flounce and started driving again.
We stopped in front of the Stanberry Building.
I said, “Pittman Rimley doesn’t like me.”
“You don’t need to go in. I’ve got to report. You can wait here.”
“And then?”
“Then I’ll drive you out to where you left your car.”
I thought that over. “Going to tell Rimley I was with you when you notified the police?”
“Yes. I’ll have to do that.”
I said, “Go on up. I’ll wait if it isn’t too long. If it is, I’ll grab a cab. Better lock your car just in case.”
She looked at me sharply, then locked the ignition. “Some day,” she warned, “I’m going to jar you out of that detached, don’t-give-a-damn pose.”
I waited until she was inside, then got out and looked for a taxi. If I’d been parking in a taxi zone one would have whizzed up inside of ten seconds. As it was, I waited ten minutes, then started walking down the avenue. I’d gone five blocks before I found one.
I got in, gave the address of Cullingdon’s place where I’d left the agency car. I paid off the cab, started the agency heap, and drove to the office — fast.
The office was dark when I arrived.
I called Bertha’s apartment. She didn’t answer. I sat down in the dark to do a little thinking.
After about ten minutes, I heard the pound of heavy steps in the corridor. A latchkey jabbed the door. The lock clicked back, and Bertha Cool flung the door open.
“Where the hell have you been?” she asked.
“Places.”
She glowered at me.
“Had dinner?” I asked.
“Yes.”
“I haven’t.”
Bertha heaved herself into a chair. “When it comes time to eat, I eat. I’ve got a big dynamo running and it takes fuel to keep it going.”
I shook the last cigarette out of the package, crumpled it, and dropped it in the ash tray.
“Well, we’ve run slap bang into a murder case.”
“A murder!”
I nodded.
Bertha said, “Who was bumped off?”
“Rufus Stanberry.”
“Where? How? Why?”
I said, “The place was the apartment of the cigarette girl who works at the Rimley Rendezvous. Her stage name is Billy Prue. As to the how, the process was very primitive and very simple. It consisted of hitting the man a very hard blow on the temple. It’s the why that complicates things.”
“Well, what’s your best guess?”
“Either the man knew too much, or...”
“Or what?” Bertha snapped as I paused. “Go ahead.”
“Or,” I said, “he knew too little.”
Bertha glowered at me. “Just like one of those news commentators,” she snorted. “You state the perfectly obvious, so it sounds profound as hell.”
I devoted my attention to smoking.
After a minute Bertha said, “You do get the agency in the damnedest things.”
“I didn’t get the agency into it,” I said.
“You may think you didn’t, but you did, just the same. I’d have handled this case, and it would have turned out to be nothing beyond the little routine job of checking back on a woman’s record, finding nothing that would have been of any benefit to our client, and...”
“The minute you started to check,” I said, “you’d have found something that would have been of the greatest interest to our client — something about Mrs. Crail.”
“What?”
I said, “She’s a professional malingerer.”
“What have you got on her?”
“Some of it’s hearsay. There’s a case of Begley versus Cullingdon. Going back a while before that, I understand there are other cases in San Francisco and in Nevada.”
“Fakes or injuries?” Bertha asked.
“No, that fake stuff is too risky. She suffered an injury all right, probably in the first accident, found out how easy it was to collect and decided it was easier than working for a living. She’d wait for an opportunity to have just the right sort of accident, one where she didn’t stand too much chance of getting busted up. She could tell the insurance company representative very bravely that she had just been shaken up a little; that she didn’t want a cent — goodness no! It wasn’t her fault, of course, but her injuries weren’t enough to bother about. Then after the lapse of a few months, she’d go to a doctor and complain of symptoms, then recall she’d been in an automobile accident, although she’d almost forgotten about it. The doctor would send her to a lawyer, then there’d be a great hubbub. It would seem that she’d suffered a spinal injury and thought at the time she’d just jarred a rib loose and it would heal right up.”
“Couldn’t they catch her at it?”
“Not very well. She’d wait until just before the expiration of the statute of limitations before she’d file suit. X-rays would show she had an injury. She’s an attractive girl. She could do things in front of a jury. Insurance companies would settle. Cosgate & Glimson handled her last case.”
“Why did she quit it?”
“Because it got too risky. She’d done it several times, and insurance companies have a way of comparing notes on those things. In all probability, she didn’t intend to use the same racket to get herself a husband because, obviously, she couldn’t tell by the way a man was driving a car whether he’d make a good matrimonial catch. But when she had this accident with Crail’s car... well, it developed Crail was a good matrimonial catch, so she did her stuff.”
Bertha said, “Well, we’ve done two hundred dollars worth of work for our client. Stall around for a couple of days picking up the record on these other cases, then we’ll put the information in the hands of Miss Georgia Rushe and let her handle Mrs. Crail any way she damn pleases. We’ll just check out of it and keep from getting mixed up in that murder. You aren’t mixed up in it, are you, lover?”
“No.”
“I’m beginning to think you are.”
“What makes you think so?”
“The way you say you aren’t. Is there a girl in it?”
“Not in it. He was found in this girl’s apartment.”
“You say it was the cigarette girl?”
“Yes.”
“The one who sold you three packages of cigarettes?”
“That’s right.”
“Humph,” Bertha said, then suddenly swung her head around to let her eyes glitter into mine. “Legs?”
“Naturally.”
“I mean pretty?”
“Very.”
“Humph,” Bertha said, then after a moment added, “Now you listen to me, Donald Lam, you keep out of this, and...”
Knuckles sounded on the door of the office.
I said to Bertha, “Call out through the door that you’re closed up.”
Bertha said, “Don’t be silly. Perhaps it’s a client with money.”
I said, “I can see her outline through the frosted glass. It’s a woman.”
“All right, then, perhaps it’s a woman with money.”
Bertha marched across to the door, shot back the bolt and pulled the door open.
A young woman on the threshold smiled up at Bertha.