She looked like a million dollars net with a fur coat and a big collar that came up to frame her face. She carried her own Dun & Bradstreet rating on her back, the sort of client who can really finance an investigation.
Bertha Cool’s manner melted like a chocolate bar in a kid’s fist. “Come in,” she said, “come in! We’re closed, but since you’ve taken the trouble to come up here, we’ll see you.”
“May I ask your name, please?” our visitor asked Bertha.
I could see Bertha looking at the girl with a slight frown as though she might have seen her before, or was trying to place her.
“I’m Bertha Cool,” Bertha said, “one of the partners in this agency, and this is Donald Lam, the other partner. Now you’re Miss... Miss... Miss...”
“Witson,” the young woman beamed. “Miss Esther Witson.”
“Oh yes,” Bertha said.
“I wanted to talk with you, Mrs. Cool, about...”
“Go ahead,” Bertha said, “talk right here. Mr. Lam and myself are at your service. Anything we can do for you...”
Miss Witson turned large blue eyes at me. Her lips slid back along prominent teeth to show how pleased she was.
Bertha recognized her then. “Fry me for an oyster!” Bertha exclaimed. “You’re the woman who was driving the automobile.”
“Why, yes, Mrs. Cool, I thought you knew. I had quite a time finding you. You remember you gave the name of Boskovitche.” And Miss Witson threw back her head and let the light gleam on a whole mouthful of horse teeth.
Bertha looked at me with an expression of trapped, exasperated helplessness on her face.
“There’s some dispute about responsibility for the accident is there, Miss Witson?” I asked.
She said, “That’s a mild way of expressing it.”
“No serious damages, are there?” Bertha chimed in.
“That’s a mild way of describing it.”
“Just what do you mean?” Bertha demanded.
She said, “The other car was driven by a Mr. Rolland B. Lidfield. His wife was riding in the car with him.”
“But the cars weren’t badly damaged, were they?”
“It isn’t the cars,” Miss Witson explained. “It’s Mrs. Lidfield. She claims she suffered a severe nervous shock and she’s placed herself in the hands of her physician, leaving her husband to do the talking for her — her husband and her lawyers.”
“Lawyers!” Bertha exclaimed. “So soon!”
“A firm of attorneys who specialize in that sort of thing, I understand — Cosgate & Glimson. The doctor got them.”
I glanced at Bertha to see if the name registered.
It didn’t.
“Cosgate and — what was that other name?” I asked.
“Cosgate & Glimson.”
I glanced at Bertha, slowly closed my left eye.
“Humph!” Bertha said.
“I wanted you to help me out, Mrs. Cool.”
“In what way?”
“Telling what happened.”
“It was just another automobile smashup,” Bertha said, glancing uneasily at me.
“But you know that I was driving very slowly; that I was behind your car for two or three blocks; that you slowed down almost to a snail’s pace and I went around you...”
“I don’t know any such thing,” Bertha said.
“And,” Miss Witson went on triumphantly, “you tried to get out of it by giving an assumed name when we wanted you as a witness. That won’t do you any good, Mrs. Cool, because I took down the number of your car. And I guess the only reason I did that is because I saw Mr. Lidfield writing down the numbers of all the cars that were near by. So they’ll call you for a witness anyway, which, after all, Mrs. Cool, means that you’ll have to take one side or the other. You’ll have to make up your mind which car was in the wrong.”
Bertha said, “There’s nothing for me to make up my mind about. I don’t have to take sides with anyone.”
“There were some other witnesses?” I asked Miss Witson.
“Oh, yes.”
“Who were they?”
“Lots of them. A Mr. Stanberry, a Mrs. Crail, two or three others.”
I said to Bertha, “That would make it very, very interesting — hearing what Mrs. Crail would have to say on the witness stand about that.”
Bertha’s jaw pushed forward. She said, “Well, I can tell you one thing. The car that whipped around to the left was going like a bat out of hell. He saw that Stanberry’s car was going to turn to the left, so he thought there was a chance for him to cut his own car sharp to the left and go through all the other traffic.”
Miss Witson nodded and said, “I had the right of way on him. I was the first one in the intersection. I was on his right, and he was coming from my left, so I had every right to keep right on going — the right of way, you know.”
Bertha nodded.
“And,” Miss Witson went on triumphantly, “I didn’t hit him at all. He’s the one who hit me. You can see from the marks on the car that he ran right smack into me.”
Bertha was suddenly friendly. “All right, Dearie. I wouldn’t worry about it if I were you. The man was speeding across an intersection, and Mrs. Lidfield sounds to me like a gold digger.”
Esther Witson impulsively gave Mrs. Cool her hand. “I’m so glad you feel that way about it, Mrs. Cool, and you don’t need to worry about the time you put in being a witness. Of course, I can’t make any promise, because that would look as though I were trying to buy your testimony. But I realize that you’re a professional woman and that if this is going to take some of your time well...” She smiled sweetly. “You know, I always try to be very fair in my business deals.”
“Don’t you,” I asked abruptly, “carry insurance?”
Miss Witson laughed. “I thought I did, but it seems I didn’t. I guess I was a little careless about that. Well, thank you ever so much, Mrs. Cool, and you can rest assured that... Well, you know, I can’t say anything, but...”
She smiled significantly and wished us a good night.
Bertha sniffed the air. “That perfume,” she said, “costs about fifty bucks an ounce. And did you notice that mink coat? That’s what you have to do in a detective business, Donald darling. You have to establish contacts, particularly among the wealthy.”
I said, “I thought you told me she was a buck-toothed pop-eyed little bitch who...”
“She looks a lot different now,” Bertha said with dignity.
8
The place I wanted turned out to be a three story brick apartment house with a stucco front. It didn’t have a switchboard. The front door was kept locked with a spring catch, and there was a row of bell buttons with speaking tubes and cards.
I’d picked out the name, STANBERRY, A. L., and pressed a button. After a few seconds, a speaking tube emitted a shrill whistle. A moment later, a voice said, “What do you want?”
I put my mouth up to the speaking tube. “Archie Stanberry.”
“Who wants him?”
“My name’s Lam.”
“What do you want to see him about?”
“You guess.”
“Newspaper?”
“What do you think?”
The buzzer sounded on the door, and I pushed it open and went in.
Archie Stanberry’s apartment was 533. An automatic elevator that really moved whisked me up to the floor. I walked down to apartment 533 and tapped on the door.
Archie Stanberry was about twenty-five or twenty-six. His complexion was about the color of pie-crust that should have been left in the oven another fifteen minutes. His eyes were swollen and red from crying, but he was trying to be brave. The apartment was swank and looked as though Archie had lived there for some time.
“It’s been an awful shock to me,” he said.