I piloted Bob down the hallway to my room. He looked surprised when he saw Bertha Cool. I introduced him.
“Mrs. Cool,” he said, as though searching his memory. “Haven’t I heard the name somewhere—” He broke off to look at me.
I said, “B. Cool — Confidential Investigations. This is Bertha Cool herself. I’m Donald Lam, a detective.”
“A detective!” he exclaimed. “I thought you were a jujitsu expert.”
“He is,” Bertha said.
“But what are you doing here?”
“Killing two birds with one stone,” I said. “Training Mr. Ashbury and making an investigation.”
“What’s the investigation?”
I said, “Sit down, Bob.”
He hesitated a moment, then dropped into a chair.
“I just missed meeting you earlier this evening,” I remarked casually.
He raised his eyebrows in surprise. “I’m afraid I don’t understand.”
“How long’s your mother been sick?”
“Ever since Ashbury said the things he did to her. By God, I’d like to get my hands on him. Of all the dirty cads, of all the—”
“You didn’t know it until you got home?”
“No.”
“That hasn’t been very long, has it?”
“No. About an hour or so. Why? What made you ask?”
“Because, as I said, I just missed meeting you earlier this evening.”
He raised his eyebrows in a somewhat exaggerated gesture of surprise. “I’m afraid I don’t get you.”
“Up at Esther Clarde’s apartment. It must have given you quite a start when you heard knuckles hammering on the door, and someone said it was the police.”
For a second or two he remained rigidly motionless. There wasn’t so much as the trace of an expression on his face. Even his eyes didn’t move. Then he looked up at me and said, “I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about.”
I dropped into a chair, and put my feet up on another chair.
“You were in with Esther Clarde, the blonde girl who works at the cigar counter,” I said, “the one who was Jed Ringold’s mistress.”
His lips came together. He looked me straight in the eyes and said, “You’re a liar.”
Bertha Cool stifled a yawn and said casually, “Well, for Heaven’s sake, let’s get down to brass tacks.”
I slowly got up from my chair, intending to point my finger at him as I made my direct accusation. He misunderstood what I had in mind. I could see the sudden flash of fear in his eyes as he remembered my reputation as a jujitsu expert. “Now wait a minute, Lam,” he said hastily. “Don’t get hotheaded about this thing. I lost my temper. That was rather a direct statement you made. I won’t say you’re a liar. I’ll just say the statement is untrue. You’re mistaken. Somebody’s been lying to you.”
I followed up my advantage. I let my eyes close to narrow slits. I said, “I suppose you know I could lift you out of that chair, tie you up like a pretzel, throw you into the garbage, and you wouldn’t get untangled until they lifted you out to put you in the incinerator.”
“Now, take it easy, Lam, take it easy. I didn’t mean it that way.”
Bertha Cool gave a choking cough which sounded almost like Mrs. Ashbury’s reaction to the medicine.
I kept my finger pointed at him. “You,” I said, “were up at Esther Clarde’s apartment tonight. You were there when the cops came up.”
His eyes shifted.
I said, “That business of three detectives getting letters out of Alta’s room is the bunk. The homicide squad might have had three detectives, but the D.A.’s office never had three investigators it could put on a job like that, and the thing had already been dumped in the D.A.’s lap by the police. It was up to the D.A. to uncover his own evidence.”
Bob looked at me and swallowed twice before he said anything. “Now listen, Lam,” he said, “you’re getting me wrong. I was up there. I went up to get those letters back. I knew what it meant to the kid. Nobody thinks I’m worth a damn around here except Mother, but I’m a pretty decent guy just the same.”
“How did you know about the letters?” I asked.
He twisted in his chair, and didn’t say anything.
I heard a commotion in the hallway, voices raised in protest, someone saying, “You can’t do that,” and then the sound of a scuffle. Mrs. Ashbury, attired in a flimsy nightgown and nothing else, jerked the door open. The nurse grabbed at her, and Mrs. Ashbury pushed her away. The doctor trotted along at her side mouthing futile protests. He took hold of her arm and kept saying, “Now, Mrs. Ashbury — now, Mrs. Ashbury — now, Mrs. Ashbury.”
The nurse came back for another hold. The doctor glared at her, and said, “No force, nurse. She mustn’t struggle, and she mustn’t get excited.”
Mrs. Ashbury stared at me. “What,” she demanded, “is the meaning of this?”
Bertha Cool answered the question. “Sit down, dearie, take a load off your feet, and keep your trap shut.”
Mrs. Ashbury turned to stare at Bertha Cool. “Madam, do you know whose house this is?”
“I haven’t looked up the record title,” Bertha said, “but I know damn well who’s throwing this party.”
I said to Bob, “Crumweather hired you to get those letters out of the way. Instead of giving them to him, you arranged with Esther Clarde to use some of them to raise a little dough. You—”
There were quick steps in the corridor. Henry Ashbury came striding in through the open door, and stared at the party over the tops of his glasses.
Mrs. Ashbury looked at me, then at Bob, then at her husband. “Oh, Henreeeeee! Where have you been? Poor Bernard’s spent the whole night looking for you. Henry, this is the most awful thing — the most hideous thing! Henry, dear, I’m going to faint.”
She closed her eyes and swayed around on her feet. The nurse and the doctor closed in. The doctor muttered soothingly, “Now, Mrs. Ashbury, you simply can’t excite yourself.”
“If you’ll just go to bed quietly,” the nurse said.
Mrs. Ashbury let her eyelids flutter down until the eyes were almost closed. She gurgled in her throat, and tilted her head back so she could watch what was going on through the slits at the bottoms of her eyelids.
“Henry, darling.”
Ashbury didn’t pay any attention to her. He looked at me.
I said, “I’m just pinning something on Bob. I think he’s responsible for the thing you wanted investigated.”
Bob said, “I’m not. I swear you’ve got me wrong. I—”
“Stole some of Alta’s letters,” I finished.
He was up on his feet. “You look here, Lam. I don’t care if you can lick Joe Louis with one hand tied behind you. You’re not going to—”
Mrs. Ashbury saw that her husband had swivelled his eyes around to glare at Bob. His face had colored and set in hard lines. She decided fainting wasn’t going to do any good. She planted her feet on the floor, swept the doctor and the nurse to one side, and said, “So that’s it. You’ve been hiring a detective to come in here and frame horrible crimes on my son. I want you people to be witnesses to the things that have been said in this room. Henry, you’re going to pay for this, and pay dearly. Robert, darling, you come with Mother. We won’t waste time talking to these people. I’ll see my lawyer in the morning. Things which I hadn’t understood before are perfectly plain to me now. Henry’s trying to frame something on you so as to make me leave him.”
Bob moved to his mother’s side. She put an arm around his shoulder, and sighed.
Bertha Cool got up, slowly and majestically. Her manner was that of a master workman getting ready to tackle a difficult job in a businesslike manner.
Henry Ashbury raised his eyebrows, looked over the tops of his glasses at Bertha Cool, held up his hand, and said, “Don’t.”