“No.”
The photographer said, “Ring the manager, Pete.”
They rang the manager’s button. When nothing happened, the reporter started pushing buttons at random. After a while they got a customer, and the door buzzed open. They walked on in and Bertha Cool and I tagged along behind them.
“What’s the apartment number?” the photographer asked.
The reporter said 309.
I felt Bertha Cool’s eyes on me. I nudged her and said in an undertone, “Hear that?”
She said, “Uh-huh.”
The four of us got in the elevator. Bertha Cool took up most of the room. The elevator rattled upward.
The third floor was pretty well filled with people. An officer stopped the reporter. The reporter showed him a press card and he and the photographer went on past. The officer pushed his way up to me. “What do you want?” he asked.
I stood staring curiously and said, “Nothing.”
“Beat it. Move on. You’re blocking traffic.”
I said, “I’m looking for the manager. Is she up here?”
“How should I know? I guess so.”
“I want to see her about renting an apartment.”
“Well, come on back in a couple of hours.”
“What’s happened here?” I asked.
“Homicide,” he said. “Jane in 309. Know her?”
I looked at Bertha blankly. “You don’t knew anyone here, do you Bertha?”
She shook her head.
“Okay,” the officer said. “Beat it.”
“Can’t we see the manager?”
“No. I can’t hunt her up now. She’s probably answering questions. G’wan. Beat it.”
We walked back to the elevator. “Well,” I said, “someone beat us to it.”
Bertha didn’t say anything. We rattled back down in the elevator, went out, and got in the agency car.
“Well,” I said, “I’ll go back to the office and do a little thinking. Do you want me to drop you at your apartment?”
“No, Donald, my dear. I’ll go back to the office and help you think.”
Chapter Five
We rode back to the office in silence. I put the car in the parking lot and we rode up in the elevator, went into the office, and sat down.
Bertha Cool looked across at me and said, “How did you find out she’d been murdered, lover?”
I said, “What the devil are you talking about?”
Bertha Cool scraped a match on the underside of the desk, lit her cigarette, looked at me, and said, “Nuts.”
She smoked for a while in silence, then she said thoughtfully, “Cop cars were scattered all around the joint. You pretended not to see them. You didn’t want to ring her apartment. You wanted to ring the manager. You went on up, asked a couple of questions, turned around, and went back down. You knew something had happened. What you wanted to find out was whether the police were there. Going to tell me about it?”
“There’s nothing to tell.”
Bertha Cool opened a drawer, took out a card, looked at the number on the card, picked up the telephone, and dialled a number. When the party at the other end of the line answered, she said, in that cooing voice of hers, “Mr. Donald Lam has a room at your place I believe, Mrs. Eldridge. This is Mrs. Cool, head of the Cool Detective Agency. Donald works for me, you know. I’m very anxious to find him. Do you know if he’s in his room?”
Bertha Cool listened while the receiver made noises, then she said, “I see. About an hour ago, eh? Well, can you tell me if someone called on him shortly before he went out?” Again she listened, and said, “Oh, yes, I see. Can you describe her, please?”
Again Bertha Cool listened, her lids half closed. Beneath them her cold, grey eyes shifted to glance at me, then she said, “Thank you very much, Mrs. Eldridge. If he comes in, tell him I was trying to reach him, will you?”
She hung up, pushed the telephone back across the desk, turned to me, and said, “All right, Donald. Who was she?”
“Who?”
“The girl who came to see you.”
“Oh,” I said. “That was a girl who went to law school with me. I hadn’t seen her for a long time. She heard I was working for you and rang up this afternoon to get the address. Elsie gave it to her.”
Bertha Cool smoked for a while, then she dialled another number and when she got an answer said, “Elsie, this is Bertha. Did someone ring up and ask for Donald’s address this afternoon?... Who was she? Did she leave her name?... Oh, he did, eh? All right, Elsie. Thanks. That’s all.”
Bertha hung up the telephone and said, “You told Elsie you hadn’t seen this girl.”
I said, “All right. Have it that way if you want. I don’t believe in letting Elsie Brand in on my love life. This girl was a pal of mine. She ran up and chatted with me for half an hour or so. It was purely social.”
“Purely social, eh?” Bertha Cool asked.
I didn’t say anything.
Bertha Cool smoked some more, and said, “All right, lover. We’ll go get some supper. This isn’t agency business. It’s Dutch treat.”
“I’m not hungry,” I said.
She smiled. “Oh, well, I’ll be generous, Donald. We’ll put it on the expense account.”
I shook my head. “I don’t want anything.”
“Well, you can come along and keep me company.”
“No, thanks. I want to think.”
“Think while you’re with me, lover.”
“No. I can stay here and figure things out a lot better.”
Bertha Cool said, “I see.” She pulled the telephone over towards her, dialled a number, and said, “This is B. Cool. Send me up a double clubhouse sandwich and a quart bottle of beer.” She hung up the telephone, said, “I’m sorry you’re not hungry, Donald. Bertha will sit right here and wait with you.”
I didn’t say anything.
We sat there in silence, Bertha Cool studying me with half-closed eyes, smoking thoughtfully. After a while there was a knock on the door, and Bertha Cool said, “Open it and let the waiter in.”
The waiter from the restaurant downstairs brought in a tray with a double clubhouse sandwich and a quart of beer. Bertha Cool told him to put it on the desk, paid him, gave him a tie, and said, “You can get the dishes in the morning. Were going to be busy tonight.”
The waiter thanked her and left. Bertha munched on the sandwich, washed it down with big gulps of beer, and said, “It’s a hell of a way to make a dinner, but it will stay my appetite. Too bad you weren’t hungry.”
After she’d finished and had another cigarette, I looked at my watch carelessly and said, “Well, I guess there’s no use waiting any longer.”
Bertha Cool beamed at me. “I guess you’re right. Who was she? Why did she stand you up on the call?”
“A swell jane,” I said. “She was going to ring me up for a dinner date. Can’t a man step out with a girl friend without having the whole damned office force trying to chisel in on his love life?”
“Apparently not,” Bertha Cool said placidly. “All right, if you want to go, we’ll go.”
We went down and climbed in the agency car again. I said, “Well, I might as well go to a picture show and kill time that way. Do you want to go?”
“Hell, lover. Bertha’s tired. She’ll just go to her apartment and get her clothes off and read a book.”
I drove her to her apartment. She got out and put a jeweled hand on my left arm. “I’m sorry,” she said.
“It’s all right,” I told her. “The jane didn’t call up. I guess she must have called while we were out, and probably some other guy was waiting to begin where I left off.”
“Oh, well, Donald, there are lots of women. A young, good-looking boy like you won’t have any trouble on that score. Good night.”