“Well,” she said, “I know about it now.”
“Yes,” I said. “You’ve cut yourself in on the deal. Marian’s on her way up here. It’s your play. You know what the cards are now.
Bertha Cool pushed back her chair. “Forgive me, Donald,” she said. “I’m going to get the hell out of here.”
“No; you aren’t,” I said. “You answered the phone, and told her to come. I wouldn’t have done that. I’d have told her to go to the Union Depot or some place like that, and I’d have met her there. She’s probably under surveillance.”
Bertha Cool started to drum with her thick, jeweled fingers on the top of the desk. “What a mess,” she said.
“You cooked it,” I told her.
“I’m sorry, Donald.”
“I thought you would be.”
“Listen, couldn’t you take over and—”
“Nothing doing,” I said. “If you hadn’t known anything about it, I could have gone ahead and done what I thought was necessary. I could have acted dumb and if anyone had — questioned me, they could never have proved anything except that I was dumb. Now, it’s different. You know. What you know might get found out.”
“You could trust me, lover,” she said.
“I could, but I don’t.”
“You don’t?”
“No.”
Her eyes hardened and I said, “No more than you trusted me a few minutes ago.”
There was a timid knock at the outer door. Bertha Cool called, “Come in.”
Nothing happened. I got up and crossed through the reception-room to open the door. Marian Dunton stood on the threshold.
“Come in, Marian,” I said. “I want you to meet. the boss, Mrs. Cool, this is Miss Dunton.”
Bertha Cool beamed at her. “How are you?” she said. “Donald has told me the nicest things about you. Do come in and sit down.”
Marian smiled at her, said, “Thank you very much, Mrs. Cool. I’m very glad to meet you,” and then came to stand close by me. She gave my arm a quick, surreptitious squeeze. Her fingers were trembling.
“Sit down, Marian,” I said.
She dropped into a chair.
“Want a drink?”
She laughed and said, “I had one.”
“When?”
“After they got done with me.”
“Was it bad?”
“Not particularly.” She glanced significantly at Bertha Cool.
I said, “Mrs. Cool knows it all. Go ahead and tell us.”
“Does she know about — about—”
“You mean about your coming to my place?”
“Yes.”
“She knows it all. Go ahead, Marian. What happened?”
She said, “I got away with it nicely. I went to the police station and told them I wanted to report a body, and they sent me into the traffic department. Evidently they thought it was an automobile accident. I had to do quite a bit of explaining to two or three different people. They sent a radio car to investigate, and the radio officers called in for Homicide. After that there was a lot of activity, and a nice young district attorney took a statement from me.”
“Did you sign it?” I asked.
“No. It was taken down by a stenographer, but they didn’t type it out. They didn’t ask me to sign it.”
I said, “That’s a break.”
“Why? I couldn’t go back on anything I’d said.”
“No. But the fact that they didn’t tie you up with a signature shows they are taking your story at its face value.”
She said, “Mostly they were interested in this man who was leaving the apartment.”
“They would be,” I said.
“They tried to convince me that I’d really seen him coming out of the door of 309, and that I mustn’t say anything to anyone about thinking he might have been coming from another apartment.”
“I see.”
She went on: “The young deputy district attorney was very nice. He explained that in order to convict a man of murder it was necessary for the evidence to show his guilt beyond all reasonable doubt. Well, you know how it is, Donald. There’s a lot of question as to when a doubt is reasonable. Of course, the man might have been coming from another apartment, but it didn’t look like it, and, the more I think of it, the more I’m certain he came from apartment 309. Now then, if I should just make some slip which would indicate I wasn’t dead sure of what I’d seen, a shyster attorney, representing the murderer, would use it to cheat justice. After all, Donald, a citizen has quite a responsibility, and a witness must be willing to take the responsibility of telling things the way he saw them.”
I smiled and said, “I see it was a very nice deputy district attorney.”
“Donald, don’t be like that. After all, really those are the facts.”
I nodded.
“The police are going to find out all about Evaline Harris. They’re going to find out who her men friends were, and after they learn about them, I’ll be called on to make some identifications, probably first from photographs.”
“They think it was a boy friend?” I asked with a significant glance at Bertha Cool.
“Yes. They think it was a crime of jealousy. They think that the man who did it had been — well, you know, a lover. You see, the body was lying nude on the bed, and there was no evidence of a struggle. The man must have slipped the cord around her neck and drawn it tight before she knew anything was happening.”
“What are you supposed to do?” I asked. “Stick around here or go back to Oakview?”
“I’m supposed to be available,” she said. “They investigated me. They telephoned the sheriff at Oakview, and the sheriff is an old friend of mine. He said they could trust me anywhere any time.”
“Did they,” I asked, “act as though they thought you might have been the one who did it?”
No. Coming to the police station and all that was in my favour, and I acted just the way you told me to — you know, hicky and countrified.”
“That’s swell,” I said. “How about dinner, Marian? Have you eaten?”
“No, and I’m so hungry I could eat a horse.”
I grinned at Bertha Cool and said, “Too bad you’ve eaten, Mrs. Cool. I’ll take Marian out to dinner. I’ll want some expense money.”
Bertha Cool positively beamed. “Yes indeed, Donald,” she said. “Go right ahead and take her out. There’ll be nothing for you to do this evening.”
“I want some expense money.”
“Just be sure to be on deck at nine o’clock in the morning, Donald, and if anything turns up tonight, I’ll call you.”
“That’s fine. And the expense money?”
Bertha Cool opened the drawer in the desk. She opened her purse, took out a key to the cash drawer, counted out a hundred dollars in bills, and handed them to me. I kept my hand extended and said, “Keep coming. I’ll tell you when to stop.”
She started to say something, then handed me another fifty. “That,” she said, “is all that’s in the drawer. I don’t keep any more cash than that in the office.” She slammed the lid of the cash box shut, locked it, and closed the drawer.
I said, “Come on, Marian.”
Bertha Cool positively beamed at us. “You two go ahead,” she said, “and enjoy yourselves. I’ve had dinner. It’s been a hard day, and all I want right now is to get home where I can get into some lounging pyjamas and relax. I guess I’m getting old. A hard day uses me up and leaves me limp as a dishrag.”
“Nonsense,” Marian said. “You’re a young woman.”
“I have to carry all this fat around with me,” Bertha explained.
“It isn’t fat. It looks like muscle,” Marian insisted. “You’re big-boned, big-framed, that’s all.”
“Thank you, my child.”
I took Marian’s hand and said, “Let’s go, Marian.”