“You’re certain of that??” I asked.
“Yes, yes,” she said. “Why not?”
I said, “That’s funny. Because she worked as an entertainer at the Blue Cave, and you were employed there as hostess.”
She caught her breath.
I said, “I’m trying to get this straight for our paper. I don’t want to make any mistake and publish something that doesn’t click.”
Her eyes narrowed. She said, “You’re lying to me. You don’t know John Harbet.”
I laughed easily and said, “Any time you think I don’t! John and I are just like that.” I held up two fingers.
In a low, hoarse voice she said, “You get out of here! Both of you!”
I drew up a chair and sat down, nodded to Bertha Cool, and said, “Have a chair.”
The woman said, “I said for you to get out of here.”
I said, “Sit down and keep your shirt on. We’re going to ask you some questions.”
“Who are you?” she asked.
I said, “We’re detectives.”
She sat down as though the strength had oozed out of her knees. She looked at me with a face that was filled with despair.
I said, “It’s been rather a long, tedious trail, Flo, but we’ve unraveled most of it. You roomed with Amelia up in San Francisco. You found out all about her life history, and after she married Wilmen, you got possession of her papers, probably out of a trunk she’d left with you, or you may have stolen them. Anyway, you got them.”
“That’s a lie,” she said.
I said, “Recently, the political ring that was controlling Santa Carlotta wanted to find Mrs. Lintig. There was money in it. You were approached. You couldn’t find Amelia Lintig; perhaps because she’s dead, perhaps because she’s moved out of the state. But you convinced them you could do a good job of impersonation. You knew all about her background.
“You had certain things on which you wanted to check. You were pretty close to Evaline Harris who was working in the night spot where you were hostess. You arranged to send her up to Oakview and have her make the investigations. Particularly you wanted her to pick up all of the photographs of Amelia Lintig that could be found.”
“You’re absolutely crazy,” she said.
I said, “Now we go on from there. Evaline Harris came back with the photographs all right, but she also had an overpowering curiosity. She was a chiseler, and she was greedy. Her trunk had been smashed in shipment. She knew you’d never consent to having her make a claim for damages because you didn’t want anyone to trace her, but, without consulting you, she went ahead and made the claim. You found out she’d been traced. That caused a lot of trouble.
“John Harbet was giving you instructions. You were going to him for advice. He knew all about Evaline Harris. When he first started looking for Amelia, the trail led to you. While he was giving you the once-over, he hung around the Blue Cave. He was friendly with Evaline. He worked with her, coaching her and giving her instructions on what she was to do in Oakview.”
She said, in a dull, mechanical voice, “That’s a lie.”
“No, it isn’t a lie. It’s the truth. It can be proved. Now then, when Evaline Harris left that back trail by putting in a claim with the railroad company for her damaged trunk, Harbet blew up. That was when Evaline Harris tried to cut herself in on the deal. She wanted some coin to keep from talking — and that’s why she was found strangled in bed. Now then, Flo Danzer, it’s your move.”
She came towards me. “Damn you, get out of here, or I’ll claw your eyes out. I’ll scratch your face. I’ll—”
Bertha Cool’s big arm swung around like a pile driver. She caught a fistful of Flo’s hair, jerked her head back, and said, “Shut up, or I’ll knock your teeth down your throat. Sit down in that chair and stay there. That’s better.”
Bertha Cool relaxed her hold on the woman’s hair.
For a moment they glowered at each other, Bertha Cool towering over the woman in the chair. Then Bertha said, “I can be just as tough as you are. You’ve had a background which gives you a strong stomach, but you haven’t seen anything yet. I’m really hard.”
Flo Danzer said, “It’s a damn lie, but it makes a good story. I suppose it’s a shakedown. What do you want?”
Bertha Cool said, “Don’t go near Santa Carlotta. Don’t have anything—”
“Wait a minute,” I interrupted. “That Santa Carlotta business is out anyhow. We’d show her up for an impostor within five minutes after she made the claim. What we want right now is to clean up this murder.”
“What do you want out of me?” she asked.
“I want the facts on the Harris murder,” I said. “I want everything you know.”
She started to laugh then, and I could see hard defiance in her eyes. “Well, go jump in the lake,” she said. “You’ve run a damn good bluff, and it’s got you nowhere. You win on one thing. I’m not going to stick my neck out in Santa Carlotta. John Harbet will just have to get along without me. As far as the rest of it is concerned, you’re barking up the wrong tree, and if you don’t think I know what I m doing, just stick around and I’ll call the cops.”
“A fat chance of you calling the cops,” I said.
She said, “That shows all you know about it. If you’d waited until this afternoon when I’d driven to Santa Carlotta and given my statement to the Courier, told them I had come for a settlement with Dr. Alftmont, and then disappeared, you’d have had something you could pin on me, and—”
“You were going to disappear?” I asked.
Her laugh was a sneer. She said, “Of course I was. For a smart Lick, you’re awfully dumb about some things. I couldn’t let Alftmont lamp me. He’d know I wasn’t Amelia as soon as he saw me. I was going to tell my story to a newspaper reporter. I was going to say that I had an appointment with Dr. Alftmont. Then I was going to disappear. It was going to look as though I’d been bumped off, and the evidence was going to point to Alftmont. About the time he was denying that, we were going to connect him up with Evaline Harris, and the police down here were going to accuse him of the Harris murder. The witness would identify him, and that would have been all there was to it. Public opinion would have been divided over whether he’d killed me or not, but when they added the Harris business on top of it, he wouldn’t have stood a chance.
“Now then, that’s all there is to it. Alftmont murdered Evaline. I hope they hang a first degree on him for that. He tried to get some information out of her, and she wouldn’t kick through. The party got rough. Don’t kid yourself about Dr. Charles Loring Alftmont. He’s a killer. I’m no tin angel myself, but I can’t stomach murder. If you’d waited until this afternoon, you could have pinched me for something. As it is, I’m in the clear. You can’t do a damn thing. If you don’t get out of here, I’ll call the cops.”
I said, “When did you last see Evaline Harris alive?”
She said, “About twenty-four hours before she was murdered. I told her to watch out for Alftmont.”
“Why?”
“Because I knew he was dangerous.”
“Then you knew that Alftmont could find her?”
She squinted her eyes. “I knew some detectives were working on the case. I found out that Evaline had been a greedy little bitch, and couldn’t resist the temptation of trying to pick up a piece of change from the railroad company. That was the worst of Evaline. You could never trust her. Lots of the girls in her racket pick up steady boy friends who make regular donations — not Evaline. She was too greedy, and she couldn’t resist blackmail. As soon as she’d get her hooks into some nice young chap, she’d find out all about him, and then start blackmailing. You couldn’t control her for a minute. She couldn’t control herself. It was like dope. She wanted to chisel.”