Bats Fly at Dusk

Chapter XIV

Bertha Cool stood at her desk, holding a heavy palm down on the open telegram as though afraid that it might get away from her. She pressed the buzzer which summoned Elsie Brand.

“Take a letter to Donald, Elsie. ‘Dear Donald: You’ve been in the Navy so long you’re full of beans. Bertha had the best handwriting expert in the city go over that will and compare signatures. The signatures are genuine. It may not have occurred to you that the peculiar change in style comes on the second page. That’s the page that has the signatures. Therefore, if there’s anything wrong with that page, the signatures must have been forged — all three of them.’

“You got that, Elsie?”

“Yes, Mrs. Cool.”

“All right, now we’ll give him the other barrel. ‘Apparently your experience in the Navy has let your brains get rusty. It doesn’t make a damn bit of difference to Bertha whether the second page of that will is forged or not, and there isn’t any chance it could have been forged. I’ll admit that Paul Hanberry looks to me like something the cat dragged in. I wouldn’t trust him as far as I could toss my income tax with my left hand, but Josephine Dell is all right. Sometime when you’re out on the ocean with nothing to think about except dive bombers, torpedoes, submarines, and mines, you may realize that Bertha’s client gets his slap in the face on the first page. It doesn’t make a damn bit of difference to Bertha what happens in the rest of the will. The testator could give the rest of his dough to superannuated naval officers for all Bertha cares. If you’re going to keep on wiring me collect, at least try to get something constructive in your telegrams.

Bertha crumpled the telegram, dropped it into a wastebasket, looked at the crumpled ball for a moment, then fished the telegram out, smoothed it out, and said to Elsie, “Put it in the file. It’s the first time the little runt ever got caught off first base, and having it in writing may not hurt anything.”

As an afterthought she added, “Okay, it’s Saturday. We’ve had one hell of a week. Let’s close up shop until Monday.”