Cats Prowl at Night

5 Belder Has Visitors

Everett Belder’s office was on the eleventh floor of the Rockaway Building. Bertha went up in the elevator, paused briefly before the door marked “EVERETT G. BELDER, Sales Engineer — Entrance.” From behind the door came sounds of a typewriter being pounded with rapid rhythm, a speed and tempo that all but matched the expert touch of Elsie Brand herself.

Bertha opened the door.

A straight-backed, slim-waisted woman in the middle twenties looked up from the machine. Her fingers continued to pound at the keyboard as slate-grey eyes silently questioned Bertha Cool.

“Mr. Belder,” Bertha said.

The secretary ceased typing. “May I have your name?”

“Mrs. Cool. He’s expecting me. That is, he should be.”

“Just a moment, please. Be seated, Mrs. Cool.”

The secretary pushed back her chair, walked to the door of Belder’s private office, went through the motions of a peremptory knocking, and immediately vanished through the door. Bertha Cool remained standing.

The secretary reappeared. “You may go in, Mrs. Cool.”

Bertha heard the sound of a chair being pushed back, rapid steps on the floor — and Everett Belder stood beaming at her from the doorway. The lines of worry had been partially erased from his countenance by a shave and massage which left his skin smooth and pink. His nails were lustrous with a fresh manicure.

“Come in, Mrs. Cool. Come in. You’re a fast worker... This is Imogene Dearborne — she knows who you are. I have no secrets from her. If you ever have any reports to make or want to get in touch with me when I’m not available, just give whatever information you have to Imogene... But do come in.”

Bertha Cool nodded and smiled politely at the secretary.

Imogene Dearborne lowered her eyelids. She had long dark lashes which curled up attractively and, when her lids were lowered, showed up to advantage against the smooth contour of her cheeks.

Bertha Cool regarded the demurely downcast eyes, said, “Humph!” and let Belder hold a chair for her.

Imogene Dearborne went out, closing the door behind her. Belder walked around behind the desk and settled himself in a huge polished walnut chair with dark brown leather upholstery.

“I didn’t expect you back so soon, Mrs. Cool.”

“I didn’t expect to be here myself.”

“I understood you were going to follow my wife until she’d made a contact and then shadow that person. I trust nothing has interfered with those plans.”

Bertha said, “I lost her.”

Belder raised astonished eyebrows. “You lost her, Mrs. Cool?”

“That’s right.”

“But I made certain that you were on the job. That your car—”

“That part of it was all right,” Bertha said. “I got on her tail, but I couldn’t stay there.”

“But, Mrs. Cool, surely — I should think it would have been absurdly easy. She certainly had no suspicion she was being followed.”

“What makes you say that?”

“Because — well, I’m certain she didn’t.”

“I’m not half that certain, myself,” Bertha said. “She either pulled a fast one, so damn fast that I still don’t know exactly what it was, or else I’m the victim of a mighty peculiar series of coincidences.”

Belder’s voice showed distinct irritation. “In either event, Mrs. Cool, the result, I take it, is the same. We have lost all opportunity to bring this poison-pen letter home to Mrs. Goldring.”

Bertha said crisply, “Let’s see that letter again.” Belder hesitated a moment, then took it from his pocket.

“Now, where’s your file of personal letters?”

“I’m afraid I don’t get the idea,” Belder said.

“I want to check over your personal correspondence,” Bertha told him. “I think you have a clue there.”

“I’m afraid I don’t understand.”

Bertha said, “Most people don’t know it, but typewriting is even more distinctive than handwriting. An expert can tell from the type face just what make and model of a typewriter was used to write any message. I can’t go that far, but I’m pretty certain this letter was written on a portable typewriter. I have an idea I’ll find a clue either in the personal correspondence you receive, or in some letter that Nunnely wrote you.”

“He never wrote me. I’m telling you he made this demand out of a clear sky and then got judgment, and—”

“That judgment is predicated on some business dealings?”

“Yes.”

“Dealings he claims were crooked?”

“Well — fraudulent. Just a dirty damn legal technicality which enabled him to claim fraud and that I was an involuntary trustee, or something of the sort of a fund which— However, if you want to see my personal correspondence, Mrs. Cool, we’ll get it for you.”

Belder pressed a button.

He waited for not more than two seconds, then the door from the reception office opened, and Imogene Dearborne said, with just the proper inflection of polite secretarial efficiency, “Yes, Mr. Belder?”

“Mrs. Cool wants to check over my personal correspondence. Please get the file.”

“Yes, Mr. Belder.”

Miss Dearborne left the door to the outer office open. Twenty seconds brought her back, a trimly efficient vision of neat lines and slender ankles. She placed a filing-jacket well filled with correspondence on Everett Belder’s desk with that exaggerated, impersonal efficiency with which some secretaries seek to impress visitors.

“Anything else?” she asked, making the words as close-clipped as the rattle of type-bars against the platen of a typewriter.

“I think that will be all, Miss Dearborne.”

“Yes, Mr. Belder.”

She walked, rigid-hipped, back across the office and closed the door behind her.

Bertha Cool watched her go meditatively. “Puts it on a little too thick,” she said.

Belder seemed puzzled. “What’s that?”

“Just telling you,” Bertha said. “When you’ve been around as much as I have— Oh, hell, let it go. I’m only getting paid for this letter job. How about the cat your wife had with her?”

“Did she take the cat with her?”

“Yes. Does she usually drag it around?”

“She has lately. He’s with her all the time, except at night. You just can’t keep him in at night. He loves to ride in automobiles. She’s been taking him with her when she goes out.”

“What’s his name?”

“Whiskers. I wish she thought half as much of me as she does of that damned cat.”

“Perhaps he thinks more of her.”

Belder flushed. “After all, Mrs. Cool—”

“The hell with that stuff,” Bertha said, puncturing his dignified rebuke before he had it completely formulated. “Let’s see that file of personal correspondence.”

Bertha helped herself to the file, and started looking through the letters. As she examined each letter, Belder, somewhat mollified, made comments. “This is a chap who wants me to go hunting with him. I was out with him a couple of years ago. He had a good time, I didn’t. I did all the cooking and all the dishes... This is a salesman who wants me to get him a job where there’s a chance to really work up. Poor boob doesn’t realize salesmen are a drug on the market, or else he thinks I don’t. It’s a question of getting deliveries now—”

“Who’s this?” Bertha asked, pouncing on a letter in feminine handwriting.

Everett Belder cleared his throat “I didn’t know that was in there.”

“Who is it?”

“I don’t think you’d be interested in that, Mrs. Cool. She really doesn’t have anything to do—”

“Who is it?”

“Her name is Rosslyn.”

“What’s her first name?”

“Mamie.”

“What does she mean starting this letter, ‘Dear Sinbad’?”

Belder cleared his throat again. “Well, you see, Mrs. Cool, it’s this way. Miss Rosslyn was a waitress in a San Francisco restaurant. She impressed me as having a great deal of ability. This, you understand, was two years ago—”

“Go on.”

“I thought she could use her talents to better advantage. I was acquainted with some executives in San Francisco, and I got her a job, that’s all.”

“Still holding it?”

“Heavens, yes! She went right to the top.”

“What’s this Sindbad stuff?”

He laughed. “I naturally saw something of her — in a business way, you understand, and she laughed at some of the stories I told her of sales technique, and the possibilities of turning buying resistance into enthusiasm. She — she told me I talked like Sindbad, the Sailor. She—”

A businesslike knock sounded on the outer door, which promptly opened. Imogene Dearborne stood on the threshold. “Mrs. Goldring is on the telephone,” she said. “I told her you were in conference. She insists that she must speak with you.”

“Oh, my God!” Belder said.

Bertha Cool watched him with an air of detached interest. “Going to talk with her?”

Belder looked pleadingly at his secretary. “Tell her that I’ll have to call her back. Get a number where I can reach her. Tell her that I’m in conference where I’m just on the point of signing a contract — a very important contract... Do it up brown, Imogene, put it on thick.”

“Yes, Mr. Belder. She asked where Mrs. Belder was.”

Belder put his head in his hands and groaned. For a moment there was silence in the office, then Belder raised his head. “Hell, I don’t know. Tell her I haven’t been home since — Tell her to go jump in the lake, tell her to go fly a kite.”

“Yes, Mr. Belder.” She quietly closed the door.

Belder hesitated for a moment, then pushed back his chair, strode across the office, jerked open the door to the reception office. “Fix the telephone so I can listen in, Imogene.”

“Yes, Mr. Belder.”

Everett Belder leaned across Bertha Cool’s chair. His long arms snatched up the telephone. He left the door to the reception office wide open.

Bertha could hear Imogene Dearborne’s voice fairly oozing sweetness, saying, “He’s so sorry that he can’t talk with you right now, Mrs. Goldring. If you’ll leave your number, he’ll get in touch with you at the first available opportunity... No, Mrs. Goldring, not at all... No, it’s a most important conference. He’s just on the point of signing a contract with a manufacturer covering the distribution of a product in all of the territory west of the Rockies... Yes, Mrs. Goldring... Yes, I’ll take the number... Thank you, Mrs. Goldring... Oh, yes. I’m to tell him Carlotta is with you. Thank you very much, Mrs. Goldring. Good-bye... What’s that?... Why, he said he didn’t know, in case she wasn’t home. He hasn’t been there since leaving for the office... Yes, Mrs. Goldring. I’ll tell him, yes. Thank you. Good-by.”

The receiver clicked in the outer office. Belder dropped the desk telephone back into place and said, “That’s a complication.”

“Your mother-in-law?”

“Yes. I gather from what she said over the phone that she came in on the train just now. Mabel evidently knew she was coming, but said nothing to me about it. The train was late. Carlotta was there and waited. Mabel either wasn’t there or else didn’t wait. Her mother is sore — trying to find some way of blaming the whole thing on me.”

Bertha said, “Your wife considered this eleven o’clock telephone call a lot more important than meeting her mother.”

“So it seems.”

Bertha said almost meditatively, “I’m not so certain but what I’ll have to revise my opinion of your mother-in-law,” and then turned her attention once more to the file of correspondence.

“What’s this?” Bertha asked abruptly.

Belder grinned as Bertha Cool picked up some dozen letters all clipped together with a big wire clip. On the top was a typewritten memo reading: “Look as though you were on a sucker list. I.D.”

Belder laughed. “Miss Dearborne told me I was going to get into trouble on that. You know, you get a certain number of solicitations from charitable organizations. Starving foreigners, underprivileged children, all that sort of thing. A few months ago I got one that was so personal in its appeal, so touching, that I sent twenty-five dollars, and this deluge is the result.”

Bertha Cool ran through the letters.

“They seem to be from different organizations.”

“They are. But you can see Miss Dearborne’s note at the top. Evidently they exchanged addresses. If you answer solicitations by mail from the Society for the Relief of the Starving Whosis, they evidently turn your name and address, as a likely prospect, over to the Association for the Underprivileged Daughters of Pre-Revolutionary Generals, and so on down the line. Once you make a remittance you’re positively deluged.”

Once more there was a peremptory knock on the door of Belder’s office. Imogene Dearborne opened the door, said, “Mrs. Cool’s secretary is on the line. She says that it is very important that she get in touch with Mrs. Cool immediately. She wanted to know if Mrs. Cool was here.”

“What did you tell her?” Belder asked.

There was just the trace of a smile on Miss Dearborne’s lips. “The woman on the telephone said she was Mrs. Cool’s secretary. I told her that I personally didn’t know of any Mrs. Cool, but if she’d hold the phone I’d make inquiries.”

“She’s on the line now?” Belder asked.

“Yes.”

Belder glanced inquiringly at Bertha Cool.

Bertha said, “Fix it so I can listen in. Talk with her a minute. If it’s Elsie Brand, I’ll recognize her voice. Stall her along.”

Without a word, Imogene turned back to the outer office. Belder silently handed Bertha Cool the desk telephone. Bertha sat there waiting until she heard a metallic click, then Imogene Dearborne saying, “I’m afraid I didn’t get that name correctly. Did I understand you to say that you wanted a Mrs. Pool. P-o-o-l — that’s P as in private?”

Elsie Brand’s voice, sharp with impatience, said, “No, it’s Mrs. Cool. C-o-o-l. C as in confidential.”

Bertha said promptly, “Hello, Elsie. I’m on the line. What do you want?”

“Oh,” Elsie’s voice showed relief. “I’ve been trying to get you every place I could think of.”

“What’s the trouble?”

“A Mr. Nunnely called up.”

“How long ago?” Bertha asked.

“It must have been a good half-hour now.”

“What did he want?”

“He said he had to reach you at once upon a matter of the greatest importance. He said that it was about something you had taken up with him yesterday and that you’d want to have me make every effort to get in touch with you on it.”

“What did you tell him?”

“I told him I’d try to get in touch with you and have you call him.”

Bertha thought that over for a moment, then said, “All right, Elsie. I’ll call him from here. I don’t want him to know where I am. If I’m not able to get him and he should telephone again to ask if you delivered the message, tell him that I came in about ten minutes ago; that I was in very much of a hurry; that you gave me the message but that I didn’t have time to call him. Assume the attitude that I didn’t seem to think that it was so terribly damned important. Get it?”

“I understand,” Elsie said.

“Okay.”

Bertha dropped the receiver into place, said to Belder, “Nunnely’s been telephoning my office, very anxious to get in touch with me; says it’s about a proposition I made him yesterday; told my secretary to rush that message through to me.”

Belder became excited. “That means he’s going to accept, Mrs. Cool. I knew he would. I knew that—”

“Don’t count your chickens before they’re hatched,” Bertha said. “He’s a poker-faced gambler. He’s probably going to make me some counter proposition. You heard what I told my secretary, not to seem too eager, in case he called up before I could get him. What’s his number? I’ll give him a ring.”

Belder pushed back his chair, walked to the door which led to the outer office, said, “Imogene, get the number of Nunnelly’s office right away, dial that number and then put Mrs. Cool on the line just as soon as you have dialled. Don’t let them hear your voice over the telephone.” He came back to his desk, “Cigarette?” he asked Bertha, reaching nervously for a package.

“Not now,” Bertha said. “Not if I’m going to telephone... Suppose he wants to boost the ante, what do I tell him?”

“Tell him — tell him you’ll call him back but that you don’t think it’s any use to come back with any counter-proposal, that you’ve offered all you can afford to pay.”

Belder scraped a match into flame and his hand shook as he conveyed the match to the cigarette. “I can’t begin to tell you what it will mean to get that matter off my mind, Mrs. Cool. I made the most awful, the most ghastly mistake a man ever made. I—”

The short, sharp ring of the telephone interrupted him.

Bertha picked up the combination receiver and mouthpiece, said, “Hello.”

There was only a faint singing sound on the wire.

Bertha said parenthetically to Belder, “Evidently she’s just dialled the number. I can hear it ringing. I—”

A feminine voice said, “Hello, Nunnely Sales Products.”

“Mr. Nunnely, please,” Bertha Cool said in a calm, methodical voice which barely missed being a drawl.

“Who is this talking, please?”

“Mrs. Cool.”

The feminine voice at the other end of the line flashed into quick response. “Yes, Mrs. Cool. Hold the line, just a moment, please. He’s been trying to get you.”

Another click and Nunnely’s voice, much more rapid in its tempo than when Bertha had talked with him last, said, “Hello, Mrs. Cool?”

“Yes.”

“I left word at your office for you to call me. Did you get my message?”

“Yes.”

Nunnely cleared his throat. “Mrs. Cool, I’m not going to try beating around the bush. I’m going to come right out and put my cards on the table.”

“Go ahead,” Bertha said. “Beating around the bush won’t get you anywhere with me.”

“When you called on me with your proposition, I thought it was a joke. I intended to tell you to go jump in the lake.”

“Uh huh,” Bertha said, and then added, “I know.”

“But the situation has changed somewhat. I happen to know of an investment I can make where I can quadruple my money.”

“I see.”

“Of course, you may be just what you said: a speculator who buys up judgments and sits on them, and then again you may be just a stooge for Everett Belder.”

“Haven’t we been all over that before?” Bertha asked.

“Yes, I suppose we have, Mrs. Cool. I’m coming directly to the point. If you get two thousand five hundred dollars in the form of a cashier’s cheque or a certified cheque in my hands not later than four o’clock this afternoon, I’ll sign over the judgment to you lock, stock and barrel.”

“I see.”

“But it has to be by four o’clock this afternoon, understand?”

“Yes.”

“Naturally the incentive which has caused me to accept this ridiculously low offer of yours is in the nature of an emergency; that’s the only reason I’m accepting the offer. If the money isn’t in my hands by four o’clock this afternoon, it won’t do me a bit of good.”

“I see.”

“Now, can I count on having that money by four o’clock?”

Bertha Cool hesitated for a swift flicker of an eyelash. She glanced at Everett Belder’s anxious face and said, into the telephone, “That’s moving pretty fast. Can’t you give me just a little more time?”

“Mrs. Cool, you represented yourself to me as having ready cash. You dangled that offer in front of my face. I want that money by four o’clock this afternoon or the deal is all off. After four o’clock I won’t discount that judgment by so much as one red cent. Four o’clock this afternoon is the absolute deadline. One minute past four is going to be too late. Now, do I get the money or don’t I?”

“You get it,” Bertha said. “Where will I find you?”

“At my office.”

Bertha said, “I’ll have my lawyer draw up the assignment of the judgment. I don’t want any quibbling over it.”

“What’s going to be in it?” Nunnely asked suspiciously.

“Everything,” Bertha said.

Nunnely laughed. “Well, I guess that’s all right, Mrs. Cool. Now, get this: I want the money as soon as I can get it. If you can get it here in half an hour, that will be marvellous, but four o’clock is the deadline.”

“I understand,” Bertha said.

“Very well. I’m glad that you do. Now, what’s the earliest possible moment that you can have the money here?”

“Three fifty-nine,” Bertha said, and hung up.

“Is he going to take it?” Belder asked eagerly.

“He’s falling for it. He’s in a jam, all right. Tried at first to pretend there was some investment he could make. Old stuff. He’s going to take twenty-five hundred dollars in the form of a certified or cashier’s cheque, he doesn’t care which.”

Belder jumped up out of his chair and brought his hand down hard on Bertha Cool’s solid shoulder. “Mrs. Cool, you’re a brick! You’ve put it across! Somehow I had an idea you could. My gosh, if you could only realize—”

“Wait a minute,” Bertha Cool said. “There’s a deadline on it, an absolute deadline — four o’clock this afternoon. One minute past four is too late. That’s what he says, anyhow.”

Belder sobered. “That’s probably true. He’s been dipping into funds and they must have given him an absolute deadline of his own; something that he’s got to meet before five or six o’clock in order to keep from going to jail... Well, that means I’ve got to work fast.”

Bertha Cool said, “I presume a cashier’s cheque will be the best way of handling it. That will save you putting money in my account and then having my cheque certified.”

Belder was looking at his watch. “I’ve got to get in touch with my wife,” he said.

“You can’t handle this without her?”

“Certainly not.”

“She may be a little difficult to handle after that letter business,” Bertha pointed out.

Belder laughed. “Not on a business deal like this. She’ll nag me for weeks about my supposed affair with the maid, but she’ll write a cheque within five minutes after I tell her about this. After all, Mrs. Cool, it’s really my money, you know.”

“It used to be,” Bertha said dryly.

Belder’s smile was all but condescending. “Even if she’s sore as a sprained ankle, she’ll get rid of a twenty-thousand-dollar judgment for twenty-five hundred.”

“You’re cutting things awfully fine,” Bertha said.

“I know that,” Belder said, frowning at his watch. “She’ll be back home pretty soon, even if she’s meeting the writer of that letter. That’s the worst of it, though. They’ll chatter and chatter and perhaps go to lunch. When two women get at lunch — Good Lord, Mrs. Cool, if you’d only kept her in sight!”

“Can’t you go to your banker,” Bertha asked, “explain the circumstances to him, tell him that you were judgment-proof in order to get rid of this—”

“Not a chance in the world,” Belder interrupted. “In order to beat this judgment I had to put everything in my wife’s name, and I mean everything; and it’s in there so tight I can’t even get car fare unless she gives it to me. Remember this, Mrs. Cool; for over a year I haven’t had enough income to pay the expenses of maintaining my office. I made mine while the making was good, and then, when the going got tough, I crawled in a hole and pulled the hole in after me. It’s an ideal set-up to beat a judgment, but it’s an awful fix to be in when you want to raise money... No, I’ve got to get hold of Mabel. One thing’s certain. If Mabel’s out to lunch, she’ll have gone to one of four or five places. I guess the only thing for me to do is to cover them all.”

“Want me to go with you?”

“Yes. When we get the cheque it will save time... No, wait a minute, there’s that damned poison-pen letter to be considered. If I find my wife and you’re along— Oh, damn! Why did they have to pick this time to write that dirty letter?”

Bertha Cool got to her feet. “I’ll be waiting in my office. You can telephone as soon as things are fixed up.”

Belder’s face lit up once more. “Gosh, Mrs. Cool, that’s simply swell. It was a lucky hunch I had, coming to you.” He walked across and pulled open the door to the outer office. “I feel that I can never repay you—”

The door from the corridor opened. Two women came sweeping regally into the office.

The vociferous cordiality of Everett Belder’s greeting carried its own stigma of insincerity.

“Theresa!” he exclaimed, “and Carlotta! I’m certainly glad you were where you could drop in! I couldn’t interrupt a conference to talk with you on the phone— Excuse me, please,” he said parenthetically to Bertha Cool.

“Certainly,” Bertha retorted with frigid formality.

Mrs. Goldring looked Bertha over from head to toe, her eyes hesitating slightly on Bertha’s waistline.

Belder said hurriedly, “Theresa, you’re looking simply marvellous! You look like Carlotta’s sister,” and he added with the haste of a person trying to rectify a faux pas, “Carlotta herself is looking marvelously well. Better than I’ve ever seen her. I’ve been saying so all week, haven’t I, Carlotta?”

Carlotta looked bored. Mrs. Goldring, despite herself, favoured Belder with a simpering smile. “Do you think so, Everett, or are you just saying so?”

“No, Theresa, really I mean it. A person seeing you on the street would certainly take you for — I mean, wouldn’t think — that is, would never suspect you and Carlotta were mother and daughter.”

“We aren’t, you know,” Carlotta said acidly.

“Well, you know what I mean,” Belder said. “Just go into my private office. I’m finishing up here.”

“Oh, I do so hope we’re not intruding,” Mrs. Goldring said.

“No, no. Not at all. Just go into my office and make yourselves at home.”

Mrs. Goldring didn’t move. “Everett,” she asked, “where is Mabel?”

Belder said desperately, “I don’t know. I want to see her. I— You’re sure she isn’t home?”

“Of course I’m sure. We just/came from there.”

“Well, go on into my office and sit down. I’ll be with you in just a moment.”

“Have you any idea where she was going?” Mrs. Goldring asked.

“She had an appointment somewhere. I had her tyres checked and the car serviced. I’ll— Just go on in, please.”

“But, Everett, I must find Mabel. I came down from San Francisco especially to see her. She certainly must have received my message. I know she did. She told Carlotta I was coming.”

“Your message?” Belder repeated mechanically, sparring for time.

“I sent her a wire after I’d— Didn’t she tell you I was coming?”

“Why, no. I— She must have gone to the train to meet you, then.”

“The train was hours late. Carlotta left early. Mabel said she’d see her at the depot. How long since you’ve seen Mabel?”

“Why, I don’t know. I can’t turn my mind on it right now. I have a business matter. Won’t you please go and sit down?”

Mrs. Goldring turned once more to look Bertha over. “Oh, yes,” she said, “I remember. You were signing a contract with a business executive, weren’t you, Everett? I’m so sorry. I hope we haven’t bothered you.”

“Not at all. Not at all. I’ll be right with you. Just make yourselves comfortable.”

Mrs. Goldring said to Carlotta, “Come on, dear,” and to Bertha Cool, smiling acidly, “And I trust we haven’t inconvenienced you, or interfered with your sales contract.”

Bertha said, “Not at all. I never let myself be inconvenienced by minor interruptions.”

Mrs. Goldring’s chin came up. She half turned, locked eyes for a moment with Bertha, thought better of it, and swept on into the private office.

Bertha said in a low voice, “You going to let her know anything about the settlement?”

Belder glanced with concern at the door which Carlotta had very pointedly failed to close. “No, no,” he said, in almost a whisper.

“Okay then,” Bertha announced. “You’d better get rid of them as soon as you can.”

Belder said, “You’re not telling me anything. I can’t even go out to look for Mabel while they’re here.”

“And why do you suppose your wife didn’t tell you anything about the telegram saying her mother was coming?”

“I don’t know,” Belder said, his voice showing how worried he was. “It’s not at all like her.”

“The only reason,” Bertha went on, “is that your wife didn’t want you to know she was coming. Evidently she was anticipating some sort of a domestic crisis and wanted to have her mother here for moral support. I’ll bet you she wired or telephoned for her mother to come on account of that letter.”

“I know. I know,” Belder said. “It’s that letter. As soon as she got it, she telephoned her mother. What a mess it is!”

“Take my advice,” Bertha said, “and call for a showdown. Tell her where to get off. Don’t start flattering her and toadying to her. You overdo that stuff, anyway. And it’s no good. You can’t appease a woman of that type. You—”

“Sh-h-h, not so loud, please,” Belder pleaded in a whisper. “I—”

“Everett,” Mrs. Goldring called, “can’t you spare us just a moment of your valuable time? We’re worried about Mabel. She didn’t meet the train and we know she planned to.”

“Yes, yes — coming,” Belder said.

His eyes pleaded with Bertha to leave.

“Go on in,” Bertha said, “and assert yourself.”

“You’d better leave,” Belder whispered, his eyes on the open door to his private office. “Please.”

“Oh, all right,” Bertha said and crossed the office, opened the door to the corridor, went out, and then stood for about four or five seconds just to the left of the closed door; then she turned and abruptly opened the door.

The door to Belder’s private office was closed. Imogene Dearborne, half-way across the office, caught herself in mid-stride and returned to her typewriter.

Bertha said, “It’s just occurred to me that I want some information. Can you put a piece of paper in the typewriter and take a note to Mr. Belder? I’ll dictate it directly to the machine.”

Imogene Dearborne fed a sheet of paper into the machine. Bertha dictated: “Suppose you should report your wife’s automobile as having been stolen. You could claim afterward it was a mistake. The police would pick up the machine if—”

Imogene Dearborne’s hands flew over the keyboard, paused as Bertha hesitated.

Bertha Cool frowned down at the note in the typewriter, said, “On the other hand, that may not be the best way in the world to go about it. I’ll think it over. Perhaps I’d better telephone him.” She pinched a thumb and forefinger against the top edge of the paper, jerked it out of the machine, folded it, and casually dropped it into her purse. “I’ll see that he gets this note later if I decide it is the way to handle it.”

Imogene Dearborne’s slate-grey eyes regarded Mrs. Cool enigmatically.

“You certainly do play a wicked tune on that keyboard,” Bertha said.

“Thank you.”

“Do a lot of practicing?”

“I’m kept fairly busy.”

“Have a typewriter at home, I suppose?”

“Yes.”

“Portable?”

“Yes.”

Bertha Cool smiled. “Thank you very much.” Imogene Dearborne was watching her with steady, expressionless eyes as Bertha Cool pulled open the door and marched out of the office.