Cats Prowl at Night

6 The Second Letter

About three-fifteen Belder rang Bertha in her office.

“Everything all set?” Bertha asked when she heard his voice on the line.

“Mrs. Cool, I’m afraid this is more complicated than I’d suspected.”

“What’s the matter?”

“Mrs. Goldring is down here for some specific purpose. I’m afraid that letter did more damage than I had anticipated. Sally seems to have left, and my wife may have decided to leave also. She may have met the person who wrote those letters, and— I can’t explain in detail—”

“And your mother-in-law doesn’t know where Mabel is?”

“No. And she’s sticking with me every minute of the time so that I can’t do a thing. My hands are completely tied.”

“Where are you now?”

“Out at my house.”

“Your mother-in-law there?”

“Is she here! She’s been with me every blessed minute.”

“Why didn’t you stay in your office and kick her out?”

“You can’t kick her out — not when she’s determined not to let you out of her sight.”

“Bosh,” Bertha snorted. “I think she knows where your wife is, and is giving you a run-around. Kick her down the front steps and then go find your wife.”

“You don’t understand, Mrs. Cool. Suppose Mabel met the writer of that letter and heard some more lies. Suppose she decided to leave me. Can’t you see? I had to come to the house to wait. If she did decide to do something drastic, she’d have to come back here to get her clothes... Now you’ve simply got to get Nunnely to give us a little more time. This thing is one of those processions of unfortunate coincidences that have been hounding me lately... Ring up Nunnely, or better yet, go to his office, tell him that you simply have to have another twenty-four hours. He probably won’t give you that — may not give you anything — but you can try for—”

Abruptly Belder’s voice changed. Bertha heard him say in the unctuous tones he reserved for his mother-in-law, “Oh, there you are, Theresa! I was wondering where you were... Just telephoning the office, that’s all... No, she hasn’t communicated with the office. They haven’t heard anything from her... Don’t be so worked up about it. Nothing’s happened to her. She’s gone to lunch and a bridge party or something—”

Then Belder’s voice became louder and crisp with authority. “Put all the mail in the box. If anyone rings up, tell him I may not be back to the office this afternoon. If Mrs. Belder should call, ask her if she’s forgotten about her mother coming, and tell her we’re all waiting here at the house... Good-by, Imogene.”

The phone slammed in Bertha’s ear.

Bertha pressed the button which brought Elsie Brand in on the line.

“Get me George K. Nunnely on the phone, Elsie.”

Bertha sat back in her chair thinking, until the bell rang and she heard Nunnely’s cold, well-modulated voice saying, “Hello, Mrs. Cool. What is it, please?”

Bertha said, “You’re rushing me a little.”

“Just what do you mean by that, Mrs. Cool?”

“I mean that I’m not certain I can get the money ready by four o’clock this afternoon. I may need another twenty-four hours.”

“Impossible.”

“I’m putting an outside limit on it,” Bertha said encouragingly. “I’m hoping to get the cash before four o’clock this afternoon, but I may need another twenty-four hours.”

“Mrs. Cool, your proposition was spot cash.”

“It still is.”

“That’s not my definition of spot cash.”

“It’s mine.”

Nunnely said coldly, “I’m going to expect you to have the money here by four o’clock this afternoon; otherwise the deal’s off.”

Bertha started to make some answer, but the click of the receiver at the other end of the line stilled the words on her lips.

She glowered at the telephone. “Hang up on me, will you?” she stormed. “Wait until we get this deal cleaned up, my fine friend, and I’ll give you a piece of my mind.”

Bertha stamped out to her reception office to deliver a message to Elsie Brand personally. “If that man rings up again, I don’t want to talk with him.”

“Nunnely?”

“Yes.”

“Do I tell him in those words?”

“No. Tell him I’m busy and left word I wasn’t to be disturbed. Then, if he insists I’ll want to talk with him, ask him if he is the Mr. Nunnely who hung up on me the last time we talked. Keep your voice very sweet, as though you were asking merely as a way of identifying him.”

Elsie made a few rapid strokes of her pen in a note-book, nodded her head.

“I have an idea that’s going to be the best way to handle him,” Bertha went on. “If he didn’t need the money damn badly, he’d have told me to go to hell long ago. This way, he’ll start sweating, and a little sweat will crack that hard-boiled exterior. I’m going to do some work, and I don’t want to be disturbed.”

Bertha returned to her office, locked the door, cleared her desk, took out the letter Belder had given her and went to work on it, studying each separate character with a magnifying glass, making notes of various characteristics, breaking off from time to time to consult a chart showing the different type faces of all makes and models of typewriters.

It took Bertha something over an hour to decide that the message had been written on an early model Remington portable typewriter. It had taken her only a few minutes to convince herself that the memo she had found attached to the letters in Belder’s office had been written on the same typewriter that wrote the letter.

Bertha went down to the lunch counter on the ground floor of the building for a quick cup of coffee and a sandwich, was back within a matter of ten minutes.

“Anything new, Elsie”

“Mr. Nunnely called up.”

An expression of serene satisfaction settled on Bertha’s countenance. “What did you tell him?”

“Exactly what you told me to.”

“Did you tell him I was out?”

“No. Just told him that you had left word you were busy and didn’t want to talk with anyone. He said he thought you’d want to make an exception in his case. I asked him if he was the Mr. Nunnely who had hung up on you earlier in the day.”

“What did he say?”

“Well, he sort of cleared his throat and finally said, ‘Oh, wasn’t she finished? I’m sorry.’ ”

“Then what? Did he start begging?”

“No. He just said thank you, and hung up.”

Bertha scowled. “That doesn’t fit,” she said. “He should be getting anxious.”

“But he called up,” Elsie Brand pointed out. “That means something.”

“I mean damned anxious,” Bertha said. “How was his voice — did he sound worried?”

“No. Just the same well-modulated voice.”

“Oh, well, the hell with him. I—”

The door of the office pushed open and Everett Belder, rushing in, said, “My God, Mrs. Cool, I don’t know what we’re going to do.”

“Keep your shirt on,” Bertha said. “Has something else happened?”

“Has something else happened! Great heavens, there’s been a procession of things. Do you know what the latest is? My wife’s left me — and she’s got every cent I have in the world. Every dime, every receivable contract. She even owns the office furniture!”

Bertha studied him for a moment, then turned toward her private office. “Well, I suppose I’ve got to hear the lurid details. Come in.”

Belder was talking even before Bertha had closed the door to her sanctum.

“She’s had her mind poisoned against me, and now she’s simply walked out on me.”

“Without taking her clothes?” Bertha asked.

“She went back and got her clothes, Mrs. Cool.”

“Oh, oh,” Bertha said significantly.

“I didn’t find it out until half an hour ago,” Belder said. “I had looked in her closet just to be certain. I saw her clothes hanging up and didn’t notice anything was missing, but when Mrs. Goldring got alarmed and started making a search, she and Carlotta discovered several things that had been taken out. The blue suit, a plaid skirt and blouse, two pairs of shoes, and—”

“Toothbrush?” Bertha asked.

“Yes, she had taken a toothbrush out of the medicine cabinet.”

“Cold creams?”

“That’s what fooled me, Mrs. Cool. Her jars of cream and bottles of lotions were on the dresser just as she usually left them.”

“Humph,” Bertha grunted. “She didn’t have a suitcase when I saw her leaving the place. She must have gone back for that stuff.”

“Undoubtedly, that’s what happened. She went out to meet the person who telephoned her. She was intending to have her interview and then go meet her mother at the depot. But something this person said changed all that. Mabel went right back home, threw just a few things into a suitcase and beat it — either forgetting all about her mother or else thinking this other thing was more important — and until I can reach her my hands are tied. Could you get Nunnely to wait until tomorrow?”

Bertha said, “Now listen, you’re all worked up about this. There’s absolutely nothing you can do. The probabilities a, e your wife hasn’t really left you. She’s simply been told a lot of stuff about you and has decided to walk out on you for a while, just to teach you a lesson.”

“What makes you say that?”

“Lots of things. You mark my words, your wife has set the stage to give you a good scare, and her mother is in on the play. Your wife will be back as soon as she thinks she’s accomplished her purpose. She’s keeping in touch with her mother and knows everything that’s happening. That’s why she had her mother come down here.”

“Now you go on back and start adopting the attitude that if your wife wants to leave you, that’s her privilege. You hate to see her go, but if she really has gone and it’s all over, there are lots of other women in the world. Don’t carry it too far, but get that idea across to your mother-in-law and then go out for half an hour. That will give your mother-in-law a chance to get in touch with your wife on the telephone. The minute your wife hears that you’ve recovered from the shock and are starting to think in terms of other women, you’ll find your little wife will come back so fast—”

Belder said suddenly, “That’s not all. There’s been another one.”

“Another what?”

“Another letter.”

“Let’s see it.”

Belder passed over a sealed envelope addressed to Mrs. Everett Belder.

Bertha studied the envelope, turning it over in her fingers, examining the stamp, the somewhat smeared cancellation mark. “How did you get it?” she asked.

“It was in the afternoon mail.”

“You took it from the postman?”

“No, confound it, my mother-in-law did.”

“What did she do with it?”

“Put it on a little table, together with some of the other mail. But she looked this over pretty carefully. She looked them all over, as far as that was concerned, but this was the only one that really attracted her attention. You see, it’s marked ‘Personal, private and confidential.’ ”

“How do you know this is another poison-pen letter?” Bertha asked.

“Well, it looks like the other one, the way the type looked.”

Bertha examined the typewriting with a magnifying glass, nodded her head in a gesture of slow, deliberate affirmation. “What are you going to do about it?”

“I don’t know. That’s what I wanted to see you about.”

“Any idea what’s in it?”

“No.”

“Could you simply ditch it? Throw it in the fire?”

“No. My mother-in-law’s seen it. If Mabel comes back, Mrs. Goldring will make it a point to be on hand for the opening of the mail. She seemed to be particularly interested in this letter.”

“And if she can’t find it?”

“Then, of course, I’ll be accused of taking it, and that, coupled with the other stuff — even if Mabel should come back — well, you can see what it would do.”

“She’ll come back all right,” Bertha said. “We could steam it open.”

“Isn’t that a Federal offence?”

Bertha said, “I suppose so,” pushed back her swivel chair, walked to the door of the outer office, and said to Elsie Brand, “Elsie, dear, connect up the electric plate and put on the teakettle. Bertha wants to steam open a letter.”

Elsie Brand brought in a portable electric plate, plugged it into a wall socket, put on a little kettle of water.

“Anything else?”

“No. That will be all for the present.”

Bertha made certain the plate was getting hot, then moved over to sit in the chair across from Belder, ignoring, for the moment, her swivel chair. “You’re all churned up about this thing, aren’t you?”

“I’ll say I am. I can’t help it. It’s too much — Mabel leaving, this business with Nunnely, then Mrs. Goldring and Carlotta swooping down on me— If I only knew whether Mabel had walked out. It’s the uncertainty on that point that’s such a strain. If she’s left me and would come right out and say so, that would at least relieve the uncertainty.”

Bertha walked over to her waste-basket, bent down and started rummaging through the contents; abruptly she straightened, holding a somewhat crumpled piece of printed paper in her hand.

“What’s that?” Belder asked.

“Advertisement from a furrier — a circular about putting furs in storage for the warm weather. It may come in handy.”

“I’m afraid I don’t get you.”

Bertha grinned. “Don’t try to.”

They sat in silence for several minutes, Belder restless, fidgeting, Bertha calmly placid.

The teakettle started singing. Steam which had been curling up in little wisps from the spout gradually became a full-throated stream.

Bertha gently held the envelope over the spout.

“Can’t they tell the envelope has been steamed open?” Belder asked.

“Not when I get done with it.”

“You’re more optimistic than I am.”

Bertha gently inserted the point of a lead pencil between the flap and the envelope. “I should certainly hope I was.”

Two more applications of steam and the flap curled back. Bertha took out the letter.

“All in typewriting, same as the other,” she said. “Signed on the typewriter: ‘A Friend and Well-wisher.’ Want to read this privately, or shall I read it out loud?”

“I’d better just glance at it,” Belder said, extending his hand. As his fingers closed on the sheet of paper, his hand began to shake with a series of tremors; the letter slipped from his nervous thumb and forefinger, and volplaned back and forth to the floor in a series of swinging zigzags.

“You read it,” he said to Bertha.

Bertha cleared her throat and read:

Bertha raised her eyes over bifocal glasses to regard Everett Belder’s startled countenance. “Who,” she asked, “was the girl?”

“Good heavens! No one knows about her.”

“Who was she?”

“Dolly Cornish.”

“And who’s Dolly Cornish?”

“An old flame. I almost married her. We had a fight and well, I got married. I guess perhaps to show her that I could be independent; and very shortly afterwards she got married.”

“Where is she now?”

“She’s — somewhere in the city.”

“Got her address?”

“I — er—”

“Yes or no.”

“Yes, I have it.”

“Where?”

“The Locklear Apartments, apartment 15B.”

“What happened Monday?”

“She came to call on me.”

“Does she do that often?”

“Don’t be silly. It was the first time I’d seen her since my marriage.”

“She’s been living here in Los Angeles?”

“No, New York.”

“And what happened?”

“She came to Los Angeles and wondered about me. She’d found her marriage was unhappy, and gone ahead and secured a divorce. She didn’t know whether I was still living with Mabel. She wanted to find out. She looked up my office and simply walked in.”

“Did you put on the clinch in front of your secretary?”

“No. I was so surprised I was all but speechless. Then Miss Dearborne closed the door and Dolly — well, Dolly was glad to see me.”

“That was after the door to the outer office had been closed?”

“Yes.”

“And you tried to turn back the clock a little?”

“No, not exactly.”

“Did a little necking?”

“No, no! Not that! Heavens no!”

“Seen her since?”

“Well—”

“Yes or no?”

“Yes.”

“How many times?”

“Twice.”

“Been out with her?”

“Dinner once, yes.”

“What did you tell your wife?”

“That I was working at the office.”

“Well,” Bertha said, “don’t be so goddamned apologetic about it. The way I see it, you’re just an average husband.”

Bertha folded the letter, slipped it into her purse, picked up the circular from the furrier and carefully fitted it into the envelope, added a bit of adhesive to the flap of the envelope, pasted it shut, and tossed it over to Belder. “All right,” she said, “watch for your opportunity. Put this back on the table with the other mail.”

Belder’s face showed relief. “Mrs. Cool, you’re a veritable lifesaver. I—”

A quick, nervous knock sounded at the door of the outer office.

“What is it?” Bertha asked.

“May I come in, Mrs. Cool?” Elsie Brand asked.

Bertha moved toward the door. “What is it, Elsie?”

Elsie slid the door open a few inches, slipped through the opening, pulled the door tightly closed behind her.

“Nunnely’s out there,” she said in a low voice.

Belder twisted the fingers of his hands nervously. “Oh, my God!”

Bertha pushed back her chair. “You leave this baby to me,” she said to Belder. “He’s my meat.”

“Don’t let him know I’m here,” Belder said in a half whisper. “If he thinks we’re working together he—”

“I tell you to leave it to me,” Bertha said. She turned to Elsie Brand. “Tell him I’m busy, that I can’t see him at all today. If he wants to see me, he’ll have to make an appointment, and the earliest available moment I have open is at ten-thirty tomorrow morning.”

Elsie nodded, slipped quietly out through the door.

Bertha turned to Belder. “Now, you,” she charged, “get the hell out of here as soon as he leaves the office, and go give that mother-in-law of yours something to think about.”