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—”