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!”