Belder’s eyes sparkled. “That’s an excellent point, Mrs. Cool, an excellent point. I can see that you are a woman of experience and discernment.”

  Bertha brushed his praise to one side. Her chair creaked as she swiveled so that her hard, intense eyes were beating her client into a psychic submission.

  “Now, then,” she asked, “what’s in it for me?”

  2

  SHORT BUT NOT SWEET

  George K. Nunnely’s secretary had the unsure attitude which characterizes a new employee who is afraid of making a mistake.

  “You have an appointment with Mr. Nunnely?” she asked. Bertha Cool glared just long enough for the other woman’s gnawing uncertainty to put her on the defensive. Then she said, “Tell Mr. Nunnely Mrs. Cool wants to see him about turning dubious assets into cold, hard cash. Hand him my card. Tell him I don’t Work unless I’m paid, but I don’t ask pay unless I produce results. Think you’ve got that?”

  The girl looked at the card. “You’re—you’re Mrs. Cool?”

  “That’s right.”

  “A private detective?”

  “Yes.”

  “Just a moment.”

  The secretary was back within a matter of seconds. “Mr. Nunnely will see you.”

  Bertha sailed through the door which the secretary held open. The man at the desk didn’t even look up. He signed a letter, blotted it, opened a drawer in the desk, dropped the letter into the drawer, took out a daybook, opened it, picked up a desk pen, made a notation. Every motion was calm and unhurried, yet there was no hesitation between separate acts. Each thing that he did flowed into a part of a perfect pattern of continuous work.

  Bertha Cool watched him curiously.

  It was nearly a minute before he methodically blotted the entry he had made in the daybook, closed it, carefully returned it to the drawer in the desk, closed the drawer with the same tempo which had characterized everything he had done since Bertha had entered the office, then raised his eyes and confronted Mrs. Cool with a perfectly calm expression of poker-faced politeness. “Good morning, Mrs. Cool. The message you gave my secretary was rather unusual. May I ask for an explanation?”

  Under the cool, almost impersonal inspection of pale-green eyes, Bertha Cool found it, for a moment, a little difficult to carry out her plan of campaign. Then she twitched angrily as though shaking off the man’s influence, and said, “I understand you need money.”

  “Don’t we all?”

  “You in particular.”

  “May I ask the source of your information?”

  “A little bird.”

  “Am I expected to show interest or indignation?”

  Bertha Cool’s personality broke from its shell to rise superior to the man’s cool detachment. “I don’t give a damn what you do. I’m a sharpshooter. When business gets quiet with me, I go out and make business.”

  “Very interesting.”

  “I’ll put my cards on the table. You’ve got a judgment against a man by the name of Belder. You haven’t collected. You can’t collect. You’ve had attorneys bleeding you white. They can’t get to first base. I can’t afford to split my take with a lawyer. I’m not going out and grab the gravy and then hand a percentage on a silver platter to some lawyer. I can’t afford to. And when you do business with me, you can’t afford to, either. Fire your lawyers, put yourself in a position where you can deal with me without anybody else butting in, and I can make you some money.”

  “What’s your proposition?”

  “You’ve got a judgment for twenty thousand. You can’t collect it. You never will collect it.”

  “That’s a matter that is open to argument.”

  “Certainly it’s open to argument. You and your lawyers argue one way and the other man and his lawyers argue the other. You keep paying your lawyers, he keeps paying his lawyers. What he pays isn’t deducted from the twenty thousand he owes you and what you pay is water down the rat hole. You think you have a twenty-thousand-dollar asset, but so far it’s simply been an opportunity to pay out lawyer’s fees.”

  “A very interesting way of looking at the situation, Mrs. Cool. May I ask specifically what is your proposition?”

  “You can’t get the whole twenty thousand. But you could get some of it. I could settle that case if I had a free hand. You’ll have to knock off some.”

  “How much?”

  “A lot—and then I’ll take my cut.”

  “I think not, Mrs. Cool.”

  “Think it over. As it is, it’s costing you money. I can make Belder pay a sizable chunk of money. You get yours and the thing’s all finished.”

  “How much can you get?”

  “Five thousand.”

  Nunnely’s eyes remained steadily fixed on Bertha Cool but he slowly lowered and raised his eyelids. There was no other trace of emotion or expression on his face. “Net to me?” he asked.

  “Gross,” Bertha said.

  “Your cut?”

  “Fifty per cent.”

  “Leaving me twenty-five hundred net?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’m not interested.”

  Bertha Cool heaved herself up out of the chair. “You’ve got my card,” she said. “Any time you change your mind, ring me up.”

  Nunnely said, “Wait a moment, Mrs. Cool. I should like to talk with you.”

  Bertha waded on past the deep-carpeted luxury of the office to the door, turned in the doorway, and delivered her parting shot. “I’ve said all I have to say. You could have said either of two things. You said no. There’s nothing more to talk about. If you change your mind and want to say yes, call me.”

  “I want to ask you one question, Mrs. Cool. Did Mr. Belder send you to me? Are you representing him?”

  “He wants to ask one question of twenty-five hundred bucks, cash!” Bertha said, and slammed the door behind her.

  She sailed across the outer office, conscious of the curious eyes of the new secretary, jerked open the door into the corridor, tried to slam it behind her, and frowned with irritation as her pull on the knob was slowed down by an automatic door check.

  3

  A FRIEND AND WELL-WISHER

  Elsie Brand said to Bertha Cool, “Your man’s in again.”

  “Belder?”

  “Yes.”

  “To hell with him. He can’t haunt the office. I only made my proposition to Nunnely yesterday. Give the man time. Belder came to get a report yesterday. Then he came back—The hell with him. I’ll go out and tell him where he gets off.”

  Bertha pushed back her swivel chair, strode across the office, jerked open the door to the reception room, and snapped, “Good morning.”

  Belder jumped to his feet. “Good morning, Mrs. Cool. I want to see you. I—”

  “Now, listen,” Bertha interrupted. “We’ve laid an egg. I’m sitting on it. You can’t make an egg hatch any faster by sitting on it harder.”

  “I understand,” Belder said, “but—”

  “I know,” Bertha interrupted angrily. “You’re just like nine clients out of ten. You came here in the first place because you were worried. You thought I could help you. Then your go back home, start thinking about things, get worried all over again, and come up here to hang around and keep on talking things over.

  “You wouldn’t think of going to a doctor’s office, getting a prescription, and then going back to haunt the doctor’s office waiting for yourself to get well. My time’s valuable. I haven’t got—”

  “But this is something else,” Belder interrupted.

  “What is?”

  “What I want to see you about now.”

  “You mean something new?”

  “Yes ”

  “What?”

  “Trouble.”

  “More trouble?”

  “I’ll say it is.”

  Bertha stood to one side. “That’s different. Come in.”

  Belder was fumbling around in the inside pocket of his coat before Bertha had the door closed. He produce a folded sheet of letter paper, handed it to Bertha. “Take a look at this,” he said.

  “What is it?”

  “A letter.”

  “Sent to you?”

  “To my wife.”

  Bertha didn’t unfold the letter. She held it in her short, stubby fingers while her eyes regarded Belder with glittering concentration.

  “Where did this come from?”

  “I found it on the floor in the dining-room.”

  “When?”

  “About half an hour ago.”

  “And why all the excitement?”

  “You’ll know when you’ve read it.”

  “You’ve read it?”

  “Naturally.”

  “It was addressed to your wife?”

  “Don’t be silly. Show me any husband outside of the movies who would find a letter on the floor under such circumstances and not open it up to see what it was. Lots of them wouldn’t admit it but they’d all do it.”

  “Come through the mail?” Bertha asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Where’s the envelope?”

  “I don’t know. The envelope wasn’t there.”

  “Then how did you know it came through the mail?”

  “Read it and you’ll see.”

  Bertha hesitated a moment, then unfolded the sheet of paper.

  The message was typewritten—direct, simple, and to the point:

  My dear Mrs. Belder:

  Perhaps I shouldn’t send you this letter, but I’m going to write it anyway; and then when I go out to dinner, I’ll either drop it in the mailbox or the ashcan. Right now, I’m simply writing to get it off my chest.

  You probably will never know the reason I am taking this interest in you. I guess you’ll have to take me on trust, Mrs. Belder, and consider me an unknown friend.

  You won’t like what I am going to say to you, but it’s better for you to know than to go on living in a fool’s paradise.

  Has it ever occurred to you that despite the fact domestic help is very difficult to get, you are able to keep a very attractive maid? I wonder if you’ve ever stopped to think why it is that Sally has been so willing to keep on working for you, despite the higher wages that are being paid in other fields. Why do you suppose she ever came to work for you in the first place? And have you ever noticed that she’s a highly competent secretary? Perhaps you didn’t know she took a first prize in both typing and shorthand at her business college five years ago. And after that she sold things—got an even better salary as a food demonstrator than as a secretary—and now this very attractive young woman shows up in your house—as a maid!

  Why?

  Could it be because there are other reasons which make the job so attractive she’s willing to stay on, doing menial work?

  Perhaps you had better ask Sally these questions—and when you ask her, ask her as though you already knew the answers. Don’t ask her as though you were dubious, or merely suspicious; simply tell her to make a clean breast of things.

  I think you will be surprised.

  And that, Mrs. Belder, is all for this time, but if things turn out well, perhaps I can tell you a lot more.

  I might even telephone you around eleven o’clock Wednesday morning—just to see if you’ve had your talk with Sally and what you’ve found out. And in case you have had your talk with Sally, and are willing to place confidence in me, it might be well for you to have your car waiting out in front, all ready to go places.

  Doubtless you are surprised that a total stranger is taking such an interest in you, but despite the fact that you have never met me, your interests mean a lot to me.

  You’d be very much surprised if you knew just how I fitted into the picture. Perhaps I can tell you sometime. You see, there are reasons why I’m very much interested in you.

  The letter was signed simply, An Anonymous Friend and Well-Wisher.

  Bertha peered up at Belder over the top of her spectacles. “How about it?” she asked.

  “Mrs. Cool, I swear to you by all that’s holy that—”

  “Save that for your wife,” Bertha said. “Give me the low-down. Never mind that swearing business.”

  “I tell you, Mrs. Cool, it’s a dastardly, lying insinuation, a—”

  “What’s the insinuation?” Bertha asked.

  “That the maid’s in love with me, or I’m in love with her, or we’re both in love, and that she got the job in order to be near me.”

  “Good-looking?” Bertha asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Have you spoken to her about this letter?”

  “No. I can’t get in touch with her.”

  “Why not?”

  “She isn’t at the house. I don’t know where she is. She was there last night. She’s gone now.”

  “Does your wife know where she is?”

  “I didn’t ask her. She has her separate room and sleeps late. I thought I’d better talk with you before I said anything to her.”

  “What’s the maid’s name?”

  “Sally.”

  “What’s her other name?”

  “For the life of me, Mrs. Cool, I couldn’t tell you. It’s something like Beggoner, or Bregner. I’ve been trying ever since I picked up that letter to think of her last name. I can’t.”

  “How long has she been with you?”

  “A couple of months.”

  “Did you know her before she came there?”

  “Of course not.”

  “What did you do after you found this letter?”

  “I read it, then I tiptoed out of the dining-room and went directly to the maid’s room.”

  “Knock on the door?”

  “Yes.”

  “Open it?”

  “Yes.”

  “No one there?”

  “No. The bed had been slept in.”

  “Then what?”

  “Then I went down to the kitchen and looked around through the house. I couldn’t find her anywhere in the place.”

  “Her day off?”

  “No.”

  “You think she knows about this letter?”

  “I don’t know. I’m afraid that my wife got this letter and went directly to her, as the writer of the letter suggested. And Sally blew up and walked out in a rage. A maid doesn’t have to put up with that sort of stuff these days, you know.”

  “Are you telling me!” Bertha said with feeling.

  “What,” Belder asked, “are we going to do? We’ve got to do something.”

  “For what reason?”

  “To straighten this thing out.”

  “Perhaps Sally straightened it out,” Bertha said. “Perhaps your wife took it up with her and found out she’d made a mistake and—”

  “I’m afraid you don’t know my wife,” Belder said. “Once anything instills a suspicion in her mind, it takes days and days and days of explanation to get it out. For a long while, the more you explain the worse it gets. It’s only after long repetition she begins to believe. She’s a terribly suspicious woman. Just a little thing like this would drive her crazy. We won’t be talking about anything else for weeks.”

  “Even if Sally leaves?”

  “Of course. It’s my guess she’s left already.”

  Bertha looked at her watch. “It’s after ten now. Think she’ll get this telephone call?”

  “Probably. She told me yesterday afternoon that I could have the car until eleven, that I must have it back to the house promptly at eleven, and to see there was plenty of gas in it.”

  “And you want me to do something in connection with this new matter?”

  “Yes.”

  “What?”

  “I want to trap the person who wrote that letter.”

  Bertha’s eyes narrowed. “You want me to get rough?”

  “Yes.”

  “Let’s talk about the letter,” Bertha said. “Who do you think wrote it?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Bertha Cool’s quick motion brought a series of squeaks from the swivel chair. “Suppose there’s any chance this mother-in-law of yours is it?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “The one who wrote the letter?”

  A spasm of expression twisted Belder’s face. “Of course! It’s Theresa Goldring! How dumb I was not to have tumbled as soon as I picked up the letter. She’s always hated me. She’s picked on this time to try and hit below the belt. You can see what a sweet predicament I’d be in if she could manage to break things up between Mabel and me now.”

  Bertha frowningly studied the letter.

  Belder went on. “And what a sweet spot it would leave Theresa in, if she could poison Mabel’s mind against me…. Well, you understand the peculiar situation, Mrs. Cool. I put all of my property in my wife’s name. I swore that it was a gift to her, as her sole and separate property. She swore to the same thing. The court found that that was right. Now then, if she pulls out and takes all of the property with her, I’m absolutely powerless.”

  “But she wouldn’t turn it over to her mother, would she?” Bertha asked.

  “Not all of it. But—”

  “How does your wife get along with Carlotta?” Bertha asked, turning the folded sheet of paper over in her hand.

  “Oh, they get along fine, except that of late Carlotta is brooding a lot over the fact that they won’t tell her anything about her parents. She says she’s old enough now to be free to decide what to do. She is, of course, reconciled to the idea that she probably never will know who her father was. She hopes to find her mother. She’s a spoiled, lazy brat, this Carlotta.”

  “Her mother still living?”

  “I think so. That’s the rub. As I understand it, the mother has been moving heaven and earth to find out where her daughter is. Theresa doesn’t look particularly brilliant, but don’t make any mistake—she’s a ruthless, savage fighter. She won’t stop at anything. I understand she’s put every obstacle she could in the woman’s way.”

  “What woman?”

  “The mother.”

  “Theresa Goldring keeps an eye on her, then?”

  “I understand so.”

  “How?”