She pulled into the kerb, slammed the car to a stop, groped in her purse, pulled out some cleansing tissue, and wiped her eyes. "You make me so damn mad," she said.

  "Why?"

  "I wanted to see what you'd do. I pulled that gag on you that you'd been a sucker just to see what happened.”

  “Well?"

  "Nothing happened, damn you. You took it for granted that I was right. You thought I was the kind that would do a trick like that, didn't you?"

  "That's what you said."

  "You should have known I was trying to get a rise out cf you."

  I watched her clean up the traces of her tears. "I'd kill myself before I'd do anything like that for a man who befriended me. Darn few of them have ever taken the trouble, unless they wanted something very obviously and very immediately."

  I still didn't say anything.

  She flashed me one look still hot with hurt and anger. Then she snapped her purse shut, adjusted herself in the driver's seat with a quick angry flounce and started driving again.

  We stopped in front of the Stanberry Building.

  I said, "Pittman Rimley doesn't like me."

  "You don't need to go in. I've got to report. You can wait here."

  "And then?"

  "Then I'll drive you out to where you left your car."

  I thought that over. "Going to tell Rimley I was with you when you notified the police?"

  "Yes. I'll have to do that."

  I said, "Go on up. I'll wait if it isn't too long. If it is, I'll grab a cab. Better lock your car just in case."

  She looked at me sharply, then locked the ignition. "Some day," she warned, "I'm going to jar you out of that detached, don't-give-a-damn pose."

  I waited until she was inside, then got out and looked for a taxi. If I'd been parking in a taxi zone one would have whizzed up inside of ten seconds. As it was, I waited ten minutes, then started walking down the avenue. I'd gone five blocks before I found one.

  I got in, gave the address of Cullingdon's place where I'd left the agency car. I paid off the cab, started the agency heap, and drove to the office—fast.

  The office was dark when I arrived.

  I called Bertha's apartment. She didn't answer. I sat down in the dark to do a little thinking.

  After about ten minutes, I heard the pound of heavy steps in the corridor. A latch-key jabbed the door. The lock clicked back, and Bertha Cool flung the door open.

  "Where the hell have you been?" she asked.

  "Places."

  She glowered at me.

  "Had dinner?" I asked.

  "Yes."

  "I haven't."

  Bertha heaved herself into a chair. "When it comes time to eat, I eat. I've got a big dynamo running and it takes fuel to keep it going."

  I shook the last cigarette out of the packet, crumpled it, and dropped it in the ash-tray.

  "Well, we've run slap bang into a murder case."

  "A murder!"

  I nodded.

  Bertha said, "Who was bumped off ?"

  "Rufus Stanberry."

  "Where? How? Why?"

  I said, "The place was the apartment of the cigarette girl who works at the Rimley Rendezvous. Her stage name is Billy Prue. As to the how, the process was very primitive and very simple. It consisted of hitting the man a very hard blow on the temple. It's the why that complicates things."

  "Well, what's your best guess?"

  "Either the man knew too much, or ..."

  "Or what?" Bertha snapped as I paused. "Go ahead.”

  “Or," I said, "he knew too little."

  Bertha glowered at me. "Just like one of those news commentators," she snorted. "You state the perfectly obvious, so it sounds profound as hell."

  I devoted my attention to smoking.

  After a minute Bertha said, "You do get the agency in the damnedest things."

  "I didn't get the agency into it," I said.

  "You may think you didn't, but you did, just the same. I'd have handled this case, and it would have turned out to be nothing beyond the little routine job of checking back on a woman's record, finding nothing that would have been of any benefit to our client, and ..."

  "The minute you started to check," I said, "you'd have found something that would have been of the greatest interest to our client—something about Mrs. Crail."

  "What?"

  I said, "She's a professional malingerer."

  "What have you got on her?"

  "Some of it's hearsay. There's a case of Begley versus Cullingdon. Going back a while before that, I understand there are other cases in San Francisco and in Nevada."

  "Fakes or injuries?" Bertha asked.

  "No, that fake stuff is too risky. She suffered an injury all right, probably in the first accident, found out how easy it was to collect and decided it was easier than working for a living. She'd wait for an opportunity to have just the right sort of accident, one where she didn't stand too much chance of getting busted up. She could tell the insurance company representative very bravely that she had just been shaken up a little; that she didn't want a cent—goodness no ! It wasn't her fault, of course, but her injuries weren't enough to bother about. Then after the lapse of a few months she'd go to a doctor and complain of symptoms, then recall she'd been in an automobile accident, although she'd almost forgotten about it. The doctorwould send her to a lawyer, then there'd be a great hubbub. It would seem that she'd suffered a spinal injury and thought at the time she'd just jarred a rib loose and it would heal right up"

  "Couldn't they catch her at it?"

  "Not very well. She'd wait until just before the expiration of that statute of limitations before she'd file suit. X-rays would show she had an injury. She's an attractive girl. She could do things in front of a jury. Insurance companies would settle. Cosgate & Glimson handled her last case."

  "Why did she quit it?"

  "Because it got too risky. She'd done it several times, and insurance companies have a way of comparing notes on those things. In all probability, she didn't intend to use the same racket to get herself a husband because, obviously, she couldn't tell by the way a man was driving a car whether he'd make a good matrimonial catch. But when she had this accident with Crail's car—well, it developed Crail was a good matrimonial catch, so she did her stuff."

  Bertha said, "Well, we've done two hundred dollars' worth of work for our client. Stall around for a couple of days picking up the record on these other cases, then we'll put the information in the hands of Miss Georgia Rushe and let her handle Mrs. Crail any way she damn pleases. We'll just check out of it and keep from getting mixed up in that murder. You aren't mixed up in it, are you, lover?"

  "No."

  "I'm beginning to think you are."

  "What makes you think so?"

  "The way you say you aren't. Is there a girl in it?”

  “Not in it. He was found in this girl's apartment.”

  “You say it was the cigarette girl?"

  "Yes."

  "The one who sold you three packets of cigarettes?”

  “That's right."

  "Humph," Bertha said, then suddenly swung her head around to let her eyes glitter into mine. "Legs?"

  "Naturally."

  "I mean pretty?"

  Very.

  "Humph," Bertha said, then after a moment added, "Now you listen to me, Donald Lam, you keep out of this, and ..." Knuckles sounded on the door of the office.

  I said to Bertha, "Call out through the door that you're closed up."

  Bertha said, "Don't be silly. Perhaps it's a client with money."

  I said, "I can see her outline through the frosted glass. It's a woman."

  "All right, then, perhaps it's a woman with money."

  Bertha marched across to the door, shot back the bolt and pulled the door open.

  A young woman on the threshold smiled up at Bertha.

  She looked like a million dollars net with a fur coat and a big collar that came up to frame her face. She carried her own Dun & Bradsheet rating on her back, the sort of client who can really finance an investigation.

  Bertha Cool's manner melted like a chocolate bar in a kid's fist. "Come in," she said, "come in ! We're closed, but since you've taken the trouble to come up here, we'll see you."

  "May I ask your name, please?" our visitor asked Bertha.

  I could see Bertha looking at the girl with a slight frown as though she might have seen her before, or was trying to place her.

  "I'm Bertha Cool," Bertha said, "one of the partners in this agency, and this is Donald Lam, the other partner. Now you're Miss ... Miss ... Miss ..."

  "Witson," the young woman beamed. "Miss Esther Wit-son."

  "Oh yes," Bertha said.

  "I wanted to talk with you, Mrs. Cool, about ..."

  "Go ahead," Bertha said, "talk right here. Mr. Lam and myself are at your service. Anything we can do for you ..."

  Miss Witson turned large blue eyes at me. Her lips slid back along prominent teeth to show how pleased she was.

  Bertha recognised her then. "Fry me for an oyster!" Bertha exclaimed. "You're the woman who was driving the automobile."

  "Why, yes, Mrs. Cool, I thought you knew. I had quite a time finding you. You remember you gave the name of Boskovitche." And Miss Witson threw back her head and let the light gleam on a whole mouthful of horse teeth.

  Bertha looked at me with an expression of trapped, exasperated helplessness on her face.

  "There's some dispute about responsibility for the accident, is there, Miss Witson?" I asked.

  She said, "That's a mild way of expressing it."

  "Just what do you mean?" Bertha demanded.

  She said, "The other car was driven by a Mr. Rolland B. Lidfield. His wife was riding in the car with him."

  "But the cars weren't badly damaged, were they?"

  "It isn't the cars," Miss Witson explained. "It's Mrs. Lid-field. She claims she suffered a severe nervous shock and she's placed herself in the hands of her physician, leaving her husband to do the talking for her—her husband and her lawyers."

  "Lawyers ! " Bertha exclaimed. "So soon!"

  "A firm of attorneys who specialise in that sort of thing, I understand—Cosgate & Glimson. The doctor got them." I glanced at Bertha to see if the name registered.

  It didn't.

  "Cosgate and—what was that other name?" I asked. "Cosgate & Glimson."

  I glanced at Bertha, slowly closed my left eye.

  "Humph!" Bertha said.

  "I wanted you to help me out, Mrs. Cool."

  "In what way?"

  "Telling what happened."

  "It was just another automobile smash-up," Bertha said, glancing uneasily at me.

  "But you know that I was driving very slowly; that I was behind your car for two or three blocks; that you slowed down almost to a snail's pace and I went around you ..."

  "I don't know any such thing," Bertha said.

  "And," Miss Witson went on triumphantly, "you tried to get out of it by giving an assumed name when we wanted you as a witness. That won't do you any good, Mrs. Cool, because I took down the number of your car. And I guess the only reason I did that is because I saw Mr. Lidfield writing down the numbers of all the cars that were near-by. So they'll call you for a witness anyway, which, after all, Mrs. Cool, means that you'll have to take one side or the other. You'll have to make up your mind which car was in the wrong."

  Bertha said, "There's nothing for me to make up my mind about. I don't have to take sides with anyone."

  "There were some other witnesses?" I asked Miss Witson. "Oh, yes."

  "Who were they?"

  "Lots of them. A Mr. Stanberry, a Mrs. Crail, two or three others."

  I said to Bertha, "That would make it very, very interesting —hearing what Mrs. Crail yould have to say on the witness stand about that."

  Bertha's jaw pushed forward. She said, "Well, I can tell you one thing. The car that whipped around to the left was going like a bat out of hell. He saw that Stanberry's car was going to turn to the left, so he thought there was a chance for him to cut his own car sharp to the left and go through all the other traffic."

  Miss Witson nodded and said, "I had the right of way on him. I was the first one in the intersection. I was on his right, and he was coming from my left, so I had every right to keep right on going—the right of way, you know."

  Bertha nodded.

  "And," Miss Witson went on triumphantly, "I didn't hit him at all. He's the one who hit me. You can see from the marks on the car that he ran right smack into me."

  Bertha was suddenly friendly. "All right, dearie. I wouldn't worry about it if I were you. The man was speeding across an intersection, and Mrs. Lidfield sounds to me like a gold-digger."

  Esther Witson impulsively gave Mrs. Cool her hand. "I'm so glad you feel that way about it, Mrs. Cool, and you don't need to worry about the time you put in being a witness. Of course, I can't make any promise, because that would look as though I were trying to buy your testimony. But I realise that you're a professional woman and that if this is going to take some of your time well ..." She smiled sweetly. "You know, I always try to be very fair in my business deals."

  "Don't you," I asked abruptly, "carry insurance?"

  Miss Witson laughed. "I thought I did, but it seems I didn't. I guess I was a little careless about that. Well, thank you ever so much, Mrs. Cool, and you can rest assured that ... Well, you know, I can't say anything, but...."

  She smiled significantly and wished us a good night.

  Bertha sniffed the air. "That perfume," she said, "costs about fifty bucks an ounce. And did you notice that mink coat? That's what you have to do in a detective business, Donald darling. You have to establish contacts, particularly among the wealthy."

  I said, "I thought you told me she was a buck-toothed, pop-eyed little bitch who ..."

  "She looks a lot different now," Bertha said with dignity.

  Chapter Eight

  THE place I wanted turned out to be a three-storey brick apartment house with a stucco front. It didn't have a switchboard. The front door was kept locked with a spring catch, and there was a row of bell-buttons with speaking tubes and cards.

  I'd picked out the name, STANBERRY, A. L., and pressed a button. After a few seconds, a speaking tube emitted a shrill whistle. A moment later, a voice said, "What do you want?"

  I put my mouth up to the speaking tube. "Archie Stan-berry."

  "Who wants him?"

  "My name's Lam."

  "What do you want to see him about?"

  "You guess."

  "Newspaper?"

  "What do you think?"

  The buzzer sounded on the door, and I pushed it open and went in.

  Archie Stanberry's apartment was 533. An automatic elevator that really moved whisked me up to the floor. I walked down to apartment 533 and tapped on the door.

  Archie Stanberry was about twenty-five or twenty-six. His complexion was about the colour of pie-crust that should have been left in the oven another fifteen minutes. His eyes were swollen and red from crying, but he was trying to be brave. The apartment was swank and looked as though Archie had lived there for some time.

  "It's been an awful shock to me," he said.

  "Of course."

  I didn't wait for an invitation, but walked on in calmly, picked out a comfortable chair, sat down, took out one of the packets of cigarettes Billy Prue had sold me, jiggled out a cigarette, lit it, said, "What's your relationship?"

  "He was my uncle."

  "See him frequently?"

  "We were inseperable."

  I pulled a notebook out of my pocket. "What's your draft status?"

  "Four F," he said, bristling defensively. "And I see no reason for giving you details."

  I grinned at him and said, "Neither do I."

  That made him feel better.

  "When did you last see your uncle?"

  "Yesterday night."

  "Ever hear him speak of Billy Prue—the young woman who lived in the apartment where the body was found?”

  “No."

  "You didn't know that he knew her?"

  "No."

  "Know what he was doing there?"

  "I don't," Archie said, "but I can assure you that whatever it was, it was something that was on the up-and-up. My uncle was a paragon of virtue."