23

The Hole in the Wall

Bertha became conscious of voices, voices making sounds which her tortured brain laboriously tried to interpret into something with meaning. Lying back with her eyes closed and an interminable aching in her head, Bertha wondered, in a detached way, why a series of r sounds such as murderer should mean someone had killed someone else.

And abruptly, as though her cogitation had removed an obstruction somewhere in her mind, consciousness came pouring back in a flood.

Bertha’s eyes popped open, and as quickly snapped shut. Sergeant Sellers, looking extremely grave, was talking with Carlotta and Mrs. Goldring. Evidently he had just arrived on the scene, and Bertha, fully conscious despite the aching in her head, decided to hide behind her injuries, stalling off the evil hour when she would have to make an explanation to the officer.

Carlotta’s voice was rapid with excitement: “... fixing my hair and I saw this picture all skewgee on the wall. It had been pushed way over to one side. Well, Sergeant, you know how anything like that will attract your attention. I raised my eyes to it and then saw this thing sticking through the wall. I thought at first it was a gun, and I could see a gleam of someone’s eye. I screamed for Mother. And almost at the exact moment I screamed, this screw-driver thudded to the floor. I saw it was a screw-driver then, and the picture swung back into position.”

“Mother was in the kitchen feeding Mabel’s cat. She came running in to see what was the matter and she thought I’d gone crazy. Of course the picture had swung back into position just as soon as the screw-driver had been dropped.”

Mrs. Goldring interjected, “No, darling, not crazy, but I thought something terrible had happened. You have no idea how you looked. Your face was as white as a sheet and you were staring at that screw-driver that had fallen to the floor. You looked as though it were a poisonous snake about to bite you.”

“Well, anyway,” Carlotta resumed, “I screamed to Mother to run to the garage quick; that someone was out there. And we both of us ran through the passageway. Mother was first. She was the one who saw this man. He was bending over Mrs. Cool — only, of course, we didn’t know at the time it was Mrs. Cool. He had a club in his hand — something white. It looked like a piece of pipe wrapped in some heavy paper. But at first I thought it was a long knife wrapped up in the paper.”

“And what did he do?” Sergeant Sellers asked. “Exactly what did he do?”

“He looked up, saw us, and came running at us brandishing this weapon.”

“Did you get a look at his face?”

“No. It was dark in the garage. You know, sort of half dark. You could see only figures. I could tell you the way he was built, but I didn’t get to see his face, and Mother didn’t either.”

“Tall and slender or—”

“No. He was of medium height, and somehow I had the impression that he was very well dressed, and a gentleman, although I don’t know what made me think so. Perhaps it was just the way his clothes fitted him, or perhaps the way he moved, the sort of easy grace that men have when they’re customarily well dressed and know it. That sounds terribly silly when I hear myself saying it.”

“No,” Sellers said thoughtfully. “You may have something there. Go ahead, what happened?”

“Well, that’s about all. He ran past us. Mother tried to stop him and he hit her.”

“Right in the stomach,” Mrs. Goldring said indignantly. “ I don’t agree with Carlotta. I don’t think he was a gentleman. A gentleman wouldn’t hit a woman.”

“With his fist?” Sellers asked.

“No,” Mrs. Goldring said indignantly. “He poked me with the end of the club, or piece of pipe, or whatever it was.”

“And then what?”

Carlotta said, “Then he ran through the passageway into the house. I was afraid Mother was badly hurt. I thought he’d stabbed her. You see, I thought it was a knife. I kept asking Mother if she was badly hurt, and then we heard the slam of the back door.”

“Did you run to the back of the house?”

“I’m afraid,” Mrs. Goldring said, “we were more angry than prudent. We dashed to the back of the house. He’d gone through the kitchen, all right. Whiskers, the cat, was up on the table, his eyes big and round, and his tail fluffed out so it looked as big as a toy balloon.”

“The cat usually act that way with strangers?” Sergeant Sellers asked.

“No. The cat is usually very affectionate,” Mrs. Goldring said, “I know that I told Carlotta afterwards that it was just as if this cat knew this man — or had had some disagreeable experience. Perhaps this man had tried to catch it or something, and the cat was afraid of him. You could see the cat was definitely afraid, terrified. It was big-eyed with fright.”

“Just as though the man had been a big dog chasing him,” Carlotta said.

“Now, let’s get this straight,” Sellers said. “You called out ‘Mother,’ and immediately Mrs. Cool dropped the screw-driver and the picture slid back into place. Is that right?”

“That’s right. And almost at once I heard a sound from the garage as though something had fallen. I didn’t pay any particular attention to that at the moment because I was so thoroughly terrified thinking that it was a revolver that was being poked through the garage at me. It was terrible of her to frighten me that way.”

“I see. And then after you had chased this man through the back door, you came and found that Mrs. Cool wasn’t dead, only unconscious, and then is when you telephoned for the police. Is that right?”

“That’s right.”

“And told them there was a prowler about the place?”

“Yes.”

“You should have reported it as an assault case and you’d have got quicker action,” Sellers rebuked mildly.

“I’m afraid we were terribly excited — and helpless. It’s an all-gone feeling when two women are alone in a house.”

“I know how you must have felt,” Sellers said.

Bertha, lying on the bed with her eyes closed, reflected that Carlotta had very carefully avoided making any reference whatever to her telephone conversation with Nunnely.

Mrs. Goldring said, “I suppose that detectives all work that way, going around boring holes through people’s walls so they can see what’s going on, but I think it’s—”

Sergeant Sellers interjected. “I’m not too certain she bored that hole.”

“She must have. It was just at the right height for her eyes. She could look right in and see what was happening.”

Sellers said, “It took time and tools to bore that hole. There’s an insulated fire wall between the garage and the house— Of course, the height of the hole might tell us something about the height of the person who bored it, but then the height of the hole may have been determined by the necessity of boring behind that picture. I think that’s the real explanation for the position of the hole.”

“How interesting! Well, anyway, that’s what happened. Now how about Mrs. Cool? Do you think we should undress her? Carlotta and I could get her clothes off. And how about a doctor?”

“I’m going to telephone for a doctor,” Sellers said, “but I want to make a superficial examination first. Can she stay here for a day or two if the doctor thinks she shouldn’t be moved?”

“Why certainly. Of course, it would be a little inconvenient now that we have no maid, but we’d be glad to have her. We like her, but we’re afraid she doesn’t like us. The last time we talked with her we wanted her to be a witness for us and she was rather crusty about it. She seemed to think we should pay her.”

“She would,” Sellers said. “All right, you folks go talk to the officer who’s in the garage and tell him to look for fingerprints on the back door, and don’t touch that back door-knob. Don’t go near the back door. In fact, don’t touch anything in that part of the house.”

Bertha, lying with her eyes closed, heard the rustle of motion, the gentle closing of a door. Sellers said, “How you feeling, Bertha, the head aching?”

Bertha, sensing the trap, kept her features motionless, lay perfectly still. Sellers sat down on the edge of the bed. “Come on, Bertha, snap out of it! You’ve got to face it sometime, you may as well do it now.”

Bertha made no motion.

“I’m not a damned fool,” Sergeant Sellers wept on, a trace of irritation in his voice. “I kept watching your face in the mirror. I saw when your eyelids fluttered and then snapped open, saw you take in the situation and promptly close your eyes again.”

Bertha said, “Damn it. Doesn’t a woman have any privacy?”

She opened her eyes, raised her hand to her head, felt something sticky on her hair. “Blood?” she asked.

Sellers grinned. “Oil and grease off the garage floor. You’re a mess.”

Bertha looked around. She was in the maid’s bedroom, stretched out on the top of the bed. She struggled to a sitting position. For a moment the room spun around in a complete circle, then straightened itself.

“How do you feel?” Sellers asked.

“Like hell. How do I look?”

Sellers pointed to a bureau mirror. By turning her head, Bertha was able to catch a glimpse of herself. Her hair, sticky with oil, was plastered down on her head. There was a smear of grease along her right cheek. Her eyes were dead and dopey. “My God!” Bertha said.

“Exactly.”

Bertha faced him. “All right, what’s the score?”

Sellers became grave. “I’m sorry, Bertha, this is the end of the road as far as you’re concerned.”

“How come?”

“I knew you were holding out on me,” Sellers said. “I didn’t know just what or just how much. I couldn’t crack Belder; that meant I had to turn my attention to you. I thought I might have some difficulty giving you a third degree so I rang up the officer I’d left in charge, told him to promote a drink or two from you, tell you he was a habitual drunkard, get properly stewed, and see what you did. I made arrangements to have you followed when you left the office.”

“Damn you,” Bertha said, “do you mean to say that I poured my good whisky down that cop’s throat and—” Bertha spluttered herself into indignant silence.

A smile twitched Sergeant Sellers’ mouth, “Exactly, Bertha.”

“Why, damn you. That was customers’ whisky. I keep it for my best clients.”

“That’s what Jack said. Said it was the first break I’d ever given him in ten years.”

Bertha sought for words. While she was groping for the proper epithets, Sellers went on. “I had a couple of men out in front of the place so they could follow you when you left.” His face darkened. “Damned if you didn’t lose them. Those are a couple of boys that are going back to pavement-pounding.”

Bertha said, “They were damned slick. I didn’t know they were on my tail. I just took precautions.”

“I’ll say you took precautions! They said you went around like a flea on a hot stove until you finally ditched them... All right, then you came here. What happened?”

Bertha said, “You won’t believe me if I tell you.”

“I think I will,” Sellers said. “ I don’t think you bored that hole. And what’s more, I think the hole was bored from the bedroom through to the garage. If you’d bored it, you’d have bored it from the garage through to the bedroom—”

Sergeant Sellers broke off as a door-bell sounded, listened to the faint sounds of excited feminine voices, then went on patiently, “Now, Bertha, you’ve got to give me the low-down about Mrs. Belder’s removable bridge — and how it came into your possession. That was one of the things we couldn’t understand. When we made a post-mortem on the body we found a removable bridge was missing. That wasn’t a particularly significant fact, it was simply a pertinent fact. But when we find that bridge in your office in Mrs. Belder’s spectacle case, that’s something else. Now we want to know where you got that bridge.”

“ Suppose I don’t tell you?”

“That’s going to be tough on you, Bertha. You’re mixed up in a murder case. If you get some significant evidence and don’t tell us, you’re out of luck.”

“And suppose I do tell you?”

Sellers said, “That’s the tough part of it, you’re out of luck anyway, Bertha. You can’t go around holding out evidence on the police. You’ve been doing that too much lately. Donald Lam did it and managed to get away with it, but he was crowding his luck all the time. Eventually he’d have come a cropper. But when you tried to use his tactics you snubbed your toe and fell flat on your face. And that’s where you are right now.”

Bertha said grimly, “All right, if I’m going to lose my license whether I keep my mouth shut or whether I talk, I’ll keep my mouth shut.”

“The point I didn’t explain,” Sellers went on dryly, “is that if you tell us, you’ll lose your license, but if the explanation is okay, you’ll keep your freedom. If you don’t tell us you’ll go to jail as an accomplice.”

Bertha said, “I think I may have something on that bridge, and I want to play it my way.”

Sellers said, “ I think you have something, Bertha, I want to play it my way.”

Abruptly the door to the bedroom opened. Mrs. Goldring, on the threshold, said to Sergeant Sellers, “I hope we’re not interrupting, and I hope the patient is all right but we’re so happy Carlotta has found her real mother. I want to present her. Mrs. Croftus, this is Sergeant Sellers — and,” she added hastily, “Mrs. Cool.”

“How do you do, Sergeant Sellers. And Mrs. Cool, I think I’ve met before. I’m sorry to learn that you’re indisposed, Mrs. Cool.”

Mrs. Croftus seemed very poised, very certain of herself. Bertha, sitting on the edge of the bed, her oily hair plastered to one side of her face, blinked at Mrs. Croftus. “Do I understand you located her?” she asked Carlotta.

“No,” Mrs. Goldring said, “Mrs. Croftus has been trying to find her daughter for some time. She had released her for adoption years ago, then when this case came up, she read about it in the newspaper and certain things that the newspaper said convinced her that Carlotta was her daughter. She came to the door and rang the bell. I recognized her instantly. You see, I had met her years ago. Well, after all, there’s no reason why Carlotta shouldn’t have two mothers—” And Mrs. Goldring beamed at Bertha Cool and Sergeant Sellers inclusively.

Bertha suddenly whirled to Carlotta. “Why didn’t you tell Sergeant Sellers about your telephone conversation to Mr. Nunnely?” she demanded.

“Because it has nothing to do with the case,” Carlotta said with dignity. “I merely wanted to get in touch with Mr. Nunnely and see if his judgment against Everett Belder couldn’t be settled on a reasonable basis. I don’t know what that has to do with what happened in the garage, Mrs. Cool.”

Mrs. Croftus said, “Dear me! I seem to have picked a most inopportune time for my visit! I’m sorry to intrude, but—”

“I thought Sergeant Sellers would like to be advised of the latest development,” Mrs. Goldring said, and simpered at the Sergeant.

Sellers nodded. “Not that I see that it makes much difference, but—”

“Fry me for an oyster!” Bertha ejaculated suddenly, heaving herself up off the bed and getting to her feet.

“What is it?” Mrs. Goldring asked solicitously.

“What is it!” Bertha said. “I’ll show you what it is.”

She walked over to the door, slammed it shut, turned the key in the lock.

“May I ask the meaning of this?” Mrs. Croftus demanded.

“You’re damned right you can ask the meaning of this,” Bertha said, “and I hope you do something about it, dearie. You can sneak up behind me and bang me on the head with a club and get away with it, but you make a move now, and I’ll show you what being tough really is. I’ll take you apart and see what makes you tick, darling.”

Mrs. Goldring said indignantly to Sergeant Sellers, “You represent the law. Are you going to stand by and permit anything like that?”

Sergeant Sellers grinned. “I’m certainly not going to do anything to stop it,” he announced gleefully.

Carlotta said meaningly, “That blow on her head must have affected her reasoning. You’d think she’d be in enough trouble because of careless statements she’s made about people without inviting more trouble for herself.”

Bertha Cool glared at Carlotta. “Shut up! You saw that picture moving on the wall a long time before you claimed you did. I heard you having a whispered conversation before I could see into the room. That was when you told your mother to go out and crack my head open; then you were going to concoct this story about the mysterious assailant. And that telephone conversation you had with Nunnely was all faked — just to keep my eyes and ears glued to what was going on in the bedroom. That’s why you asked information what his number was — so I’d know whom you were calling and wait right there while your mother—”

Mrs. Goldring said, “I’m going to sue you for that, Mrs. Cool. I have never been so insulted in my life. I—”

“Keep your shirt on,” Bertha told her. “Don’t start yelling before your toes get stepped on. I said Carlotta’s mother.”

Mrs. Croftus threw back her head and laughed. “Up until five minutes ago,” she said, “I haven’t seen Carlotta for years and years — not since she was a baby.”

Bertha said, “I’m not a whiz at this stuff like Donald Lam, but I don’t have to have a ton of bricks fall on me to knock an idea into my head. Mrs. Goldring knew all about you. You knew all about Mrs. Goldring. Mrs. Goldring didn’t want Carlotta to have anything to do with you, and she held a club over you that was big enough and heavy enough to keep you in your place. Then all of a sudden everything gets patched up. You wanted it to appear that you just came tripping up the steps and rang the door-bell without any preliminaries. Bah! That’s a lousy story. It won’t hold water. I don’t know whether you approached Carlotta, or whether Carlotta found out about you. Probably Carlotta took the initiative, because you were afraid to contact her — on account of the club Mrs. Goldring was holding over you. If I had to make a guess, I’d say that Mrs. Goldring was keeping documentary proof that she could show Carlotta in case she had to. The probabilities are those documents were kept locked in a lock box concealed somewhere in the house, and dear little snooping Carlotta, anxious to find out who her mother was, managed to find that box, then snooped around until she got hold of Mabel’s keys and made a wax impression of them. Once she got the box open, she knew who her mother was and went to look her up. A term in the pen wouldn’t bother Carlotta as much as her mother was afraid it might, because dear little Carlotta had found out Mrs. Goldring was going broke and that Mabel Belder had made a will leaving all of the property to Everett in case anything should happen to her. Carlotta, the snivelling, hypocritical, spoiled brat, didn’t intend to be thrown into the discard quite that easily.”

“How you talk,” Carlotta said sneeringly. “But don’t let me stop you. Get it all out of your system, and then we’ll see how much of this you can prove.”

Bertha glanced at Sergeant Sellers. “How am I doing?”

“Go right ahead, Bertha. You’re sticking your neck way out, but keep right on. By the time you get done with this session, you’ll have enough slander suits to enable you to hire a staff of lawyers by the year. But I’d be a damned liar if I tried to tell you I wasn’t enjoying it.”

Bertha said, “Carlotta burnt up that will.”

“In Everett Belder’s office grate?” Mrs. Goldring asked sarcastically.

“In Everett Belder’s grate,” Bertha said. “And I was right there when she did it. And what’s more, Frank Sellers, you were standing right there at the time.

“There was a fire burning in the grate. Some other papers were being burned and I had just gone ahead and made my accusation against Imogene Dearborne. It was a hell of a dramatic moment. Everyone was looking at Imogene, and Carlotta came in with this sweet little innocent statement about not being able to find anyone in the outer office so she came right on in. And you remember she sidled around so she was standing with her back to the fireplace. And in the back of my mind there’s a memory of the fire in that little grate flaring up just as she stood there.”

“By George! You’re right on that!” Sergeant Sellers exclaimed.

“It’s a lie!” Carlotta screamed.

Bertha said, “I’ve got it now. When she found those other papers, she found Mabel’s will. It left all the property to her husband. If Mabel died without a will, the property, as her separate property, would go half to the husband and half to her mother. With that will it would all go to her husband, and it was, of course, reasonable to suppose Everett Belder knew all about that will. So what does sweet little Carlotta do — although she must have had her mother’s help on this little job; she takes the will, tears out the parts that contain the name of Everett Belder so just in case some of the ashes can be reconstructed by a handwriting expert, she won’t fall on her face. Then she looks for a chance to plant the will where she can burn it and put the blame on Belder. That’s what she’s looking for when she walks into the office. And things couldn’t have worked out better for her. There was a fire going on in the grate and everybody in the room was concentrating on Imogene Dearborne. So dear little Carlotta sidles around with her back to the fire, drops the will in and then at the proper moment talks about Mabel having made a will leaving everything to her mother, accuses Everett Belder of having burnt it up, and calls in a handwriting expert to photograph the ashes in the fireplace. The expert manages to get enough evidence to show that Mabel Belder’s will had been the last paper burnt in the fireplace. He couldn’t get all of the terms of that will. Even if he had, the name of the beneficiary would have been missing, because you can gamble Carlotta didn’t take any chances on that.”

“Now then, what’s wrong with that picture?”

“I am not going to stand here and submit to all of these insults,” Carlotta said.

“You don’t have to, dear,” Mrs. Croftus announced with dignity. “Personally, I think the woman is crazy.”

Sergeant Sellers pulled a cigar from his pocket with an air of preoccupation, bit off the tip of the cigar, fished a match from his pocket. “I thought she was a little goofy myself,” he admitted, “until she pulled that stuff about Carlotta dropping papers in the fireplace. By George, she did! I remember definitely the little fresh puff of flame which came out from behind her. I thought perhaps her skirt was going to catch fire and was thinking what a bad break that would be because it would make a diversion and I wanted to have the cards put on the table while everyone was in the mood for a showdown. What did you drop in the fireplace, Carlotta?”

“Nothing. You’re crazy.”

Sellers said, “That clinches it. I know you dropped something. I f you’d had some logical explanation of what it was, it would have been all right, but to swear that you didn’t drop a thing is—”

“Oh, I remember now,” Carlotta said. “I was reading a letter. A circular I’d received. I had it in my hand when I came in the office and saw the fire going in the fireplace. I’d almost forgotten about it”

Sergeant Sellers grinned at her through the first puffs of the blue cigar smoke. “You walked right into that trap, didn’t you, sister? So you did drop papers into the fireplace?”

“Yes. But it was this letter. I—”

“Then how do you account for the fact that your handwriting expert says the will was the last thing burned? Those ashes were on the very top of the heap.”

“I—” Carlotta turned in frantic appeal, not to Mrs. Goldring, but to her mother, Mrs. Croftus.

Mrs. Croftus said with quiet dignity, “I don’t think I’d argue the matter with him, darling. It’s very plain that he’s trying to take the side of this woman, so that we can’t sue her for defamation of character. Don’t you think we’d better all wait until we’ve seen a lawyer about suing Mrs. Cool? I know a lawyer who will be glad to handle the case. Let’s go and see him right now. He’ll file suit against her.”

Sergeant Sellers looked at Mrs. Croftus with respect. “That’s a damned slick way of smothering an idea with words,” he said. “It sounds very nice the way you say it; but, when you strip the verbiage off, what you’re actually doing is telling the girl not to say anything more until she’s seen a lawyer.”

“About bringing a suit for defamation of character,” Mrs. Croftus said icily.

“But seeing a lawyer just the same,” Sellers insisted.

“Well, what do you want us to do — sit here and take all of these insults?”

“No,” Sergeant Sellers announced with slow deliberation. “I want you to go up to the D.A.’s office and make written statements — and I want you to start right now. Is there any objection?”

“Certainly there’s an objection. I never heard of such highhanded procedure in my life.”

“Well, I should say so!” Mrs. Goldring snapped. “We’ll see a lawyer before we—”

Sergeant Sellers frowned at Bertha Cool. “A hell of a way to solve a murder case,” he said. “Haven’t you anything besides that?”

“The hole in the wall,” Bertha said, “was bored from the bedroom into the garage. The picture was hung over the hole from the inside. I took it for granted it was used as a peep-hole, but there’s one other thing it might have been used for.”

“What?” Sellers asked.

“I’m not like Donald,” Bertha apologized, “but—”

“I know, but you’re just as inimitable in your sweet way. Go ahead, Bertha, and tell me about the hole in the bedroom wall.”

Bertha grinned at him. “I’m not a mechanic, and I’m not built right to get down on my hands and knees, but you might take a look at the exhaust pipe on Mrs. Belder’s automobile and see if there are any fresh-looking scratches around the end of the exhaust pipe.

“And that cat was switching its tail when the woman I followed came out of the house. Cat’s don’t do that when they’re going riding with someone they like. Cats do that when they’re angry. And if that was Mrs. Belder I followed, why wasn’t the cat asphyxiated too? It would have been shut up in the garage just the same as the woman in the car.

“I tell you she was dead before I ever came out to this house on that shadowing job — and that’s where the hole in the wall becomes significant. Now, think that over!”

Sellers frowned with annoyance. “Damn it, Bertha, you’ve said just enough so I’ve got to start pulling your chestnuts out of the fire for you.”

Bertha heaved a sigh. “If you think that isn’t music to my ears, you’re nuts!”