Bertha Cool, clad in gaudy striped silk pyjamas and a robe, was sprawled out in a big easy chair, listening to the radio. She said, “For Heaven’s sake, Donald, why don’t you go to bed and get some sleep? — and let me get some.”
I said, “I think I’ve found out something.”
“What?”
“I want you to get dressed and come with me.”
She looked at me in contemplative appraisal. “What is it this time?”
I said, “I’m going to put on a show. I may get into an argument with a woman. You know the way women work me. I won’t be tough enough. I want you along for moral support.”
Bertha heaved a tremendous sigh that I could see rippling all the way up from her diaphragm. “At last,” she said, “you’re getting some sense. That’s about the only excuse you could have made that would have dragged me up and out after I’ve got ready for bed. What is it, that blonde?”
“I’ll tell you about it after we get started.”
She heaved herself up out of the hugh reclining chair and said acidly, “If you’re going to keep on giving the orders, you’d better raise my salary.”
“Let me have the income, and I will.”
She walked past me into the bedroom, the floor boards creaking under her weight as she walked. She flung back over her shoulder, “You’re getting delusions of grandeur,” and slammed the bedroom door.
I switched off the radio, dropped into a chair, stretched my feet out, and tried to relax. I knew there was a tough job ahead.
Bertha’s sitting-room was a clutter of odds and ends, tables, bric-a-brac, books, ash trays, bottles, dirty glasses, matches, magazines, and an assortment of odds and ends piled around in such confusion that I didn’t see how it was ever possible to get things dusted. There was only one clear place in the whole room, and that was where Bertha had her big chair stretched out, a magazine rack on one side, a smoking stand on the other. The radio was within easy reaching distance, and the doors of a little cabinet were open, showing an assortment of bottles.
When Bertha made herself comfortable, she settled down to make a good job of it, and thoroughly relaxed. She didn’t believe in halfway measures in anything that affected her personal comfort and convenience.
Bertha was out in about ten minutes. She crossed over to the humidor, filled up her case with cigarettes, looked at me suspiciously, and slammed closed the doors on the liquor cupboard. “Let’s go,” she said.
We got in her coupé.
“Where are we going?” she asked.
“Out to Ashbury’s.”
“Who’s the woman?”
“Alta Ashbury.”
“What’s going to happen?”
“I don’t know. I’m going to get rough. Alta may try to interfere. Mrs. Ashbury’s having perpetual hysterics. Her husband’s announced that he’s through. He’s told her she can go to Reno. She’ll be running a blood pressure, with a doctor at her bedside and a couple of trained nurses in attendance. She figures her husband will probably show up sooner or later to pack some of his things and move out. She’s getting all ready for him when he comes.”
“Nice party you’re getting me into,” Bertha Cool said.
“Isn’t it?”
“What am I supposed to do?”
“If the women keep out of things, it’s all right,” I said, “but if they start horning in on the party, I want you to horn ’em out. Alta may try to work a sympathy gag. Mrs. Ashbury may get tough.”
Bertha lit a cigarette. “It isn’t such a good idea quarrelling with a customer’s wife.”
“They’re going to get a divorce.”
“You mean he wants one.”
“Yes.”
“That’s a hell of a long way from getting one,” Bertha said, and then added significantly, “when a man has the dough he’s got.”
“He can always buy his way out.”
“Through the nose,” Bertha said, and relaxed to enjoy her smoking.
Halfway out there, Bertha ground out her cigarette and looked at me. “Don’t think you’re getting away with all this stuff, Donald. I’d ask you some questions if I weren’t so damned afraid of the answers.” Then she lit another cigarette, and settled back to dogged silence.
We pulled up in front of Ashbury’s residence. There were three cars parked at the kerb. Lights were on all over the house. Ashbury had given me a key, but because of Bertha, I rang the bell and waited for the butler to let us in. He was up, all right. He looked at me with mild disapproval, and at Bertha with curiosity.
“Has Mr. Ashbury returned yet?”
“No, sir. Mr. Ashbury is not here.”
“Nor Miss Alta?”
“No, sir.”
“Robert?”
“Yes, sir. Robert is here. Mrs. Ashbury is very ill. The doctor and two nurses are in attendance. Robert is at her bedside. Her condition is critical.” He looked at Bertha and said, “And if you’ll pardon the suggestion, sir, there are no visitors.”
I said, “That’s all right. We’re waiting for Mr. Ashbury,” and we walked on in.
“Mrs. Cool will wait in my room,” I said. “When Mr. Ashbury comes, tell him that I’m up, and that Mrs. Cool is with me.”
“Mrs. Cool?”
“That’s right,” Bertha said, turning to stick a bulldog jaw out at him. “The name’s Bertha Cool. Which way do we go, Donald?”
I led the way up to my room.
Bertha looked it over and said, “You seem to rate.”
“I do.”
“A nice place, Donald. He must have some dough tied up here.”
“I suppose he has.”
“It must be hell to be rich — not that I wouldn’t mind taking a fling at it. That reminds me, I’ve got some letters to write in connection with a couple of stocks. When’s Elsie coming back?”
“Two or three days,” I said.
“I’ve got two girls up there now,” Bertha said, “and neither one of them is worth a damn.”
“What’s the matter? Can’t they take shorthand?”
“Sure, they can, and they can type, too, but it takes the two of them to do the same amount of work in a day that Elsie did.”
“They’re pretty good girls then,” I said.
She glowered at me. “Donald, don’t tell me you’re going to start falling for Elsie. My God, but you’re susceptible to women! All a woman has to do is to put her head down on your shoulder and cry, and you start oozing sympathy. I suppose she’s been beefing about what a tough job she has.”
“She hasn’t said anything. I’m the one who did the talking.”
“What did you say?”
“Told her to take it easy up in that new office, and have a rest.”
Bertha made a sound of indignation. It was half sniff and half snort. “Paying a girl,” she said, “to sit around and look at her finger-nails while I’m slaving my fingers to the bone trying to make both ends meet.” The humor of her remark struck her as soon as she made it, and she added, with a half smile, “Well, perhaps not clean to the bone. Donald, what the hell did we come here for?”
“Sit tight,” I said. “We’re getting ready to go into action.”
“What do you want me to do?”
“Wait here.”
“You’re going some place?”
“Yes, down the hall to look in on Mrs. Ashbury. If you hear her voice raised in an argument, come on down. Otherwise, stay here until the party gets rough.”
“How will I know it’s her voice?”
“You can’t miss it,” I said, and slipped out of the room to tiptoe down the corridor. I tapped gently on the door of Mrs. Ashbury’s room, and opened it a crack.
Mrs. Ashbury was in bed with a wet towel over her forehead. She was breathing heavily, and her eyes were closed, but they popped open when she heard the door. She was expecting Henry Ashbury, and was all ready to put on an act. When she saw who it was, she snapped her lids back down again and made up for any false impression I might have had because of her interest in the door by groaning audibly.
Dr. Parkerdale sat at the bedside, wearing his most professional manner, one hand on her pulse, his face grave. A white-clad nurse stood at the foot of the bed. There were bottles and glasses and medical gadgets scattered all over a bedside table. The lights were low. Robert was sitting over by a window. He looked up as I came in, frowned, and raised a finger to his lips.
There was hush in the room — an air of subdued silence which is usually associated with funerals and deathbeds.
I tiptoed over to Bob. “What’s happened?” I asked.
The doctor glanced sharply at me, then back at his patient.
“Her whole nervous system’s been thrown out of co-ordination,” Bob said.
As though the whisper carried to the patient on the bed, she started twitching, making little spasmodic motions with her arms and legs, twisting her facial muscles.
The doctor said, “There, there,” in a soothing voice and nodded to the nurse. The nurse glided around the bed, took the cover from a glass, dipped in a spoon, and held a small towel beneath Mrs. Ashbury’s chin while she tilted the spoon.
Mrs. Ashbury blew out bubbles and spluttered drops of liquid up in the air like a miniature fountain, then swallowed, coughed, choked, caught her breath, and lay still.
Bob said to me, “Where’s Henry? Have you seen him? She keeps calling for him. Bernard Carter telephoned he’d tried every one of the clubs and hadn’t found him.”
I said, “Step in my room a minute where we can talk.”
“I don’t know whether I dare to leave her,” he said, glancing solicitously over toward the bed, but getting up at the same time he started speaking.
We tiptoed out of the room. I looked back over my shoulder, and saw Mrs. Ashbury open her eyes at the sound of the clicking doorknob.
I piloted Bob down the hallway to my room. He looked surprised when he saw Bertha Cool. I introduced him.
“Mrs. Cool,” he said, as though searching his memory. “Haven’t I heard the name somewhere—” He broke off to look at me.
I said, “B. Cool — Confidential Investigations. This is Bertha Cool herself. I’m Donald Lam, a detective.”
“A detective!” he exclaimed. “I thought you were a jujitsu expert.”
“He is,” Bertha said.
“But what are you doing here?”
“Killing two birds with one stone,” I said. “Training Mr. Ashbury and making an investigation.”
“What’s the investigation?”
I said, “Sit down, Bob.”
He hesitated a moment, then dropped into a chair.
“I just missed meeting you earlier this evening,” I remarked casually.
He raised his eyebrows in surprise. “I’m afraid I don’t understand.”
“How long’s your mother been sick?”
“Ever since Ashbury said the things he did to her. By God, I’d like to get my hands on him. Of all the dirty cads, of all the—”
“You didn’t know it until you got home?”
“No.”
“That hasn’t been very long, has it?”
“No. About an hour or so. Why? What made you ask?”
“Because, as I said, I just missed meeting you earlier this evening.”
He raised his eyebrows in a somewhat exaggerated gesture of surprise. “I’m afraid I don’t get you.”
“Up at Esther Clarde’s apartment. It must have given you quite a start when you heard knuckles hammering on the door, and someone said it was the police.”
For a second or two he remained rigidly motionless. There wasn’t so much as the trace of an expression on his face. Even his eyes didn’t move. Then he looked up at me and said, “I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about.”
I dropped into a chair, and put my feet up on another chair.
“You were in with Esther Clarde, the blonde girl who works at the cigar counter,” I said, “the one who was Jed Ringold’s mistress.”
His lips came together. He looked me straight in the eyes and said, “You’re a liar.”
Bertha Cool stifled a yawn and said casually, “Well, for Heaven’s sake, let’s get down to brass tacks.”
I slowly got up from my chair, intending to point my finger at him as I made my direct accusation. He misunderstood what I had in mind. I could see the sudden flash of fear in his eyes as he remembered my reputation as a jujitsu expert. “Now wait a minute, Lam,” he said hastily. “Don’t get hotheaded about this thing. I lost my temper. That was rather a direct statement you made. I won’t say you’re a liar. I’ll just say the statement is untrue. You’re mistaken. Somebody’s been lying to you.”
I followed up my advantage. I let my eyes close to narrow slits. I said, “I suppose you know I could lift you out of that chair, tie you up like a pretzel, throw you into the garbage, and you wouldn’t get untangled until they lifted you out to put you in the incinerator.”
“Now, take it easy, Lam, take it easy. I didn’t mean it that way.”
Bertha Cool gave a choking cough which sounded almost like Mrs. Ashbury’s reaction to the medicine.
I kept my finger pointed at him. “You,” I said, “were up at Esther Clarde’s apartment tonight. You were there when the cops came up.”
His eyes shifted.
I said, “That business of three detectives getting letters out of Alta’s room is the bunk. The homicide squad might have had three detectives, but the D.A.’s office never had three investigators it could put on a job like that, and the thing had already been dumped in the D.A.’s lap by the police. It was up to the D.A. to uncover his own evidence.”
Bob looked at me and swallowed twice before he said anything. “Now listen, Lam,” he said, “you’re getting me wrong. I was up there. I went up to get those letters back. I knew what it meant to the kid. Nobody thinks I’m worth a damn around here except Mother, but I’m a pretty decent guy just the same.”
“How did you know about the letters?” I asked.
He twisted in his chair, and didn’t say anything.
I heard a commotion in the hallway, voices raised in protest, someone saying, “You can’t do that,” and then the sound of a scuffle. Mrs. Ashbury, attired in a flimsy nightgown and nothing else, jerked the door open. The nurse grabbed at her, and Mrs. Ashbury pushed her away. The doctor trotted along at her side mouthing futile protests. He took hold of her arm and kept saying, “Now, Mrs. Ashbury — now, Mrs. Ashbury — now, Mrs. Ashbury.”
The nurse came back for another hold. The doctor glared at her, and said, “No force, nurse. She mustn’t struggle, and she mustn’t get excited.”
Mrs. Ashbury stared at me. “What,” she demanded, “is the meaning of this?”
Bertha Cool answered the question. “Sit down, dearie, take a load off your feet, and keep your trap shut.”
Mrs. Ashbury turned to stare at Bertha Cool. “Madam, do you know whose house this is?”
“I haven’t looked up the record title,” Bertha said, “but I know damn well who’s throwing this party.”
I said to Bob, “Crumweather hired you to get those letters out of the way. Instead of giving them to him, you arranged with Esther Clarde to use some of them to raise a little dough. You—”
There were quick steps in the corridor. Henry Ashbury came striding in through the open door, and stared at the party over the tops of his glasses.
Mrs. Ashbury looked at me, then at Bob, then at her husband. “Oh, Henreeeeee! Where have you been? Poor Bernard’s spent the whole night looking for you. Henry, this is the most awful thing — the most hideous thing! Henry, dear, I’m going to faint.”
She closed her eyes and swayed around on her feet. The nurse and the doctor closed in. The doctor muttered soothingly, “Now, Mrs. Ashbury, you simply can’t excite yourself.”
“If you’ll just go to bed quietly,” the nurse said.
Mrs. Ashbury let her eyelids flutter down until the eyes were almost closed. She gurgled in her throat, and tilted her head back so she could watch what was going on through the slits at the bottoms of her eyelids.
“Henry, darling.”
Ashbury didn’t pay any attention to her. He looked at me.
I said, “I’m just pinning something on Bob. I think he’s responsible for the thing you wanted investigated.”
Bob said, “I’m not. I swear you’ve got me wrong. I—”
“Stole some of Alta’s letters,” I finished.
He was up on his feet. “You look here, Lam. I don’t care if you can lick Joe Louis with one hand tied behind you. You’re not going to—”
Mrs. Ashbury saw that her husband had swivelled his eyes around to glare at Bob. His face had colored and set in hard lines. She decided fainting wasn’t going to do any good. She planted her feet on the floor, swept the doctor and the nurse to one side, and said, “So that’s it. You’ve been hiring a detective to come in here and frame horrible crimes on my son. I want you people to be witnesses to the things that have been said in this room. Henry, you’re going to pay for this, and pay dearly. Robert, darling, you come with Mother. We won’t waste time talking to these people. I’ll see my lawyer in the morning. Things which I hadn’t understood before are perfectly plain to me now. Henry’s trying to frame something on you so as to make me leave him.”
Bob moved to his mother’s side. She put an arm around his shoulder, and sighed.
Bertha Cool got up, slowly and majestically. Her manner was that of a master workman getting ready to tackle a difficult job in a businesslike manner.
Henry Ashbury raised his eyebrows, looked over the tops of his glasses at Bertha Cool, held up his hand, and said, “Don’t.”
There was a second or two of silence. Bertha Cool looked to me for instructions.
Ashbury shook his head at me. “Let it go, Lam,” he said. “I think I’m getting somewhere.”
“You just think you’re getting somewhere. If you were, I’d let you go, but the cards are stacked against you.”
Mrs. Ashbury said, “The doctor will testify that I’m in no condition to answer questions.”
“I most certainly will,” Dr. Parkerdale said. “This whole procedure is outrageous.”
Bob was glad of the opportunity to get out. “Come, Mother, I’ll get you back to bed.”
“Yes,” she said, in a voice that was a little above a whisper. “Things are going around and around.”
Bertha Cool pushed a chair to one side, strode over to the door, and kicked it shut.
Ashbury looked at her and said, “No.”
Bertha heaved a sigh. She was itching to pitch in and handle the situation, but a hundred dollars a day was a hundred dollars a day and instructions were instructions.
The nurse came toward the door. Bertha moved to one side. The nurse opened the door, and the doctor and Bob led Mrs. Ashbury down the corridor and into her bedroom. The door slammed. I heard the turn of a key in the lock.
Bertha Cool said, “Nuts.”
Ashbury said, “We can’t risk it, Donald. It’s all right if we stood a chance, but that doctor knows which side of the bread has the butter. This will look like hell in a divorce court.”
“You’re the boss,” I said. “Personally, I think you’ve scrambled the eggs.”
A door down the corridor was opened, slammed, then locked. Dr. Parkerdale came striding indignantly into the room. “You have all but killed her,” he said.
“No one invited her to this party,” I said. “Send Bob back here. We want to question him.”
“He can’t leave his mother’s bedside. I won’t be responsible for consequences if—”
“No one wants you to be responsible for anything,” Bertha Cool said. “You couldn’t kill that woman with a sledge hammer, and you know it. She’s putting on an act.”
Dr. Parkerdale said, “Madam, like all laymen, you’re prone to judge from external appearances. I’m telling you, her blood pressure has reached a dangerous point.”
“Let it come to a boil,” Bertha said. “It’ll do her good.”
Ashbury said to the doctor, “You think she’s in a dangerous physical condition?”
“Very critical,” the doctor said.
“Yes,” Bertha Cool snorted. “So critical that he leaves his patient to strut down the hall and try to make evidence for a divorce court.”
The significance of that remark soaked into Dr. Parkerdale’s mind. He turned wordlessly and walked back down the corridor to Mrs. Ashbury’s room. He knocked. The door was unlocked, opened, and locked again.
Bertha Cool kicked my door closed.
Ashbury said, “I’m sorry, Donald, but they’ve ganged up on us. The nurse won’t contradict the doctor.”
I reached for my hat. “It’s your funeral,” I said. “I had a winning hand until you trumped my ace.”
“I’m sorry.”
“You don’t need to be. If you want to do a good day’s job, start getting worried about your wife.”
“That would be playing right into their hands.”
“So worried,” I went on, “that you insist on a consultation. Get a doctor of some real standing in the profession, get him out here right away, and take her blood pressure. ”
He looked at me for a minute, then his eyes softened into a twinkle. He started for the telephone.
I said, “Come on, Bertha.”