We registered as Mrs. Cool and Donald Cool. Bertha said, “My nephew and I would like two rooms with a connecting bath. I’m expecting some telephone calls. Please be certain they’re handled without delay. Our baggage will come later.”
She flashed her diamonds again, and the gang in the hotel fell all over itself giving us service.
In the rooms, I waited until the bellboy had left and then put through a call for the Key West Apartments. When I heard Frieda Tarbing’s voice on the line, I said, “Call Bertha Cool at the Westmount Hotel for any tip-off. We’re in six-twenty-one. Better make a note of the number.”
“Very well,” she said. “There’s nothing at present. I’ll call you back.”
I said, “Are you always as good-natured when you’re pulled out of a deep sleep?”
“Was I good-natured?” she asked.
“Yes. Mrs. Cool said you were one woman in a million, that I’d better lay siege to your heart and marry you before some other guy grabbed you off.”
Her laugh was melodious. “There’s merit to the idea,” she said.
“I thought so,” I told her.
Suddenly her voice changed to that of impersonal efficiency. “I have the message. I’ll see that it’s delivered,” she said. “Thank you.”
I hung up, and Bertha Cool, sprawled out in the overstuffed chair with her shoes kicked off and her stockinged feet elevated to another chair, looked at me and shook her head. “It’s a gift,” she said.
“What is?”
“Making women fall for you.”
“They don’t fall for me,” I said. “I was just kidding her along. I don’t even know whether she liked it.”
“Nuts,” Bertha said, and fitted a cigarette into her cigarette holder.
I walked over to the bed where she’d placed the morning paper and opened it. The news was on the front page. A key witness whom the district attorney’s office had been keeping under cover in the Evaline Harris murder case had disappeared. Circumstances made the police believe she’d been the victim of foul play. Police were “combing the city”. There was the usual amount of newspaper hooey: The police were following a definite lead and expected to have important disclosures to make before midnight. The witness, it seemed, had disappeared just as the police were ready to “break” the case. The police had hinted that developments of a most startling nature were to be anticipated.
I put on an act for Bertha. “My God,” I said, “if anything’s happened to her! Do you suppose the police were so damn dumb they didn’t anticipate something like this? Good God, here they were dealing with a murderer, and this girl was the key witness, and they left her entirely unguarded. Of all the damn fool plays I’ve ever heard or seen, that takes the cake!”
Bertha said, “Keep your shirt on, lover. She’s all right.”
“What makes you think so?”
“The only person she could have identified was our client. You know that he wouldn’t do anything like that.”
I read through the article and said, “There was blood in the apartment!”
Bertha Cool said, “Don’t worry, Donald. She’s all right. If they’d wanted to kill her, they’d have simply killed her there in the apartment, and the police would have found her body. The fact that she isn’t there means that she’s alive. The police will find her. They’re pretty thorough, you know, when they get on the job.”
I started pacing the floor and said, “I’d like to think you’re right.”
“Don’t get all stewed up,” she said. “There’s nothing you can do to help. We’ve got this other thing to handle. You’ve got to keep your mind clear.”
I paced the floor for a while, smoked a couple of cigarettes, and went back to read the paper again, and then went and stood looking out of the window.
Bertha Cool smoked in comfortable silence. After a while she called the office and talked with Elsie Brand. She hung up and said, “The cops are looking for you at the office, lover. I guess those boys in Santa Carlotta mean business.”
I let on that the information didn’t even interest me.
After a while she said, almost musingly as though thinking out loud, “For a little runt, you draw a hell of a lot of water.”
“What do you mean?”
She said, “I was running a detective agency. It was a run-of-the-mill agency. Most of the better-class outfits won’t handle political stuff, and won’t handle divorce stuff. I’d handle anything. My business wasn’t always the most savoury, but it was a nice, routine business. I made some money out of it, not a hell of a lot, but enough to get by. You enter the picture. I hire you to work for me, and the first thing I know, you’re dragging me so deep into murder cases that I’m in right up to my neck. I’ve ceased to be a detective and become an accomplice. The tail’s not only wagging the dog, but it’s shaking hell out of him.”
I said, “Forget it. You’re making money, aren’t you!”
Bertha Cool looked down at her big, firm breasts, at her big thighs, and said, “I hope I don’t lose weight worrying. I was so comfortable the way I was — just like a foot in an old shoe, and now look at me. Lover, do you know that if we don’t pull this case out of the fire, we’re going to be in jail?”
I said, “There’s lots of ways of getting out of jail.”
Bertha said, “Put that in writing and send it to the guys up in San Quentin. They might be interested.”
I didn’t say anything, and we sat for a while in silence. First Bertha’d look at her wrist watch, then I’d look at mine. Then I’d look out of the window, and Bertha would light another cigarette.
The street in front of the hotel furnished the only variation. A bakery wagon made some deliveries. An occasional housewife would sally forth to do some shopping. A couple of elderly people who looked like tourists spending a few months in Southern California strolled out of the hotel, got in a car with a New York licence plate, and drove leisurely away. The sky was blue and cloudless. The sun beat down, throwing intense, black shadows which gradually shortened.
I went back to the bed, propped myself up with pillows, and read the rest of the news in the paper. Bertha Cool sat in the chair, to all outward appearances calmly serene.
When I threw the paper down and went to stand at the window again, she said, “For Pete’s sake, quit fidgeting. It doesn’t get you anywhere. You’re too nervous, too intense. Sit down and relax. Rest while you can. You’ve been working on this case day and night. You’re nervous. There’s no percentage in getting nervous.”
I went back to the bed, punched the pillows into shape, stretched myself out, and said, “I’m going to try and get forty winks. I don’t think I can, but there’s a lot of work ahead of us. Lord knows when I’ll have a chance to sleep again.”
Bertha Cool said, “It’s a good idea. Hand me the financial section, lover — not that it means a damn thing. Those financial writers diagnose history with a condescending attitude that makes you think they knew what was going to happen all along, but try and pin them down to anything definite in their predictions. Listen to this. ‘In the event the European situation remains static, it is the consensus of opinion that the market has a healthy tone and securities are due for a steady, persistent advance. The domestic political situation, while still far from reassuring, shows evidences of a trend towards the better, at least the swing of the pendulum to the left has been checked. However, it is to be remembered that business generally is far from optimistic, and the attempts of various parties to gain political power or perpetuate the powers already enjoyed will doubtless exert a retarding influence upon any recovery which might be expected.’ ”
She said, “Bah,” and dashed the paper to the floor.
I made myself comfortable as I could on the bed, but knew I couldn’t sleep. My brain was racing as though I’d had an overdose of coffee. My mind picked up a dozen different possibilities of the situation, carried them through to disastrous conclusions, and then dropped them to pick up some other possible development. I tried lying on my left side for a while, then rolled over to my right side. Bertha Cool said, “For Pete’s sake, stay in one position. You can’t sleep rolling around that way.”
I tried staying in one position. I looked at my watch. It was almost eleven.
Bertha Cool said, “Perhaps we’d better ring the Key West again.”
I said, “I don’t think so. We don’t want to make the clerk suspicious. Remember, he’s in love with Frieda Tarbing, and inclined to be jealous. Probably they don’t allow her to make personal calls while she’s on duty.”
Bertha said, “For Pete’s sake, shut up and go to sleep.”
I lay there thinking. I’d turned the heat on Harbet, and Harbet had turned the heat on me. Taken by and large, there was a lot of fire, and someone was due to get his fingers burned. I thought of Dr. Alftmont sitting up in Santa Carlotta on the eve of election with a sword hanging over his head. I thought of the woman who was posing as Mrs. Alftmont, the wife of an eye, ear, nose, and throat specialist who had built up a good practice, who had achieved some social recognition in the inner circle of a snobbish city, wondered what she was thinking as she waited — waiting without knowing what was going on.
It occurred to me that those people could rest more easily because they had confidence in me. Even Bertha Cool was able to shift part of her responsibilities to my shoulders. I had no one to whom I could pass even a part of the load.
I thought of Marian Dunton and wondered if she was getting along all right. I didn’t dare to call her — not with Bertha Cool in the room, and I knew Bertha Cool well enough to know I couldn’t make a sneak and put in a surreptitious telephone call. I thought of what a loyal friend Marian was, of how she’d realized I was playing a game and using her as a pawn, but, like the good scout she was, she’d drifted along — laughing brown eyes — the shape of her lips — the smile that seemed to come so easily — her white teeth—
The ringing of the telephone brought me up out of a sound sleep. I rolled off the bed and staggered as I tried to stand up. My eyes, drugged with slumber, refused to focus. A telephone was ringing — that telephone bell was the most important thing in my life— Why? — Who was calling? — Where was the telephone? — What time was it? — Where was I?—
I heard Bertha Cool’s calmly competent voice saying, “Yes. This is Mrs. Cool,” and then, after a moment, “All bets are off? We’ll be right over.”
She hung up the telephone and stood looking at me with her forehead puckered into a frown. “Frieda Tarbing,” she said. “She goes off duty in an hour. She wanted to remind me. She said that it looked as though all bets were off.”
Having something definite to work on steadied me. I went over to the wash stand and splashed cold water on my face and into my eyes. I said, “Ring Elsie Brand at the office and see if one of those operatives has made a report. There must have been a slip-up some place. She’s gone out.”
Bertha rang the agency office, said, “Hello, Elsie. Spill me the dope,” listened for a while, and then said, “You didn’t hear from those operatives?... All right. Thanks. I’ll call you back after a while.”
She hung up and said, “More cops looking for you, lover. Some looking for me. Nothing, from the operatives.”
I smoothed my hair back with my pocket comb, looked at my soiled and wilted shirt collar, and said, “My God, Bertha, I can’t be wrong! We exploded that bombshell under her. She must have communicated with Harbet. She had to—”
“She didn’t,” Bertha said.
I said, “Well, there’s only one thing to do. Go over and make another crack at it. We’re in so deep now we’ve got to start moving. We can’t do anything else. Here, I m going to put through a telephone call.”
I grabbed up the telephone and called the number of my rooming-house. A maid answered the phone and I said, “Let me speak to Mrs. Eldridge, please.”
After a while I heard Mrs. Eldridge’s voice, that peculiar, cynical voice which I’d know anywhere. I said, “This is Donald. I wonder if you’d mind asking my cousin to come to the telephone. I wouldn’t bother you, only it’s important.”
Mrs. Eldridge said acidly, “Your cousin, Donald turned out to be Marian Dunton, a witness who was wanted by the police in connection with a murder case. They took her away three hours ago. I think they’re looking for you now. If you’re going to use my rooming-house as—”
I slammed the receiver back into its cradle.
Bertha Cool looked at me and said, sweetly — too damn sweetly — “Your cousin, Donny boy?”
I said, “Just a friend. I passed her off as my cousin.”
“That number you called was the number of your rooming-house.”
“I know,” I said.
Bertha Cool stood staring at me. Her eyes narrowed until they were mere glittering slits. “Humph,” she said at length, and then, after a moment, added, “ I’ll say they fall for you. Come on, lover. We’re going places. It may not be the wisest thing to do, but at least it’s something to do. We may be here all day without getting a call. There’s one thing you didn’t figure.”
“What?” I asked.
She said, “I’ve been thinking it out while I was sitting here. Suppose Harbet has a date to call at the Key West Apartments, this afternoon, pick up Flo Danzer, and take her up to Santa Carlotta?”
“Then the operatives would have reported that she’d gone out. I figured that possibility.”
“Yes,” Bertha said, “but she knew Harbet was coming, she’d wait for him instead of telephoning.”
I said, “Well, come on, let’s go. We can’t get in any deeper than we are now.”
Bertha Cool said, “God, how I wish you were right,” and unlocked the door.
We went out into the corridor. Bertha calmly and methodically locked the door. “How about a taxicab?” I asked.
“There’s a taxi stand in front of the hotel,” she said.
We went down through the lobby. The clerk said, “You’re baggage hasn’t shown up yet, Mrs. Cool. Do you want me to do anything about it? I can arrange with a transfer company—”
“Nothing, thank you,” Bertha said and swept on past him.
There was a taxi at the stand in front of the hotel. Bertha heaved herself into the seat. I said to the cab driver, “Key West Apartments and make it snappy.”
We rode along for a block or two in silence. Then Bertha Cool said, “Why in hell you didn’t fix it up so the police wouldn’t think she’d been kidnapped is more than I know. If she wanted to come down where she could live with you, why the hell didn’t you have her think up a good stall which would fool cops. The way it is now, you’re headed for the big house, and it doesn’t make a damn what happens to this murder case. You—”
“Shut up,” I said. “I’m thinking.”
She said, “Well, I’m paying you wages. Think about the case we’re working on. Think about your own troubles in your time off.”
I turned on her. “You give me a pain. I am thinking about business problems, and you try to get me started on my personal problems. Shut up.”
“What are you thinking about?”
“Shut up.”
When we were within a few blocks of the Key West Apartments, I said, “We’re all nuts.”
“What is it now, Donald?” Bertha Cool asked.
“Those cigarette stubs in Evaline Harris’s apartment. One of them had lipstick on. One of them didn’t. Police jumped at the conclusion that that meant a man had been in the room. It doesn’t mean any such thing.”
“Why not?”
I said, “She’d been out late the night before. She was sleeping late. She was still asleep when someone gave her door a buzz.”
“What makes you think so?”
“The paper under the door.”
“I see. Go ahead.”
I said, “You don’t keep lipstick on when you go to bed, do you?”
“No.”
“Neither did Evaline Harris. She removed her makeup and got into bed. Her visitor came before she had a chance to put any make-up on. They sat on the bed and talked. Her visitor was a woman. It was the caller’s cigarette stub that had the lipstick on it.”
The cab driver pulled into the kerb in front of the Key West Apartments. “Want me to wait?” he asked.
I said, “No,” and handed him a dollar.
Bertha Cool was staring at me with steady, wide-eyed intentness.
I said, “You know what that means.”
Bertha Cool nodded.
“All right. Let’s go.”
She pulled herself out of the cab. Out of the corner of my eye I saw one of the detectives parked just behind the agency car keeping the place under surveillance. Bertha saw him too, but didn’t even bother to signal him.
As I held the door open for Bertha Cool, I said, “Keep the clerk busy for a minute.”
Bertha nodded and moved over to the desk. The clerk came forward to greet her. I walked past him to say in a low voice to Frieda Tarbing, “Didn’t she call?”
“Not a peep. Shall I go through the motions of ringing?”
I saw the clerk cock an ear in our direction, and I said in a loud voice, “Oh, don’t bother to ring. Aunt Amelia is expecting me. We’ll go right on up.”
She raised her voice. “According to the rules,” she said, “I have to ring.”
The clerk said, “That’s all right, Miss Tarbing. They can go right up,” and he smiled at Bertha.
Bertha gave him one of her most gracious smiles, and I stood to one side while she eased her avoirdupois into the elevator. I followed her. The elevator door clanged shut and we shot upwards.
We left the elevator and walked down the corridor. Bertha Cool said to me, “Any ideas?” and I said, “We’ve got to really get rough with her this time.”
Bertha said, “All right then, lover. You keep out of it. When it comes to getting rough with a woman, I know some fine points that would never occur to a mere man. If it’s getting rough you want, just stand to one side and watch Bertha do her stuff.”
We knocked on the door and waited. There was no sound from the inside. The transom was tightly closed.
I knocked again. Bertha said, “This is a swank place. There’s probably a button here somewhere — here it is.”
She pressed her finger against the button. Still nothing happened. Bertha and I exchanged glances. Then we listened at the door for any sound of motion. We pounded again, and nothing happened.
Bertha said, “That damned operative went to sleep on the job and she sneaked out on us.”
I tried to keep my face from showing what I was feeling.
We pounded on the door again and Bertha Cool rang the buzzer some more. Then she said grimly, “Come on down with me, lover. I want you to hear what I have to say to that snake’s-belly sitting in that car.”
I tagged along behind. There was nothing else to do.
We’d taken half a dozen steps when suddenly Bertha Cool stopped and sniffed. She turned and looked at me.
“What is it?” I asked, and then I caught it, just a faint whiff of gas.
I ran back to the apartment door and dropped to my hands and knees, put my cheek against the carpet, and tried to look under the door. I couldn’t see a thing, just a black strip beneath the jamb of the door. I took a long-bladed knife from my pocket, opened the blade, and inserted it in the crack. It struck some obstacle.
I jumped up, dusted off the knees of my trousers with the palms of my hands, and said, “Come on, Bertha. Let’s go”
We went to the elevator and down to the lobby. I walked up to the clerk and said, “I’m afraid something’s wrong with my Aunt Amelia. She told me to come back at this time, that she’d be here waiting. I went up and pounded on the door and couldn’t get any answer.”
The clerk was very affable. “She s probably gone out.” he said. “She’ll be back in a little white. Would you like to wait in the lobby?”
I said, “She was expecting me. She said, she’d be there.” Frieda Tarbing said, “I’m quite sure she hasn’t gone out.”
“Give her a ring,” the clerk said.
Frieda Tarbing flashed me a quick glance, then plugged in a line, and worked a key back and forth. After a few minutes, she said, “She doesn’t answer.”
The clerk said, “Well, there’s nothing I can do—”
“I thought,” I said, “that there was a faint odour of gas in the corridor.”
The affable smile dissolved from the clerk’s face. I saw his eyes get big and his face change colour. Without a word, he reached under the counter and took out a pass-key. “Come on,” he said.
We went up. The clerk tried fitting the pass-key to the door. It didn’t work. He said, “The door’s bolted from the inside.”
Bertha Cool said, “Donald, you’re thin. You could smash out the glass in that transom, and drop through, and open the door.”
I said to the clerk, “Give me a leg up.”
He said, “I’m not certain we should resort to extreme measures—”
Bertha Cool said, “Here, lover. I’ll give you a boost.”
She picked me up as though I weighed no more than a pillow. I pulled a handkerchief from my pocket, wadded it around my hand, and smashed in the glass of the transom. A blast of gas came out to strike me in the face.
I said to Bertha, “Slip off your shoe, and give it to me. I can hang on up here.”
I clung to the transom ledge with one toe resting on the doorknob. Bertha Cool slipped off a shoe and pushed it into my hand. I beat out the glass with the heel, then dropped the shoe and slid through the transom.
The gas was terrible. It stung my eyes and made me gag. The room was darkened with the shades all drawn and the drapes pulled into place. I had a glimpse of a bed, and the inert figure of a woman sprawled over a writing-desk, her head on her left hand, her right hand stretched out across the desk.
I held my breath, ran across to the nearest window, jerked the shades to one side, opened the window, stuck my head out, and got a breath of air. I ran across to the other window, opened it, and did the same thing. Then I ran out into the kitchen. The gas stove was going full blast. I could hear the hissing sound of escaping gas. I shut off all the valves and opened the kitchen window.
From the door I could hear the clerk calling, “Open up,” and Bertha Cool’s voice came drifting through the broken transom. “He’s probably overcome by gas. You’d better rim down and call the police.”
There were steps running down the corridor, and then Bertha Cool’s voice, sounding as calm as though she’d been giving me orders over the telephone, saying, “Take your time, lover. Make a good job of it.”
I went over to the desk. Flo Danzer had been writing. There was one letter addressed to Bertha Cool. It was in an envelope. I ran over to the window, took out the letter, and glanced through it. It was a long, rambling account of how she had tried to pose as Amelia Lintig. I saw the name John Harbet, saw the name of Evaline Harris, and then to my dismay saw the name of Dr. Alftmont, of Santa Carlotta.
I slipped the letter back into the envelope, hesitated a moment, then sealed the envelope. I whipped out of my pocket one of the stamped, addressed envelopes with a special delivery stamp in the upper right-hand corner which I used for making out agency reports. I pushed the whole business into this envelope, sealed it, and said to Bertha, “Over the transom.”
I sailed it up. I heard Bertha say, “What do I do with it, lover?” and I said, “Take it over to the mail chute, drop it, and forget it.”
I heard Bertha Cool’s step in the corridor. I was feeling giddy and nauseated. I ran to the window and took a deep breath. Then I went back and looked under Flo Danzer’s head. There was a piece of paper underneath it. She’d been writing, evidently when the gas overcame her. There was a pen in her hand.
I wanted to ease that letter out and see what it contained. I could get the words: To whom it may concern: — the writing seemed to be badly scrawled.
Wind was taking out some of the gas smell, but it was still awfully thick. My eyes were smarting and I felt strangely light-headed. I heard a man’s voice in the corridor saying, “There’s a terrible odour of gas,” then a woman’s voice, and then I heard the sound of steps running down the corridor, and the clerk’s voice saying, “The police will be here, also an ambulance. Here, break that door down. The man inside has been overcome.”
I figured that was the best I could do now. I heard the sounds of bodies slamming against the door. I ran towards the window and dropped down to the floor. I closed my eyes and, as though in a daze, heard the door crash inward and people were running towards me. Someone picked up my shoulders. Someone else picked up my feet. I was carried out to the corridor. People were running around, and a woman was screaming.
I felt fresh air on my face, and Bertha Cool saying, “Here, put him out on that window ledge. Hang on to his feet. He may drop.”
I inhaled great lungfuls of fresh air and opened my eyes. People were milling around. I heard the clerk say, “Poor chap. It was his aunt—” There followed a confused interval of blurred half-consciousness, and then I heard the sound of a siren. A few minutes later, officers from a radio car were in charge. After a while an ambulance came. People went into the room and came out.
I looked up into Bertha Cool’s face and said, “Remember to give them her name. She’s Amelia Lintig of Oakview.”
“It’s on the register, lover,” Bertha said.
“Be sure to see they get it right,” I said.
After a while I tried my legs. They were a little wobbly. A man in a white coat said, “How are you feeling, buddy? Think you can get down to the ambulance under your own power?”
“I want to stay here with my aunt,” I said.
Bertha Cool said, “It’s only partially the gas. He’s been under a terrific strain worrying about his aunt. He knew she was despondent.”
The white-coated man stuck a stethoscope on my chest, said, “Here, we’ve got to get him out to the air.”
I pushed him away and said, “I want to know what’s happened”
“You can’t go in there,” the ambulance man said.
“I’ve got to.”
Bertha Cool said cooingly, “Poor boy. It was his favourite aunt.”
I went into the room. Radio officers were in charge. One of them said, “It’s too late to do anything here. The body isn’t to be touched until the coroner comes. Who shut off the gas?”
“I did,” I said.
The clerk said, “They broke in the transom at my orders. I knew it was the only thing to do.”
Bertha Cool glanced at me meaningly. “You’d better go in the ambulance, lover,” she said.
I looked at Bertha, and said, “I can’t. There’s an important letter—”
“I know, lover,” she said. “Leave it to Bertha. She’ll take care of it.”
The ambulance man put an arm around my shoulders. “Come on, buddy. Your heart is taking an awful beating. You got quite a dose of gas. If you could only smell your own breath, you’d realize it. You smell like a gas house.”
I went down to the ambulance. Strained, white faces in the lobby eyed me as though I’d been some alien creature. I stretched out on the cot in the ambulance. I felt a needle prick my arm, and heard the scream of the siren.
After a while I began to feel better and realized that the ambulance was the safest place for me — that and the receiving hospital. The police were looking for me in too many different places on too many different charges.