A. Fair - Bats Fly at Dusk

Sergeant Sellers hung up the telephone, turned to Bertha Cool, and looked her over as though he were seeing her for the first time.

“Rather cute,” he said.

“I don’t get it.”

Sergeant Sellers said, “I am just wondering, Mrs. Cool, if that collect telephone call you received this afternoon didn’t come from Redlands.”

“It certainly did not,” Bertha assured him.

“You’ll pardon me if I make a little investigation of that.”

“Go ahead. Investigate all you want to.”

“I don’t think you understand me, Mrs. Cool. During the investigation I am going to make, it’s going to be necessary for me to have you where I can find you.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“I mean exactly what I say.”

“You mean you’re going to put me under surveillance?”

“Oh, that would be an unnecessary expense to the city, Mrs. Cool. I wouldn’t think of doing anything like that. And besides, it would inconvenience you so much.”

“Well, what do you mean then?”

“If you were travelling around, going here and there, wherever you wanted to go, it would cause us a lot of trouble to keep track of you; but if you stayed in one place, it wouldn’t be at all difficult.”

“You mean my office?”

“Or mine.”

“Just what do you mean?”

“Well, I thought that if you stayed here for a while it might simplify matters.”

“You can’t hold me in custody that way.”

“Certainly not,” Sellers said. “I would be the first one to admit that, Mrs. Cool.”

“Well?” she said triumphantly.

“Just a moment,” he cautioned as she started to get up out of the chair. “I can’t hold you on that, but I certainly can hold you on breaking into that house tonight. That’s a felony.”

“But I didn’t take anything.”

“We can’t be entirely certain of that as yet.”

“I’ve been searched.”

“But you might have managed to get rid of whatever you had taken, or you might have been intending to commit a felony. Do you know, Mrs. Cool, I think I’ll hold you a little while longer on that charge, and there are a couple of other things I’d like to look up.”

“Such as what?” Bertha demanded indignantly.

“Well, for instance, the way you left your office this afternoon. You went down and took a streetcar on Seventh Street. You got out just above Grand Avenue. My two plain-clothes men who were following you thought they had a cinch. You were on foot, apparently depending on streetcars. The man who was driving the car dropped the detective who was with him, and drove around the block so he could come back and slide in at a space opposite a fire plug which he’d spotted as he drove down the street just before you got off the streetcar. And then your automobile came along and picked you up and whisked you away just as neatly as though you’d been engineering a sleight-of-hand trick.”

Sergeant Sellers pressed the bell which summoned the matron. When she arrived in the office, he said, “Mrs. Bell, Mrs. Cool is going to be with us, at least until morning. Will you try to make her comfortable?”

The matron’s smile held the triumph of cold malice. “I will be a pleasure, Sergeant,” she said, and then, turning beligerently to Bertha, “Come with me, dearie.”

Slow, methodical steps echoed down the steel-lined corridor.

Bertha Cool, sitting in seething indignation on the edge of an iron cot, heard the clank of keys, then the sound of a key the door outside. A moment later, the door came open and a rather drab-looking woman said, “Hello,” in a lifeless voice.

“Who are you?” Bertha asked.

“I’m a trusty.”

“What do you want?”

“They want you down in the office.”

“What for?”

“That’s all I know.”

“Well, to hell with them. I’m staying here.”

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you.”

“Why not?”

“It won’t get you any place.”

“Let them come and take me,” Bertha said.

“Don’t kid yourself. They can do that, too. But I’d go along if I was you. I think they’re going to turn you loose.”

“Well, I’ll stay right here.”

“For how long?”

“From now on.”

“That won’t do you no good. Lots of them feel that way, but you don’t hurt nobody by staying here. You’ve got to go some time, and then they have the laugh on you.” The trusty spoke in the same dejected, flat monotone with a leisurely drawl, as though the effort of speaking wearied her and consumed too much vitality. “I remember one woman said she was going to stay here, and they told me just to leave the door unlocked and tell her she could go whenever she wanted to. She stayed there all morning. It was the middle of the afternoon when she finally went out, and everybody gave her the ha-ha.”

Bertha, without a word, got up from the cot and followed the trusty down the echoing corridor, through a locked door into an elevator, down to an office where another matron who was a stranger to Bertha looked up from some papers and said, “Is this Bertha Cool?”

“This is Bertha Cool, and you’d better take a good look at me because you’re going to see more of me. I’m going to—”

The matron opened a drawer, pulled out a heavy, sealed Manila envelope and said, “These are your personal belongings which were taken from you when you were put in last night, Mrs. Cool. Will you please look them over and see if they’re all there?”

“I’m going to take this damn place apart,” Bertha said. “You can’t do anything like that to me. I’m a respectable woman making a decent, honest living, and—”

“But, in the meantime, will you please check your personal belongings?”

“I’m going to sue the city, and I’m going to sue Sergeant Sellers. I—”

“I know, Mrs. Cool. Doubtless you are. But that’s outside of my department. If you’ll please check your personal property—”

“Well, you may think it’s outside of your department, but, by the time I get done, you’ll find out it isn’t outside of anybody’s department. I’ll—”

“When did you intend to start this suit, Mrs. Cool?”

“Just as soon as I get to see a lawyer.”

“And you can’t get a lawyer until you get out, and you can’t get out until you check your personal property, so please check your personal property.”

Bertha Cool ripped open the envelope, pulled out her purse, opened it with rage-trembling hands, glanced through it, snapped it shut, and said, “So what?”

The matron nodded to the trusty.

“This way, ma’am.”

Bertha Cool stood over the desk. “I’ve heard of lots of outrages being perpetrated on citizens, but this is—”

“You were held on suspicion of burglary last night, Mrs. Cool. I don’t think that any disposition has been made of the charge, but the order came through to release you pending a further investigation.”

“Oh, I see,” Bertha said. “You’re threatening me now. If I start anything, you’re going to bring up that burglary charge, are you? I—”

“I don’t know anything at all about it, Mrs. Cool. I’m simply telling you the state of the record. It’s our custom to do that with persons who are held on suspicion of crime. Good morning, Mrs. Cool.”

Bertha still stood there. “I’m a business woman. I have important things to do in connection with running my business. Taking me away from my work, holding me all night on a trumped-up charge—”

“Your time’s valuable?”

“Certainly.”

“I wouldn’t waste any more of it standing here then, Mrs. Cool.”