A. Fair - Cats Prowl at Night

Belder was talking even before Bertha had closed the door to her sanctum.

“She’s had her mind poisoned against me, and now she’s simply walked out on me.”

“Without taking her clothes?” Bertha asked.

“She went back and got her clothes, Mrs. Cool.”

“Oh, oh,” Bertha said significantly.

“I didn’t find it out until half an hour ago,” Belder said. “I had looked in her closet just to be certain. I saw her clothes hanging up and didn’t notice anything was missing, but when Mrs. Goldring got alarmed and started making a search, she and Carlotta discovered several things that had been taken out. The blue suit, a plaid skirt and blouse, two pairs of shoes, and—”

“Toothbrush?” Bertha asked.

“Yes, she had taken a toothbrush out of the medicine cabinet.”

“Cold creams?”

“That’s what fooled me, Mrs. Cool. Her jars of cream and bottles of lotions were on the dresser just as she usually left them.”

“Humph,” Bertha grunted. “She didn’t have a suitcase when I saw her leaving the place. She must have gone back for that stuff.”

“Undoubtedly, that’s what happened. She went out to meet the person who telephoned her. She was intending to have her interview and then go meet her mother at the depot. But something this person said changed all that. Mabel went right back home, threw just a few things into a suitcase and beat it — either forgetting all about her mother or else thinking this other thing was more important — and until I can reach her my hands are tied. Could you get Nunnely to wait until tomorrow?”

Bertha said, “Now listen, you’re all worked up about this. There’s absolutely nothing you can do. The probabilities a, e your wife hasn’t really left you. She’s simply been told a lot of stuff about you and has decided to walk out on you for a while, just to teach you a lesson.”

“ What makes you say that?”

“Lots of things. You mark my words, your wife has set the stage to give you a good scare, and her mother is in on the play. Your wife will be back as soon as she thinks she’s accomplished her purpose. She’s keeping in touch with her mother and knows everything that’s happening. That’s why she had her mother come down here.”

“Now you go on back and start adopting the attitude that if your wife wants to leave you, that’s her privilege. You hate to see her go, but if she really has gone and it’s all over, there are lots of other women in the world. Don’t carry it too far, but get that idea across to your mother-in-law and then go out for half an hour. That will give your mother-in-law a chance to get in touch with your wife on the telephone. The minute your wife hears that you’ve recovered from the shock and are starting to think in terms of other women, you’ll find your little wife will come back so fast—”

Belder said suddenly, “That’s not all. There’s been another one.”

“Another what?”

“Another letter.”

“Let’s see it.”

Belder passed over a sealed envelope addressed to Mrs. Everett Belder.

Bertha studied the envelope, turning it over in her fingers, examining the stamp, the somewhat smeared cancellation mark. “How did you get it?” she asked.

“It was in the afternoon mail.”

“You took it from the postman?”

“No, confound it, my mother-in-law did.”

“What did she do with it?”

“Put it on a little table, together with some of the other mail. But she looked this over pretty carefully. She looked them all over, as far as that was concerned, but this was the only one that really attracted her attention. You see, it’s marked ‘Personal, private and confidential.’ ”

“How do you know this is another poison-pen letter?” Bertha asked.

“Well, it looks like the other one, the way the type looked.”

Bertha examined the typewriting with a magnifying glass, nodded her head in a gesture of slow, deliberate affirmation. “What are you going to do about it?”

“I don’t know. That’s what I wanted to see you about.”

“Any idea what’s in it?”

“No.”

“Could you simply ditch it? Throw it in the fire?”

“No. My mother-in-law’s seen it. If Mabel comes back, Mrs. Goldring will make it a point to be on hand for the opening of the mail. She seemed to be particularly interested in this letter.”

“And if she can’t find it?”

“Then, of course, I’ll be accused of taking it, and that, coupled with the other stuff — even if Mabel should come back — well, you can see what it would do.”

“She’ll come back all right,” Bertha said. “We could steam it open.”

“Isn’t that a Federal offence?”

Bertha said, “I suppose so,” pushed back her swivel chair, walked to the door of the outer office, and said to Elsie Brand, “Elsie, dear, connect up the electric plate and put on the teakettle. Bertha wants to steam open a letter.”

Elsie Brand brought in a portable electric plate, plugged it into a wall socket, put on a little kettle of water.

“Anything else?”

“No. That will be all for the present.”

Bertha made certain the plate was getting hot, then moved over to sit in the chair across from Belder, ignoring, for the moment, her swivel chair. “You’re all churned up about this thing, aren’t you?”

“I’ll say I am. I can’t help it. It’s too much — Mabel leaving, this business with Nunnely, then Mrs. Goldring and Carlotta swooping down on me— If I only knew whether Mabel had walked out. It’s the uncertainty on that point that’s such a strain. If she’s left me and would come right out and say so, that would at least relieve the uncertainty.”

Bertha walked over to her waste-basket, bent down and started rummaging through the contents; abruptly she straightened, holding a somewhat crumpled piece of printed paper in her hand.

“What’s that?” Belder asked.

“Advertisement from a furrier — a circular about putting furs in storage for the warm weather. It may come in handy.”

“I’m afraid I don’t get you.”

Bertha grinned. “Don’t try to.”

They sat in silence for several minutes, Belder restless, fidgeting, Bertha calmly placid.

The teakettle started singing. Steam which had been curling up in little wisps from the spout gradually became a full-throated stream.

Bertha gently held the envelope over the spout.

“Can’t they tell the envelope has been steamed open?” Belder asked.

“Not when I get done with it.”

“You’re more optimistic than I am.”

Bertha gently inserted the point of a lead pencil between the flap and the envelope. “I should certainly hope I was.”

Two more applications of steam and the flap curled back. Bertha took out the letter.

“All in typewriting, same as the other,” she said. “Signed on the typewriter: ‘A Friend and Well-wisher.’ Want to read this privately, or shall I read it out loud?”

“I’d better just glance at it,” Belder said, extending his hand. As his fingers closed on the sheet of paper, his hand began to shake with a series of tremors; the letter slipped from his nervous thumb and forefinger, and volplaned back and forth to the floor in a series of swinging zigzags.

“You read it,” he said to Bertha.

Bertha cleared her throat and read:

“Dear Mrs. Belder, Who was the woman who came to your husband’s office Monday afternoon — a woman who threw her arms around him and kissed him as soon as the office door had closed? Perhaps you’ll be willing to meet me and talk with me; perhaps you prefer to live in a fool’s paradise. In any event, please believe that I am your sincere friend and well-wisher.”