A. Fair - Cats Prowl at Night

“Not now.”

Belder thought that over.

Bertha, expecting Frank Sellers to interrupt the conversation, asked, “What about Sally? How did she die? Was it an accident? Was she killed, or—”

“It may have been an accident.”

“Shoot,” Bertha said, bracing herself for an interruption from Sellers.

“Apparently Sally had been peeling potatoes. She’d gone down to the cellar to get some onions to mix with them. She was carrying a dish pan with some peeled and some unpeeled potatoes in it. She was also carrying a big carving knife in her right hand. She evidently stubbed her toe and tripped on the top of the stairs and fell all the way down, running the knife through her chest.”

Bertha became absorbed in the telephone conversation. “Anything that makes it appear death wasn’t accidental?” she asked.

“Well, yes.”

“What?”

“The colour of the body.”

“What’s that got to do with it?”

“The police say it indicates carbon monoxide poisoning.”

“Go on.”

“I gather they think the knife may have been pushed into her body immediately after her death, instead of being the instrument which caused that death.”

“I see.”

“I want you to try and clear things up.”

“In what way?”

“Well, my wife is naturally under a cloud. I want you to explain to the police all about the poison-pen letter, and why you think my wife disappeared; that it was simply because she was leaving me, and not because she was running away from a murder she’d committed.”

“I see.”

“And there’s another reason I’m concerned about that second letter. Dolly is rather a striking-looking young woman. If she were dragged into it, the newspaper men would play her up big. She photographs well... You know the sort of pictures newsmen take.”

“Leg?” Bertha asked.

“Yes. I don’t want that sort of newspaper notoriety for Dolly.”

“Why?”

“Because it’s inadvisable.”

“Why?”

“Damn it, my wife was jealous of Sally. Sally’s dead. Why advertise another potential victim? Leave Dolly out of it, I tell you.”

Alarmed by Sergeant Sellers’ continued silence, Bertha glanced apprehensively over her shoulder to find that the Sergeant, his soggy cigar propped up at an aggressive angle, had appropriated her purse which had been lying on the dresser, zipped it open, and was now completely engrossed in reading the two letters which Belder had given her.

Bertha said angrily, “Why damn you! you — you—”

Belder’s voice said over the wire, “Why, Mrs. Cool! I haven’t done—”

Bertha said hastily into the telephone, “Not you, I’m talking to the dick.”

Sergeant Sellers didn’t even look up. He was completely absorbed in the letters.

“What’s he doing?” Belder asked.

Bertha said wearily, “Oh, hell! What’s the use? While you’ve been keeping me occupied telling me how you wanted me to handle things, Sergeant Sellers has taken the liberty of opening my purse and reading two letters that he’s taken from it.”

“Oh, Lord!” Belder groaned.

“Next time,” Bertha said, “let me run things my own way.”

She didn’t even wait to say good-bye, but slammed the receiver into place with a jar that all but broke the instrument.

Sergeant Sellers folded the two letters, dropped them into his pocket, zipped Bertha Cool’s purse shut. He either hadn’t found, or hadn’t considered important, the memo that Bertha had filched from Belder’s office.

“What the hell gave you the idea you could do that and get away with it?” Bertha demanded, her face dark with anger.

Sellers looked smug. “Because I knew you wouldn’t mind, old pal.”

“Mind!” Bertha screamed. “Goddamn you, I could beat your brains out — if I thought you had any! Of all the nerve! Of all the consummate, high-handed, dastardly—”

“Save it, Bertha,” he said. “It isn’t getting you anywhere.”

Bertha stood glowering in indignant silence.

Sellers said, “What the hell, Bertha. You wouldn’t have held out on me, anyway. I asked Belder where the letter was he told me about, and he said that you’d taken it. The last he saw of it, you had put it in your purse. So I thought I’d take a look at it.”

“Then why didn’t you ask me for it?”

Sellers grinned. “You know, Bertha, I had an idea that Belder might be holding out. He was just a little too anxious to tell me about that one letter, and talked fast every time I asked him about it. You take a man of that type, and when he begins to talk real fast, you know he’s trying to keep you from asking a question about some particular thing. So I began to wonder if there hadn’t been a second letter.”

“And you knew he was going to ring up, to tell me to ditch it,” Bertha said, “and made up your mind you’d go for my purse as soon as the phone rang... I could make a squawk about that and make trouble for you.”

“Sure you could,” Sellers said soothingly. “But after all, Bertha, you aren’t going to do it. Too many times I could make a squawk about you . In this world it’s a question of live and let live. You pull your fast ones, and I pull mine. When you hit me below the belt and hurt, I don’t start yelling for the referee and claiming a foul... Come on now, tell me about the girl who threw her arms around Belder’s neck.”

“What about her?”

“Who is she?”

“I don’t know.”

Sellers, clucking his tongue against the roof of his mouth, made noises of chiding disapproval. “Come, come, Bertha. You should be able to do better than that.”

“What makes you think I know her?”

“You know damn well you wouldn’t let Belder flash a letter like that on you without finding out all about the jane.”

“There wasn’t any,” Bertha said.

“What do you mean?”

“It’s just poison-pen stuff. I tell you there wasn’t anyone.”

“How do you know?”

“Belder told me so.”

Sellers sighed. “Well, I guess I’ll have to let it go at that for the time being.”

“How about Mrs. Belder’s mother?” Bertha asked.

“In a state of collapse. Mother and sister, both had been having fits all night. They’d been calling headquarters at intervals, trying to find out if Mrs. Belder had been in an automobile accident. Finally, I guess the mother-in-law got the idea Belder might have knocked her on the head and hidden the body some place in the house, so she started prowling. Declared she was going to search the house from cellar to attic. She started with the cellar... That was along about eight o’clock this morning. What she found knocked her for a loop. She thought it was Mabel’s body at first, then it turned out to be a total stranger to her. Belder made the identification of the body.”

“Didn’t Mrs. Goldring know the maid?”

“Apparently not. Mrs. Goldring lived in San Francisco. She hadn’t been down since Mabel had employed that particular maid.”

“Well,” Bertha said, “I don’t see how all this concerns me.” Sellers scraped a match on the sole of his shoe, made an attempt to get his cigar burning again.

Bertha said, “I don’t suppose it makes any difference to you, but that damn cigar makes me sick to my stomach.”

“Too bad. You haven’t had breakfast?”

“No.”

“Do you go out for breakfast?”

“Not with restaurants serving only one cup of coffee.”

“That’s swell,” Sergeant Sellers announced. “I’ll have a cup of coffee with you.” Bertha’s eyes snapped cold fire.

“Hoarding, eh?” Sergeant Sellers observed.

“Hoarding nothing,” Bertha said. “I’m using coffee I bought last September. You can’t say that’s hoarding.”