A. Fair - Cats Prowl at Night

If I found him the same, if I found that he still had the same appeal — well, I knew he was married, but I made up my mind that I was going to get him anyway.”

“Guilty conscience, eh?” Bertha asked.

“I suppose so.”

After a few moments’ silence Bertha said, “Of course, you’re not repeating this woman’s exact words. You’re giving your recollection of them.”

“I think I’m giving you almost her exact words. At any rate, I’m giving you the exact idea she conveyed. That was chiselled in my mind.”

Bertha Cool calmly selected another cigarette, lit it, took a deep drag and blew smoke out into the room.

“What did she say happened to this other woman?”

“It was terrible, that awful laughter—”

“Never mind the laughter, what did she say happened to her?” Bertha asked.

“She said to ask this other woman what happened to people who thought they could pull the wool over her eyes — and then I read about the body of the servant being found in her cellar.”

Bertha said casually, “you’ve got yourself in a hell of a mess, haven’t you?”

“How well I know it,” Dolly Cornish admitted ruefully.

“If you tell your story, it looks as if you’d been breaking up the Belder home, and either drove Mrs. Belder to suicide, or—” Bertha broke off to regard Mrs. Cornish with shrewd little eyes in which there was an unspoken accusation.

“Or what?” Dolly Cornish asked.

“Murdered her.”

Dolly drew herself up erect in the chair, showing both surprise and indignation. “Mrs. Cool, what do you mean?”

Bertha said, “Skip it. If you did murder her, you’d put on an act like that, anyway, and you didn’t, there’s no use swapping words. Were you relieved when you learned she was dead?”

Dolly Cornish met Bertha Cool’s searching gaze frankly. “Yes.”

Bertha turned away to watch the smoke eddying up from the cigarette which she held in her fingers. “In some ways I wish I hadn’t heard this story.”

“Why?”

“I’ve got to go to Sergeant Sellers, and I hate going to that man right now.”

“Why?”

Bertha somewhat wearily got to her feet. “As a mining proposition, he’d run about twenty dollars to the ton, but every once in a while, when things start going his way, he thinks he’s what you call jewellery-rock.”

Bertha started for the door.

“After all, Mrs. Cool,” Dolly Cornish said, “men are only human, you know. We have to put up with their weaknesses.”

Bertha turned in the doorway, surveyed Dolly Cornish appraisingly. “You do the tragic, sensitive-soul-all-bruised-to-hell act very nicely, dearie. I don’t mind if it’s just practice, but I’d be sore as hell if you really thought I was falling for it.”

Everett Belder was waiting in the office when Bertha got back. He jumped up as she opened the door from the corridor. He was talking before Bertha Cool had got her eyes into hard focus on him. “Mrs. Cool, I want to apologize. I want to make you the most abject apology I know how to make.”

Bertha stood just inside the doorway, her eyes impaling him with a wordless accusation.

“I just didn’t know when I had good service,” Belder rushed on. “Now I’m in the most terrible predicament. Mrs. Cool, I want to talk with you.”

Bertha hesitated.

Belder, good salesman that he was, launched into the only argument which could possibly move her. “I don’t care what I have to pay,” he said. “I’ll pay anything.”

Bertha started for the door of the inner office, “Come in.”

Elsie Brand asked, “Is there anything else, Mrs. Cool?”

Bertha looked at her watch, said with some surprise, “That’s right, it’s Saturday afternoon. No, Elsie, I guess that’s all.” She turned to Belder, “Come in.”

Belder, entering the office, dropped wearily into a chair.

“What are your troubles?” Bertha asked.

“The bottom’s dropped out.”

“How so?”

“I’m going to be accused of murder.”

“Have they got any case?”

“Have they got any case!” Belder exclaimed sarcastically. “With my mother-in-law and sweet little Carlotta searching their minds to dig up every fact they can possibly recollect — every single solitary thing that will put me in bad. Well, you can see my position.”

Bertha simply sat there, saying nothing.

“And,” Belder went on, “there’s that mysterious third letter Sergeant Sellers got. I’ve simply got to know what’s in there.”

“Why?”

“Because it accuses me of intimacy with some other woman.”

“Well?”

Belder was silent for a moment, then suddenly blurted out, “I’ve got to know what woman it was.”

“Like that, eh?” Bertha asked.

“Don’t misunderstand me, Mrs. Cool.”

“I don’t think I did.”

“Well, I didn’t mean it that way.”

“How did you mean it?”

“Well — I— Well, I just wanted to know what I’m accused of, that’s all.”

Bertha thoughtfully lit a cigarette. “Anything else?”

“Anything else! Isn’t that enough?”

Bertha didn’t say anything.

“Anyway,” Belder went on, “they’re accusing me of having burnt up my wife’s will. Good Lord, I never even thought about a thing like that. When I put all my property in my wife’s name, she made a will leaving everything to me. Now they’re saying she left a new will. That’s news to me. The fact she might have made a new will never even entered my head. I supposed, of course, her will left everything to me.”

“That’s bad.”

“What do you mean?”

“Gives you a motive for murdering her.”

There was exasperation on Belder’s face. “That’s the way they put a man on the spot. If I knew about that other will, I’m supposed to have burnt it. If I didn’t, I’m supposed to have killed Mabel to get the property.”

Bertha said, “Or you might have killed her to get the property, then found the new will and burned it up.”

“That’s exactly what they say I did.”

“Did you?”

“Of course not!”

“How about this judgment Nunnely has against you? What’s happened to that?”

“That’s why I owe you an apology, Mrs. Cool. If I’d left it in your hands we could have had that settled, but I had to get temperamental and put it in the hands of a lawyer.”

“What happened?”

“Everything happened. The lawyer got in touch with Nunnely, made an appointment for Nunnely to come to his office this morning. Last night after Mabel’s body was discovered, I tried and tried to get in touch with this lawyer. I couldn’t do it. His home reported that he was out of town. I learned afterward that that was what he had told the maid to tell anyone who called up, because his wife was giving a bridge party and he didn’t want to be disturbed.”

“And this morning?” Bertha asked.

“This morning we met in the lawyer’s office. Nunnely had a morning paper under his arm, but he hadn’t read it — hadn’t opened it, even. I was trembling with anxiety to get the thing over with. The lawyer fooled around with so darned many technicalities in getting the release worded just right that Nunnely finally sat back in his chair, lit a cigarette, and opened the newspaper. I tried to signal that damned fool lawyer, but he was looking up some law on the subject of releases, trying to find out just how to ‘protect my interests.’ ”

“What happened?” Bertha asked, her eyes showing interest.

“Nunnely glanced through the war news on the first page, turned to the second page, and the headlines about Mabel hit him in the face.”