The blind man sat patiently waiting for more, saying nothing.
Bertha hesitated a moment before deciding on an explanation. “I’ve checked the traffic records and called the hospitals. There hasn’t been a thing, I’ve got to have more information to go on.”
Kosling answered in the quiet, flat monotone of one who has nothing to gain by impressing his personality upon his listeners. “I’d done all that before I came to you.”
“You had!” Bertha exclaimed. “Why in hell didn’t you say so?”
“You didn’t think I’d pay twenty-five dollars just to get someone to run an errand, did you?”
“You didn’t tell me you’d done that,” Bertha exclaimed indignantly.
“You didn’t tell me that you intended to do the stuff anybody could do. I thought I was hiring a detective.”
Bertha straightened, went pounding away, her face flushed, eyes glittering, feet swollen in her shoes from contact with the hot sidewalk.
Elsie Brand looked up as Bertha came in. “Any luck?”
Bertha shook her head and marched on into the inner office where she banged the door shut and sat down to think things over.