Bertha Cool said, “I’ll have my client send you a cheque as soon as I locate her.”
“Well, that’s where she is, so you might just as well have your client send a cheque now.”
“My client,” Bertha said, “isn’t built that way. He pays me for results and not until I get them.”
“Well, I know how it is. I work for a bank myself. But you’ll find her there, and you won’t let on where you got the information from, will you?”
“Certainly not.”
Bertha Cool, the gleam of a hunter in her eye, took a cab to the Maplehurst Apartments on Grand Avenue.
The woman who ran the apartments, an angular woman with hair the colour of molasses taffy that had been slightly burned before being pulled, eyed Bertha with suspicion. “Myrna Jackson?” She had never heard of the woman. There was no one there by that name. She knew nothing whatever about it. If Bertha Cool wanted to write a letter and leave it there in case a Miss Jackson should take an apartment later on, Miss Jackson would get the letter. There were several vacancies in the building, but at present she knew no Myrna Jackson.
Bertha felt the woman was lying, but, for the moment, there was nothing she could do about it except pretend to be completely taken in and retire to plan an additional campaign.
The afternoon newspapers carried big headlines: Blind Beggar Sought by Police.
A job printer made a quick job of knocking out some stationery for Bertha Cool. By using ink which dried almost instantaneously, he was able to get her half a dozen sheets of stationery reading, BANK NIGHT SUPER DRAWING, INC., Drexel Building, Los Angeles, California.