Bertha said, “I didn’t take a thing from that house.”
“That, of course, is an assertion which will have to be checked,” Sellers said. “Much as I dislike to do so, Mrs. Cool, I’m going to have to ask you to get in my automobile and go to headquarters where a matron will search you. If it turns out you haven’t taken anything, then — well, then, of course, the situation will be radically different. If it should appear that you have taken something, then, of course, you’d be guilty of a crime, the crime of burglary. And, as a person apprehended in the act of committing a burglary, we’d have to hold you, Mrs. Cool. We’d have to hold you at least until we had a very fair, full, and frank statement of just what you’re trying to do.”
Bertha said, “You can’t do this to me. You can’t—”
“Indeed I can,” Sellers said, quite affably. “I’m doing it. If you haven’t taken anything out of the building, I suppose I can’t make a burglary charge stick, unless, as you so competently point out, I could prove that you entered the building for the purpose of committing a felony in the first place. Looks almost as though you had looked up the law before you made your visit.”
“Well, I didn’t.”
“That, of course is another statement of fact which is open to investigation, although I don’t know just how we’re going to prove it. But in any event, Mrs. Cool, I’m placing you under arrest, and I think as a student of law, you understand that if you now do anything to interfere, you will be resisting arrest, which, in itself, is a crime.”
Bertha Cool thought that over, looked at Sergeant Sellers, recognized the inflexibility of purpose behind his smiling mask, and said, “Okay, you win.”
“We’ll just leave your car parked right where it is,” Sellers said. “I wouldn’t want you to dispose of anything between here and headquarters — and since the tinkling melody of the Bluebells of Scotland shows me that you went to the music box and raised the lid, it is quite evident that the object you took from the music box was relatively small and, therefore, something that could be easily concealed. So, Mrs. Cool, if you wouldn’t mind going into the room again so I can keep my eye on you while I pick up that music box, we’ll take it right along to headquarters with us.”
“All right, you’ve got me,” Bertha Cool said. “Go ahead. Rub it in! Go on and gloat!”
“No gloating at all, Mrs. Cool, just a slight formality. Now, then, if you’ll walk just ahead of me, and if you wouldn’t mind keeping your hands up where I can see them. That spotlight of yours isn’t very efficient. I think you’ll find mine a lot better.”