“Almost told me something, didn’t you?” Sergeant Sellers said.
Bertha, realizing how close she had come to saying, “All the way from Riverside,” contented herself with puffing placidly away at her cigarette, atoning for what was almost a verbal slip by maintaining a rigid silence.
Sergeant Sellers looked at the big clock over the desk. “Ten minutes past two,” he mused. “It’s rather late, but then — this probably is an emergency.”
He consulted the label on the inside of the music box, studied a telephone directory, then picked up the receiver, said, “Give me an outside line,” and dialled a number.
After a few moments, he said suavely, “I’m very sorry about having to call you at this hour. This is Sergeant Sellers speaking from police headquarters, and the reason I’m calling is because I’m trying to trace an important clue in a murder case. Is this Britten G. Stellman? It is, eh? Well, I want you to tell me whether you can remember a music box, one of the old-fashioned kind with a metal comb and a cylinder — has a picture of a landscape on one side and the portrait of a girl on the other, plays ‘Bluebells of Scotland,’ and — oh, I see — you do, eh? Yes. What was her name? Josephine Dell, eh?”
Sergeant Sellers was silent for several seconds, listening to the voice which came over the telephone; then he said, “All right, now let me see if I’ve got this straight. This Josephine Dell came in about a month ago, saw this music box, and said she’d like to get it but didn’t have enough money to pay for it. She left a small deposit to hold it for ninety days. Then she rang you up on Wednesday, told you she had the money available, and that she was sending it to you by telegram. She asked you to deliver the music box by messenger to this blind man without saying anything about who sent it; just to tell him that it was a present from a friend — that right?”
Again Sergeant Sellers was silent for several moments while he was listening; then he said, “Okay. One more question. Where was that telegram sent from? Redlands, eh? You don’t know whether she lives in Redlands? Oh, I see. Lives in Los Angeles and you think she just happened to be travelling through Redlands. You don’t think that she’s any relation t’ this blind man, didn’t say anything about that? Just saw the one time when she was in and paid the deposit, eh? Say where she was working? I see. All right, thanks a lot. I wouldn’t have called you at this hour if it hadn’t been a major emergency. I can assure you your co-operation is appreciated. Yes, this is Sergeant Sellers of Homicide. I’ll drop in and see you next time I’m in the neighbourhood and thank you personally. In the meantime, if anything turns up, give me a ring. All right, thanks. Good-bye.”
Sergeant Sellers hung up the telephone, turned to Bertha Cool, and looked her over as though he were seeing her for the first time.
“Rather cute,” he said.
“I don’t get it.”