“We can’t be entirely certain of that as yet.”
“I’ve been searched.”
“But you might have managed to get rid of whatever you had taken, or you might have been intending to commit a felony. Do you know, Mrs. Cool, I think I’ll hold you a little while longer on that charge, and there are a couple of other things I’d like to look up.”
“Such as what?” Bertha demanded indignantly.
“Well, for instance, the way you left your office this afternoon. You went down and took a streetcar on Seventh Street. You got out just above Grand Avenue. My two plain-clothes men who were following you thought they had a cinch. You were on foot, apparently depending on streetcars. The man who was driving the car dropped the detective who was with him, and drove around the block so he could come back and slide in at a space opposite a fire plug which he’d spotted as he drove down the street just before you got off the streetcar. And then your automobile came along and picked you up and whisked you away just as neatly as though you’d been engineering a sleight-of-hand trick.”
Sergeant Sellers pressed the bell which summoned the matron. When she arrived in the office, he said, “Mrs. Bell, Mrs. Cool is going to be with us, at least until morning. Will you try to make her comfortable?”
The matron’s smile held the triumph of cold malice. “I will be a pleasure, Sergeant,” she said, and then, turning beligerently to Bertha, “Come with me, dearie.”
Chapter XXVIII
Slow, methodical steps echoed down the steel-lined corridor.
Bertha Cool, sitting in seething indignation on the edge of an iron cot, heard the clank of keys, then the sound of a key the door outside. A moment later, the door came open and a rather drab-looking woman said, “Hello,” in a lifeless voice.