“Just one more thing, Mrs. Cool.”
“What is it?” Bertha demanded.
“You can’t slam the door,” the matron said. “We’ve put an automatic check on it for that particular purpose. Good morning.”
Bertha found herself ushered out of a steel-barred door into the morning sunlight, just as though she had been some ordinary criminal. She found also that the fresh air, the freedom of motion, the feeling that she was able to go as she pleased, when she pleased, and how she pleased, was a more welcome sensation than she had ever realized.
It was eight-forty-five when she got to her office.
Elsie Brand was opening the mail.
Bertha, storming into the office, slammed her purse down on the table, and said in a voice quivering with indignation, “You get me Sergeant Sellers on the line, Elsie. I don’t give a damn if you have to get him out of bed or what happens, you get Sergeant Sellers for me.”
Elsie Brand, looking at Bertha’s quivering, white-raged indignation, dropped the mail, grabbed the telephone directory, and immediately started putting through the call.
“Hello, police headquarters? I want to talk with Sergeant Sellers immediately, please. It’s important. Yes, Bertha Cool’s office. Just a moment, Sergeant. Here he is on the line, Mrs. Cool.”
Bertha Cool grabbed up the telephone. “I’ve got something to say to you,” she said. “I’ve had a long time to think it over — a good long time, sitting in your damned jail. I just want to tell you that I’m going to—”