“Yes. Around the corner of the next block in the old loft building.”
“I remember the place — I mean what it looks like. It was there before I went blind.”
There was silence for a moment. Kosling seemed to be searching his memory as though trying to dig up some half-forgotten fact. Abruptly, he said, “I’ll bet I know who he was.”
“Who?”
“Her boss. He must have been the old man with the cane who walked with that peculiar dragging shuffle of the right foot. I’ve often wondered about him. It’s been about a week since I last heard him going past. A man who kept very much to himself. Been going past here for over a year now, but he’s never spoken to me, never dropped anything in the cup. Yes, that must have been Milbers. You say he’s dead?”
“Yes.”
“How did he die?”
“I don’t know. The girl told me he died. I gathered it was rather sudden.”
The blind man nodded his head. “He wasn’t in good health. That dragging of the right foot kept getting worse, particularly the last month or six weeks. You told her how you happened to be looking for her?”
“Yes,” Bertha said. “You didn’t tell me not to, and I thought it was all right. She kept thinking I was representing the insurance company and was going to offer to make a settlement for the automobile accident, so I told her about how I happened to be employed. It was all right, wasn’t it?”