Bertha held up her right hand, the first and second fingers spread wide apart in a V. “In other words,” she said, “you and your cousin were close to each other — just like this.”
Milbers smiled. “You should have known my cousin. I doubt if anything ever got close to him — not even his undershirt.”
“No? How about the housekeeper?”
A shadow crossed the man’s face. “That is one of the things that worries me. She undoubtedly wanted him to become dependent upon her. I am a little afraid of her.”
“I’m not,” Bertha said. “Let’s go.”
Chapter VIII
Nettie Cranning, red-eyed with grief, gave Bertha Cool her hand and said, “Do come in, Mrs. Cool. You’ll pardon me, but this has been a terrible shock to me — to all of us. My daughter, Eva Hanberry, and this is my son-in-law, Paul Hanberry.”
Bertha invaded the reception hallway with brisk competence, shook hands with everyone, and forthwith proceeded to dominate the situation.
Nettie Cranning, a woman in the early forties who devoted a great deal of attention to her personal appearance and had cultivated a mannerism which was just short of a simper, quite evidently tried to be a perfect lady at all times.
Her daughter Eva was a remarkably good-looking brunette with long, regular features, thin, delicate nostrils, arched eyebrows, a somewhat petulant mouth, and large, long-lashed, black eyes which seemed quite capable of becoming packed with emotion if occasion presented.