“It’s hardly a place where a person would leave ten one-thousand dollar bills,” Bertha observed.
Mrs. Cranning’s silence showed that she felt the same way.
Christopher Milbers said, “I have already examined the notes that are on that pad of writing paper. They have to do with one of the campaigns of Cesar. They have no bearing whatever on the subject under discussion. In fact, I found then singularly uninteresting—”
Bertha Cool moved away from him and swept through the room in a hurried search.
“I feel,” Milbers said, “that we may concentrate our search in the bedroom. However, I think we are all agreed that the search is destined to be fruitless. So far as I am concerned, it is merely a necessary preliminary before lodging a formal charge.”
“Against whom and for what?” Eva Hanberry demanded with swift acerbity.
Christopher Milbers detoured the suggestion very adroitly. “That,” he said, “is entirely in the discretion of the detective.”
“Just a private detective,” Mrs. Cranning sniffed. “She has no authority to do anything.”
“She is my representative,” Milbers announced, managing to put great dignity into the statement.
Bertha Cool ignored this discussion. On the trail of money, she was as eager as a hound on a scent. She walked over to the library table, glanced at the open books, riffled the closely written pages of the pad, paused halfway through to read what had been written there, and said, “Who gives a damn about that old stuff?”