“Why, Mr. Lam seemed like a — why, I wouldn’t have thought anything like that of him.”
“Well, I don’t know,” Bertha said judicially. “I’ve always been fond of him, all right, but there’s something wrong with him. Women throw themselves at him and he doesn’t go overboard the way he should. Come to think of it — well, looking back on things, I am starting to wonder a little bit.”
“Why, Mrs. Cool! How can you say anything like that about your partner?”
“Damned if I know,” Bertha said. “I’m just talking.”
“Weren’t you working on a lot of cases together?”
“Certainly.”
“Well, couldn’t you tell from the way he acted?”
“Hell’s bells,” Bertha said, “our arrangement was a business partnership. I didn’t sleep with him.”
“That isn’t what I meant,” Claire Bushnell said.
“Well, I thought I’d head you off,” Bertha said, “because that’s what you were going to get around to. So you haven’t seen him?”