“No. Have you been in your office, Mrs. Cool?”
“Off and on,” Bertha said. “I had to go out to San Robles on a job there. I kept the radio tuned in on the news broadcast and heard about Donald on the radio. I came back to the office, and everybody had heard it. The girls were having hysterics.”
“What girls?”
“The secretaries,” Bertha said. “That Elsie Brand, the one that’s Donald’s private secretary, was fighting mad. She was white-faced she was so damn indignant. She said that she’d stake her life Donald was absolutely innocent, said she’d buy him a dozen stockings and turn out the lights with him any time.”
Claire Bushnell took advantage of the situation to rub it in on me. She said musingly, “Well, of course, there is something funny. I had a talk with Mr. Lam yesterday. He came in the apartment and caught me rather informally.”
The bell rang again insistently, stridently, and kept on ringing. Claire Bushnell went over to the speaking tube. I heard her say, “Who is it?” then there was a long moment of silence.
“Well, who was it?” Bertha Cool said. “My God, you’re white as a sheet.”
“A man by the name of Sellers,” she said, “Sergeant Sellers, of the police.”
“That’ll be Frank,” Bertha said. “He’s a good egg. He’s on Homicide. I wonder what the hell he’s doing here.”
I sat tight. A few moments later I heard the bang of Sellers’s imperative knuckles on the apartment door, and then Claire went across and opened it. Sellers said, “You’re Claire Bushnell?”