He walked over to the telephone, picked up the receiver, laid it on the little table, dialled a number with his left hand, then picked up the receiver and said, “Hello, this is Police Sergeant Frank Sellers. I’m at 226 Korreander, and I want a taxi out here right away. Now rush it out here, will you?”
He waited a moment for confirmation, then grunted and slammed the receiver back into place.
Bertha, prowling around through the house, was banging doors behind her. Claire Bushnell, sympathetic and frightened, was hovering around Sergeant Sellers.
“Can I take a look at that hand?” she asked.
“Fortunately,” Sellers said, “I think it missed most of the bones except the thumb. That thumb’s pretty messy.” He turned to me and said, “I’m going to get both you and Bertha for this, Lam. Bertha pushed me off balance or I’d have—”
I said, “Bertha probably saved your life.”
He looked as though he wanted to bite my head off.
We heard Bertha’s steps coming rapidly down the corridor. Then she was triumphantly displaying a bloodstained bath-towel that had the words KOZY DELL embroidered on it in red thread.
“Here we are, lover,” she said. “I found it in a soiled clothes hamper in the bathroom. The woman certainly was careless, just threw it in the soiled clothes.”
I said. “She felt pretty certain no one would ever be here to look for it. Wrap it up in some paper, Bertha. First, better put your initials on a corner with a fountain pen so that you can testify as to where you found it.”