Sellers grinned. “You know, Bertha, I had an idea that Belder might be holding out. He was just a little too anxious to tell me about that one letter, and talked fast every time I asked him about it. You take a man of that type, and when he begins to talk real fast, you know he’s trying to keep you from asking a question about some particular thing. So I began to wonder if there hadn’t been a second letter.”
“And you knew he was going to ring up, to tell me to ditch it,” Bertha said, “and made up your mind you’d go for my purse as soon as the phone rang... I could make a squawk about that and make trouble for you.”
“Sure you could,” Sellers said soothingly. “But after all, Bertha, you aren’t going to do it. Too many times I could make a squawk about you. In this world it’s a question of live and let live. You pull your fast ones, and I pull mine. When you hit me below the belt and hurt, I don’t start yelling for the referee and claiming a foul... Come on now, tell me about the girl who threw her arms around Belder’s neck.”
“What about her?”
“Who is she?”
“I don’t know.”
Sellers, clucking his tongue against the roof of his mouth, made noises of chiding disapproval. “Come, come, Bertha. You should be able to do better than that.”
“What makes you think I know her?”
“You know damn well you wouldn’t let Belder flash a letter like that on you without finding out all about the jane.”
“There wasn’t any,” Bertha said.