Bertha Cool banged a plate down on the table so hard she almost broke it. “There’s one thing about giving you breakfast,” she said. “You can’t drink coffee with that stale cigar in your mouth.”
Sergeant Sellers didn’t answer. He was interested in reading an account of a prize fight which he had seen the night before, checking the reported facts against his own impressions.
“All right,” Bertha Cool said. “Come and get it.”
Sergeant Sellers, minus his hat and cigar, with his thick, wavy hair combed back with a pocket comb, entered the breakfast nook, waited for Bertha Cool to seat herself, then sat down opposite her.
“Okay, Bertha, have your coffee and then give me the lowdown. You’ve had time to make up your mind now.”
Bertha Cool poured the coffee, sipped the hot, fragrant beverage, said, “All right, here it is — all of it. I was supposed to tail Mrs. Belder. I lost her. She was going to keep a rendezvous with the person who wrote those letters. I went to Belder’s office, looked through his file of personal correspondence to see if I could find anything that tallied with what I was looking for.”
“ What were you looking for?” Sergeant Sellers asked.
“An expert typist who had her own portable typewriter at home,” Bertha said.
“I don’t get you.”
“You can tell a lot about a typewritten letter by studying it. The even touch and uniform spacing show that these letters had been written by a first-rate typist. That sort of typist commands a good salary, which means she has good equipment at her office. It was written on a portable typewriter that was badly out of alignment. That meant it was a private portable machine she had at home... Quite by accident, I stumbled on the answer.”