“All you’ve got to say,” Bertha explained patiently, “is that you intended to fire her because of this indiscretion; that you had your mind made up; that the only reason you didn’t have it all over before Sellers and I got here was that you didn’t want to pick on her when she was crying and that you didn’t want to have a scene. So you decided to wait until after Sergeant Sellers and I had left and then tell her you didn’t need her any more. Once you testify to those facts, it’s absolutely clear that she wasn’t fired on account of anything I said. Do you get the point?”
“I believe I understand the legal point, yes.”
“Well, that’s all there is to it,” Bertha said. “But I keep bringing you up to it, and you keep pulling back on the lead rope like a frightened horse. For God’s sake, let’s not muff our signals on this thing.”
“But,” Belder said, “while I appreciate the legal point, Mrs. Cool, I’m afraid I can’t co-operate with you.”
“What do you mean now?”
“Simply that I hadn’t actually decided to discharge Miss Dearborne at that time. I made up my mind afterward.”
Bertha sighed. “All right, I can at least depend on you to testify that you’d had words with her over this—”
“Good heavens no, Mrs. Cool!”
“What?”
“Emphatically not. Then I’d be asked why I was rebuking her — and if it ever came out that I had taken her to task over something she had told my mother-in-law, then Mrs. Goldring would never forgive me. You know, claim I was trying to keep things from her. That, as Mabel’s mother— No, Mrs. Cool, I can’t help you at all. This is just between you and me. If you ever asked me in court, I’d even deny there had been any trouble at all. I’d have to.”