Bertha Cool lurched to her feet, glowered angrily at Everett Belder.

“Nuts!” she said, and stalked out of the office.

11

A Question of Malice

Roger P. Drumson, senior partner of Drumson, Holbret, and Drumson, finished reading the complaint, then looked up over his glasses at Bertha Cool. “As I understand it, Mrs. Cool, you were employed to find out who wrote these letters. You had reasonable grounds to believe the plaintiff wrote them?”

“Yes.”

“That’s good. V ery good! Now just what were these grounds?”

“I knew they had been written by a first-rate typist on a portable. I knew Imogene Dearborne had actually written a message to her employer on this same typewriter.”

“How did you know that?”

“By comparing the typewriting.”