Sellers said, “Well, let me go to work on Imogene. Perhaps I can dig something up. A girl who runs an office that way and files suit against you almost before the words are off your lips is apt to have something in her past she won’t want dragged out into the open.”
Bertha said, “Damn her. If I get my hands on her, I’ll slap her to sleep. The goddamned — estimable young lady!”
Sellers grinned. “I know just how you feel.”
“What have you found out about the Belder business?” Bertha asked.
“I think it’s murder.”
“Didn’t you think so all along?”
“Not quite so strongly as I do now. An autopsy shows that she died of carbon monoxide poisoning. She’s been dead for some little time — perhaps an hour or two before the knife was stuck into her.”
“Any clues?” Bertha asked, her eyes narrowing watchfully.
Sellers hesitated for a moment as though debating whether to tell Bertha what was on his mind, then he said abruptly, “It’s a man’s crime.”
“What do you mean by that?”