Early evening traffic had brisked up as Bertha Cool cruised down the boulevard, carefully watching her speedometer. She slowed for the intersection where she had lost Mrs. Belder, brought the car to a full stop, then slammed home the gears, and pushed the throttle all the way down, keeping in her mind a mental picture of just how the car ahead had proceeded; about how fast, and about how much headstart it had had when it turned the corner.
Bertha swung around the corner, speeded up to the next corner, then brought her car to a stop and surveyed the street ahead, the street to the left, and the street to the right. She then realized something that had not dawned on her before. The blocks to the left and right were double blocks with no streets cut through the boulevard.
Bertha parked her car at the kerb and did mental arithmetic.
If Mrs. Belder’s machine had stayed on the road straight ahead, Bertha would certainly have seen it as she turned the corner from the boulevard. Bertha had been gaining on the car for the last hundred yards before she lost it. It might have made either a right or a left turn on a single block, but the possibilities that it could have done so on a double block were negligible.
Faced with the knowledge that the car couldn’t have evaporated into thin air, and now realizing the importance of what had originally seemed to be merely a routine shadowing job, Bertha cudgeled her mind, trying to think of something which might furnish a possible clue to that which had taken place.
From the depths of her memory came the hazy recollection that someone had been standing at a garage door somewhere in the block as Bertha had swung in from the boulevard. At the time Bertha had been intent only on getting to the corner.
She tried to remember just where the garage had been. Somewhere on the left-hand side of the street.
Bertha swung her car in a U-turn and cruised slowly down the street.
The second house from the corner looked about right — 709 North Harkington Avenue. It was, of course, a forlorn hope — a chance of one in a thousand, but Bertha was gunning for big game now, and one chance in a thousand couldn’t be overlooked.
Bertha stopped her car, marched up the cement walk and pushed the bell button of the house. From the interior she could hear the faint sound of electric chimes.