“In the barber’s shop?” Bertha asked somewhat lamely.
“In the barber’s shop, Bertha, and don’t be surprised about that, because we’ve already checked up on the story. In the barber’s shop, where he was smart enough to walk away and forget his overcoat, so that the barber would be absolutely certain to remember the time. Don’t act innocent, sweetheart, because the barber remembers you coming in and checking up on the coat.”
Bertha for once was at a loss for words.
“Some other woman,” Sellers said, “who came in about twenty minutes after you did, said that Mr. Belder had forgotten his overcoat and had asked her to drop in and pick it up for him.”
Expression struggled all over Bertha’s face.
“Seems to surprise you,” Sellers said. “It shouldn’t. You should have realized by this time that he had a feminine accomplice.”
“What makes you say that?”
“Someone who could run his wife’s typewriter with a professional touch; but above all, someone who could put through the telephone call to his wife and lure her out to the garage. No, Bertha, that’s the one weak link in his entire scheme. He needed a female accomplice. And if I can find that woman — and I’m going to find her and make her talk — I may be able to convict Everett Belder. This is one case where there isn’t any mystery about who committed the murder. The only question is whether I can get the evidence that will prove that it is deliberate murder and send the perpetrator of it to the San Quentin gas chamber.”
Bertha managed to say, “I see.”
“And,” Sellers went on, “I just want to tell you, Bertha, that if you get in my way on this thing, that if you tamper with any more evidence, or ball the thing up for me any more, I’m going to flatten you out as though you’d been run over by a steamroller. That’s all. You may go now.”