“Of course,” Mrs. Goldring murmured, “we appreciate this.”
“It’s so nice of you to see us right away,” Carlotta said.
Bertha watched them enter her private office, then turned to Elsie. “This,” she announced, “is it!”
“ An opportunity to let go?”
Bertha smiled. “An opportunity to cash in, dearie. Don’t ever kid yourself, Mrs. Goldring may be prostrated with grief, but through her tears of sorrow she sees everything that’s going on. That woman is no one’s damned fool, and she’s the slice of bread that has the butter.”
“I’m afraid I don’t get you.”
“Figure it out,” Bertha said in a low voice. “There’s an estate of God knows how much money. Everett Belder cashed in and put everything in his wife’s name. He kills his wife so he can have his freedom, and at the same time get all of that money back. Mrs. Goldring had just about persuaded her daughter to pull out and take the money with her. You can see what a beautiful tug-of-war that was making. And Everett Belder has made it plain that he’s finished with me, so I’m perfectly free to take employment from Mrs. Goldring.”
“But how could you change the property rights?”
“Don’t you get it?” Bertha said. “Under the law, a man can’t inherit property from any person whom he has murdered, regardless of a will or anything else. I know that’s the law, because Donald told me so once. Now, you just sit here and pound away at the typewriter so the office will look busy as hell, and Bertha’s going in and cut herself a great big slice of cake.”
Bertha straightened her sagging shoulders, got her chin up and the old look of complete self-confidence on her face. “I know what Donald would do, Elsie. He’d manipulate things around in some way so that he’d pick up this job on a percentage basis. Then he’d use this clue that no one else knows about to pin the murder on Everett Belder, dump the estate into Mrs. Goldring’s lap, and collect a percentage. Hell’s bells, Elsie, we might even get as much as ten per cent; and the estate’s probably worth seventy-five thousand dollars. That would be seventy-five hundred dollars jangling the bell in our cash register.”