Dolly Cornish smiled and the smile spoke more than words.
“All right,” Bertha said, “you’ve got that off your chest. Now we’ll talk about Mrs. Belder.”
“Wednesday morning Mrs. Belder telephoned me. She didn’t give me a chance to say a word. It was as though she had her speech all carefully memorized. She said, ‘I know all about you, Mrs. Cornish. Don’t start to evade, and don’t try to lie. You think you can turn back the hands of the clock. You can’t do it. He’s mine now, and I intend to hang on to him. I assure you that I can be very dangerous, and I am afraid you’ve made it necessary for me to do something about you.’ ”
“Did you say anything?” Bertha asked as Dolly Cornish paused momentarily.
“I tried to, but I’m afraid I stuttered and stammered. She wasn’t paying any attention to me, anyway. She only waited for a moment to get her breath, then she went on with the part that absolutely terrified me. She said, ‘I’m not a woman who relies on half-way measures. There was another woman who was living in my house, pretending to be a servant, but trying to make eyes at my husband behind my back. Ask her what happens to people who think they can pull the wool over my eyes.’ ”
Dolly Cornish’s lips quivered, then became tight.
“That all of it?” Bertha asked.
“All except the laughter. It was the laughter that did it, that wild, half-hysterical, malignant laughter. You can have no idea, unless you could have heard—”
“You hang up, or did she?” Bertha interrupted.
“She did.”