“How interesting! Well, anyway, that’s what happened. Now how about Mrs. Cool? Do you think we should undress her? Carlotta and I could get her clothes off. And how about a doctor?”
“I’m going to telephone for a doctor,” Sellers said, “but I want to make a superficial examination first. Can she stay here for a day or two if the doctor thinks she shouldn’t be moved?”
“Why certainly. Of course, it would be a little inconvenient now that we have no maid, but we’d be glad to have her. We like her, but we’re afraid she doesn’t like us. The last time we talked with her we wanted her to be a witness for us and she was rather crusty about it. She seemed to think we should pay her.”
“She would,” Sellers said. “All right, you folks go talk to the officer who’s in the garage and tell him to look for fingerprints on the back door, and don’t touch that back door-knob. Don’t go near the back door. In fact, don’t touch anything in that part of the house.”
Bertha, lying with her eyes closed, heard the rustle of motion, the gentle closing of a door. Sellers said, “How you feeling, Bertha, the head aching?”
Bertha, sensing the trap, kept her features motionless, lay perfectly still. Sellers sat down on the edge of the bed. “Come on, Bertha, snap out of it! You’ve got to face it sometime, you may as well do it now.”
Bertha made no motion.
“I’m not a damned fool,” Sergeant Sellers wept on, a trace of irritation in his voice. “I kept watching your face in the mirror. I saw when your eyelids fluttered and then snapped open, saw you take in the situation and promptly close your eyes again.”
Bertha said, “Damn it. Doesn’t a woman have any privacy?”
She opened her eyes, raised her hand to her head, felt something sticky on her hair. “Blood?” she asked.