Bertha said, “I’m not a whiz at this stuff like Donald Lam, but I don’t have to have a ton of bricks fall on me to knock an idea into my head. Mrs. Goldring knew all about you. You knew all about Mrs. Goldring. Mrs. Goldring didn’t want Carlotta to have anything to do with you, and she held a club over you that was big enough and heavy enough to keep you in your place. Then all of a sudden everything gets patched up. You wanted it to appear that you just came tripping up the steps and rang the door-bell without any preliminaries. Bah! That’s a lousy story. It won’t hold water. I don’t know whether you approached Carlotta, or whether Carlotta found out about you. Probably Carlotta took the initiative, because you were afraid to contact her — on account of the club Mrs. Goldring was holding over you. If I had to make a guess, I’d say that Mrs. Goldring was keeping documentary proof that she could show Carlotta in case she had to. The probabilities are those documents were kept locked in a lock box concealed somewhere in the house, and dear little snooping Carlotta, anxious to find out who her mother was, managed to find that box, then snooped around until she got hold of Mabel’s keys and made a wax impression of them. Once she got the box open, she knew who her mother was and went to look her up. A term in the pen wouldn’t bother Carlotta as much as her mother was afraid it might, because dear little Carlotta had found out Mrs. Goldring was going broke and that Mabel Belder had made a will leaving all of the property to Everett in case anything should happen to her. Carlotta, the snivelling, hypocritical, spoiled brat, didn’t intend to be thrown into the discard quite that easily.”
“How you talk,” Carlotta said sneeringly. “But don’t let me stop you. Get it all out of your system, and then we’ll see how much of this you can prove.”
Bertha glanced at Sergeant Sellers. “How am I doing?”
“Go right ahead, Bertha. You’re sticking your neck way out, but keep right on. By the time you get done with this session, you’ll have enough slander suits to enable you to hire a staff of lawyers by the year. But I’d be a damned liar if I tried to tell you I wasn’t enjoying it.”
Bertha said, “Carlotta burnt up that will.”
“In Everett Belder’s office grate?” Mrs. Goldring asked sarcastically.
“In Everett Belder’s grate,” Bertha said. “And I was right there when she did it. And what’s more, Frank Sellers, you were standing right there at the time.
“There was a fire burning in the grate. Some other papers were being burned and I had just gone ahead and made my accusation against Imogene Dearborne. It was a hell of a dramatic moment. Everyone was looking at Imogene, and Carlotta came in with this sweet little innocent statement about not being able to find anyone in the outer office so she came right on in. And you remember she sidled around so she was standing with her back to the fireplace. And in the back of my mind there’s a memory of the fire in that little grate flaring up just as she stood there.”
“By George! You’re right on that!” Sergeant Sellers exclaimed.
“It’s a lie!” Carlotta screamed.