Bertha Cool finished her cigarette. Her watch said that it was ten minutes past eleven.
Once or twice during the next ten minutes, cars passed along the residential street. None of them seemed to have any business in the immediate locality and none of the drivers paid any attention to Bertha Cool.
At eleven-twenty-two the door of the Belder house opened.
Bertha snapped on her ignition switch, pushed on the starter, gunned the motor into life, all the time studying her quarry — a woman who was walking toward the car with the quick steps of a person who is determined to reach some destination in a hurry. Beneath the distinctive plaid coat, Bertha could see that the woman had a good figure. She wore a close-fitting light-green hat, and Bertha had a glimpse of the oval of the smooth, youngish face, dark glasses, and a vivid red mouth. She was carrying a half-grown cat in the crook of her left arm, and the cat’s tail was switching nervously back and forth.
Bertha snapped the gearshift over to second, held her foot down on the clutch, waiting for the car ahead to move away from the kerb.
The shadowing job was routine.
The other machine proceeded at ordinary driving speed, waited conservatively at crossings, faithfully observed all boulevard stops, but somewhat to Bertha’s surprise, didn’t head for the downtown business district. Instead, the machine zigzagged off, hit Crenshaw Boulevard, and turned toward Inglewood. The cat, climbing up to the back of the front seat, made it possible for Bertha to keep the car spotted for a long distance ahead.
Diminished traffic which in one way made it easier to follow the car ahead also made it much more difficult to stay close behind without exciting suspicion. Had the driver ahead given any indication of being aware that she was being shadowed, Bertha would have closed the gap between the cars, preferring discovery to failure. As matters stood, however, Bertha loafed a comfortable distance behind and, for the moment, neglected the axiomatic rules which detectives have worked out for shadowing automobiles.
The signal at an important intersection a full block ahead flashed red. Bertha took her foot off the throttle, kicked out the clutch so that she could coast along at a relatively low speed, timing the signal so that— Sudden surprise snapped Bertha’s left foot back and her right down on the throttle.
Mrs. Belder’s car hadn’t even paused at that red signal, nor had it speeded up. With the calm courage of sublime ignorance, the driver merely ignored the red signal and blithely continued on her way.