“What?” I asked.
She said, “Don’t think I’m entirely a nitwit... You, a physical instructor... I don’t suppose it ever occurred to you I’d take the licence number of the car that calls for you every afternoon, and look up the registration... B. Cool, Confidential Investigations. I suppose your real name is Cool.”
“It isn’t,” I said. “It’s Donald Lam.”
“Well, the next time Dad tries to get a detective who’s going to pose as a physical instructor, tell him to get someone who looks the part.”
She stormed out of the room.
There was an extension phone down in the basement. I went down and called Bertha Cool. “All right,” I said, “you’ve spilled the beans.”
“What do you mean, I’ve spilled the beans?”
“She wondered who was calling for me afternoons, waited around the corner, got the licence number of your car, and looked it up... It’s registered in the name of the agency, you know.”
I could hear Bertha Cool’s gasp over the telephone.
“A hundred bucks a day thrown out of the window just so that you could chisel a taxi fare,” I said.