After I got out on the street I took the folded oblong of paper out of my pocket and looked at it. It was a check payable to cash in the amount of ten thousand dollars. It was signed Alta Ashbury.
I put it in my pocket and walked down to the place where Bertha Cool had left the car. It was gone. I stood there for a minute and didn’t see any sign of Bertha. I walked three blocks, picked up a taxi, gave the address of the Union Depot. When I got there I dropped the hotel key into a mailbox, picked up another cab, and gave the address of a swanky apartment hotel three blocks from where Ashbury had his residence. I paid off the cab, and, after he drove away, walked down to the Ashbury place.
The butler was still up. He let me in although Ashbury had given me a key.
“Miss Ashbury in yet?” I asked.
“Yes, sir. She came in about ten minutes ago.”
“Tell her I’m waiting on the sun porch,” I said, “and that it’s important.”
He looked at me for a moment, blinked his eyes, and said, “Very well, sir.”
I went out on the sun porch and sat down. Alta came down in about five minutes. She swept into the room with her chin up in the air. “There’s nothing you can say,” she said, “no explanation you can make.”
“Sit down,” I said.
She hesitated a moment, then sat down.