She settled back in the chair and went through the motions of relaxing. But her eyes were still hard and angry.
I waited until she had puffed her way to the end of the cigarette.
“Going to tell me now?”
“Have another cigarette.”
She sat there, glowering at me. “I suppose it all gets back to the fact that money doesn’t man a damn thing to you. You’ve never had the responsibilities of running a business. Just because we’ve been lucky with the first few partnership cases doesn’t mean that—”
“Haven’t we been all over that before?” I interrupted.
She started to get up out of the chair, then, halfway up, dropped back again.
She didn’t say anything, and neither did I. We sat there in silence for nearly fifteen minutes. Finally Bertha took another cigarette. She started it off with a deep drag.
“All right, lover,” she said, “let’s talk.”
“What did you find out about that old murder case?” I asked.