Bertha frowned. “I’d have to lie to him, wouldn’t I?”

“You would now,” I said. “If you hadn’t been so smart about tracing telephone calls and hunting me up, you could have told him the truth — that you didn’t know where I was.”

“What are we going to do about that?” Bertha Cool asked.

I said, “When he rings up tonight, tell him you don’t know where I am.”

“You mean you want me to lie to him?”

I smiled at her and said, “No.”

Bertha said, “What are you getting at?”

I said, “I want you to tell him the truth.”

“I don’t get you.”

I held the door open for her. “By tonight,” I told her, “you won’t know where I am.”