“Dat’s right,” Goldring said. “I sure had to work on dat dame.”
Cutler went on, in that velvet-smooth voice, “The’ reason that I was so anxious to find her is that I’d come to the conclusion our marriage would never again be a happy one. Much as I regretted to do so, I decided to divorce her. When love ceases to exist, marriage becomes—”
Bertha sat down uncomfortably on the studio couch, interrupted to say, “Forget it! You don’t need to palaver around with me. She left you, and you decided to change the lock on the door so she couldn’t come back. I don’t blame you. What’s that got to do with me?”
He smiled. “You’ll pardon me if I comment upon your refreshing individuality. Yes, I won’t bother about mincing words, Mrs. — er—”
I said, “Okay then, let’s get to the point, because we were just going out to dinner. You decided to file suit for divorce. I take it Goldring here found her and after he found her, served the papers.”
“Dat’s right,” Goldring said, looking at me with puzzled respect as though trying to find out how I knew.
“And now,” Cutler said with a subtle note of indignation creeping into his voice, “years after the matter has been entirely disposed of, I understand my wife is intending to claim the papers were not actually served upon her.”
“Indeed,” I said.
“Exactly! It is, of course, preposterous. Fortunately, Mr. Goldring remembers the occasion very vividly.”
“Dat’s right,” Goldring said. “It was about three in the afternoon on the thirteenth of March, 1940. She came to the door, an’ I asked her was her name Cutler an’ did she live here. She said she did. I’d found out before de apartment was rented to Edna Cutler. Then I asked her was her name Edna Cutler, an’ she said, ‘Yes,’ an’ then I took the original summons, the copy of the summons, an’ a copy of the complaint, an’ I soived the papers on her right while she was standing in that door.”