“Naturally.”
“A man like that wouldn’t want to see his son suffer unduly. If it was just a blow due to having the woman he loved walk out on him, Philip would get over it. The father knew that. But if Philip got the idea in his head the girl had been kidnaped or was in danger and he was failing her, he’d never get over it. It would be such a long-drawn nervous strain that it would change his entire career. Evidently, that’s what’s happening.”
“Well?”
“And the father was shrewd enough to know that it might happen. Remember, he’s an amateur psychologist. He certainly wouldn’t have overlooked that possibility.”
“I get you now. He couldn’t have pulled this letter out of his sleeve then and said, ‘Look, son, what I’ve found.’ He’d have to have the letter planted some place where a private detective agency could find it.”
“That’s right. That letter shows that Corla Burke left under her own power. He wants us to find that letter, and is willing to pay us for doing it. Then he’ll show it to his son.”
Bertha blinked her eyes and said, “All right, lover, if it’s a run-around, we’ll just play ring-around-the-rosy with him. We’ll run around in circles, draw a per diem for six days, find this letter on the seventh so we can still get a bonus, and teach him not to play us for suckers. Was that your idea, lover?”
“Not exactly.”
“What then?”
“It’s going to work out about that way. If I accuse him of writing the letter and getting rid of Corla Burke, I can never tell whether he did it or didn’t—”