“That lieutenant is all right,” she said. “The police chief is a pill. Come in. Sit down. Hand me that package of cigarettes over there and hold a match for me. Suppose we have some coffee sent up?”
I handed her the cigarettes, held a match, went over to the telephone, asked for room service, and told them to send up a couple of pots of coffee with plenty of cream and sugar.
“You drink yours black, don’t you, lover?” Bertha called.
“Yes.”
“Well,” she said, “never mind the cream and sugar for me.”
I looked at her in surprise.
“I’ve begun to think it spoils the flavor of the coffee.”
“Okay,” I said, “never mind the cream and sugar. Shoot up a couple of pots of black coffee and make it snappy.”
“Well,” I said to Bertha, “what’s the low-down?”
“I don’t know. The blowoff came about twelve-thirty. They’d found the body about midnight, I think. There was a great hullabaloo. They wanted to know all about our case, who our client was, and where they could find him.”