I washed up, and got to the door of Bertha’s room in exactly nine and one-half minutes. Whitewell came down the corridor just as I knocked.
Bertha let us in. She smelled of hand lotion and toilet water. “Come right in, Mr. Whitewell,” she said. “Come right in and make yourself comfortable. Donald, sit over there in that chair.”
We sat down. Whitewell glanced quizzically at me, and said, “He isn’t exactly the type I’d expected.”
Bertha dragged a coy smile out of moth balls, draped it over her face, and said, in a voice that sounded kittenish, “And I surprised you, too, didn’t I?”
“Very much. I simply can’t picture a dainty, refined woman in such a business. Don’t you find it sordid?”
“Oh, not at all,” Bertha said in stilted tones of mealymouthed politeness. “It’s really very interesting. Of course, Donald takes over the sordid part. What was it you wanted us to do?”
“I want you to find a young woman.”
“Donald’s good at that. He just finished one of those cases.”
“Well, this is a little different.”
Bertha asked cautiously, “Are you her father?”