I nodded.
“How did you find him?”
I said, “Smith is Dr. Alftmont, and Dr. Alftmont is Dr. Lintig.”
Bertha Cool put down her cocktail glass and said, “Well, can me for a sardine. Now, ain’t that something?”
I couldn’t seem to work up a great deal of enthusiasm over spilling information to Bertha. I’d done too much night driving, and sitting up all night doesn’t agree with me. I said, “Dr. Alftmont’s running for mayor in Santa Carlotta.”
“Politics?” Bertha Cool asked, her eyes turning greedy.
“Politics,” I said. “Lots of politics. The man who beat me up and ran me out of Oakview was a man named John Harbet of the Santa Carlotta police force, evidently the head of the vice squad.”
Bertha said, “Oh-oh!”
“One of the newspapers has been throwing mud at Dr. Alftmont. The other newspaper intimates that Dr. Alftmont is going to sue for libel. Ordinarily that would be a nice hint, but the way I size it up, the mud-slingers are pretty certain of their ground. They’re going to keep on dishing out the dirt and then dare Alftmont to sue them for libel. If he doesn’t sue, he’s backing down. If he does sue, he has to show damage to his character. When that time comes, what the Santa Carlotta Courier will do to his character will be plenty. Alftmont realizes that. He doesn’t dare to sue. He wants to find out whether his wife ever remarried or got a divorce.”
The expression in Bertha Cool’s eyes was like that of a cat wiping canary feathers off its chin. “Pickle me for a peach,” she said, half under her breath, “What a perfect set-up! Hell, lover, we’re going to town!”