The latch clicked back and Bertha Cool, calmly placid, came walking into the office. She smiled at me and said, “Thought so,” then sailed on through the entrance office to seat herself in the big swivel chair behind her desk. She said, “You and I could get along a hell of a lot better, Donald, if we didn’t try to slip things over on each other.”
I was just starting to answer that when the telephone on Bertha Cool’s desk started to ring. Bertha, with a scooping motion of her thick right arm, pulled the telephone towards her, picked up the receiver, and said, “Hello.”
Her eyes were on me, half-closed eyes that glittered like diamonds. Her left arm was out across the desk ready to stiff-arm me back in case I made a lunge for the telephone.
I sat still and smoked.
Bertha Cool said, “Yes, this is Bertha Cool’s agency... No, dear, he isn’t here right now, but he told me you were going to telephone and said I’d take the message... Oh, yes, dearie. Well, he expects to be here in just a few minutes. He said for you to come right up... Yes, that’s right. That’s the address. Come right up, dearie. Don’t waste any time. Get a taxicab. He wants to see you.”
She dropped the receiver back into place and turned to face me. “Now then, Donald,” she said, “let this be a lesson to you. The next time you try to cut yourself a piece of cake, cut Bertha in on it, otherwise there’s going to be trouble.”
“You want in on it, do you?” I asked.
“I’m in,” she said.
I said, “You are, for a fact.”
She said, “You came to work for me, lover, a little runt that didn’t know anything about the detective business. I picked you up when you were down to your last cent. You hadn’t eaten for two days when you came to the office. I gave you a job. You’re learning the business. You have brains. The trouble is, you don’t keep in mind that I’m the boss. You get to thinking you’re running the business. It’s a case of the tail wagging the dog.”