“Why?”
“She’s from the country. She’s a simple, unsophisticated, darn nice girl. It sticks out all over her. She’s fresh and unspoiled. She hasn’t learned the chiselling tactics of the city. She’s just a square-shooting good kid.”
Bertha Cool sighed and said, “That’s one of your greatest weaknesses as a detective, lover. The women all knock you for a loop. You fall for them head over heels. The fact that you can’t get anywhere in a fight is bad enough, but this business of falling for women is twice as bad. You’ve got to learn to quit it. If you could only do that, your brains would get you places.”
“Anything else?” I asked.
Bertha Cool smiled and said, “Now, don’t be like that, Donald. This is business, you know.”
“All right,” I said. “Now I’ll tell you the rest of it. Marian got a pretty good look at the man who was coming out of the apartment. Her description won’t mean anything to the police — at least, I hope it won’t — but it meant something to me.”
“What do you mean?”
“The man who left the apartment,” I said, “was Dr. Charles Loring Alftmont, otherwise known as Dr. James C. Lintig. He prefers to have us refer to him as Mr. Smith.”
Bertha Cool stared at me. Her lids slowly raised until her eyes were round and startled. She said, so softly that it was almost under her breath, “I’ll be stewed for an oyster.”
“Now then,” I said, “the police don’t know anything about the Lintig angle. They don’t know anything about the Alftmont angle. There’s no particular reason why they should suspect the man whom we will refer to as Smith from now on. But if Marian Dunton should see him or should see his photograph, she’ll identify him in a minute.”