His partner said, “I haven’t a car.”
“Take the agency car,” I said. “Park where you can watch the alley. She may come out that way.”
I said to Bertha, “Come on. We’ll go in and phone for a taxicab.”
Bertha looked at me for a moment, then heaved her bulk out of the agency car. I took her arm, and we walked across the street towards the apartment house.
I said, “You go in alone. Turn your grande dame manner on the clerk. Find out when the telephone operators come on duty at the switchboard, and get their names and addresses.”
“He’ll get suspicious,” she said.
“Not if you play it right. You’re trying to check up on your nephew. He has a crush on a girl who works on the switchboard at the Key West Apartments. You want to check up on her. If she’s a good egg, you’ll give him your blessing and not change your will. If she’s a fortune-hunter, you’ll get rough. Flash your diamonds in the clerk’s eyes. Be sure you get all the girls’ home addresses.”
“What’s the idea?” she asked.
I said, “It’s something I have to think over.”
Bertha Cool’s big diaphragm rippled as she heaved a sigh which seemed to come from her boot tops. “God, Donald,” she said, “before you started working for me, I used to get a decent night’s sleep once in a while. Now I couldn’t sleep even if I had the bed and the chance.”