Her laugh was melodious. “There’s merit to the idea,” she said.
“I thought so,” I told her.
Suddenly her voice changed to that of impersonal efficiency. “I have the message. I’ll see that it’s delivered,” she said. “Thank you.”
I hung up, and Bertha Cool, sprawled out in the overstuffed chair with her shoes kicked off and her stockinged feet elevated to another chair, looked at me and shook her head. “It’s a gift,” she said.
“What is?”
“Making women fall for you.”
“They don’t fall for me,” I said. “I was just kidding her along. I don’t even know whether she liked it.”
“Nuts,” Bertha said, and fitted a cigarette into her cigarette holder.
I walked over to the bed where she’d placed the morning paper and opened it. The news was on the front page. A key witness whom the district attorney’s office had been keeping under cover in the Evaline Harris murder case had disappeared. Circumstances made the police believe she’d been the victim of foul play. Police were “combing the city”. There was the usual amount of newspaper hooey: The police were following a definite lead and expected to have important disclosures to make before midnight. The witness, it seemed, had disappeared just as the police were ready to “break” the case. The police had hinted that developments of a most startling nature were to be anticipated.
I put on an act for Bertha. “My God,” I said, “if anything’s happened to her! Do you suppose the police were so damn dumb they didn’t anticipate something like this? Good God, here they were dealing with a murderer, and this girl was the key witness, and they left her entirely unguarded. Of all the damn fool plays I’ve ever heard or seen, that takes the cake!”