“What?” I asked.
She said, “I’ve been thinking it out while I was sitting here. Suppose Harbet has a date to call at the Key West Apartments, this afternoon, pick up Flo Danzer, and take her up to Santa Carlotta?”
“Then the operatives would have reported that she’d gone out. I figured that possibility.”
“Yes,” Bertha said, “but she knew Harbet was coming, she’d wait for him instead of telephoning.”
I said, “Well, come on, let’s go. We can’t get in any deeper than we are now.”
Bertha Cool said, “God, how I wish you were right,” and unlocked the door.
We went out into the corridor. Bertha calmly and methodically locked the door. “How about a taxicab?” I asked.
“There’s a taxi stand in front of the hotel,” she said.
We went down through the lobby. The clerk said, “You’re baggage hasn’t shown up yet, Mrs. Cool. Do you want me to do anything about it? I can arrange with a transfer company—”
“Nothing, thank you,” Bertha said and swept on past him.