I detoured around her and took the lead. Sandra Birks remained in the bedroom with the twin beds. When I had opened the door to Bleatie’s room, Bertha Cool said, “Not that I give a good God damn about what’s in here, Donald, my love, I’m just giving her time to realize the possibilities of the situation.”

“You think she wants to protect Alma Hunter?” I asked.

“Of course, otherwise why did she want to have us on the job?”

“Perhaps,” I said, “she’s already said too much to the police. They must have asked about her brother.”

“Well, let’s hope it’s nothing she can’t lie out of afterwards,” Bertha Cool said. “She doesn’t impress me as beung a particularly wide-open type. She’s secretive and furtive as hell. You ask her what the weather is, and she’ll find some way of avoiding the subject very tactfully, stopping just short of telling you whether it’s raining or sunny, hot or cold—so this is Bleatie’s room. Well, let’s take a look around.”

Bertha Cool started opening bureau drawers, making a quick mental inventory of the contents, and closing them again. Suddenly she swooped down on the interior of a drawer, and pulled out something bulky. “Now then,” she said, “what the hell is this?”

“Looks like a cloth life preserver,” I said.

“Straps on the back,” she mused. “I have it, Donald. There was something wrong about Bleatie’s figure. Remember that watermelon stomach he had—not watermelon exactly, sort of a cantaloupe stomach?

“Well, Morgan Birks didn’t. Morgan Birks was slender. He had a dimple where his stomach should have been. This was the gadget Morgan Birks put on when he wanted to become Bleatie.”

I looked it over. That’s what it was, all right.

Bertha Cool calmly rolled it up and said, “See if you can find me a newspaper somewhere, Donald, my love. We’ll just take this God damn thing away with us. It doesn’t need to figure in the case at all.”

There was no newspaper there in the room. I walked out into the living room and met Sandra Birks coming from the other bedroom. “Where’s Mrs. Cool?” she asked.

I indicated the bedroom, and Sandra walked on past me. There was a newspaper on the table, lying on top of the pile of magazines. I picked it up, spread it out so it was flat on the table and then waited for a couple of minutes before I walked back to the bedroom and said, “I’ll fix it.”

Bertha Cool and Sandra were facing each other. I heard Mrs. Cool say, “Don’t tell me anything, dearie, until you’ve had a chance to think it all out. You’re all nervous and upset. Keep your trap closed until you’ve thought it out carefully, and then we’ll talk about dough.”