I saw she was quite a bit older than my first estimate. I had figured her then as being in the late twenties. Now, she could have been in the middle thirties. She’d taken care of her face and figure, but there was more than the suggestion of a line running down from her ears; and the crease under her chin, faint though it was, meant that she’d lived longer than the twenty-seven or twenty-eight years I’d given her on my first estimate.

“I have Alma Hunter waiting for me in a car at the curb,” I said. “If Mrs. Cool isn’t apt to be back on time, I’d better run down and tell her.”

“She’ll be back on time,” Elsie Brand said, “at any rate, within two or three minutes after twelve. That’s one thing about Bertha Cool. She believes a person is entitled to food, and she wouldn’t keep you waiting on your lunch hour.”

“She seems to be quite a character,” I said tentatively.

“She is,” Elsie Brand said.

“How’d she happen to get in the detective agency field?”

“Her husband died.”

“There are lots of other things for a woman to go into to make a living,” I said inanely.

“What, for instance?” she asked.

“She could have modeled gowns,” I suggested. “How long have you been with her?”

“Ever since she opened up.”

“And how long has that been?”

“Three years.”

“Did you know her before her husband died?”

“I was her husband’s secretary,” she said. “Bertha got me the job with him. She—”

Elsie Brand broke off as she heard the sound of steps in the corridor. Then a shadow formed on the ground glass of the entrance door, and Bertha Cool flowed majestically into the room. “All right, Elsie,” she said. “You may go now. What do you want, Donald?”

“I want to make a report.”

“Come in,” she said.

She strode into the private office shoulders back, breasts and hips swinging loosely inside her voluminous, thin dress. It was hot outside, but she didn’t seem to mind the heat.

“Sit down,” she said. “Have you located him yet?”

“Not the husband. I’ve talked with the brother.”

“Well, get busy and locate him.”

“I’m going to.”

“Of course you are. How good are you at arithmetic?”

“What’s the problem?” I asked.

“I’ve received a flat fee covering seven days’ work. If you work seven days on this job, I make a hundred and fifty dollars. If you work one day on it, I make a hundred and fifty dollars. If you clean up the case today, I have six days of your time to peddle to some other client. Figure that out, and tell me the answer. You’re not going to serve any papers hanging around this office. Get the hell out and serve those papers.”

“I came by to make a report.”