“Listen,” Bertha said, “the insurance companies have lots of money. They’re rolling in wealth. This man was driving a car. He was so drunk he didn’t know what he was doing. When Mrs. Cranning rang him up and told him that he’d hit you, knocked you down, and then made passes at you going home, he really thought he’d done so. He told her he’d have his insurance company get on the job right away. He called up his insurance company and said, ‘I’m in an awful jam. I was driving a car last night. I was so drunk I don’t know what happened, and I hit this girl. She’s had a concussion of the brain and is lying on a couch out there at the house of the man who employed her. For God’s sake get on the job quick and clean the thing up.’ “
“Well?” Josephine Dell asked. “Suppose he did?”
“Don’t you see what happened? He didn’t hit you at all, and because you gave them a release, it doesn’t mean a thing. In other words, if I should be ninny enough to offer you a thousand dollars for a complete release of any and all claims you might have against me, because I hit you with an automobile, it wouldn’t prevent you from collecting from someone who did hit you with an automobile.”
A frown puckered the smooth skin of Josephine Dell’s forehead. Her blonde hair glinted in the sunlight as she turned her head to look out of the window while she studied the proposition. Then, at length, she gave Bertha Cool her answer, a firm, determined shake of the head.
“No, Mrs. Cool, I couldn’t do that. It wouldn’t be fair.”
“Then,” Bertha said, “if you want to be absolutely fair, ring up this automobile club representative and tell him that it was all a mistake, that you got the licence number wrong.”
Instant suspicion appeared in Josephine Dell’s eyes. “I don’t think I got the licence number wrong,” she said.
“I tell you, you did.”
“How do you know?”
“Because I know the insurance company that’s actually handling the case.”
“All right,” Josephine Dell said, “if you know so much about it, go ahead and tell me what was wrong with the licence number. What was the licence number of the man who did hit me?”
Bertha Cool tried to avoid that. She said, “I’ve actually talked with the representative of the insurance company. He told me that if you —”
“What was the licence number of the man who did hit me?” Josephine Dell interrupted.
“I don’t know,” Bertha Cool confessed.
“I thought not,” Josephine Dell said. “I don’t know what your purpose is in coming to me, Mrs. Cool, but I’m very much afraid that you’re trying to do something that isn’t for my best interests. As far as I’m concerned, I’m perfectly satisfied with the situation the way it is.”
“But you don’t want to take money from an insurance company that—”
“But, Mrs. Cool, just now you were arguing that the insurance company was rolling in money, and that it was quite all right to keep their money.”
“Well, that’s what I’d do under the circumstances,” Bertha said. “Of course, if you want to be ethical–”
“Then it’s exactly what I will do under the circumstances.”
“But you’ll go after this other insurance company?” Josephine Dell shook her head.
“Please,” Bertha pleaded. “Let me handle it for you. I tell you I can get you some money just like that,” and Bertha snapped her fingers.
Josephine Dell smiled. “I’m afraid, Mrs. Cool, that you’re trying to— Well, I’ve heard a lot about how insurance companies try to take advantage of people. I was very much surprised to see how nice Mr. Milbran was. I suppose that the main office didn’t like the settlement he’d made with you and is trying to get me to repudiate it. Is that it?”
Bertha said wearily, “That isn’t it. It’s just like I told you. You got the licence number wrong.”
“But you can’t tell me where I made a mistake in it?”
“No.”
“Do you know even one figure in the licence number?”
“No. I don’t know anything about the man. I know the insurance company.”
“Do you know the name of the man who hit me?”
Bertha said angrily, “I don’t know a damn thing about it.” Josephine Dell picked up her book. “I’m sorry, Mrs. Cool, but I don’t think I care to discuss the matter any further. Good morning.”
“But, look, did you know Myrna Jackson had been impersonating you? Did you know?”
“I’m sorry, Mrs. Cool. I don’t want to discuss the matter with you any further. Good morning!”
“But —”
“Good morning, Mrs. Cool.”
Chapter XXX
IT WAS NOT until Wednesday morning that Bertha Cool returned to her office.
“Where,” Elsie Brand asked, “have you been?”
Bertha Cool’s sun-bronzed face twisted into a grin. She said, “I’ve been doing the one thing I’m good at.”
“What’s that?”
“Fishing.”
“You mean you were fishing all day yesterday?”
“Yes. I got so damned exasperated I darn near blew up. 1 I decided to hell with it. I was running a blood pressure of about two hundred and eighty. I climbed in my car, drove down to the beach, rented some fishing tackle, and proceeded to enjoy myself. Do you know what happened? It’s an uncanny combination of circumstances, a coincidence that wouldn’t happen once in ten million times.”
“What?” Elsie Brand asked.
“The man who ran into Josephine Dell was drunk. Josephine Dell thought she took his licence number. She didn’t. She got the wrong licence number. She got a couple of figures juggled somewhere, but, as luck would have it, the man whose licence number she did get had also been driving his car, and he was also drunk, so drunk that he didn’t know but what he actually had hit her. Therefore, she’s in the position of being able to collect from two insurance companies, only she hasn’t sense enough to.”
“You’d better read Donald Lam’s letter first, Mrs. Cool.” Elsie Brand said.
“Was there a letter from Donald?”
“He dictated it to me.”
“To you!” Bertha Cool exclaimed.
“Yes.”
“When?”
“Last night.”
“Where?”
“Here at the office.”
“You mean Donald Lam was here?”
“Yes, he got a thirty-six-hour leave of absence, took a plane down here, and dropped in to see us. My, but he looked swell in his uniform, and he’s really filling out. He’s getting fit, putting on some weight, and looks hard as–”
“Why in hell,” Bertha exclaimed, “didn’t you get in touch with me?”
“I did everything I could, Mrs. Cool. You told me that you were going to Redlands. I told Donald everything that you had told me, and he started out to Redlands after you. I don’t think that you had been gone more than half an hour when Donald came in, and evidently he followed right along behind you. Do you want his letter?”
Bertha snatched the envelope out of Elsie Brand’s hand, started for her private office, turned, and snapped over her shoulder, “I don’t want to be disturbed. No telephone calls. No visitors. No clients. Nothing.”
Elsie Brand nodded.
Bertha, once more seething with indignation, ripped off the end of the sealed envelope, plumped herself down in the chair, and started reading the long letter:
DEAR BERTHA,
I am very sorry I missed you. I have taken a keen interest in the case from the correspondence, and when I unexpectedly received a thirty-six-hour leave, decided to come down and see what could be done. You weren’t in the office. Elsie said you had gone to Redlands where you thought Josephine Dell was or had been located. I hired a car and drove to Redlands.
Because of certain peculiar circumstances, I had already come to the conclusion that Josephine Dell might be in an out-of-town hospital. The fact that two gifts had been sent to the blind man, one a very tactful g
ift such as a sympathetic young woman would give to a man in his position with no note accompanying it, and the other a rather tactless gift accompanied by a note, made me think that there might be two Josephine Dells; one the real Josephine Dell, and the other an imposter.
The conversation you had with the manager of the Bluebonnet Apartments should have shown you that the girl you met who was checking out was the one the manager knew as Myrna Jackson. Recall that conversation, remember your visit the night the girl was checking out, and you’ll see the whole thing.
It didn’t take me long once I had arrived in Redlands to find Josephine Dell in the sanitarium. I arrived about forty minutes after you had left. I told Miss Dell who I was, and found her in a very hostile and suspicious frame of mind, but she was willing to talk and answer questions and let me explain.
I think you made your mistake, if you will pardon my saying so, in being a little too greedy. You kept looking at it from your angle. Because you were interested in getting a twenty-five-hundred-dollar cut from the insurance company, you kept thinking of the insurance angle; whereas it was manifestly apparent that this was really a very minor issue.
By being sympathetic and tactful, and convincing Miss Dell that I was trying to right a wrong and clear up an injustice, I was able to get her talking. Once she started talking, the whole solution became apparent.
I first convinced myself that Josephine Dell actually had been employed by Harlow Milbers in his lifetime. I asked her about the occasion when she executed the will as a witness, and she remembered it perfectly. She also remembered that the second witness to the will was not Paul Hanberry at all, but was a man by the name of Dawson who, at that time, had a photographic studio adjoining Harlow Milber’s office. The will was not made at the house at all, but was made at the office.
I got Josephine Dell to sign her name for me. The signature did not in the least agree with the signature of Josephine Dell which was appended to the will.
I had already deduced much of this because I took the precaution of looking up the weather on the twenty-fifth of January 1942—apparently something you neglected doing. Had you done it, you would have found that it was raining steadily on the twenty-fifth of January. Therefore, Paul Hanberry would hardly have been washing a car in the driveway during a pouring rainstorm.
I also questioned Miss Dell as to the symptoms which accompanied Harlow Milber’s death and. found very definitely that he did complain of cramps in the calves of hislegs. Under the circumstances the symptoms are so absolutely typical of arsenic poisoning that it would seem possible to make a very convincing diagnosis for the police.
In short, then, Harlow Milbers was poisoned on Friday morning. He died late Friday afternoon. Josephine Dell, returning home, was struck by an automobile, and had a mild concussion. She called a doctor the next morning when she experienced unusual symptoms. The doctor diagnosed a concussion and suggested she should keep absolutely quiet, preferably that she should go at once to a hospital or a sanitarium. Miss Dell had no money, but she thought that Nettie Cranning might make an advance from the household allowance. She thereupon went to Milber’s residence and explained the circumstances to Nettie Cranning.
That is where Mrs. Cranning showed unusual genius. In place of telephoning to the person who had struck Josephine Dell, she proceeded to get some money. She got some friend of hers to pose as a man named Milbran who claimed to be representing an insurance company which had no actual existence.
By means of this deception, they were able to get Miss Dell out of town into a sanitarium where she would be out of circulation for at least two months. That gave them ample opportunity to go to work on the will. As I suspected, the first page of the will was genuine. The second page was a complete forgery. You will remember that Myrna Jackson had moved in with Josephine Dell about three weeks prior to the accident. At the time there was no sinister purpose in this whatever. However, it is well to remember that Myrna Jackson was a friend of Mrs. Cranning and of her daughter, Eva, of about the same mental and moral calibre.
Following the death of Harlow Milbers, Nettie Cranning discovered the will. She found that the cousin was cut off with ten thousand dollars. In fact the first page of that will is absolutely genuine. It wasn’t until the next day the possibility of changing the will occurred to Mrs. Cranning, Eva Hanberry, and Paul Hanberry. Mrs. Cranning evidently was the one who conceived the idea. By getting rid of Josephine Dell for two months they would be able to substitute a second page of the will, leaving most of the property to themselves. You will remember that I pointed out to you the possibility of this in my telegram. It was only necessary to get someone to take the part of Josephine Dell, get her to sign as a witness on the fraudulent second page of the will, have Paul Hanberry also sign as a witness, forge the signature of Harlow Milbers, and then make some compromise with Christopher Milbers, who was the only other relative, get rid of him, and be sitting pretty. The real Josephine Dell was out of circulation for sixty days. The ‘insurance company’ had promised her a job when she was able to leave the sanitarium. Doubtless that job would have been one which took her to South America or some place where she would never see or hear of Milbers again.
The only fly in the ointment was that the man who had actually hit Josephine Dell and who was intoxicated enough to become obnoxious, was not so intoxicated but what he remembered what had happened after he sobered up. Therefore, he got in touch with his insurance company in a contrite frame of mind, and the insurance company went dashing around trying to square the thing. The accident wasn’t reported to the authorities because the driver of the car was so intoxicated the insurance carrier was afraid to let him report the true facts, including the significant fact that he couldn’t remember the name of the person whom he had knocked down, etc.
When they saw your ad in the paper asking for a witness, they immediately started work on you, using you as their only possible contact with the person who had been injured. But subsequently Jerry Bollman moved in and doubtless would have chiselled you out in the making of a settlement had it not been that the spurious Josephine Dell was afraid to make a settlement with the insurance company, because she was afraid that, at some time during the negotiations, she would have to meet the driver of the car, who would then brand her as an imposter, and thereby ruin the whole scheme.
One of the most significant clues in the entire matter was that Josephine Dell didn’t go near the blind man after she had ‘recovered’. This was a bit of rudeness which bothered the blind man very much indeed. Your friend, Jerry Boll-man, started pumping the blind man. He began to smell a very large and odoriferous rat, and was shrewd enough to put two and two together. Prior to that time, he had been given a very good inkling of what was going on. Remember that he had telephoned the residence of Harlow Milbers and asked if Josephine Dell was working there. You will also remember that he made this call as a total stranger to her. That is very significant because no one was permitted to contact the person who was posing as Josephine Dell who knew her; but when Bollman said he was a stranger to her, he was given an opportunity to meet her. As soon as he did, he knew that she wasn’t the young woman he had seen knocked over; and with a man of Bollman’s temperament, that was all that was necessary to put him off on a hot trail.
What he had found out from the fictitious Josephine Dell and what he was able to worm out of the blind man convinced him of the general nature of the conspiracy. He didn’t go to the blind man’s house in order to get any evidence. He went there for one purpose, to rig up a snare gun which would kill the blind man—because, you see, the blind man was the only other possible witness who could upset the deal. Once this snare gun had been set up, so that Kosling would blunder into it and be killed, everything was all set to enjoy the huge estate. A settlement had already been made with Christopher Milbers who would return to Vermont. (Jerry Bollman, of course, was cutting himself in on the whole deal. That was the masterly part of his trap gun. He would leave the blind man in Sa
n Bernardino, go to his house, fix up a snare gun, then go to Nettie Cranning, Eva Hanberry, and Paul Hanberry, and declare himself in on the deal. Remember that there were several hundred thousand dollars involved, and Jerry Bollman was a type who valued money above all else.)
If they refused, he would have the blind man as a witness. If they cut him in, he would show them how he had arranged to get rid of the blind man—because, you see, this blind man had all the elements of the truth. He was going to investigate. He thought Josephine had lost her memory. By the time he’d done a little more thinking, he’d have realized the difference in voices. He’d have made trouble. He had started to confide to Thinwell. He was going to get a doctor and confide in him. It was better for all concerned to have Kosling out of the way, if they wanted to be absolutely safe.
The police made the mistake of thinking that the trap gun had been rigged up by a blind man since there was no attempt whatever to conceal it. The police overlooked the fact that the trap gun was rigged up for a blind man and, therefore, there was no necessity of concealing it. We can only guess what happened when Jerry Bollman met his death, but, in view of your letters and the report you made to Elsie Brand, I think it is quite apparent. Bollman had rigged up the gun, had everything so arranged that the minute any pressure was brought to bear on the fine wire which crossed the door, the gun would be discharged. He then started out. At that time, the tame bat came flying in out of the darkness and lit on Bollman’s shoulder or fluttered against his face. As was only natural, Bollman jumped back, forgetting for the moment the snare gun. What happened was a masterpiece of poetic justice. He jumped right into the wire.
I think this just about covers the case except that I think you will find there is a very strong possibility Josephine Dell was remembered in the genuine will in a very substantial manner. If the last pages of the will have been destroyed, the contents can still be proved by paroi evidence, and it is almost certain that out of Nettie Cranning, Eva Hanberry, and Paul Hanberry, at least one will turn state’s evidence in order to get a lighter sentence.
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