Turn on the heat

Cool & Lam Mystery #2 (1940)

The lettering on the door says "Bertha Cool--Confidential Investigations." Bertha's latest client, who insists on being called "Mr. Smith," is all about the confidentiality. No one, he stresses, is to know anything about case or client. He just wants the agency to quietly track down one Mrs. James C. Lintig, with nothing more to go on than a two-decades-old address and a whiff of unspecified scandal. Except, leg man Donald Lam soon learns that others have been blazing the trail before him. Confidentiality? Phooey.