He passed the bill across to the lawyer who looked it over and silently handed it back.
“Have you a pair of scissors, dear?” Peltham asked.
The woman wordlessly opened a black purse and took out a pair of curved manicure scissors. She handed these to Peltham who took them and walked over to Mason’s desk. He held the bill in his left hand, the scissors in his right.
With the careful touch of a man whose hands are trained to do exactly what he wants them to do, he cut the bill in two pieces by a series of curved segments.
With the last snip of the small scissors, a piece of the bill representing about one-third of its area fluttered to Mason’s desk.
Peltham returned the scissors to the masked woman. He held the two sections of the ten-thousand-dollar bill so that Mason could see they fitted perfectly, then he presented the larger portion of the bill to the woman, and dropped the smaller portion on top of the two one-thousand-dollar bills, which he shoved across the desk to Mason.
“There you are,” he said. “I don’t want a receipt. Your word’s good. You’ll never know this woman’s identity unless it becomes necessary for you to know it in order to protect her interests. At that time, she’ll give you the rest of this ten-thousand-dollar bill. That will be her introduction. You can paste the two halves together, take it down to your bank, and deposit it. In that way, your fee will be guaranteed, and there’ll be no chance of an impostor imposing on you.”
“Suppose someone else should get that other half of the bill?”
“No one will.”
Mason looked across at the woman. “You understand what Mr. Peltham is asking of me?” he asked.