“No, he didn’t,” Mason said. “I gathered that it would be spread on page one of the newspaper — something one couldn’t miss.”
“Well, it hasn’t broken then, that’s all.”
“That,” Mason said, “complicates matters. I don’t have any idea what it was he really wanted me to do. I might take a divorce case against Mrs. Jones and have Mrs. Jones walk in and shove the other half of this ten-thousand-dollar bill across the desk, and say, ‘Is this any way to treat a client?’ ”
“Or,” Della Street said demurely, “you might fire me for inefficiency and suddenly have me push the rest of that ten-thousand-dollar bill in front of you, and say, ‘Is this any way to run a law office?’ ”
Mason looked at her with sudden suspicion. “By George,” he said, “—now you have given me something to think about.”
She laughed.
Gertie, the big, good-natured blonde, who presided over the information desk and switchboard in Mason’s outer office, tapped on the door, then opened it, and slipped into the room. “Can you,” she asked, “see A. E. Tump?”
“What does he want?” Mason asked.
She shook her head. “It isn’t a he. It’s a she.”
“What’s the name?”