Mason nodded. “I got her telephone number — Acton one-one-one-one-o.”
“What did she tell you about young Gentrie?”
“Not a great deal. Young Arthur Gentrie is madly in love with her. She’s older than he is and considers it a case of puppy love, but doesn’t want to destroy his illusions. She says that it’s very, very serious when a young man starts putting an older woman on a pedestal and becomes really infatuated for the first time in his life.”
“Is it the first time with Junior Gentrie?” Della Street asked.
Mason said, “He told her it was.”
“I don’t believe it.”
“He said there’d been puppy loves in his life before, but nothing that could approach the devastating effect of this feeling that he has for her.”
“And so she keeps on going out with him and encouraging him?”
“She says she isn’t encouraging him. She’s trying to be an older sister to him, but Junior won’t, as she expresses it, cool off. She said she had been trying to find some younger woman who would be sufficiently attractive to Junior to get his mind into what she calls a more normal state. The hell of it is, Della, she’s got a boy friend — some chap she’s crazy over — and she’s keeping all this about young Gentrie away from her regular boy friend because he’s insanely jealous. Of course, she’s also keeping all news of the boy friend from Gentrie because she doesn’t want to destroy his illusions.”
Della Street said, “It’s nice business if you can get it. How old is she?”