“Think the murderer would get it?”
“It would be interesting to find out.”
“What sort of a message?”
“Oh, something that would tend to keep things moving,” Mason said. “We don’t want the case to get static. It would give the police too much of a chance to catch up on us.”
Della Street picked up the dictionary from Mason’s desk. “Think up a nice message, and I’ll put it in code for you.”
Mason said, “Well now, let’s see, Della. We want something that will get some action. Suppose we left the murderer a message. Let’s see. It will have to be dictionary words. We can’t use participles or plurals. We want something that will get swift action. Suppose we did this: ‘Lawyer Mason has fingerprint photograph his wallet fatal unless recovered.’ No, let’s see. We couldn’t use recovered. That’s past tense. The word in the dictionary would be recover.”
Della Street, frowning down at her shorthand notebook, said, “We could use recovery, Chief. That would be a noun, and would be listed. We could use the words recovery made instead of recovered.”
“Okay, let’s try putting it in code.”
“I don’t like the idea.”
“Why not?”