“That,” he said, making a wry grimace, “is what comes of trying murder cases. I’m constantly translating everyday occurrences into terms of the bizarre. That girl came in here carrying a caged canary. She was excited, nervous and upset, and I, like a fool, began to clothe her with all sorts of mysterious backgrounds.”
“Why didn’t you refuse to take her case, Chief?” Della Street asked.
“Not after I’d pried into her private affairs, Della. Remember, this is just a business with us. It’s something else to the client. The sister’s divorce case is a chore to me, but right now it’s the most important thing in that young woman’s life — except her love affair with Jimmy Driscoll.”
Della Street surveyed the lawyer with thoughtfully speculative eyes. “Chief,” she said, “speaking to you as a woman who is under no illusions as to her sex, and is, therefore, immune to feminine wiles and tearful entreaties, did it occur to you there’s something strange about the way she reacted to that love affair? She wouldn’t look you in the eyes when she talked about it. She acted as though it were something furtive, something to be concealed, something of which she was ashamed. Don’t you think that she may have doublecrossed her sister more than she admits — in order to get Jimmy, I mean?”
Mason chuckled delightedly and said, “There you go, Della. I tell you, it’s too many murder cases. First it’s a caged canary which throws me for a loss, then this love affair gets you. What we need’s a vacation. What do you say we chuck the whole business and take a trip around the world? I’ll look into the jurisprudence of the different countries we visit, and you can take notes on what I find.”
Her eyes widened. “You mean it, Chief?”
“Yes.”
“How about the law business?”
“We’ll leave it. Jackson can handle routine matters while I’m gone, and there’ll be plenty of big things when we get back.”
“And how about this case?”