“Oh,” Mason said casually, “we’ll get Rossy out of her difficulties. That won’t take long.”
Della Street picked up the telephone and said to the exchange operator in the outer office, “Get me the Dollar Steamship Company on the line. Right away, please, before the boss changes his mind.”
Chapter two
Paul Drake, head of the Drake Detective Agency, braced his tall, thin form languidly against the door jamb. The film which covered his slightly protruding eyes seemed like a veil drawn between his thoughts and the outer world. During moments of repose, his fish-like mouth hung partially open, giving his face an expression of droll humor. Even an acute observer would have admitted he looked more like a drunken undertaker than a detective.
“My God, Perry,” he said, in drawling protest, “don’t tell me you’re starting on another case.”
Mason nodded.
“I wish,” Drake went on in the same good-natured, drawling voice, “that you’d take a vacation for my health.”
“What’s the matter, Paul? Can’t you take it any more?”
Drake sauntered over to the big leather chair, sat down in it cross-wise, one of the chair’s arms supporting his back, the other catching his legs just back of the knees. “I’ve known you now for five years,” he said reproachfully, “and I never saw you yet when you weren’t in a hurry.”
“Well,” Mason told him crisply, “I’m not going to break the record now, Paul. Some time around noon, out near the corner of Fourteenth Street and Alsace Avenue, a truck owned by the Trader’s Transfer Company smashed a coupe driven by Carl Packard of Altaville, California. It should be a cinch to chase down. Packard was injured, and the truck driver put him in the van and rushed him to a hospital. Find out which hospital, how seriously Packard was hurt, whether he’s insured, whether the truck’s insured, how the truck driver reported the accident, whether the trucking company will admit liability, and how much the case can be settled for by whichever party was in the wrong.”