“Well,” Mason admitted, hesitating, “I’ll confess that it may look just the slightest bit—”
She interrupted and said, “That’s enough. The answer, in words of one syllable is ‘No.’ ”
“Now don’t be like that, Della,” he pleaded. “This is a cinch. You go down to the best luggage store in the city, buy yourself a whole flock of suitcases, hat boxes, trunks and what have you, and have them lettered with the initials ‘D.M.’ You put in some bricks, newspapers, boards and old shoes, to give the luggage a reasonable amount of weight. Then you have a transfer man take the luggage up to Rita Swaine’s apartment at 1388 Chestnut Street. Tell him the number of the apartment is 408, and if you’re not there he’s to get a passkey from the attendant and put the baggage right in the apartment.”
Della Street yawned and said, “Sorry, Chief, I’m not interested. When the ship pulls out tomorrow, I want to be standing on deck, waving bye-bye to a few of my envious friends who’ll have come down to see me off. I wouldn’t care to be behind bars in the county jail, thank you.”
“You don’t have to be,” Mason told her. “This is perfectly legal.”
“Will I get arrested?”
“They can’t hold you in jail—”
“Never mind whether they can hold me. Will they arrest me?”
“Well,” Mason conceded, “before we get done Sergeant Holcomb may be a little bit put out about it.”
Enough so he’d take me to the hoosegow, Chief?”