“Don’t you ‘Hi, Paul’ me, you baggage,” Drake grumbled. “Of all the high-pressure stuff I ever had handed me...”
She came over to where he was sitting on the chair, and put her hand on his arm. “Don’t be such an old grouch-face,” she laughed.
“Grouch-face nothing,” he told her. “You put it up to me cold-turkey that I either had to go in for kidnapping or lose Mason’s business.”
“Well, Paul,” she said, “I was trying to do what the Chief wanted — that is, what I thought he’d want under the circumstances.”
Drake said to Mason, “You’re bad enough. This girl is twice that bad.”
Mason grinned at Della. “Don’t talk with him this morning, Della, he’s suffering from an ingrowing disposition.”
“Did he get Helen Monteith?” she asked.
“No, the officers did,” Mason told her.
“Oh!” she exclaimed in startled dismay.
“It’s all right, Della,” Mason said. “Ring up Sabin’s residence, get Richard Waid or Charles Sabin, whichever one is available; say that I’d like to see both of them at the office at their earliest convenience.”