“So the police won’t know she packed to skip out?”
“Yes.”
“Isn’t that suppressing evidence, Chief?”
He said, “You’re acting under my instructions. If anything goes wrong. I take the rap.”
“Nothing doing,” she said, slipping out of her coat. “We’re in it together. Go out in the other room and sit down. Let me have a free hand here.”
“Okay,” Mason said. “Remember to keep your gloves on.”
Thirty minutes later she joined him in the outer room. They sat together by the little fireplace talking in low tones and waiting for the phone to ring. Perry Mason’s hand unconsciously sought Della Street’s, gently imprisoned the fingers. “Gosh, Della,” he said, “I’m getting sentimental. It almost seems as though this place had been made for us.”
She moved her other hand to gently stroke the back of his well-shaped, strong fingers. “Nix on it, Chief,” she said softly. “You could no more live a domestic life than you could fly. You’re a free-lance, happy-go-lucky, carefree, two-fisted fighter. You might like a home for about two weeks, and then it would bore you stiff. At the end of four months, you’d feel it was a prison.”
“Well,” Mason said, “this is part of the first two weeks.”
It seemed but a few minutes before they heard the click of a key in the lock. Mason glanced at his wrist watch. It was four-forty-five. Della Street, with a quick intake of breath, said, “I don’t want her to see me until I powder my nose,” and dashed for the bathroom.