“How long since it was stolen from Mrs. Drake?” she countered.
“About three months,” Mason said.
“Well, it certainly looked new when I got it.”
“I’ll take Scotch in mine,” Drake remarked. “Let’s forget the wrist watch until her boyfriend gets here.”
“I didn’t say he was my boyfriend!” she blazed.
“Sure not,” Mason agreed, dropping ice cubes into the glass, “probably just a chap who knocked at the door with an armful of magazines. He was working his way through college and you wanted to help him out, so you subscribed to a club of half a dozen magazines, and got this wrist watch as a premium.”
She held a bottle of Scotch over the glasses and said, “A little more of that sarcasm, and you won’t get any drink.”
“Under those circumstances,” Mason assured her, smiling, “we’ll discontinue the sarcasm.”
Her hand held the whiskey bottle tilted over the glass as she studied him. “You,” she announced, “are putting on this hard-boiled act. You’re not really like that. Why don’t you snap out of it and be natural? What are you trying to do, frighten me?”
For a moment Mason was disconcerted, then he laughed and said, “Thanks for the compliment. I’m not trying to act hard-boiled. I’m trying to act like a gentleman.”