“Yes.”
“Why did you want to frighten me?”
“Take it easy. Perry,” Drake warned.
She moved her chair a few inches nearer Mason’s. The negligee slid back along the silk of her stockings. “Is this,” she asked, “a game of some kind? Because if it is, you might just as well come out in the open and be frank.”
“All I want is that wrist watch,” Drake interposed hastily.
“I think this is a racket. I don’t think your wife ever had a wrist watch.”
A latchkey clicked back the lock of the outer door. Marjory Trenton frowned at the sound, started to get to her feet, then sank back in the chair. Drake grinned at her discomfiture. She flashed him a disdainful glance, drew her negligee around her. The door opened, and a man in the late forties, with a dark mustache, very black eyes, and hair which had turned gray at the temples, recoiled as he saw the two men.
“Come in, Rooney,” Mason invited, “and close the door behind you.”
Rooney indignantly kicked the door shut. “What’s the idea?” he demanded of Marjory Trenton. “Why didn’t you tell me these men were here? Who are they, and what the hell...?”
“Take it easy,” Drake cautioned. “We’re doing this to give you a break. We’re trying to save you a lot of publicity.”