Rooney reached for his hat and said, “Get your clothes on, Margie.”
“You watch these two,” she said.
“Don’t worry,” Rooney said grimly. “I’ll watch them.”
“It won’t take me over three minutes,” she told him, dashing for the bedroom, her negligee trailing out behind her.
Rooney nervously consulted his watch. “I’m a busy man,” he said “I’ll have to get back to the office before five o’clock.”
“I’m busy, myself,” Mason told him. “And Drake is busy, too.”
Rooney sat in stiff, awkward silence, his eyes shifting apprehensively to the bedroom door. After a few minutes, Marjory Trenton, attired in a light blue tailored suit, opened the door and said, “Okay, let’s go.”
In the taxicab, the girl tried to make conversation, but Rooney was moody and preoccupied, so she lapsed into a silence, which she broke only when the cab swung in at the curb. “Okay, Big Boy,” she said to Perry Mason, “it’s your party. You pay for the cab.”
Mason grinned and handed the cab-driver a bill. “You win,” he told her. “Let’s go.”
They found Arthur P. Cutter in his office. He spoke with effusive cordiality to Rooney, eyed Marjory Trenton with the approval of one who has learned to appreciate beautiful things, nodded to Drake and Perry Mason.