Mason smiled and said, “Oscar, thanks a lot. That’s appreciated. I’ll keep quiet about it and you do the same. Now you’ve been to quite a bit of trouble, coming in here and I’m wondering if you wouldn’t accept a...”
“No, sir,” the man said hastily. “You were so nice to me on the ship that it’s a pleasure to do something for you in return. I thought I’d bring this up to you, and hope it might be some help.”
Mason shook hands with him, escorted him to the exit door and said, “Well, Oscar, perhaps some day I’ll be able to do something for you.”
“Yes, sir, thank you, sir. I hope you sail with me again, sir.”
Mason closed the door, came back, looked at Della Street and asked, “Well?”
She shook her head. “I can’t place it, Chief. And yet I remember having seen it. Some woman wore that dress, but for the life of me, I can’t tell right now who she was. After all, there were a couple of hundred passengers in first class.”
Mason took a small pair of scissors from his toilet case. He was cutting the cloth into three pieces as Paul Drake opened the door from his room and said, “Going into the dressmaking business, Perry?”
Mason said, “Paul, here’s something — a piece of cloth torn from a woman’s dress. I want you to make a few quiet inquiries among the passengers and see if you can find out who had a dress of that description.”
“Wouldn’t you know?” Drake asked. “You were on the ship.”
“Good Lord, no!” Mason said. “I see that they have clothes on and that’s about all.”