Salty Bowers grinned across at Mason. “We may as well go into the living-room. She’ll go on and on like this...”
“Seems like men don’t have no consideration for women nowadays,” Nell Sims went on. “They just don’t stop to think. Lucille wants to make a good impression on your lawyer friend, and you bring her into a kitchen! — Land sakes! What’s this?”
Mrs. Sims picked up the sugar bowl, and under it a folded paper began slowly straightening out as the weight of the bowl was removed from it.
“Looks like a note,” Della Street said.
Mrs. Sims spread it open, held it out at arm’s length, and squinted her eyes. “There,” she said, “I’ve gone and forgotten my glasses again. Something’s written on it all right, but I can’t read it without my specs.” She handed it to Della Street. “You’ve got young eyes. Suppose you read it.”
Della Street glanced through it hastily. “It’s from your daughter, Mrs. Sims. Do you want me to read it out loud or—”
“Certainly I do. What’s the idea of Dorina slipping notes under the sugar bowl? Why didn’t she come right out and say anything she had to tell me?”
Della Street said, “The note says: 'Dear Mom — Hayward has been after me to go to Las Vegas and get married. I’ve been trying to make up my mind all day. I still don’t know the answer. But if I’m not home by midnight, you will know what’s happening. If you don’t like it, don’t try to stop us, because you can’t. Love—. And it’s signed with just the initial D.”
Mrs. Sims slowly dried her hands on the dish towel. “Can you beat that!” she demanded.
Salty Bowers said, “Well, if she is in love with him, and—”
Nell Sims sputtered. “If she’s in love with him! The idea of a girl leaving a note like that when she’s going away to get married. Land sakes! If she’d been in love with him, she’d tear the house down getting started. Been thinking it over all day and can’t make up her mind! It’s a wonder she wouldn’t ask her Ma for a little advice. I could have told her. Looks good to her now because all of the younger men are in the Army. These birds that are left look like picture actors to the girls, because the girls ain’t seen any young men in civilian clothes for so long they’ve forgotten what they look like. You wait until these young men start coming back. Why, land sakes, when Jerry Coslet gets back, this Hayward Small will look like an old dodo to Dorina. — That’s the way with girls these days, won’t ask their mothers for any advice. Think they know everything. Soak up a little sophisticated patter and think they can brush life off to one side with wisecracks.”
Mason said, “Your daughter seems to be a very level-headed young woman, Mrs. Sims. Perhaps she’s been taking all of these things into consideration.”
“She’s a good girl,” Mrs. Sims said positively. “A mighty good girl, and she’ll be all right. You just can’t make a sow’s ear out of a silk purse, no matter how hard you try.”
“That’s right,” Mason observed, smiling.
Salty Bowers, standing awkwardly ill at ease, said, “Lucille is just about due and...”
“You get out of my kitchen,” Nell Sims said. “Go on, all of you now. Get out of the kitchen.”
Della Street said, “Let me help with the dishes, Mrs. Sims. There’s quite a stack here, and after all, I’m not trying to make any romantic impression.”
Nell Sims’ black eyes swung to Della Street. “Well, if you’re not, you should be,” she snapped. “Land sakes! The way some educated people are so blind they can’t see... Go on, all of you. Get out of my kitchen.”
“She means it,” Salty grinned.
Della Street flashed her a quick smile. “It was a very nice dinner, Mrs. Sims. And I’m quite certain your daughter will be all right.”
“Of course she’ll be all right. I just wish you could have seen Jerry Coslet the day... That’s the worst of it, she hasn’t seen her friends. Been hanging around the kitchen too much. Just a case of absence making the heart grow fonder of the bird in hand. — Wait until I see that Hayward Small. I’ll give him a piece of my mind. Son-in-law or no son-in-law, I’ll tell him. — Go on now. Get out, all of you. Lucille Brunn’s going to come any minute and if she gets into this kitchen she — go on, get out of here.”
In the living-room. Mason grinned at Salty Bowers. “She even shook her apron at us,” he said, “shooing us out of the kitchen as if we were a bunch of chickens.”
“She’s a character,” Salty grinned. “Out in Mojave the boys used to come in and egg her on just to hear her talk. She—”
He broke off as the doorbell sounded.
Salty Bowers excused himself, hurried to the door, returned with an air of beaming pride. “Lucille, this is Mr. Mason,” then suddenly realizing that he should have introduced Della Street first, corrected himself hastily, “Miss Street and Mr. Mason.”
Lucille Brunn had a small face, dark, intense eyes and a quick, nervous manner. She tactfully turned to acknowledge the introduction to Della Street first, then gave Mason her hand.
Bowers said, “We’re getting married day after tomorrow and going to head out into the desert for a honeymoon.”
“You’ve lived in the desert?” Della Street asked Miss Brunn.
“No. I’m getting acquainted with it through Salty,” she laughed.
“The desert,” Salty announced, “is the best mother a man ever had. You do what she wants you to and she’s kind to you. She trains you to do your thinking for yourself, too, and that’s good; but just you forget about her laws, and you’ve got trouble on your hands — lots of trouble. A man don’t make a mistake only once in the desert.”
It was a long speech for Salty, and showed the depth of his feeling.
Della Street said politely to Lucille Brunn. “I hope you’ll be happy out in Salty’s desert. He makes it sound very tempting.”
“I’m certain I will,” and then, with a quick, nervous laugh, “I’ll be happy anywhere with Salty.”
The door from the hallway opened and Velma Starler, hurriedly entering the room, brought up to a sharp stop at sight of Perry Mason and Della Street.
“Oh, hello. I didn’t know you were planning to be here. It isn’t... I mean my patient hasn’t had any trouble?”
“None whatever,” Mason said. “He simply asked me to come up on a business matter.”
“Oh! I’m relieved. Dr. Kenward insisted I should take an afternoon off. He said he’d send out another nurse for the day, but Mr. Clarke made such a to-do about it that the doctor let it go. You see,” she went on to explain, “we had a rather hectic night. But how about you folks? You’ve been at the beach?”
“Riding,” Mason said. “That accounts for the sunburn. We were in the saddle all day.”
“I love to ride,” Velma said, and then, turning to Lucille, “Been here long, Lucille?”
“Just arrived.”
“What’s happened? Anything new?”
“I haven’t heard of anything. Try and get Salty to tell you anything, even if he knows it.” She laughed. “When it comes to information, he’s a one-way street.”
Mason said, “It seems that this was the date for the regular stockholders’ meeting of the mining corporation. They brought up their attorney and tried to use an olive branch as cover for a little scheme.”