He was close enough so that Mason could hear the little whining noises of eagerness in the animals throat as he swam with shoulders high out of the water. As a businessman, I suppose I should say that I want to do whats right and then try to keep the figure at the lowest possible point. But I dont feel much like a businessman now. I feel like a parent, perhaps an uncle who has harmed someone whom he really loves. … How much? Mason slipped his arm around Della Streets waist. Dining, dancing and relaxing, Paul. At this stage were hiring you to do the work. Where are you? He turned on the light and looked around at the messy space. You missed her heart but knicked a lung, I think. The EMTs were treating her for a collapsed lung. Then, Mason said, I want bail fixed for her, and when you get a judge to fix bail, I want you to make the claim that the fifty thousand dollars worth of jewels is merely so much newspaper talk that its easy to say fifty thousand dollars in round figures, but that for the purposes of fixing bail we want to know exactly what jewelry was taken otherwise well consider that the jewelry had only a nominal value and that bail should be fixed at a very nominal amount. Trixie made a grumbling noise. She looked at him suspiciously. Yeah, he says he knows the ring better than he knows her. Della Streets voice was wistful. And I take it, she said, “the client comes first. It was a little after seven-thirty when I turned into the dirt lane that led from the road to the house. I stopped the pickup, switched off the engine, reached into the glove compartment, and took out a pair of binoculars. Through the glasses I could see them moving down to the garden. I counted three of them and recognized the one in the lead. He was a big, twelve-point buck deer, an old and valued acquaintance, the kind that a Texan might say of,Weve howdied, but we aint shook. With him were two does. The deer were moving into the garden to eat my corn and grow fat. I didnt mind. Its complicated. Im givin you one more chance, Billy said. You understand?’ Im going with you. And you knew it on the third, the date that Mr. Lutts died? You want me to act all worried and sad? She got the job under false pretenses. I started getting suspicious when a couple of my men saw her with you. So he had discovered her real identity and purpose in coming to Danton..