Mason looked at the house numbers and said, “Probably the last one in the row… Yes, here it is.”
The bungalow faced to the south and east. Above it, on the west, towered the slopes of the hill, covered with a thick growth of chaparral. Below, to the east, the city stretched in glistening brilliance, the white buildings reflecting the brilliant sunlight, spotless gems of intense white below the red patches of tiled roofs.
Mason looked the place over before he went up to ring the bell. It was within two hundred feet of the end of the subdivision, and, just beyond the house, the road, taking advantage of the little bench on the hillside, terminated in a big circle where cars could be turned around. The sunlight was warm and the air balmy. The sky was a blue, cloudless vault. Of to the far northeast mountain crests sparkled, a white coating of snow suspended above the pastel blues of distant slopes.
Mason said, “Curtains drawn tight. Doesn’t look as though anyone’s home.”
“If he’s here,” Drake said, “it’s a hide-out.”
Mason led the way up the short stretch of cement walk to the porch, and pressed his thumb against the bell button. They could hear the ringing of a bell on the inside of the house, but there was no answering sound of motion. There was about the place that dead silence indicative of an untenanted house.
“Might try the back door,” Drake suggested.
Mason shook his head, pressed his thumb against the button once more, and said, “Well, I guess… Wait a minute, Paul. What’s this?”
Drake followed the direction of his eyes. Just below the threshold was a jagged, irregular splotch of rusty, reddish brown.
Mason moved his feet and said, “There’s another one, Paul.”
“And another one back of that,” Drake said.
“All within eighteen inches of the doorstep,” Mason pointed out. “Looks as though someone had been wounded and gone in, or had been wounded and gone out. He must have been losing quite a bit of blood at that.”
“So what?” Drake asked.
Mason pulled back the screen door, examined the front door, and said, “It isn’t tightly closed, Paul.”
“Let’s keep our noses clean,” Drake warned.
Mason bent down to examine the bloodstains. “They’ve been here for a while,” he announced. “Wonder if the sun would shine in here later on in the afternoon… They look baked.”
He raised his eyes to determine the course of the shadows. The porch consisted of a slab of cement with a gable roof extending not over three feet from the side of the house, furnishing a somewhat scanty protection for the door, a roof which was more ornamental than useful.
“How about it, Perry?” the detective asked.
By way of answer, Mason knocked on the door, at the same time pushing against the panels with his knee.
The door swung slowly open.
“There you are, Paul,” Mason said. “You’re a witness to what happened. We knocked on the door, and the force of the knocking pushed the door open.”
“Okay,” Drake said, “but I don’t like it. Now what?”
Mason stepped inside. “Anyone home?” he called.
It was a typical bungalow with wide windows, gas radiators, an ornamental half-partition opening to a dining room, and a swinging door evidently leading to a kitchen. On the side of the living room were two doors which evidently opened into bedrooms.
The house had the atmosphere of a place that had been lived in. There were magazines on a wicker table in the center of the living room, with a comfortable chair drawn up near the table, a floor lamp behind it. A magazine lay face down and open on the wicker table.
Mason lowered his eyes to the floor on which were several Navajo rugs.
He pointed to a red splotch on one of the Navajo rugs. A few inches farther on was another. Then there was a spattering drop with irregular edges on the floor, another on the rug nearest the bedroom door on the left.
Mason followed the trail directly to the closed door of the bedroom.
Drake hung back. “Going in?” he asked.
By way of answer, Mason turned the knob and opened the door.
A blast of hot, fetid air rushed out of the bedroom to assail their nostrils. It was the oxygen-exhausted air of a room tightly closed in which gas heat has been generated, and it was an atmosphere which held the suggestion of death.
It needed only a glance at the fully clothed figure lying on the bed to confirm the message of that superheated, lifeless air.
Mason turned back to Paul Drake. “Call Homicide, Paul,” he said. “There’s a phone.”
The detective whirled to the telephone.
Mason stepped into the room and gave a quick look around.
Apparently it was a woman’s bedroom. There were jars of cream and bottles of lotion on the dresser. There were bloodstains on the floor. There was no counterpane on the bed. The top blanket had been soaked with blood which had dried into a stiff circular stain beneath the still body.
The corpse was clothed in a double-breasted gray suit, with the coat unbuttoned. Red had trickled down the trousers to dry in sinister incrustations. There were no shoes on the body. Gray, silk, embroidered socks which harmonized with the gray trousers covered the feet. The man lay on his back. His lids were half closed over glassy eyes. The jaw was sunken, and the interior of the partially opened mouth showed a grayish purple. About the lips was a crimson smear, which might have been the faint traces of lipstick, a stain which would hardly have been noticeable in life but which was now strikingly evident against the pallid skin of the dead man.
The gas radiator was hissing at full blast. The windows were tightly closed, the shades drawn.
Somewhere in the room a fly was buzzing importantly.
Mason dropped to one knee, looked under the bed, and saw nothing. He opened a closet door. It was filled with articles of feminine wearing apparel. He looked in the bathroom. It was immaculate save for rusty red splotches on the side of the wash bowl. A towel on the floor was stiff with dried blood. Mason opened the door into the adjoining bedroom. It was evidently used as a spare room for guests. There was no sign that it had been occupied recently.
Mason retraced his steps to find Paul Drake just hanging up the telephone.
“Tidings?” Drake asked.
“I wouldn’t know,” Mason said. “Probably.”
“Look in his clothes?”
“No.”
Drake heaved a sigh of relief. “I’m glad you’re showing some sense. For God’s sake, Perry, close that door… Let’s open a few windows, first.”
Mason said, “No, let’s go outside. We’ll leave things here just as they were when we came in.”
Drake said, “We’ve got our fingerprints on things. The boys from Homicide aren’t going to…” He broke off to listen. “Car coming,” he said.
A car purred past the house, swung in a turn at the end of the roadway, came back, and stopped.
Drake, who was nearest the front window, slid one of the drapes a few inches to one side, and said, “Coupe. Class at the wheel… She’s getting out… Swell legs… Overnight bag, brown coat, fox fur collar… Here she comes. What do we do, Perry? Answer the bell?”
Mason said, “Push that door shut with your foot, Paul. I think there’s a spring lock. Try and get the license number on the car.”
Drake said, “I can’t see it right now. She’s parked right in front of the house. If she drives away, I’ll get it.”
“Sit still and shut up,” Mason said.
They could hear the click-clack of heels on the cement, the sound of the screen door opening. They waited for the doorbell to ring, but heard instead the scrape of a key against the metal lock plate on the door. Then the latch shot back, and a woman entered the room.
For a moment her eyes, adjusting themselves to the subdued light of the interior, failed to take note of the two men. She started directly for the bedroom, then suddenly stopped. Her eyes became wide and round as she saw Mason. She dropped her bag and the coat from nerveless fingers, turned, and started toward the door. A key container dropped with a muffled clang to the wooden floor.