Della Street, with a woman’s eye to the housekeeping end of things, said, “It looks as though someone comes in about once a week to do cleaning. Notice the ash tray over here.”
“What about it?” Mason asked.
“It has a trap,” she pointed out, “which opens into the bottom. Here’s the stuff that’s in the bottom, cigar bands, cigar butts, cigarette ends, matches, and...”
“Any lipstick on the cigarette ends?” Mason asked.
“Yes.”
Mason said, “I’m going to take a quick look upstairs. I can probably tell more from the bedrooms and the stuff that’s in the bedroom closets than I can down here.”
“Just what are you looking for?”
“I don’t know exactly. I’m trying to get the sketch. Karr’s engaged in some peculiar activity. He’s tied in with the Chinese in some way. He has a lot of money. Probably he’s not a philanthropist. Hocksley was his partner, probably knows a good deal about his methods. Twenty years ago Hocksley betrayed him, and one of his partners met his death. Now Hocksley suddenly crops up again.”
“You suppose he’s trying to avenge the death of his partner and his old betrayal?” Della asked.
“That’s just the point,” Mason said, taking her elbow as he assisted her up the stairs, switching on a light in the hallway. “Twenty years is a long time to make an unsuccessful search for a man. The probabilities are that, following the episode in 1921, Karr didn’t think very much about Hocksley until the present situation in the Orient started a renewal of his activities. Well, we’ll take a look around and see what we can find. Take this bedroom on the left, Della. Switch on the lights, look through the bureau drawers. Find out everything you can about the person or persons who live here. I’ll take this bedroom on the right.”
Mason opened the door, switched on the lights, then suddenly stood stock still.
Della Street, looking back over her shoulder from the other bedroom, sensed the rigidity of his attitude. “What is it, Chief?” she asked.
Mason motioned her back. “Don’t come in.”
But she came to peer over his shoulder, then recoiled with a quick gasping intake of her breath.
A man’s body lay sprawled half on and half off the bed, his head dangling limply downward, his face the greenish livid hue of death. From a bullet hole in his chest, blood had welled out to soak the bedspread and form in a pool on the floor. It was the body of the Gentrie’s roomer, Delman Steele.
Chapter 16
Della Street gripped Mason’s arm. In her nervousness, she poured all of her strength into her fingers. “Don’t — don’t—”
Mason pried loose her cold fingers. “Stand there, Della. Don’t come in the room. Don’t touch anything.”
“Chief, keep out of this! Don’t. Please, don’t! I...”
“I have to,” he said. “We’re in it now — all the way. Keep your chin up.”
Mason moved cautiously into the room. He felt the blood on the bedspread, touched his finger to Steele’s wrist, lifted the arm slightly, turned and left the room. With his handkerchief, he scrubbed off the metal plate and button on the light switch, then pushed out the lights with a forefinger padded with his handkerchief.
“Don’t take chances on this,” she said. “Call the police. You’ve got to do it now.”
Mason’s laugh was sardonic. “Yes. We’re in a sweet position to call the police! I’ve told the radio squad that I live here, that my brother was Lieutenant Tragg of Homicide. You’ve taken the part of a young woman soliciting subscriptions for the San Francisco Chronicle. We can tell the police that we hadn’t been in the house long enough to have discovered the body, that we didn’t know the secret of this bedroom, that we stumbled onto the house as the result of some amateur detective work, that, as soon as we found the body, we decided we’d better cooperate and be good children. Then we’d have to tell it to a grand jury, and, perhaps even to a trial jury.”
“But it’s the only thing to do. We have to.”
He shook his head emphatically. “They’d have us exactly where they wanted us. We’d be on the defensive not only for the rest of this case, but for the rest of our lives.”
“It seems to me we will, anyway,” she muttered. “As soon as the body is discovered, police will start an investigation. They’ll ask Lieutenant Tragg about his brother. They’ll give him a complete description of the pair they found in the house, and — well, you know the answer to that.”
“Of course I know the answer to that,” Mason said. “That’s what I’m getting at.”
“I don’t get you.”
“There’s only one way to avoid being kept on the defensive. That’s to attack.”
“But how can we attack? We have no more hope of attacking than a rabbit that’s being chased by a pack of greyhounds.”
“That’s just the point,” Mason said. “Don’t you get it? They aren’t on our trail yet. They won’t get on it until they find this body. They won’t find it until some person comes to the house.”
“Who?”
“Perhaps,” Mason said, “it’ll be Rodney Wenston — although I hardly think so. Even if he does come here, he’s hardly in a better position to call the police than we are.”
“Why?”
“Because of the purpose for which this house was used, and the deception Karr practiced on the officers. Karr evidently fears the police as much as we do. And Rodney Wenston, unless he has an iron-clad alibi, is more apt to have pulled the trigger than anyone else — remember, Wenston’s been flying Karr back and forth to San Francisco, helping keep the secret of that wounded leg.”
Della nodded, then, indicating the bedroom with a slight inclination of her head, asked, “How did he get there, and why was he killed?”
Mason said, “Let’s get out of here. We’ll talk in Locarno’s Grill. Right now the big thing is a getaway.”
They switched out lights in the corridor, went down the stairs to the living room. Mason went around turning out lights. “No need to bother with fingerprints down here,” he said. “Once they suspect us, the two police officers can make an absolute identification.”
“Out the front door or the back?” she asked.
“The front door by all means. We stroll out arm in arm. Man-and-wife-going-to-the-movies stuff.”
“It’s late for a movie, and,” she added, “my stomach says man-and-wife-should-go-to-restaurant.”
“Okay,” Mason said, “man and wife go to restaurant. Wait here while I turn out the lights in the dining room.”
“Wait here nothing!” she protested. “What do you think I am? I stick to you like a foxtail to a dog’s ear until we get out of this place.”
Mason slipped his arm around her waist. “I know how you feel, Della,” he said sympathetically.
“D-d-darn it,” she said, his sympathy moving her almost to the point of tears. “Why couldn’t we let Paul D-d-drake keep on f-ff-finding our bodies for us?”
“We just led with our chins, that’s all,” Mason said. “Walked right into it, and, having walked right into it, we’re going to keep our chins up and walk right out of it.”
Della Street swung around to stand close to him. Her body pressed against his, her hands on his shoulders. “Don’t get the idea my chin’s down. I just got an awful jolt, that’s all.”