“You heard me.”
“Good heavens, Mr. Mason! That— Why... why if you’d only let me know, I could have bought all the stock you wanted at eight dollars a share. There have been some sales at seven.”
“That’s the point,” Mason said. “I told you I paid too much money for it.”
“Why?”
“Now that,” Mason said, “is something that I can’t discuss. You can, of course, draw your own conclusions.”
“You mean that you wanted... you wanted Daddy Lutts out of the corporation?”
“He bought right back in again, didn’t he?” Mason asked.
“Yes, of course. But during the period when he wasn’t a stockholder he had to resign from the board of directors because he wasn’t properly qualified. Look here, Mr. Mason, you’re playing some sort of a deep game, with the control of this corporation at stake.”
Mason grinned, turned the car into the bumpy, ancient road which led up to the property of the Sylvan Glade Development Company. He made the sharp turn at the foot of the hill. The car crawled up the hill, and then, as they reached the top, Doxey exclaimed excitedly, “Good heavens, Mr. Mason! That’s Daddy Lutts’ car. He’s up here himself.”
“That’s fine,” Mason said. “I want to see him.”
“I simply can’t imagine why he didn’t come home,” Doxey said. “But it’s a relief to me to know that he’s all right. I suppose it’s some new business angle he’s working on. He’s sure a sharpshooter.”
There was envy and a certain sharp-edged jealousy in Doxey’s voice.
Mason parked the car. He and Doxey got out.
“You may as well wait here, Della,” Mason said casually.
“We’ll be right back, Miss Street,” Doxey said reassuringly.
“Can we get into the place?” Mason asked.
“We can if Daddy Lutts is in there. The door is kept locked, but he has the key.”
Doxey tried the door. “It’s unlocked,” he said. “Come on in.”
“What a dirty place,” Mason announced.
“The people who moved out knew it was going to be torn down,” Doxey explained. “They just pulled out and left all of this junk behind them.”
“Better call to Lutts,” Mason said, “and get him to come down.”
“He might not like that. There’s a certain protocol in connection with being a son-in-law.” Doxey said, grinning. “I’ll go up and see what he’s doing.”
“It’s fairly dark in here.” Mason said. “Even with daylight saving time, it’s rather late. Be careful.”
“I can see all right,” Doxey said, and groped his way up the stairs. Suddenly he stopped partway up the second flight.
“What’s the trouble?” Mason asked.
“Come... come up here,” Doxey said in a harsh, rasping voice.
“What’s the trouble?”
“Come up here.”
Mason climbed the stairs. Doxey was bending over Lutts’ body.
“Good heavens!” Mason said. “He’s lying there head down... what is it? A heart attack? How long do you suppose he’s been there?”
Doxey struck a match, shielded his eyes from the flame, said, “Look at that blood — it’s come from that hole in his chest.”
“Try his pulse,” Mason said.
Doxey bent down, then after a moment said, “I think he’s dead. His body’s begun to cool off. It feels sort of... well, you know — dead.”
Mason said, “All right. We’ll notify the police.”
“Shouldn’t we move him and get him around... so his head isn’t—”
“Don’t touch the body,” Mason warned. “Get the police.”
“Oh, good Lord,” Doxey said. “This is one hell of a mess. What am I going to do? How am I going to tell Georgiana? We can take his car. You drive yours and I’ll drive his and—”
“You leave everything exactly as it is,” Mason said. “Don’t touch a single thing. I’ll stay here and see that nothing happens, and you take my car, go down the hill and call the police.”
“I’ll stay, and you can go—”
“Not me,” Mason said. “The police don’t like it when I report that I’ve discovered a corpse.”
“Well, you were along on this one,” Doxey said. “I want you to remember—”
“Oh, sure,” Mason told him. “I’m going to be right with you in the thing, but you were the one to discover it, and you’ll be the one to report it.”
“You want to wait here?”
“I’ll wait right here. You explain to Miss Street that there’s been an accident.”
“She could sit in his car and—”
Mason shook his head. “The police wouldn’t like that. They’ll want to go over his car, trying to find fingerprints. Go call the police. I’ll wait.”
“All right,” Doxey said. “What department do I call?”
“Just tell whoever answers that you want to report a homicide,” Mason said, “and tell them you’re in a hurry. They’ll put you through.”
“All right,” Doxey said. “I’ll... do you think I’d better tell Georgiana?”
“I wouldn’t quite yet,” Mason told him.
Doxey ran back down the stairs. A few moments later Mason heard the car start, then take off down the hill. Mason walked back to stand in the doorway.
It was nearly ten minutes before Doxey returned, and Mason could hear the sound of the siren as a police car followed him. The lawyer walked out away from the doorway.
Doxey parked Mason’s car off to one side. The police car ground to a stop. One of the radio officers came bustling up to Mason. “Hello, Mr. Mason. How are you mixed up in this thing?”
“I’m not,” Mason said. “I was just standing guard until you arrived.”
“That isn’t what I meant.”
“Well,” Mason told him, “that’s what I meant.”
The officer looked at Mason sharply, then took a flashlight and entered the house. The other officer stood by the door, watching the place.
“It’s a job for homicide, all right,” the first officer called from the interior of the house.
Mason heard the officer in the car making contact on the two-way radiophone.
“You might tell me what you know about it,” the first officer said to Mason, emerging from the building.
“Ask him,” Mason said, jerking his thumb toward Doxey. “He’s related to the man. He found the body.”
“I didn’t touch anything,” Doxey said. “I wanted to straighten him up, but Mr. Mason said to leave him alone.”
“That’s right.”
“How is he related to you?”
“My father-in-law.”
“How old?”
“Around fifty-four or — five.”
“Where was he living?”
“With us.”
“How did you know he was up here?”
“I didn’t. I came up here on another matter and then saw his car.”
The officers continued to question Doxey about various matters until a car from Homicide Squad came laboring up the hill.
“Well, well, well, well,” Sergeant Holcomb said, “look who we’ve got here! Look who’s discovered another body!”
“Not me,” Mason said.
“How’d you happen to come up here?”
“Looking over property.”
“And this was all a big surprise to you,” Sergeant Holcomb said.
“That’s right.”
Holcomb said, “You should have some kind of a rubber stamp or pocket recorder so you could play this same record over and over. It would save wear and tear on your vocal cords.”
Mason said, “You’d better get in there and look around, and you’d better talk with that man over there. He’s the one who discovered the body.”
“Yeah, I know,” Sergeant Holcomb said sneeringly. “You arranged this one a little different.”