Back in the automobile, Mason slid in behind the steering wheel and jerked the car into motion. Paul Drake, sliding half around in the seat so that his back was propped across the corner formed by the door and the seat cushion, said, “So what?”
“So we go places,” Mason told him.
“What do we do when we get there?”
Mason said, “We go up on a porch and ring a doorbell.”
“You’re such a help,” Drake murmured, squirming himself into a position where he was entirely comfortable, with his head resting on the back of the cushion. “Let me know when you get there.” He closed his eyes and apparently dropped into prompt sleep.
Mason raced the traffic for the breaks at the intersection signals, swung into St. Rupert Boulevard and gave the car plenty of speed. He glided into the curb directly opposite a house on the right-hand side which sat back somewhat from the street, surrounded by a well-kept lawn. It was a pretentious, two-and-a-half storied residence, with wide veranda and a driveway leading back to a three-car garage with chauffeur’s quarters over the garage.
“Who lives here, Perry?” Drake asked.
“Austin Cullens,” Mason said. “Come on, Paul,” and he ran across the sidewalk and up to the porch. He found a doorbell and rang it. He could hear the bell jangling in the interior of the house, but there was no sound of motion back of the somber, unlighted windows.
The tall detective said casually, “The door’s ajar, Perry. Does that mean anything?”
“I think it does,” Mason said. “We’re going in.”
Drake slipped a flashlight from his pocket and said, “I suppose you know, some people shoot burglars.”
“Uh-huh,” Mason said. “Let’s find the light switch, Paul.”
The beam from Drake’s flashlight spotted a light switch. Mason reached for it, then stopped and said, “Wait a minute. This switch is already on.” He clicked it twice, to no avail.
“Looks like a fuse,” Drake said.
“All right,” Mason told him, “keep going. Throw your flashlight down on the floor. Let’s look for... there it is.”
Drake examined the red spot on the floor and said, “Now, wait a minute, Perry. Before we go any farther you’d better tell me exactly what you’re looking for. If this is...”
Mason jerked the flashlight out of the detective’s hand and said, “If this is what I think it is, Paul, we haven’t any time to waste in argument.” He swung the beam of the flashlight in a circle. Drake said, “Here’s another track coming out of this door.”
Mason pushed open the door, and Drake said, “Oh — Oh!” as the beam of the flashlight rested on the sprawled, lifeless figure of Austin Cullens.
“Try those lights,” Mason said.
Drake fumbled for the light switch, and clicked it ineffectively. “Listen, Perry,” he said, “let’s not leave any fingerprints around here. Let’s notify the police and...”
“In a house of this size,” Mason interrupted, “there’ll be several circuits. One fuse blown out won’t kill all the lights. Of course, the main switch may have been pulled, but it’s more apt to be a fuse. Try some of the other rooms, Paul, until you get one where the lights are on.”
Drake said, “Perry, I don’t like this. Every time we touch anything we leave fingerprints.”
“Don’t touch things, then,” Mason said shortly.
“Let me have the flashlight,” Drake said.
“You’ll just have to fumble around, Paul,” Mason told him. “Remember, you’re looking for a telephone with which to notify the police.”
“And what are you doing?” Drake said.
“I’m also looking for a telephone,” Mason told him.
“Now listen, Perry,” the detective said, “when I find a telephone, I’m going to call the cops, see?”
“I know,” Mason said impatiently, “that’s why I’m giving you an out. You’ll tell a straightforward story. As soon as you found the body, you started looking for a telephone. As soon as you found the telephone, you called the cops. Now get started.”
Drake stepped out into the hallway. Mason swung the beam of the flashlight about the room and to the body of the man on the floor. He had evidently been shot, the bullet entering the left side just above the heart. The man’s vest and shirt were open. His undershirt had been pulled up to disclose a chamois-skin belt, in which the flaps of several of the pockets had been raised. Apparently the belt was empty. A viscid red pool had formed beside the body. There were various red smears about the edge of this pool, as though someone bending over the body had stepped in the blood two or three times.
The room was a living room, with a large fireplace at one end, bookcases on either side, lounging chairs, a huge mahogany table, and an all-wave radio set in the corner. The floors were hardwood, waxed to a smooth sheen, with some half dozen Oriental rugs artistically placed. A top coat, scarf, hat and gloves, presumably belonging to Cullens, had been thrown hastily over the back of a chair. Mason, taking care to touch nothing, moved closer to the body, bent over, and suddenly heard a man’s voice saying, “Car number sixteen, proceed at once to the intersection of Washington and Maple Streets to investigate an automobile accident. Car number thirty-two, call your station. Car fourteen, go to thirty-eight nineteen Walpole Street to see a woman about a prowler.” Thereafter, the radio became silent.
Mason heard Drake’s footsteps in the corridor, saw that some light was filtering in through the half-open doorway. A moment later, Drake came back and said, “Okay, Perry, I notified Homicide.”
“Did you tell them I was here?” Mason asked.
“No, just told them about the body, and...”
He broke off as a voice from the corner of the room said, with startling clarity, “Calling car twenty-two. Proceed at once to ninety-one fifty-eight St. Rupert Boulevard. A private detective named Drake has just telephoned that the body of a murdered man is in the house. Probably the body is that of Austin Cullens. Proceed at once to the house. Hold for questioning anyone found on the premises. The homicide squad is on its way.”
The message was repeated. Drake asked, “Did you turn that radio on to police calls, Perry?”
Mason shook his head and said, “You didn’t need to tell them the name of the dead man, Paul.”
“They asked me about it,” Drake said, “asked me how I came to be here, and I told them I’d come to call on an Austin Cullens, accompanied by his lawyer.”
“Give them my name?” Mason asked.
“No. I just said, ‘his lawyer.’ ”
“That helps,” Mason observed sarcastically. “You didn’t need to tell them your life’s history, you know. Why didn’t you just say there was a corpse out here, and let it go at that?”
“The man at the other end of the line didn’t want it that way.”
“You can always hang up a receiver,” Mason pointed out.
“Yeah,” Drake told him, “you can, but I don’t. My license comes up for renewal next month.”
“Oh, well,” Mason said, “they’d have got the dope sooner or later anyway, I’m just not keen about having that information go out over the police radio. You can’t tell who’s listening in. How about the lights, Paul?”
“They’re just off in this corner of the house. The circuit which supplies the dining room, pantry, kitchen, and stairway is okay.”
“Did you leave them all on?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Where was the telephone?”
“The one I found was in the dining room. I think it’s an extension. There’s probably one in here.”
Mason swung the beam of the flashlight, and Drake said, “That’s a telephone over there in the corner.”