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.