“What’s Drake doing?”
“Waiting inside.”
One of the officers took Mason’s arm. The other ran ahead up the sidewalk and into the house. Drake came sauntering down the corridor to meet them, a cigarette dangling from his lips. “Hello, boys,” he said. “I see you got my call all right. I’ve notified Homicide.”
“Okay,” one of the officers said, “where do you fit into the picture?” Drake showed them his card and his license as a private detective. “You haven’t touched anything, have you?”
“Nothing except the telephone,” Drake said.
“And why the telephone?”
“I had to call Homicide, some way, didn’t I?”
Mason said, “Drake was careful to avoid using the telephone in the room where the body was found. We haven’t touched anything in there. The man was shot once. It looks as though robbery was the motive.”
A siren screamed in the distance. One of the men said, “Okay, Jim, here comes Homicide. Let’s give it a quick look before they get here... Hell, it’s dark in the corridor.”
“That’s what I told you,” Mason said. “One of the fuses is blown.”