Mason moved restlessly. He’d have to reach Paul Drake soon or there would be complications.
Mason eased himself off the box, tiptoed toward the house. A vague, disquieting thought intruded itself upon his mind. If this should be some elaborate hoax, some runaround by which Mason was to be placed on a spot, what could put him in a more embarrassing position than to be caught prowling around the back yard of a house at nearly two o’clock in the morning. After all, he’d been unusually credulous, too credulous in fact. It had been because of some quality in that voice, as well as because he’d been aroused out of sound slumber. Her voice had held a note of well-modulated poise which had, somehow, impressed Mason with its sincerity.
He looked at his watch again and reluctantly determined he’d have to go telephone Paul Drake, and call off his vigil. Quite evidently, she had anticipated he might do something like that, and had determined to keep him waiting until...
A light was switched on in the house.
Mason could see the beam pouring through an unshaded window. It splashed across a strip of lawn, and against an ornamental hedge. At the same time, Mason became acutely conscious that this all might be some clever trap. A voice on the telephone — Mason sent to the back yard of a strange house. Then they had only to put through a telephone call to the occupant of that house. When he switched on the light to answer the phone, Mason would come up to try the back door. Anyone would be legally justified in shooting him as a burglar.
There was a vast difference between making a rendezvous over the phone with a reassuringly calm voice and actually waiting in the midnight chill of a strange back yard.
Mason decided to let the back door determine the issue. If it turned out to be unlocked, he would go in, come what may. Otherwise, he’d return home and say nothing.
He tiptoed up the walk, paused for a moment as he encountered the back steps, then felt his way up, opened a screen door, winced inwardly at the creak of a rusty spring, stepped across a linoleum-covered surface, and tentatively tried the knob of the back door.
It opened readily enough.
Mason gently pushed the door. He could see the faint gleam of a reflected light trickling through from some room down a corridor. He took a cautious step forward — and the light was suddenly switched off, leaving the entire interior of the house in darkness. His eyes accustomed by now to this darkness, Mason could find no clue to indicate in which room the light had been turned on and then off again.