“No. She lived in the flat with Mr. Hocksley. I don’t know how she happened to come here.”
“Had you seen her at all today?”
“I’m not going to be questioned about this.”
Mason said. “That’s what you think. You’re going to be questioned about this until your eardrums get calloused. Who telephoned you?”
“I don’t know. It was a woman with a nice voice, who said Sarah had given her a message to pass on to me, that I was to leave my car about half a block beyond the house up the hill. I was to walk back to this house and come right in. In case Sarah wasn’t here, I was to switch on the lights and make myself at home. She said Sarah would be here within a very few minutes of the time I arrived. She said Sarah was keeping a watch on someone who might be trying to double-cross her, and she couldn’t break away long enough to talk with me herself.”
“Did you think it might be some sort of a trap?”
“Not then.”
“Did the one who spoke to you say anything about not telephoning the police?”
“Yes.”
“And you didn’t think of this as being a trap of some sort to get you? In other words, didn’t you feel somewhat diffident about coming out into a residential neighborhood and simply walking into a strange house at two o’clock in the morning, switching on the lights, and making yourself at home?”