“Why, did I say...”
“How about that date to go out and save your bacon at Hillgrade Avenue if you didn’t call inside of an hour?”
Mason said, “I had some trouble, Paul. I was talking with a witness. I couldn’t break away to get to a telephone without jeopardizing the whole thing. And after all, it only meant a trip out to Hillgrade Avenue for you. That was only a matter of twenty minutes, and it was better to send you on a wild-goose chase than to jeopardize what I was working on.”
“Oh, yes, a wild-goose chase,” Drake said. “I see.”
“Well,” Mason said, “that was the way it looked to me. House standing there, gloomy and sedate, with a light or two in it, but no one to answer the doorbell.”
“And the doors all unlocked and waiting for you to go right on in?” Drake asked.
Mason shook his head. “Not me.”
“Why not?”
“Be your age, Paul. Somebody rings you up at one o’clock, tells you to go to a certain address, and walk right into a house you’ve never seen before. You go blundering on in. Someone comes out with a double-barreled shotgun, says, ‘Burglars, eh,’ and lets you have both loads of buckshot right in the middle of your stomach. No, thank you. None of that in mine. They answer bells or I don’t open doors.”
“You mean to say you didn’t go in?”