“About the telephone?”
“Yes.”
“What about it?”
“Why the devil should anyone resort to the complicated means of putting a code in the top of a can if he could get to a telephone? After all, you know, Della, my idea has been that the code idea was necessary because we had two persons who needed to communicate with each other, couldn’t see each other, and so had to leave messages in a can at a certain place.”
“Well, what’s wrong with that?”
“But why the devil couldn’t they telephone to each other? There wouldn’t be any danger in that. A person can go into a telephone booth anywhere, drop a nickel, dial a number, and talk with any person he wants. In that way, a man could give another complete instructions without the possibility of having them garbled, or, as happened in this case, having the woman of the house find the can and toss it into the discard.”
She frowned. “Well, why not?”
“That’s just it. There’s only one explanation. The person can’t use a telephone.”
“Why?”
Mason said, “Either because they can’t get to a telephone, or because they couldn’t use it if they did.”