“How far do you want me to check up on Mrs. Sabin and the son, Perry?” he asked.
“Everything you can find out,” Mason said.
Drake checked off the points on his fingers. “Let’s see now, if I have everything straight. Get the dope on the widow and Steve Watkins. Cover the bird stores and find out about the profane parrot. Get all the information I can about the mountain cabin and what happened up there. Get photographs of the interior, and... How about the exterior, Perry, do you want them?”
“No,” Mason said, “I’m going to drive up there, Paul, and give it the once-over. The only photographs I want are those which were taken when the police discovered the body.”
“On my way,” Drake told him, sliding out of the chair.
“And incidentally,” Mason said, as the detective was halfway to the door, “here’s another hunch. Let’s suppose the murderer substituted parrots, then what became of Casanova?”
“I’ll bite,” Drake said, with a grin, “what do you do with a parrot? Make a parrot pie, or do you broil ’em on toast?”
Mason said, “You put them in cages and listen to them talk.”
“No, really!” Drake exclaimed in mock surprise. “You don’t tell me.”
Mason said, “Get it through that droopy mind of yours that I’m not joking. That’s exactly what you do with a parrot, and whoever took Casanova, may have done it because he wanted to listen to something Casanova had to say.”