“I wouldn’t be surprised. I’ll tell you more about it within the next ten or fifteen minutes.”
Della Street swung the car skillfully through the late afternoon traffic. Drake, with his head pushed outside the car, reading street signs, said, “That’s Washington, Della, the next is the one we want.”
“There’s no sign on this corner,” Della said as she slowed the car.
“I think it’s the corner we want,” Mason told her. “Go ahead and make the turn anyway... Good Lord, I don’t know why it is that a city will go to all sorts of trouble and expense to attract tourists and strangers with advertising, and then act on the assumption that only the natives, who know every street in the city, are going to be looking for residences. It wouldn’t cost much to put up a sign big enough to read on every street intersection of any importance... This is it, Della, pull in to the curb.”
The house was a small California bungalow which dated back to an era of older and cheaper buildings. The outside consisted of redwood boards with strips of batten nailed across the cracks. Back of the house was a small garage, the doors of which stood open, disclosing an interior which was evidently used as a wood-shed and storehouse.
As Mason got out of the car, a parrot squawked in a high, shrill voice. “Hello, hello. Come in and sit down.”
Mason grinned at Drake. “Well,” he said, “I guess we’ve found a parrot.”
“There he is,” Della Street said, “in a cage on the screen porch.”
“Do we go to the front door and interview Helen Monteith?” Drake asked
“No,” Mason said, “We go to the back door and interview the parrot.”