“You know damn well who lives here,” Borge remarked.
Mason said to Bodfish, “I’d like to have your unbiased opinion, Inspector. Do you think it’s necessary for an officer to ape this hard-boiled style in order to be efficient?”
“Shut up,” Bodfish ordered.
Mason nodded to Drake. “He does,” he told the detective.
Borge led the way up a flight of stairs, across’ a porch, rang a bell, received a buzzing signal, pushed the door open, and said, “Upstairs, you three.”
They climbed the stairs, with no word. Mason pushed past Della Street, so that he was the first up. Scudder, who had been standing by a window, walked across to meet Mason, and said, “Perhaps you can tell us what happened here.”
“Oh, did something happen here?”
“You know it did.”
“When?”
“When you were here.”