The Case of the Baited Hook by Erle Stanley Gardner Page A

line. Mason said, "Perry Mason talking. I put a personal ad in your paper to make the morning edition. I wonder if there's been any answer to it."
    "Just a moment. I'll check it up with the classified ad department," the man said. Mason could hear steps retreating from the telephone, and a moment later returning; and the man's voice said, "Yes, Mr. Mason. A young woman left a reply at the counter not over an hour ago. It says simply, 'Okay. Go ahead. R.P.,' and it's headed, Answer to M.'-which, I take it, means your ad… Anyway, we're going to publish the ad in tomorrow's edition so there's no reason to keep it confidential."
    "Thank you very much," Mason said, hung up, and nodded to Paul Drake. "Okay, Paul," he said. "Let's go drop in on the thwarted wife."

4
    MASON SHIFTED INTO SECOND AT THE FOOT OF THE GRADE. The road wound upward, twisting and turning around the steep sides of typical Southern California mountains. The subdivision was relatively new, and there were many vacant lots, some marked with a red placard bearing the word, SOLD. Here and there were scattered bungalows, obviously new. Up nearer the top of the grade, where a ridge offered more level building sites, half a dozen small homes were clustered.
    "It'll be one of those," Drake said.
    Mason looked at the house numbers and said, "Probably the last one in the row… Yes, here it is."
    The bungalow faced to the south and east. Above it, on the west, towered the slopes of the hill, covered with a thick growth of chaparral. Below, to the east, the city stretched in glistening brilliance, the white buildings reflecting the brilliant sunlight, spotless gems of intense white below the red patches of tiled roofs.
    Mason looked the place over before he went up to ring the bell. It was within two hundred feet of the end of the subdivision, and, just beyond the house, the road, taking advantage of the little bench on the hillside, terminated in a big circle where cars could be turned around. The sunlight was warm and the air balmy. The sky was a blue, cloudless vault. Off to the far northeast mountain crests sparkled, a white coating of snow suspended above the pastel blues of distant slopes.
    Mason said, "Curtains drawn tight. Doesn't look as though anyone's home."
    "If he's here," Drake said, "it's a hide – out."
    Mason led the way up the short stretch of cement walk to the porch, and pressed his thumb against the bell button. They could hear the ringing of a bell on the inside of the house, but there was no answering sound of motion. There was about the place that dead silence indicative of an untenanted house.
    "Might try the back door," Drake suggested.
    Mason shook his head, pressed his thumb against the button once more, and said, "Well, I guess… Wait a minute, Paul. What's this?"
    Drake followed the direction of his eyes. Just below the threshold was a jagged, irregular splotch of rusty, reddish brown.
    Mason moved his feet and said, 'There's another one, Paul."
    "And another one back of that," Drake said.
    "All within eighteen inches of the doorstep," Mason pointed out. "Looks as though someone had been wounded and gone in, or had been wounded and gone out. He must have been losing quite a bit of blood at that."
    "So what?" Drake asked.
    Mason pulled back the screen door, examined the front door, and said, "It isn't tightly closed, Paul."
    "Let's keep our noses clean," Drake warned.
    Mason bent down to examine the bloodstains. "They've been here for a while," he announced. "Wonder if the sun would shine in here later on in the afternoon… They look baked."
    He raised his eyes to determine the course of the shadows. The porch consisted of a slab of cement with a gable roof extending not over three feet from the side of the house, furnishing a somewhat scanty protection for the door, a roof which was more ornamental than useful.
    "How about it, Perry?" the detective asked.
    By way of answer, Mason knocked on the door, at the same time pushing against the