The Case of the Haunted Husband

Chapter 17

Paul Drake had his feet on Perry’s desk and was reading the sporting section of the evening paper when the lawyer latchkeyed the door of his private office.

“Well, you made a quick trip,” Drake said, looking up.

“Where is Tragg?”

“Hasn’t shown up yet.”

Mason looked at his watch. “It has been half an hour.”

“Yeah, he should be due about any time. What was the excitement?”

Mason went over to the closet, hung up his hat and coat. “I didn’t think that Zitkousky woman would get as excitable.”

“What is the matter?”

“Oh, the chauffeur got crocked and got to making passes at her, and she used her mad money to grab a taxi and leave him. Now, she is afraid she has made an enemy out of him, and he may not give us his testimony.”

“What did you do?”

“Saw that she got some coffee to sober up on, and told her not to worry, that we would make the chauffeur talk. And I told her never, under any circumstances, to call me again at night.

“I thought she had good judgment, too. You haven’t heard anything more from Mrs. Greeley?”

“No.”

Mason looked at his watch. “Well, she should be here. She...”

Drake said abruptly, “That sounds fishy as hell to me, Perry.”

“What is that?”

“That story about the Zitkousky girl.”

Mason grinned. “All right then, I will change it. What sounds fishy about it?”

“About her getting so hysterical and offended at a guy making a pass at her. She is too damned attractive and too good-natured not to have had...”

“All right,” Mason said, “I shall change it. Thanks for the tip.”

Drake looked at him with narrowed eyes. “Now what?” he asked.

Mason said, “I have got to make this sound good for Tragg.”

“What’s the idea? Hold it, Perry. Here’s someone coming. Sounds like a woman.”

Mason walked over to the door which led to the corridor. He said, “As far as you know, I haven’t left the office, Paul. That may be better than telling Tragg about how Horty got sore at her boyfriend.” He flung open the door. Mrs. Greeley, garbed in black and carrying a light suitcase, stood in the corridor.

“Come in,” Mason invited, reaching out and taking the suitcase and when she had entered the office and he had closed the door, he went on, “Sit down, Mrs. Greeley. I am sorry we had to intrude on your dinner.”

“Oh, it is all right. To be perfectly frank, Mr. Mason, I don’t suppose I should go out so soon, but I feel a lot better doing that than I would sitting home and doing nothing. It is a frightfully all-gone feeling.”

“I understand.”

“I guess people never realize how much they take for granted in life,” she said with a little laugh. “Here it was only last week I was fussing because my husband had to work so much at nights, and now... and now... Oh, well, I will get to feeling sorry for myself if I keep on. Wish I could get something to work on — something to sink my teeth into.

“Death is so horribly final, Mr. Mason. I–I have never been touched closely by death before. Somehow, it shakes my faith in... things. And no one has been able to say anything that helps. Death is... it’s cruel, it’s terrible.”

“It’s no more terrible than birth,” Mason said. “We can’t understand it any more than we can understand life — or the sky at night. If we only had the vision to see the whole pattern of life, we would see death as something benign.”

She stared up at him. “Please go on. If you can only say something practical and sensible. I have heard so much hypocritical ‘all-for-the-best?’ business that I am sick and tired of it. How can it be for the best? Bosh!”

Mason said, “Suppose you couldn’t remember anything from one day to the next. You would get up in the morning without any recollection of yesterday. You would feel full of energy. Dew would be on the grass. The sun would be shining bright and warm. Birds would be singing, and you would feel that nature was a wonderful thing. Then the sun would rise higher in the heavens. You would begin to get a little fatigued.

“Along about noon you would be tired, then clouds would blot out the sun. There would be a thunder squall, and the heavens which had once been so friendly would be menacing. You would see water falling out of the sky, and would wonder if you were going to be totally submerged. You would see spurts of lightning tearing the sky apart. You would hear roaring thunder. You would be in terror.

“Then the clouds would drift away. The sun would come out again. The air would be pure and sparkling. You would regain your confidence. Then you would notice that the shadows were lengthening. The sun would disappear. There would be darkness. You would huddle around a light waiting to see what would happen next. You would feel weary, more than a little frightened. You would think that nature, which had started out to be so beautiful, had betrayed you. You would fight hard to keep your faith, and it would be a losing battle.

“The loved ones who were sitting around the fire with you would show signs of fatigue. Their heads would nod forward. They would lie down. Their eyes would close, and suddenly their personalities would be gone. Then you yourself would want to be down, and yet you would feel that as soon as you did, this awful unconsciousness would come over you...”

Mason broke off, smiled and said, “My words don’t carry conviction because you do know all of these symptoms as a part of life. You know that this unconsciousness is only asleep. You know that in the course of a few short hours, you will wake up completely refreshed, that the dawn will be breaking, that the sun will be coming up, the birds singing. You know that the awful visitation of noise and flashes was only a thunder shower, part of nature’s scheme to bring water from the ocean up into the mountains, to feed the streams and the rivers, to make the crops green. You would realize that sleep is nature’s means of strengthening you for a new day, that it is profitless to try to prolong the waking activities too far into the night, that nature is cooperating with you. But suppose you didn’t understand these things? Suppose you could see only from day-to-day?”

She nodded slowly. After a moment, she heaved a deep sigh.

Mason said, “Life is like that. We can only see from birth to death. The rest of it is cut from our vision.”

Drake stared up at Mason. “I shall be doggoned,” he said.

“What’s the matter, Paul?”

“I never knew you were a mystic!”

“I am not a mystic,” Mason said, smiling. “It is simply the application of what you might call legal logic to the scheme of existence, and I don’t ordinarily talk that way. I am doing it now because I think Mrs. Greeley needs it.”

Mrs. Greeley said with feeling, “Mr. Mason, I can’t begin to tell you how much better you have made me feel. Your words carry conviction. I... I guess I am getting my faith back.”

Mason said, “I don’t think you had ever lost it, Mrs. Greeley. Now this is going to be disagreeable. Do you want to get it over with as quickly as possible?”

“I don’t care,” she said. “I... Oh, Mr. Mason, I can’t tell you how much you have comforted me. After all, death is only a sleep. It has to be. I am ashamed of myself, Mr. Mason. I was doubting the whole scheme of things. I was... Is this someone coming?”

“Should be Lieutenant Tragg,” Mason said. “You know him.”

“Oh, yes.”

There were quick steps in the corridor, then the tapping of knuckles on the door. Mason nodded to Drake, who opened the door, and Tragg came in. “Sorry I was detained,” he said. “Good evening, Mrs. Greeley. I hope you don’t think we are entirely unfeeling.”

“No, I understand. I want to show you these things.”

She took the suitcase which Mason handed her, placed it on the floor at her feet, opened the lid, and took out a crumpled shirt. A vivid crimson streak was slashed across the front of the stiffly starched bosom, a streak perhaps five inches long. Above it was the smudged imprint of red lips, partially opened.

The men bent over the smear.

Tragg said, “Notice here. You can even see where the finger was first pressed against the shirt. Then follow the mark to the place where it vanishes. She was trying to push him away.”

Mason nodded.

Tragg looked down at the suitcase. “You have some other things, Mrs. Greeley?”

She said, “After Mr. Mason asked me about his tuxedo, I looked it over. There aren’t any spots on it.”

Tragg took the suit to hold it under the light. After a few moments, he looked up at Mason. “Nothing I can see,” he said.

“Wouldn’t there have been some spots on the suit,” Mrs. Greeley asked, “if — if that girl is telling the truth?”

“Perhaps,” Tragg said.

“She was cut in several places, wasn’t she?”

“There were some gashes, yes.”

“And if my husband had been driving the car, he would have been on the left-hand side. That would have been on the lower side. She would have been above him. In order to have squirmed out from under the steering wheel, got past that unconscious woman, and crawled out through the window — well, it seems to me there would have been some spots on his suit.”

“Yes,” Tragg said, “you would think so. What are you getting at?”

She said simply, “I brought the shirt to you because I found it, because it was evidence. I suppose it was my duty, but — well, you will understand. My husband and I were very close. I don’t want to be sentimental. I don’t want to get to feeling sorry for myself, and I don’t want to impose my own private, individual grief on you people, but I would like a fair deal.”

“You will get it,” Mason said.

She smiled her thanks.

Tragg said, “I don’t understand, Mrs. Greeley. In the face of this evidence, do you still think that your husband wasn’t driving the car?”

“Yes.”

Tragg said, “I am afraid I don’t understand, Mrs. Greeley.”

She said, “Adler wouldn’t have done the things this man who was driving the car did.”

Tragg indicated the shirt. “You mean he didn’t try to kiss...”

“Oh, that,” she interrupted. That is nothing. He had been drinking. He was feeling good. This girl has a butter-won’t-melt-in-my-mouth manner, now that she is telling about it but in the car, she was probably kidding him along. They all do. I don’t care about that. Adler was no saint. But what I mean is he wouldn’t have climbed out of the car and left the girl behind the steering wheel. Adler didn’t do that. That isn’t his way of doing things.”

“But he must have,” Mason said.

She shook her head stubbornly.

“There is something else that we don’t know about, Mr. Mason. If Adler was at the wheel of that car and he got out and left the girl to take the responsibility, there was someone who forced him to do it, someone who was hidden in that car, either down on the floor in back, or in the trunk, or somewhere. Or perhaps someone who was following along behind.”

“Wait a minute,” Tragg said. “That is a theory. The evidence shows a lot of cars stopped almost at once. There was quite a mix-up.”

“Someone,” Mrs. Greeley said with calm sincerity, “forced Adler to get out of that car. Someone took him away from the scene of the accident, and that someone forced him to keep quiet. When you have found who that someone was, you will have found who killed my husband, and... and...” She began to sob — after a few moments got control of herself and said, “I am sorry. I am pretty much unstrung.”

Mason glanced at Tragg. “I don’t think we need her any more, do we, Lieutenant?”

Tragg shook his head.

Mrs. Greeley gave Mason her hand. “When I first met you — well, I found myself liking you, and yet you made me very angry. I... I hope we understand each other better now.”

She gave his hand a quick pressure, smiled at Tragg, nodded to Drake, and left the office, walking rapidly down the corridor.

Drake, listening to the sound of her diminishing footsteps said, “If I had been Greeley, I wouldn’t have been playing around. Gosh, Perry, you certainly talked a sermon.”

“Did I miss something?” Tragg asked.

“Did you miss something? I shall say you did. A five-minute talk on the philosophy of life and death I will never forget.”

Tragg glanced at Mason, elevated his eyebrows quizzically.

Mason said apologetically, “She had had an overdose of this all-for-the-best business. I tried to give her a little of my own philosophy about life and death.”

Tragg said, “Well, I have got some news. I couldn’t get up here sooner because I was camped in a telephone booth down in the restaurant. I had headquarters half crazy, but I got action. A man wearing a tuxedo suit chartered a plane to go from San Francisco to Fresno early on the morning of Wednesday the nineteenth. Two o’clock to be exact. Get that, Mason? At two in the morning.”

“What time would that have put him in Fresno?” Mason asked.

“Oh, within an hour or so.”

“And then what?”

“We are tracing him from Fresno,” Tragg said. “We should be able to get a line on him.”

“Get the name under which the ticket was sold?” Mason asked.

Tragg grinned. “L. C. Spinney.”

“How soon can you get something from Fresno?”

“It should be coming in any time now,” Tragg said.

“Headquarters knows you are here? They can reach you on the telephone if anything turns up?”

“Sure.”

Mason said, “Well, we are commencing to get it unscrambled. This all begins to fit into a perfect picture.”

“That Warfield woman,” Tragg said, “has simply disappeared into thin air. I don’t like that. A simple, unsophisticated, working woman couldn’t have walked out of a hotel in a city where she had no connections...”

Drake said, “You aren’t overlooking that cafeteria friend of hers, are you?”

“No, I am not,” Tragg said. “We have interviewed her. She says she doesn’t know a thing. We are going to keep a watch on her. We found out this much after Mrs. Warfield got that cafeteria job lined up, someone came in, flashed a buzzer, and said Warfield was a convict who had escaped, that Mrs. Warfield was sending him money, and asked a lot of questions. That naturally cooked Mrs. Warfield’s chance of getting the job. The cafeteria didn’t want the wives of any escaped criminals...”

Mason interrupted, “Then that man must have known Mrs. Warfield had the promise of that job. Only Spinney knew that.”

Tragg smiled. “The man’s description,” he said, “fits Greeley.”

Drake whistled.

Tragg said to Mason, “It is certainly beginning to look as though you were right about Homan...” He broke off as the sound of quick steps in the corridor approached the office door.

“We are having a procession tonight,” Drake said.

“Probably Della,” Mason assured him.

He opened the door. Della Street, walking rapidly, bustled into the room, said, “Hello, everybody. Hope I didn’t keep you waiting... Oh, good evening, Lieutenant.”

Mason smiled and said, “For the moment, Della, Tragg is one of the bunch. There have been momentous and important developments. The police agree that Stephane Claire is innocent of the negligent homicide. She is exonerated from driving the car, and, believe it or not, I am cooperating with the police.”

Della Street looked down at the suitcase, then over at the shirt on Mason’s desk. “How come?” she asked.

“Mrs. Greeley,” Mason said. “It was her husband’s. She found it in the soiled clothes after his death.”

“Oh-oh,” Della Street said, and then after a moment, “I presume then what I have found out doesn’t amount to anything?”

Mason said, “On the contrary, it is more important than ever.” He turned to Tragg and said, “She was getting some gossip on Homan.”

“I would like to hear it,” Tragg said, studying Della Street with quite obvious approval.

“Go ahead, Della,” Mason said.

She said, “La-de-dah, am I Hollywood!” She made a little gesture with her hand. “I mean really, you know. It’s terrific. That is, I think I have got something here.”

“Come on,” Mason said, “unload the gossip.”

“Don’t we eat?”

Mason glanced uneasily toward the telephone. “Tragg has had dinner,” he said, “and he is waiting for a report...”

“Oh, not dinner,” Tragg interposed. “It was just a snack. I am about ready for a beefsteak. I can telephone headquarters and let them know where to get in touch with me. After all, I am really supposed to be off duty now. Only on this job, you don’t keep hours.”

“Personally, I am famished,” Della Street admitted. “That is, I mean really famished. I think the idea of a steak would be simply terrific. Oh, definitely.”

Mason picked up a law book, held it poised, and said, “Cut it before I brain you.”

Her eyes were sparkling with mischief. “Don’t be a dope,” she said. “I mean this is the weanie of the evening.”

“Come on,” Drake announced, getting to his feet. “I have been waiting long enough for a chance to eat on Perry and dance with his secretary.”

“In my capacity as official representative of the law,” Tragg interposed sternly, “I am afraid I shall have to preempt your claim.”

“Age before beauty, my lad,” Drake said.

“Don’t I get in on this?” Mason asked.

“Go on,” Drake told him. “You are the host. You are supposed to see that your guests are properly entertained.”

“Socko,” Della Street announced. “Colossal!”

“Come on,” Mason said, getting to his feet.

“It is drizzling outside,” Della Street told him.

“Uh-huh,” Mason said, putting on his hat and coat.

Tragg stood watching him with speculative eyes. “You know, Mason,” he said, apropos of nothing, shaking a cigarette from a package, “you are damn deep.”

Drake said, “You don’t know the half of it.”

Mason switched out the lights, shepherded them out into the corridor, saw that the door was closed and locked. They started trooping down toward the elevator.

“Good place over at the Adirondack,” Della Street said.

“Oh, let’s try some place that has more life,” Mason said. “That’s staid and stodgy.”

“Suits me all right,” Tragg announced. “Do I get the first dance, Miss Street?”

“That will depend,” she said, “on how I feel after I have had the first steak. Right now, I am simply caving in.”

“I had the first claim,” Drake warned.

Mason said, “Remember I am painfully conscious of my duties as host, but I get the last dance, Della. Let them fight over the first.”

She turned and flashed him a quick understanding smile. Drake sighed. “There we go, Lieutenant. Our ship is scuttled before we have even got it away from the pier. As you have remarked before, Mason is a deep one.”

“Well, where are we going to eat?” Della asked.

“Oh, let us try the Tangerine,” Mason said. “It is good and lively, and it has the advantage of being within three blocks of the office.”

“We can walk it,” Tragg said.

“Not in this drizzle,” Della Street announced. “It’s really commencing to rain. I mean definitely, I really do!”

Mason made a grab for her, but she laughingly eluded him, slipped around the corner, and ran the rest of the way down the corridor. As he chased after her, he had a fleeting glimpse of Tragg making silly, futile gasps at thin air. Mason caught up with her at the elevator, and his arm encircled her waist. Struggling a little, she managed to move close to him and said in a low whisper, “What is wrong with your hat, Chief?”

“Huh?” he asked, surprised.

“Tragg was looking at it when you took it out of the closet.”

“Oh,” Mason said, and pressed the button for the elevator. “The lid is going to blow off tonight. Keep sober.”

The others came walking up. Della Street twisted away from Mason’s grasp just as the elevator slid to a stop, and the quartet trooped in with much laughing and joking.

When they reached the street, it was raining hard, and they stood in the shelter of the lobby for nearly five minutes before Mason was able to get a cab. The Tangerine however, because of the rain, had plenty of vacant tables, and a deferential headwaiter escorted them to a choice location near the side of the dance floor.

Mason said, “As a perfect host, Della, I will sit with my back to the floor show, place you between Tragg and... where the devil is she?”

Tragg turned around. “She was here a moment... Oh.”

He stood looking out on the dance floor to where Paul Drake and Della Street were whirling around.

“There you are,” Tragg said, seating himself. “The private detectives beat the regulars to it every time. Guess I shall have to see about getting that guy’s license revoked after all.”

“Steak dinner?” Mason asked.

“Uh-huh. Think I will telephone and see if headquarters has any news.”

“Cocktail?” Mason asked.

Tragg hesitated.

“You are not on duty,” Mason told him.

“Well, all right, make it a martini.”

“Think we will probably have four customers on that,” Mason said as Tragg threaded his way through the dancers toward the telephone booth.

A waiter approached Mason. “Four dry martinis, four de luxe steak dinners. Make the steaks medium rare except for the gentleman sitting over there, who wants his well-done, and I wish you would keep that dinner moving right along. Will you?”

“Yes, sir.”

Mason settled back in his chair, watching the dancers. Tragg returned from the telephone booth, and Mason flashed a quick glance at the officer’s face. Tragg’s smile indicated that as yet he had received no news of the crumpled figure which lay balanced precariously over the edge of the bathtub in the Adirondack Hotel.

“News?” Mason asked.

“I shall say. It was a cinch to pick up our man in the tuxedo at Fresno. He got off the plane, made inquiries about renting a car which he could drive himself. He couldn’t get a car until about eight-thirty in the morning when one of the places opened up. He rented a car, gave the name of L. C. Spinney, drove the car one hundred and sixty-five miles, and brought it back about two o’clock. He walked out, and evaporated into thin air. We lose him from then on. The description is Greeley.”

The dance music stopped. Paul Drake and Della Street came toward the table.

Mason said abruptly, “Cover the garages that rent cars with drivers.”

“What is the angle?” Tragg asked.

“Don’t you see?” Mason asked.

“No, hanged if I do.”

Mason said, “Bet you the dinners that you will find he appeared at a garage which rented cars with drivers before three o’clock in the afternoon and hired a driver to take him exactly eighty-two miles up into the mountains. He got out there.”

Paul Drake and Della Street were now at the table, Drake holding Della Street’s chair.

Tragg said, “I am not going to bet you the price of the dinners because I am a poor working man. I can’t pass expenses on to a rich client the way you can. I can’t make the compensation for my services sufficiently elastic to cover all the traffic will stand. And furthermore, I think you are bluffing.”

“Go ahead and call me,” Mason said.

Tragg said, “Well, I will call headquarters and have them check with the Fresno police on it. If it is right, will you tell me how you reason it out?”

“Uh-huh.”

Tragg threaded his way once more among the tables and belated dancers who were coming off the dance floor. Della Street asked, “What is it, Chief?”

Mason said, “I think we are on the home stretch.”

“Don’t clean the case up too soon,” Drake jokingly remarked. “I am getting paid by the day, and I never do get these delightful dinners and a chance to dance with Della except when you are on a case and have an expense account.”

Mason jerked his head toward Della. “Is she still Hollywood, Paul?”

“Oh, definitely,” Della said.

“Come on, brat,” Mason said. “Tell us what you found out.”

“Here is Tragg coming back.”

“It’s all right. He is one of the family,” Mason said, raising his voice just enough so that Tragg could hear as he approached the table.

“What now?” Tragg asked.

“Della is about to relay us the dirt from Hollywood.”

The waiter appeared with their cocktails.

“Here is to crime,” Mason said, looking at Tragg across the rim of the glass.

“And the catching of criminals,” Tragg amended before he drank.

“By fair means or foul,” Della Street volunteered.

They took the first long sip from their cocktails, then, as they lowered their glasses, Tragg said, “I see you have got Miss Street educated to your outlook.”

“Why not?” Mason asked. “A criminal doesn’t play cricket. He accomplishes the results he wants by any means that are handy. Why shouldn’t he be tripped up by the same means?”

“Because it isn’t legal.”

“Oh, bunk,” Mason said impatiently. “You folks are either fools or hypocrites when you say that.”

“No, we are not,” Tragg said earnestly. “The whole structure of the law has to be a dignified, imposing edifice and built on firm foundations, if it is going to stand. Whenever you violate the law, you are tearing down a part of that structure, regardless of what goal you may want to achieve.”

“All right,” Mason said, grinning, “why not tear parts of it down?”

“What do you mean?”

“Well,” Mason said, “suppose you are on the roof and a murderer is sneaking out through the basement. You can’t stop him by yelling at him, but if you take a loose brick out of the chimney, drop it, and hit him on the head, it stops him, and why isn’t it perfectly justifiable? After all, you have only taken a loose brick from that dignified structure you have been talking about and...”

“Well,” Tragg said, “it is not exactly that way. It...”

“The hell it isn’t,” Mason interrupted. “A man has a joint where he sells liquor illegally, but he gives you all the low-down on the people that come into that joint. It is in the interests of the police to keep the place going. They know the man is selling liquor, and that the sale is unlawful, and after regular closing hours, but they wink at it.”

“Well, in that case you have to admit that you are getting something which is very important in return for a very minor infraction of the law.”

“Sure,” Mason said, “you are taking the loose brick out of the chimney of your imposing structure and dropping it on the head of the murderer.”

Tragg threw up his hands. “I should have known better than to argue with a lawyer. And, remember, Miss Street, the next dance is mine.”

“Okay.”

“And in the meantime, what about Homan?” Mason asked.

“My dear,” she said to Perry, pitching her voice in the high, rapid key of a woman who is a natural-born gossip, and talking at a high rate of speed, “you have absolutely no idea about how that man has come to the front! It has been terrific. I mean really. He started in as a writer on an obscure assignment and on a play that was stinko. Then out of a clear sky he shot up into a big job, and I mean gravy.”

“What is back of it?” Mason asked. “And can that Hollywood chatter before I crown you.”

“A woman.”

“What woman?”

“No one knows.”

“How do they know it is a woman?”

“Because Homan never plays around. He lives what my informant naïvely describes as a monastic life. I wouldn’t know what she meant.”

“Careful,” Drake warned. “That remark might be twisted.”

“Yes, and you have some of the best little remark-twisters in the world gathered right around this table,” Tragg interposed.

She laughed. “Well, anyway, Homan is something of a unique character around Hollywood, but doesn’t always stay around Hollywood. Occasionally he vanishes, and when he vanishes — tra la tra la!”

“Where does he go?” Mason asked.

“He goes to some place where he can be all alone with his work,” Della Street said with a demure manner which was purposely exaggerated. Her eyes were large and round, gazing above the heads of the diners on the far ceiling. She pursed her lips and said mincingly, “He is always trying to get away somewhere where he can work. He is a man who simply can’t be disturbed. He breaks from the studio to go home and shut himself in his study where he will be free to concentrate, and then his nerves get so frayed by the environment of civilization that he has to jump in his car and go alone into the solitude.”

“Alone?” Mason asked.

“Alone,” she said, “definitely, positively alone. I mean really — and I do mean really.”

The dance music struck up, and Tragg said, “We shall leave Mr. Homan’s concentrational celibacy for another time, Miss Street. But right now you are in demand for another and more important matter.”

He walked around to stand back of her chair.

Mason said, “Don’t let him pump you, Della.”

“Don’t be foolish. He is not the sort who would do that, are you, Lieutenant?”

“Not unless I thought I could get away with it.”

Drake said, “Watch him, Perry. I think he is a viper. You should better forbid her to dance with him at all, and let her keep on dancing with me. At least, I am safe.”

“That’s right,” Della said to Mason. “He is just like Homan. He wants to concentrate. All the time we were dancing, he was trying to pump me about...” She stopped suddenly.

“About what?” Tragg asked.

She smiled mockingly up at him. “About whether the boss could put cocktails on an expense account,” she said, and, swaying slightly with the rhythm of the dance music, let Tragg take her in his arms.

Mason glanced at Drake. “Pumping her about what, Paul?”

“The little brat,” Drake said. “I should have known she would have passed it on to you.”

“What?”

“Trying to find out whether she was responsible for that telephone call you got while Tragg was eating and sent you dashing out of the office.”

“Why?” Mason asked.

“Oh, I don’t know. I just thought that was pretty damned important, or you wouldn’t have left. I somehow can’t see you jeopardizing your appointment with the Greeley woman to run out to have a talk with this girl Horty.”

“Now, wait a minute,” Mason said, his face suddenly hard. “You told Della I went out?”

“Yes.”

“And asked her if she knew where?”

“Well, not exactly that. I was trying to find out...”

“Now did you tell her not to mention that to Tragg?”

“What?”

“About my having gone out.”

Drake’s face showed sudden dismay. “Gosh, no, I didn’t.”

“And were you asking her seriously or just kidding along?”

“Just kidding along, Perry. It gave me something to talk about, and... Gosh, if she should let it out to Tragg...”

Mason said, “Tragg is nobody’s damn fool. It wasn’t raining when he came in. It started to rain right afterward. I was in taxicabs most of the way, but I had to cross a street and some raindrops spattered on my gray hat. When I took my hat out of the closet, Tragg happened to notice those damp spots. They had soaked in so they were almost invisible. You have to hand it to him for being a damn good detective, Paul. He noticed those spots, realized what they meant — and didn’t say a word. What was the meaning of those silly antics of his in the corridor? Did he pick up anything?”

Drake said, “I don’t know. I was watching you two! Gosh, I am sorry, Perry.”

Mason frowned down at the tablecloth. “I would like to work with Tragg,” he said, “but he is pretty fast on his feet, and after all, he is on the opposite side of the fence. Some of my methods wouldn’t meet with his approval.”

“What happened while you were gone?” Drake asked.

Mason said, “I went to Hortense Zitkousky’s house, found her pretty high, prescribed coffee, and came back.”

“Nuts,” Drake said. “When you came back, you had that grim line around the corners of your mouth that — dammit, Perry, you are a gambler.”

“Of course, I am a gambler.”

“You gamble for the sheer joy of risking terrific odds against your ideas of justice.”

“Well, what of it?”

“Someday you are going to break through that thin ice you skate on.”

“Well?”

“And when you do,” Drake said, “you are going to take me with you.”

“I haven’t yet,” Mason said.

“No. You haven’t yet because you keep moving so damn fast, but...”

“Forget it,” Mason interrupted. “They are coming back.”

“What is the matter?” Mason asked.

Della Street said, “The floor is getting too crowded, and I am getting too famished to do any more dancing until after I have had some good thick steak with mushroom sauce. Did you order mine medium rare, Chief?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Mine?” Drake asked.

“Well done.”

“How did you know?”

Mason said, “First and last, Paul, I have bought you enough steaks so that I should know.”

“You mean your clients have. I...”

A bus boy approached the table, motioned to Lt. Tragg. “Telephone, Lieutenant,” he said.

“Excuse me.” Tragg pushed back his chair.

Mason glanced across at Della Street.

“Trying to pump me,” she said tersely. “Paul was, too. I didn’t mind him. He is harmless, but Tragg was deadly.”

“What did he want to know?”

“Where you went while I was out.”

“What did you tell him?”

“I asked him how I would know you had been out when I wasn’t there.”

“Didn’t say anything about Paul Drake asking you the same question?” Mason asked.

She said, “Don’t be silly. Then he would know you had gone out. As it is, he only surmised it from seeing the raindrops on your hat-brim.”

Drake heaved a sigh. “Good girl,” he said. “Gosh, I was worried over that.”

“What’s in the wind?” Della Street asked.

Mason said, “Nothing, only we are gradually closing the net.”

“Did Homan kill Greeley?”

“That,” Mason said, “is going to keep for a while. What I am concerned with right now is finding out how I can prove that Adler Greeley was operating that automobile as Homan’s agent and in accordance with specific instructions by Homan. Then Tragg will have enough to force him to go after Homan.”

“Why?” Drake asked. “If you can prove that she wasn’t driving the car, that lets you out, doesn’t it?”

Mason said, “Homan has been so willing to let her take the rap that I want to see him get his. And it would be a good thing for her to stick him for damages. She might be able to use the money.”

Drake gave a low whistle.

“There is no question but that it was Greeley who was driving the automobile?” Della Street asked.

“Not unless someone planted a smeared shirt in his soiled-linen bag,” Drake said and looked significantly at Mason.

Mason shook his head. “Don’t blame that on me.”

“You would have done it though,” Drake charged. “And that red mouth print looked like Della’s lips.”

The waiter appeared with seafood cocktails, said deferentially to Mason, “And I shall keep the dinner moving right along, sir.”

Tragg was back before the waiter had finished serving the cocktails. He waited until the waiter had left, then sat down, and pushed the plate with the cocktail glass away from him so that he could lean across the table and look directly at Mason.

“Find out anything?” Mason asked, holding a fork over his cocktail.

Tragg said, “Mason, I have to hand it to you. You have a touch of — well, more than a touch of the genius.”

“What now?”

“Spinney showed up at a garage just as you had predicted, took the automobile and the driver, was driven exactly eighty-two miles, stopped the car in the middle of a mountain road, said he would get out there, and the last the driver saw of him he was sauntering along the mountain grade, just a harmless nut attired in a tuxedo, light dress shoes, and a topcoat, strolling casually in the deep dust of a dirt road among the pines. Now then, that is one thing I learned.”

“And the other?” Drake asked.

“And the other,” Tragg said, keeping his eyes fastened on Mason, “was that the body of Ernest Tanner has been found doubled over the bathtub in the bathroom which communicates between the rooms of Stephane Claire and her uncle Max Olger, in the Adirondack Hotel. And in case you don’t remember, Mr. Mason, Ernest Tanner is the chauffeur for Jules Homan, the man Homan virtually accused of using his telephone to place unauthorized long-distance calls to Mr. L. C. Spinney in San Francisco.”

Mason straightened. His fork clattered against his plate. “You are not kidding?” he asked.

“I am not kidding,” Lieutenant Tragg said in a calm, level voice, “and for your information, Mason, the murder was apparently committed at just about the time when you left your office while I was eating my hamburger sandwich.”

Mason said suavely, “Can’t resist the spectacular, can you, Lieutenant? If you had asked me about those wet spots on my hat-brim...”

“That,” Tragg interrupted, “was simply my starting point. What the hell do you think I have been doing all the time I have been telephoning? I have had headquarters get in touch with the taxi drivers who stand around your office building. The time I have reference to Mason, was when you dashed out, jumped in a cab, went to the Adirondack Hotel, stayed about twelve minutes, and then tore back to the office.”