A shadow formed back of Mason’s shoulder. A man’s voice said, “Is this seat taken?”
Mason said somewhat irritably, “No, it’s not taken, but there are half a dozen empty tables over there.”
“Mind if I sit down?”
Mason looked up in annoyance to encounter the eyes of Lt. Tragg of the Metropolitan Homicide Department.
“Well, well, Tragg,” Mason said, getting up and shaking hands as Tragg put his tray down on the table. “I didn’t know you ate here.”
“First time I’ve eaten here,” Tragg said. “They tell me the food’s pretty good.”
“It’s wonderful home cooking. How did you happen to find the place?”
“Modus operandi,” Tragg said.
“I don’t get you.”
“So many people don’t,” Tragg said, putting a cup of consommé, some pineapple-cottage-cheese salad and a glass of buttermilk on the table.
Mason laughed. “You won’t sample the cooking here by eating that combination, Tragg. The stuffed bell peppers are wonderful.”
“I know, I know,” Tragg said. “I eat to keep my waistline down within reason. About the only pleasure I get out of being around good cooking is to have the aroma in my nostrils.”
“Well,” Mason said, as Tragg seated himself, “tell us about the modus operandi, Lieutenant.”
“I don’t know whether you remember the last time you disappeared or not,” Tragg said. “It was in connection with a case where you didn’t want to be interviewed. And after you finally showed up and got into circulation, you may remember that I asked you where you had been and what the idea was in running away.”
“I remember it perfectly,” Mason said, “and I told you that I hadn’t run away.”
“That’s right,” Tragg said. “You told me you had been out interviewing some witnesses and that quite frequently when you did that, you didn’t go back to the office but had lunch at a delightful little cafeteria where they featured home cooking.”
“Did I tell you that?” Mason asked.
“You did,” Tragg said, “and I asked you about the cafeteria. So then I went back to the office, took out my card marked Terry Mason, Attorney at Law’ and on the back of it under modus operandi made a note, ‘When Perry Mason is hiding out, he’s pretty apt to eat at the Family Kitchen Cafeteria.’
“For your information, Mr. Mason, that’s what we call modus operandi. It’s something we use in catching crooks. Unfortunately, the police can’t stand the strain of being brilliant and dashingly clever, so they have to make up for it by being efficient.
“You’d be surprised what we can do with that modus operandi filing system of ours and compiling a lot of notes. It may be that a man has certain peculiar eating habits. He may call for a certain brand of wine with his meals. He may like to have a sundae made by putting maple syrup on ice cream. All of those little things that the brilliant, flashy geniuses don’t have to bother with, the plodding police have to note and remember.
“Now, take in your own case. You’re brilliant to the point of being a genius, but the little old modus operandi led me to you when we were looking for you, when you didn’t want to be found.”
“What makes you think I didn’t want to be found?” Mason asked.
Tragg smiled and said, “Oh, I presume you were out interviewing witnesses again.”
“That’s exactly what I was doing,” Mason said.
“Are you finished?”
“With the witnesses?”
“Yes.”
“No.”
“Well,” Tragg said, “that’s fine. Perhaps I can be of some help.”
“And then again perhaps you couldn’t,” Mason said.
“All right, we’ll look at it the other way,” Tragg said. “Perhaps you could be of some help to me.”
“Are you seeking to retain my services?”
Tragg sipped the buttermilk, poked at the cottage cheese salad with his fork and said, “Damn, but that stuffed bell pepper smells good!”
“Go on,” Mason said, “go on and get yourself a stuffed bell pepper. It will make the world look brighter.”
Tragg pushed back his chair, picked up his check, said, “You’ve made a sale, Perry.”
Tragg returned carrying a tray on which were two stuffed bell peppers, a piece of apple pie, a slab of cheese and a small jar of cream.
He seated himself at the table, said, “Now, don’t talk to me until I get these under my belt and get to feeling good-natured once more.”
Mason grinned at him, and the two ate in silence.
After he had finished, Tragg pushed his plate back, took a cigar from his pocket, cut off the end with a penknife, said, “I feel human once more. Now let’s get down to brass tacks.”
“What kind of brass tacks?” Mason asked.
“Arrange them any way you want,” Tragg said. “If you put the heads down, the points are going to be up and that’s going to be tough — on you.”
“What do you want to know?”
Tragg said, “Meridith Borden was murdered. You were out there. You climbed over a wall and set off a burglar alarm. Then, like a damn fool, you didn’t report to the police. Instead, you make yourself ‘unavailable,’ and Hamilton Burger, our illustrious district attorney, wants to have a subpoena issued and drag you in before the Grand Jury, accompanying his action with a fanfare of trumpets.”
“Let him drag,” Mason said.
Tragg shook his head. “In your case, no, Perry.”
“Why?”
“Because you’re mixed up in too many murder cases where you’re out on the firing line. You aren’t content to sit in your office the way other people do and let the evidence come to you. You go out after it.”
“I like to get it in its original and unadulterated form,” Mason told him.
“I know how you feel, but the point is you have to look at these things from the standpoint of other people. Why didn’t you come to us and tell us about the murder?”
“I didn’t know about it.”
“Says you.”
“Says me.”
“What were you doing out there?”
“If I told you,” Mason said, “you’d think I was lying.”
Tragg puffed contentedly at his cigar. “Not me. I might think you’d play hocus-pocus with the district attorney, I might think you’d juggle guns if you had a chance, or switch evidence. You have the damnedest quixotic idea of protecting a client, but you don’t lie.”
Mason said, “I was peacefully eating dinner, minding my own business. A man came to me and told me he’d been involved in an automobile accident. He had reason to believe someone might have been injured. I went out to the scene of the accident with him, and, while I was there inside the grounds, the iron gates clanged shut. Apparently, they were actuated by some sort of a time mechanism. It was exactly eleven o’clock.”
“That’s right,” Tragg said. “There’s an automatic timing device that closes the gates at eleven o’clock.”
“So we were trapped,” Mason said. “Moreover, a nice, unfriendly Doberman pinscher started trying to tear out the seat of my trousers.”
Tragg’s eyes narrowed. “When?”
“While we were trapped inside. We worked our way along the wall to the gate; the gate was locked tight. There were spikes on top of the gate, and we couldn’t climb over it. Somehow we triggered an alarm. Dogs started barking and coming toward us. We got over the wall.”
“Who’s we?”
“A couple of people were with me.”