“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.”