The Case Of The Dangerous Dowager

E S Gardner - Perry Mason 10 - Dangerous Dowager

CHAPTER 1

PERRY MASON studied the white-haired woman with that interest which new clients always aroused. She returned the lawyer's gaze with bright gray eyes in which a hard glitter gradually softened to a twinkle.

"No," she said, "I haven't killed anyone - not yet, I haven't. But don't think I'm a peaceful old lady who sits by the fire and knits, because I'm not. I'm a hard-bitten old hellion."

The lawyer laughed. "Perhaps," he said, "this gambling girl you wanted to see me about may be overshadowed by a..."

"Dowager," she said, as he hesitated. "Go on and say it - a dangerous dowager. I saw you in court when you were trying that howling dog case, Mr. Mason. I liked you because you fought every inch of the way. I'm something of a fighter myself."

Della Street, catching Mason's eye, said to the woman, "I'd like to have your name, age, and address for our office records."

"The name's Matilda Benson," the dowager said. "The address is 1090 Wedgewood Drive. The age is none of your business."

"How long have you been smoking cigars?" Mason asked curiously.

Her eyes flicked back to his. "Ever since I kicked loose from the conventional traces."

"When was that?"

"After my husband died and I realized what spineless hypocrites my relatives were... do you have to go into all that?"

Mason said, "I'd like to know something about your background. Go ahead. You're doing fine - So you kicked over the traces?"

"Yes. And I'm getting worse every year. My husband's relatives think I'm a brand for the burning - and I don't give a damn what they think! You hear a lot about people who are afraid to die. Well, they're nothing compared to the ones who are afraid to live - people who go through life just making motions - and conventional motions at that. My relatives think I've started Sylvia on the downward path and..."

"Who's Sylvia?" Mason interrupted.

"My granddaughter."

"Married?"

"Yes. To Frank Oxman. And they have a daughter, Virginia. She's six now."

"So," Mason said, "you're a great-grandmother?"

She puffed contentedly at the big cigar. "Yes," she admitted, "I'm a great-grandmother."

"Tell me some more about your husband's relatives," the lawyer invited. "Have you been fighting with them?"

"Not particularly. I got fed up with them, with what they stood for. I just revolted, that's all."

"Revolted at what?"

She frowned impatiently, "Why worry so much about my ideas of life?"

"Because they're interesting. I want to get your mental background before I decide whether I can take your case."

"Well," she said, "I'm making up some of my lost life. I was brought up according to rigid, puritanic standards. None of the people around me took time out to enjoy life. They couldn't enjoy youth because they were preparing to take a part in life. They couldn't enjoy themselves after that because they were saving money for their old age. And they put in their old age making peace with God. I was brought up on that philosophy. Then my husband died and I was left alone. There was some insurance money. I invested that and did well with it. I started to travel, looked around me, and decided I might as well enjoy life. I was past sixty and I'd never really lived.

"Now I drink, swear, smoke cigars, and do as I damn please. I'm tired of living a treadmill existence. I have enough money to allow me to do things the way I want."

"And you need a lawyer?" Mason asked.

She nodded, suddenly serious.

"Why? Are you in some trouble?"

"Not yet."

"But you expect to be?"

She pursed her lips thoughtfully, regarded the tip of her cigar, flicked the ash from it with a deftly expert little finger, and said, "I hope it won't come to that."

"Exactly what is it," Mason asked, "that you want me to do?"

"Do you know a man by the name of Sam Grieb?"

"No. Who is he?"

"He's a gambler He and a man by the name of Duncan run The Horn of Plenty. That's the gambling ship that's anchored out beyond the twelve-mile limit."

"What about Grieb?" Mason asked.

"He's put Sylvia in a spot."

"How?"

"He has her IOU's."

"For how much?"

"Somewhere around seven thousand dollars."

"What were they given for?" Mason asked.

"Gambling debts."

"And you want me to get those without paying..."

"Certainly not," she interrupted. "I want you to pay every cent that's due on them. But I don't want to be held up for a bonus. I'll pay debts, but I won't pay blackmail."

"Do you mean to say," Mason asked, puzzled, "that Grieb won't surrender the IOU's for their face value? Why, he'd have to. He'd be..."

"Don't jump at conclusions, young man," she snapped. "There's a lot more to this than you know about. There's a lot more to it than I'm going to tell you. But Grieb has heard in a roundabout way that Sylvia's husband, Frank Oxman, might be willing to pay more than face value for those IOU's."

"Why?" Mason asked.

"Evidence," she snapped.

"Evidence of what?"

"Evidence that Sylvia is a chronic gambler and can't be trusted with money."

"Why does Frank want to get evidence of that?"

"Because he does."

"Why does he?"

"I don't think," she said, "I'm going into that right now. All I want you to do is get those IOU's. I'll give you the money to take them up. If you have to pay a bonus, pay a bonus, but don't pay a big one. I hate blackmail and I hate blackmailers."

"But," Mason objected, "you don't need me. Simply give your granddaughter the money and tell her to go to the gambling ship and take up the IOU's. They'd have to surrender them if she offered to redeem them."

Matilda Benson shook her head. "I don't want to make it that easy for her. I'm going to teach my granddaughter a lesson by scaring the hell out of her. I want you to get those IOU's and give them to me as soon as you get them. I don't care how you get them."

"I'm afraid," Mason said, "I wouldn't care to handle it. After all, this isn't a legal matter. It's something a detective can handle to better advantage. Now, Paul Drake, of the Drake Detective Agency, handles my work. He's thoroughly competent and trustworthy. I'll put you in touch with him and..."

"I don't want a detective," she interrupted. "I want you."

"But if you hired me," Mason protested, "I'd turn around and hire Drake. He does all my leg work."

"I don't care what you do, nor whom you hire," Matilda Benson said. "That's up to you. And don't think this is going to be an easy job. You're going up against a crook who is smart as a steel trap and absolutely ruthless."

Mason said, "I'm afraid you're making a mountain out of a molehill."

"No," she said, "you're the one who's making a molehill out of a mountain. I'll pay you a retainer of twenty-five hundred dollars. I'll pay you another twenty-five hundred when you get those IOU's, if you can get them in such a way that my name doesn't figure in it. And I'll pay all your expenses, including whatever you have to pay out for detectives and whatever you have to pay to get those IOU's. That's fair, isn't it?"

Mason watched her with a puzzled frown.

"Could I," he asked, "go out to call on Grieb and tell him I was acting as Sylvia's attorney and..."

"No, because he'd tell Sylvia, and Sylvia mustn't know anything about it."

"And you don't want Grieb to know that you're interested in it?"

"No. Aside from that, the sky's the limit. You can work any scheme on him you want to. But don't let him know you're willing to pay a bonus, because the minute you do he'll stall you off until he can get to Frank Oxman for a bigger bid and start playing you, one against the other."

"That," Mason admitted, "complicates matters."

"Of course it complicates matters. I haven't the faintest idea how you're going about it. But I do know that if anyone can handle those two crooks, you're the one to do it."

"You don't think they've approached Oxman yet?"

"Not yet."

Mason stared thoughtfully at the carpet for a moment, then raised his eyes and said smilingly, "Let's go."

Matilda Benson pulled a sheaf of hundred-dollar bills from her handbag. "This," she said, "is the money you can use in taking up the IOU's. You'll have to pay cash. The balance will apply on your fees and expenses."

Mason took the money. "My secretary will give you a receipt, Mrs. Benson, and..."

"I don't want a receipt," she said.

The lawyer regarded her quizzically.

"You see," she said, "I know all about the person with whom I'm dealing. And," she added with a chuckle, "that's more than you can say, Mr. Perry Mason. Good day!"

CHAPTER 2

PERRY MASON, thumbs hooked through the armholes of his vest, paced his office, glancing impatiently at his wristwatch. "You left word for Paul Drake to come in as soon as he came to his office?" he asked.

Della Street nodded. "How are you going about it, Chief?" she asked.

"I've got a scheme," he told her, "that may work. We'll lay a trap and see if Sam Grieb walks into it."

"Suppose he doesn't?"

Mason grinned and said, "Then we'll think up another scheme."

"I don't suppose," she said, her eyes wistful, "that it would do any good to ask you to be careful?"

"None whatever."

"Why can't you let Paul Drake handle those gamblers?"

"Because my client doesn't want Paul, she wants me. I collected the fee and I take the responsibility."

"Most generals," she pointed out, "don't go into the front-line trenches."

"And thereby miss all the fun," he told her.

She nodded slowly. "Yes," she agreed, "life in this office never lacks for excitement."

"Like it, Della?"

"Of course I like it."

"Then why adopt that hang-your-clothes-on-a-hickory-limb-but-don't-go-near-the-water attitude?"

"Just my maternal instinct, Chief."

"You're too young to have maternal instincts."

"You'd be surprised. There's Paul Drake at the door, now." Della Street crossed the office, opened a door and nodded to the tall man who grinned down at her.

Drake's mouth twisted into a carp-like grin as he closed the door behind him and said, "My God, Perry, don't tell me you're starting a new case. Or did you want to conduct a postmortem on that other one?"

Mason said, "The other one's finished, Paul. This is a new one. Do you own any evening clothes?"

The detective chuckled. "Sure, I list them in my office inventory as a disguise. Why?"

"Know a man by the name of Sam Grieb?"

"You mean the gambler?"

"Yes."

"Know of him. I don't know him personally. He runs this gambling ship, The Horn of Plenty, which is anchored out beyond the twelve-mile limit. Every once in a while they try to control him by passing ordinances about the speed boats that run out there, but they don't get very far with it."

"What's his reputation, Paul?" Mason asked.

"Hard as steel and cold as concrete," the detective said. "He's a good business man, and he's reported to be making money. I can find out all about him within twenty-four hours if you want."

"No," Mason said, "that isn't going to be necessary, Paul. Here's the sketch. A married woman, name of Sylvia Oxman, has left IOU's with Grieb. These IOU's amount to somewhere around seven thousand dollars. She hasn't the money to take them up right now. And her husband's willing to pay a bonus to get his hands on them. That's all anyone has told me, and that's all I'm telling you. I did a little thinking. You can do the same."

"Well," Drake said, "if Grieb wants to peddle those IOU's to the husband, there isn't any way we can stop him, is there?... Unless the woman went out there and paid off the IOU's and demanded possession of them."

Mason grinned. "Looking at it from a purely ethical and legal standpoint, Paul, you may be right."

The detective crossed his fingers. "I suppose you've hatched out some scheme by which we'll just scrape past the walls of State's Prison, if we're lucky, and be corpses or convicts if we're not. Well, Perry, count me out. I've had enough."

Mason said, "Now, listen, Paul, there's no law against a man taking any name he wants to, provided he doesn't do it for the purpose of defrauding some other person. Now I want you to go down to a bank where you're not personally known and deposit one thousand dollars in the name of Frank Oxman. Register your signature as Frank Oxman and get a book of blank checks."

Drake straightened to rigid attention and said suspiciously, "Then what?"

"Then," Mason said, "we go out aboard the gambling ship and you lose a couple hundred bucks gambling. You make out a check for five hundred dollars, sign it 'Frank Oxman' and ask the croupier if he'll accept it. The croupier will send the check in to Sam Grieb for an okay. Grieb will figure Frank Oxman has come aboard and that it'll be a swell chance to sell him the IOU's at a bonus. He'll ask you to step into the office to be identified and start asking you questions. You can pretend that you're afraid he's trying to trap you, and deny that you're the Frank Oxman he thinks you are; but you'll do it in such a way that it will convince Grieb you're lying. Then Grieb will make us an offer on Sylvia Oxman's IOU's.

"Now get this sketch, Paul. If Oxman himself isn't willing to pay a premium for those IOU's, no one is. So when Grieb suggests that you take them up, you show a big lack of enthusiasm. Finally offer him a five-hundred-dollar or a thousand-dollar bonus and say that's as high as you'll go. We'll go another five hundred if we have to."

"Wait a minute," Drake protested, "ain't that getting pretty close to the line, Perry? I don't want to get hooked."

"Bosh," Mason said. "I'll be with you all the time. You'll tell him repeatedly that you're not the man he thinks you are, but that you might be interested in buying those IOU's."

Drake slowly shook his head. "No dice, Perry."

Mason said, "Okay, I'll do the talking. I'll be along with you as your friend, and I'll do all the talking."

"I still don't like it," Drake said.

"You'd like five hundred dollars, wouldn't you?"

"Yes."

"Okay," Mason told him, "we'll leave here about five-thirty. I'll pick you up in my car."

"You're sure we won't get in trouble over this?" Drake asked.

"Nothing we can't get out of," Mason said. "After all, we sometimes have to fight the devil with fire."

Drake said, without enthusiasm, "You fight him with an acetylene torch. Some day, Perry, you're going to get your fingers burnt."

The lawyer nodded. "That's what makes life interesting. Go home and doll up in your soup and fish, Paul, and wipe that worried look off your map. Tonight we gamble."

Drake started for the door. "I'll say we do," he said.

CHAPTER 3

LIGHTS FROM the amusement concessions reddened the heavens and reflected in shimmering beams from the water. Beneath the piles of the pier the surf boomed into foam, to run hissing up on the beach. Out at the end of the wharf a man sold tickets to "excursion" trips via speed boat. Perry Mason and Paul Drake, attired in full dress, wearing overcoats and scarfs, passed through the gate and down a flight of stairs to a float which was creaking on the long swells. Tied to this float was a long, narrow speed boat, containing some half dozen passengers.

Drake said, "I sure as hell feel disguised. I hope none of the gang from headquarters sees me."

Mason chuckled. "If you don't smell too strong of moth balls you'll get by all right, Paul. You look like a rich playboy."

They took seats in the speed boat. A man blew a whistle, and the motor, which had been idling, roared into a staccato song of power, rattling out explosions which drowned all other sounds. The man on the float jerked loose a line, and Mason's head shot back with the thrust which swept the speed boat out of the lighted area into the dark waters. White-bordered waves curled up just back of the bow. Drops of spray peppered the windshield in front of the lawyer's face as though they had been buckshot. The small craft vibrated into greater speed, then raised its bow to skim over the long swells. Mason grinned at Paul Drake and yelled, "More fun than I've had for a month." His words were blown from his mouth.

The lawyer settled back against the cushions, turned to look back at the diminishing lights of the amusement pier, at the frosty glitter of the city lights, then peered ahead into the darkness. His nostrils dilated; he breathed deeply of the night air as his lips parted in a smile of sheer enjoyment.

The detective sat huddled in his overcoat, his face wearing the lugubrious expression of one who is submitting to a disagreeable experience which he has been unable to avoid.

At length, out of the darkness ahead, loomed the glitter of the gambling ship. The speed boat swept in a long circle. The motors slowed, and the nose of the frail craft seemed to be pulled into the water by some giant hand. A man standing on a grated landing-stage surveyed the boat with disinterested appraisal, looped a rope around a bit and yelled, "All aboard."

The passengers made the landing an occasion for much merriment. Women in evening dress held their long skirts well above their knees as they jumped. Two girls in sports outfits leapt unassisted to the landing and ran up the stairway. Mason and Drake were among the last to disembark. They climbed the swaying stairway to find a group of eight or ten persons held back from the steep incline by a taut rope between two stanchions. When the last of the incoming passengers had left the stairway, a man jerked the rope to one side and called out, "All aboard for the shore trip. Please don't crowd. There's plenty of room."

Mason led the way along the deck and into a lighted salon, from which came the sound of voices, the rattle of chips and the whir of roulette wheels. "Okay, Paul," he said, "do your stuff."

"You going to buck the tiger?" the detective asked.

"I think I'll watch for the time being," Mason said. "You start plunging. Try to attract plenty of attention."

Drake pushed his way toward a crowded roulette wheel, while Mason, strolling aimlessly about, sized up the general layout, lost a few dollars on roulette, recouped his losses playing the field numbers in a crap game, turned to the wheel of fortune and killed time by placing several small bets. He felt a touch on his elbow and Drake said, grinning, "I'm three hundred dollars to the good, Perry. What if I break the bank? Would I have to credit our expense account?"

"You won't break it, Paul."

"How about salting these winnings? I hate to credit a client with winnings."

"Okay, go to another table. Try your luck there. Keep drifting around. Don't keep much money in front of you. As soon as you run into a losing streak, buck the game hard. Then write a check. Soon as you do that, give me the high-sign and I'll come over."

Drake moved to a nearby table. The lawyer watched him quietly. Steady winnings augmented the stack of chips at first, then Drake started to lose. He increased the size of his bets, scattered money recklessly around the table. The croupier watched him with appraising eyes. It was from men who became angry as they lost that the gambling tables made the biggest winnings.

When the pile of chips disappeared, Drake emptied one of his trousers pockets of crumpled bills and silver. He gambled first with the silver, then changed the bills and flung them around the board. He stepped back from the table, pulled a checkbook from his pocket and scrawled out a check to "Cash" in the amount of five hundred dollars. He signed the check "Frank Oxman" and passed it across to the croupier. "How about this," he asked.

The croupier looked at the check. Drake caught Mason's eye and nodded. The croupier held up the check in his right hand. A man in a dinner jacket glided to his side. The croupier whispered in his ear. The man nodded, took the check and vanished.

Drake said, "How about it?"

"Just a minute, Mr. Oxman," the croupier replied suavely. "There'll be a few minutes' delay." He put the ball into play and devoted his entire attention to the table.

Mason strolled over to Drake's side. Two or three minutes passed while Drake fidgeted uneasily and Mason maintained the casual interest of a detached spectator. Then the man who had taken the check approached Drake. "Would you mind stepping this way a moment, Mr. Oxman?" he asked.

The detective hesitated, glanced at Perry Mason.

Mason said, "Okay, I'll go with you."

The man in the tuxedo favored Mason with an appraising stare from uncordial eyes.

"I'm with this gentleman," Mason explained. "Go ahead and lead the way." The man turned, crossed the gambling room to a door, in front of which lounged a guard in blue uniform, a gun ostentatiously strapped to his hip. A silver badge on his vest bore the words SPECIAL OFFICER.

The guide nodded to the officer, held open the swinging door and said, "This way, please." They followed him down a passageway which made an abrupt turn at right angles, to disclose an open door. The three went through this door and entered a reception room. Their guide crossed the room and stood expectantly in front of a heavy mahogany door.

A peephole slid back in the door. A bolt shot back and a man's voice said, "Okay."

The man in the dinner jacket held the door open for Mason and Drake. Mason, taking the lead, entered a sumptuously furnished office. A short, stocky man with a pasty face twisted his fat lips into an amiable smile. His eyes seemed as pale as the starched front of his shirt - and as hard and expressionless.

"This is Mr. Grieb," their guide said, and pulled the big mahogany door shut behind him as he stepped into the outer office. Mason heard the click of a spring lock. Grieb said, "Pardon me." He stepped to the door, pushed a lever which shot iron bars into place, then crossed the office and seated himself in a swivel chair behind a huge, glass-topped desk.

The desk was devoid of any papers save the check Drake had just written. It lay on a brown blotter, encased in a leather backer. Aside from this check, the blotter and the leather backer, there was nothing whatever on the glass-topped surface.

"Which one of you is Oxman?" the man behind the desk asked.

Drake glanced helplessly at the lawyer.

Mason stepped forward and said, "My name's Mason."

Grieb nodded. "Glad to know you, Mr. Mason," he said, and shifted his pale eyes to Paul Drake. "You wanted a check cashed, Mr. Oxman, and it's customary to ask a few questions to establish credit. Is this your first visit to the ship?"

Drake nodded.

"Know anyone out here?" Grieb asked.

"No," Drake said.

"Would you mind giving me your residence address, your occupation, and your telephone number, both at your residence and at your office?"

Mason said, "I think we can save you all this trouble, Mr. Grieb."

Grieb raised his eyebrows, and in a flat, toneless voice said, "How do you figure in this, Mr. Mason?"

"I'm with this gentleman," Mason explained, indicating Drake with a nod of his head.

"Friend of his?"

"I'm his lawyer."

Grieb interlaced fat hands across his stomach. Huge diamonds on his fingers caught the light and glittered scintillating accompaniment to the motion. "A lawyer, eh?" he said, almost musingly.

Mason nodded, moving closer to the edge of the desk.

"And just how did you propose to save us all this trouble?" Grieb asked, still in that same fiat voice.

Mason, smiling amiably, suddenly reached across the desk and picked up the check from the blotter. "You won't have to cash it," he said.

Grieb sat bolt-upright in his chair. His diamonds made a glittering streak of motion as he started to reach for the check, then caught himself, and sat with his finger-tips resting on the edge of the blotter. "What's the idea?" he asked.

Mason said, "My client isn't a very good gambler. He's rather a hard loser. He started to place a few casual bets, then won a little money, got into the spirit of the thing, and was swept off his feet. He's come down to earth now. He doesn't want any more money. He's finished gambling."

Grieb's eyes focused on Mason's face. "This little business matter," he said coldly, "is between Oxman and me."

Mason handed the check across to Drake. "Better tear it up," he said.

Drake tore it into pieces and shoved the pieces down deep into his trousers pocket. Grieb got to his feet. Mason moved so that he was standing between Drake and the gambler. "My client made a mistake in giving you this check," he said, by way of explanation.

"You mean there aren't any funds in the bank to cover it?" Grieb asked ominously.

"Of course there are," Mason said. "Telephone the bank tomorrow if that's what's bothering you. What I meant was that I don't want my client to have one of his checks cashed through this gambling ship. You see, we didn't come out here to gamble."

Grieb slowly sat down, eyed the two men for a moment, then indicated chairs with a glittering gesture of his right hand. "Sit down, gentlemen," he said. "I want to talk with you."

Drake looked to Mason for instructions. Mason nodded and seated himself on Grieb's left. Drake rather ostentatiously moved over to a chair nearer the door, farther from Grieb. The gambler still sat very erect, his fingertips resting on the edge of the blotter. "That check's good?" he asked.

Mason laughed. "I'll guarantee this gentleman's checks up to any amount he wants to write them."

"With that signature and on that bank?" Grieb persisted.

Mason nodded and said, apparently as an afterthought, "Or with any other signature."

Grieb's eyes studied Paul Drake, who, obviously ill at ease, returned the stare. Grieb shifted his eyes to Perry Mason and surveyed the granite-hard face of the lawyer. "So your name's Mason and you're a lawyer?"

Mason nodded.

"Tell me more about you."

"Why?" Mason asked.

"Because I want to know," Grieb said.

"I think," Mason told him, "our little business transaction is entirely concluded, isn't it, Mr. Grieb?"

Grieb shook his head. Suddenly a puzzled frown crossed his forehead. He said, "Say, wait a minute, you're not Perry Mason, are you?"

Mason nodded. Grieb swung half around in the swivel chair and put his right elbow on the blotter. "That," he said, "is different. Suppose we talk business, gentlemen."

Mason raised his eyebrows and said, "Business?"

Grieb nodded, turned suddenly to Drake and said, "If you didn't come out here to gamble, what did you come out here for, Mr. Oxman?"

Drake sucked in a quick breath, as though about to answer, then glanced at Mason and became silent.

Mason said easily, "Let me do the talking." He turned to the gambler and said, "I don't want any misunderstandings, Mr. Grieb. You don't know this man. He's offered you a check signed 'Frank Oxman.' That check's good as gold, but that doesn't mean this man is really Frank Oxman. It only means he has a banking account under that name. And if you should ever say that Frank Oxman won or lost a dime on your ship, you might get yourself into serious trouble. My client came out here, not for the purpose of gambling, but for the purpose of looking the place over."

"Why did he want to look it over?" Grieb asked.

"He wanted to find out something about the general background, what it looked like, and things of that sort."

"So now you claim he isn't Frank Oxman, eh?" Grieb asked.

Mason smiled affably. "No," he said, "I haven't made that claim."

"Then he is Frank Oxman."

"I won't even admit that," Mason said, smiling.

Grieb said slowly, "You two came out here to try and collect evidence."

Mason remained silent.

"You thought you could look the joint over, maybe strike up an acquaintance with one of the croupiers, stick around until the tables closed, get one of the men in conversation, and find out something you wanted to know," Grieb charged.

Mason took a cigarette case from his pocket, extracted a cigarette, and lit it. "After all," he said, "does it make any difference why we came out here?"

Grieb said, "You're damn right it does."

Mason exhaled cigarette smoke as he slipped the compact cigarette case back into his pocket. "Just how does it make a difference?" he asked.

Grieb said, "I have some business to talk over with your client."

"You haven't anything to talk over with my client," Mason said. "My client, from now on, is deaf, dumb and blind."

"All right, then, I have some business to talk over with you."

"Right now," Mason said, crossing his long legs and blowing smoke at the ceiling, "I'm not in a mood to talk... Nice offices you have here, Grieb."

Grieb nodded casually. "I'd like to have you boys meet my partner," he said, and shifted his position slightly, raising one side of his body as though pressing with his right foot. A moment later an electric buzzer sounded, and Grieb, pushing back the swivel chair, said, "Excuse me a minute."

The lawyer and Drake exchanged glances as Grieb walked to the heavy mahogany door, slid back the peephole, then pulled back the lever which controlled the bolts, opened the door and said to the special officer who stood on the threshold, "Arthur, get hold of Charlie Duncan for me. Tell him I want him in here at once."

The guard glanced curiously at the two visitors. "Charlie went ashore to telephone," he said. "He's coming right back. I'll tell him as soon as he comes aboard."

Grieb pushed the door shut, slammed the bolts into position, and waddled back to the desk. "How about a drink, boys?"

Mason shook his head. "Any reason why we can't go ashore?" he asked.

"I'd prefer to have you wait a little while."

"Wait for what?"

Grieb said slowly, "You came out here to get some evidence."

Mason's face lost its smile as he said, "I don't think I care to discuss why we came out here. You're running a public place. It's open to anyone who wants to come aboard."

Grieb's voice was soothing. "Now wait a minute, Mr. Mason," he said. "Let's not argue."

"I'm not arguing, I'm telling you."

"All right," Grieb grinned, "then you're telling me, and that's that... How'd you boys like to look the ship over?"

Mason shook his head. Grieb said irritably, "Look here. My time's just as valuable as yours. I've got something to say to you, but I want to wait until Charlie gets here. Charlie Duncan's my partner."

Mason glanced at Paul Drake. The detective shook his head. Mason said, "I don't think we'd care to wait."

Grieb lowered his voice. "Suppose I could give you the evidence you were looking for?"

"You don't know what evidence we're after," Mason said.

Grieb laughed. "Don't play me for a damn fool, Mason. Your client is Frank Oxman. His wife is Sylvia Oxman. He wanted to find some evidence which would help him in a divorce action."

Mason, avoiding Drake's eyes, said, after a moment, "I'm not saying anything. You're talking. I'm listening..."

"I've said all I'm going to," Grieb went on, his pale eyes studying Mason.

"How long do you think it'll be before your partner gets here?"

"Not over fifteen minutes."

Mason shifted his position, making himself comfortable in the chair. "Fifteen minutes isn't long," he said. "Nice place you have here."

"I like it," Grieb admitted. "I designed it and picked out the furniture myself."

"That a vault over there?" Mason asked, jerking his head toward a steel door.

"Yes, we turned an adjoining cabin into a vault. It's lined with concrete. Like to take a look at it?"

Grieb crossed over to the steel door of the vault and flung it open, disclosing a commodious, lighted interior. In the back of the vault was a cannonball safe.

"Keep your cash in that safe?" Mason asked, following Grieb into the cold interior of the vault.

"Our cash," Grieb said, staring at him steadily, "and our evidences of indebtedness."

"Meaning IOU's?" Mason asked.

"Meaning IOU's," Grieb said, regarding the lawyer with steady eyes.

"I'm commencing to be interested," Mason said.

"I thought you would," Grieb told him. "Over here in these plush-lined receptacles, we keep the wheels, where no one can tamper with them. You see, we're out beyond the twelve-mile limit and that puts us beyond police protection. We're on the high seas."

"You must keep quite a bit of cash on hand, then."

"We do."

"What's to keep a mob from boarding the ship, taking possession of it and cleaning you out?"

"That'd be piracy," Grieb said.

"So what?" Mason asked, laughing.

Grieb said, "We've figured all that out, Mr. Mason."

"How?"

"Well, in the first place, it's impossible to get into these offices except by coming down that corridor with the right-angle turn in it. When a man comes down that corridor, he has to walk over a wired section of flooring. His weight causes a contact and rings a buzzer here in the office. The door to this office is always kept locked. It's covered with wood on both sides, but the center is steel. It would take a long while to smash that door down. There are signals planted all over the office. I can sound an alarm from any part of the office, and without moving my hands.

"Moreover, there's an armed guard who's always somewhere around. He's as handy with his fists as he is with the .45 automatic he carries."

Mason nodded. "I saw him when we came in. I notice he has a badge which reads SPECIAL OFFICER. What does that mean? If you're out beyond the twelve-mile limit he can't be a deputy sheriff."

Grieb laughed. "The badge," he said, "is just for its psychological effect. The blue uniform the same way. The real authority comes from the gun. Remember, you're on the high seas now and I'm in supreme command."

"Suppose a mob dropped in some foggy night?" Mason asked.

"They wouldn't get anywhere."

"Your guard wouldn't last long."

"You think he wouldn't."

"You admit you keep a lot of cash here," Mason said.

"Sure."

"Banks keep cash. Banks have guards, and banks get stuck up regularly."

Grieb said, "Well, we don't get stuck up. It's not generally known, but in case you're interested, there's a balcony in back of that gambling casino. The front wall is of bullet-proof steel. There's an inch-and-a-half slit in the wall, and two guards are on duty up there. They have machine guns and tear gas bombs."

"That," Mason admitted, "is different."

"Don't ever worry about us," Grieb said. "We..."

He broke off as the electric buzzer sounded its warning.

"Someone's coming," he said. "It's probably Charlie. Let's go back into the office."

He led the way through the steel door of the vault, into the private office, walked to the communicating door and slid back the panel. As he did so, a speed launch pulled away from the side of the ship on its return trip to the shore, and the roar of its exhaust, sounding through the open portholes back of Grieb's desk, completely drowned out all other sounds, including a swift exchange of words between Grieb and the man on the other side of the door.

Grieb jerked back the lever which freed the bars from their sockets, twisted the knob of the spring lock, and opened the door as the roar of the speed boat died to a throbbing undertone of pulsating power. A bald-headed man of forty-five, with perpetual smile-wrinkles about his eyes, and calipers stretching between nose and mouth, stood on the threshold. He was wearing a gray-checkered suit, and his lips, twisting back in an affable smile, showed three gleaming gold teeth.

Grieb said, "Gentlemen, shake hands with my partner, Charlie Duncan. Duncan, this is Perry Mason, the lawyer. And the other man..."

"If it's all the same to you," Mason said, extending his hand, "the other gentleman will be nameless."

Duncan, pushing forward his right hand, suddenly froze into immobility. The gold teeth vanished as his lips came together. His eyes shifted for a quick moment to his partner and he said, "What is this, Sam?"

"It's okay, Charlie," Grieb said hastily.

Duncan's hands gripped Mason's. "Glad to know you, Mr. Mason," he said. His eyes shifted to study Paul Drake in cold appraisal.

"Come on over and sit down, Charlie," Grieb invited. "We're going to talk some business. I wanted you to be here."

"We're not doing any talking," Mason said.

"No," Grieb told him, speaking with nervous haste. "No one's asking you to. You can listen."

"All right," Mason agreed. "We'll listen."

They seated themselves, and Grieb turned to Duncan. "Charlie," he said, "this guy" - indicating Drake with a nod of his head - "started bucking the game. He was playing easy at first. Then he got hot and started raking 'em in. When things didn't go so well, he started plunging. When he went broke, he wanted to cash a check. Jimmy brought the check in and I took a look at the signature. That check was signed 'Frank Oxman.'"

"That doesn't mean anything," Mason interrupted. "I wish you boys would forget about that check."

"I'm just telling my partner what happened," Grieb said. "You don't have to say anything if you don't want to."

"All right," Mason told him, "I don't want to."

Duncan's face was completely without expression. "Go on, Sammy. Tell me the rest of it."

"I told Jimmy to bring him in. When he came in, Mason came with him. Mason did a little talking, then reached over, grabbed the check, and gave it to his friend to tear up."

Duncan's eyes partially closed. "Like that, eh?" he asked. "I don't think we're going to like that, Sammy."

Grieb said hastily, "Now, don't get this wrong, Charlie. I'm just telling you, see? Naturally, at first I was a little peeved. But then, I got the sketch. Mason didn't want me to know Oxman was aboard the ship. He didn't want anyone to know Oxman had been gambling out here. He didn't want us to have one of Oxman's checks. Get the sketch?"

"I think what I said was," Mason observed, "that my client had changed his mind about requiring any money. I think I also told you that if you should say Frank Oxman had been out here gambling you might put yourself in rather an embarrassing position. I pointed out very clearly to you, Grieb, that my client didn't come out here for the purpose of gambling."

"Sure, sure, I know," Grieb said affably. "We understand your position perfectly, Mason."

Duncan settled back in his chair. The gold teeth gradually came into evidence as his lips relaxed into his habitual smile.

"Talk any business, Sammy?" he asked.

"Not yet," Grieb said. "I was waiting for you to come aboard."

Duncan fished a cigar from his pocket, clipped off the end with a penknife, scraped a match across his shoe and said, "Okay, Sammy, I'm here."

"You want to do the talking?" Grieb asked.

"No, Sammy, you do it."

Grieb faced Mason. "Sylvia Oxman's been giving us quite a play lately. We looked her up and found her husband's name was Frank Oxman. A little bird told us Frank Oxman was maybe going to file a divorce action and would like to get some evidence that his wife had been squandering her time and money gambling, and therefore wasn't a fit person to have the custody of their child and couldn't be trusted with money in a guardianship proceeding. Would you know anything about that?"

Mason said cautiously, "No, I wouldn't know anything about that."

"Well, your client would."

"Let's leave my client out of it, please."

"Well," Grieb said, "we always like to co-operate. Now, you came out here looking for evidence. Perhaps we could help you out a little bit."

"In what way?" Mason asked.

"By giving you some evidence."

"On what terms?"

"Well," Grieb said, flashing a swift glance at his partner, "we'd have to discuss the terms."

"Your idea of evidence might not be my idea of evidence," Mason said.

"The evidence is all right," Grieb rejoined. "It's just a question of what you boys would be willing to do."

"We'd want to see the evidence," Mason said.

Grieb looked at Duncan significantly and jerked his head toward the vault. Duncan, his face still wearing a set smile, crossed to the vault and stepped inside. The three men in the room sat in tense silence. After a few seconds there was the peculiar whooshing sound made by air escaping as the door of the cannonball safe was slammed shut. Duncan emerged from the vault carrying three oblongs of paper which he slid across the glass top of the big desk.

Grieb's diamonds again made glittering streaks as he scooped up the oblongs of paper and said, "Three demand notes, signed by Sylvia Oxman, and totaling seven thousand five hundred dollars."

Mason frowned. "We hadn't figured on anything like this," he said.

Grieb's voice was harsh with greed. "Figure on it now, then."

Mason pursed his lips. "I suppose," he ventured, "you boys want something."

Grieb moved impatiently. "Don't be so God damn cagey. You've drawn cards in this game but we hold all the aces. Quit stalling. You're going to have to come across - and like it."

Duncan said chidingly, "Now, Sammy!"

Mason said, "I'd want to inspect these."

Grieb spread them out on the desk, holding them flat against the glass, his extended fingers pressing firmly against the upper edges. "Look 'em over," he invited grimly.

Mason objected. "That's not what I'd call inspecting them."

"That's what I call inspecting them," Grieb said.

Duncan said soothingly, "Now, Sammy. Now, Sammy. Take it easy."

"I'm taking it easy," Grieb said. "There was a check on this desk and he picked it up to 'inspect' it. Now it's torn in pieces and is in this guy's pocket."

"The check was different," Mason said.

"Well, I didn't like the way you did it," Grieb told him.

Mason's eyes were cold. "No one asked you to," he said shortly.

Duncan interposed. "Now, wait a minute, boys. This isn't getting us anywhere."

Grieb's face darkened with rage. He picked up the oblongs of paper and said irritably, "That's the way he's been ever since he came in. You'd think he was God and I was some sort of a crook. To hell with him!"

Duncan moved over to the desk, extended his hands for the notes. His face still smiling, but his eyes were hard. "This is a business deal, Sammy," he said.

"It isn't with me," Grieb told him. "As far as I'm concerned, there's no dice. We're handing these guys a lawsuit on a silver platter and they're trying to make us come all the way. To hell with it."

Duncan said nothing, but stood by the desk, his hand extended. And after a moment, Grieb handed him the slips of paper and said, "All right, you do it, if you know so much about it."

Duncan handed one of the notes to the lawyer. "The other two," he said, "are like this."

"I'd want to see them all," Mason said, without reaching for the note.

"You can look them over one at a time," Duncan told him.

Drake said, "That's fair, Perry. We'll look them over one at a time."

Mason slowly extended his hand and took the oblong of paper. He and Drake studied it carefully while Duncan watched them with cold eyes over smiling lips. Grieb opened the left-hand drawer of the desk and dropped his hand casually into the interior.

The note was on a printed form such as might have been readily obtained in any stationery store. It was in an amount of twenty-five hundred dollars, signed "Sylvia Oxman," and in the blank left for the name of the payee had been filled in, in the same feminine handwriting, the letters, "IOU." The date showed that the note was sixty days old.

Mason handed it back to Duncan. Duncan handed him another one and said, "This one was made a month earlier," and as Mason finished his inspection and returned it, handed him the third, saying, "This is the first one."

As Mason returned the IOU to Duncan, Grieb removed his hand from the desk drawer and slammed it shut. Mason said softly, "So what?"

"Well," Duncan said, "you're a lawyer. You don't need me to tell you what those things are."

Grieb said, "We know what those things are worth."

Duncan's voice was soothing. "With those in your hand, Mr. Mason," he said, "you'd hold all the trumps. A court would never let a woman handle a kid's money if she was a fiend for gambling. Suppose you make us an offer."

"Offer, hell," Grieb interrupted. "We'll set the price on those, Charlie. This means a lot to Oxman. It's just what he's been looking for, and he can't get to first base without them. They've been snooping around, trying to get some of our men to talk. You know as well as I do how much chance they stand of doing that. We hold the cards and we'll call the trumps." Mason got to his feet.

"Now, wait a minute," Duncan said. "Don't be like that, Mason. My partner's hot-headed, that's all."

"He's not hot-headed, he's cold-hearted."

"Well, after all, it's a matter of business," Duncan pointed out.

Mason nodded. "Sure it is, but you're the ones who don't know it. Sylvia hasn't any money right now. She can't even pay the face of those notes. You think they're worth a lot to me and you think you can hold me up. That's where you're making a mistake. There isn't any competitive market. No one else gives a damn about them."

"Let's put 'em back in the safe, Duncan," Grieb said, "I don't like to do business with pikers."

"And," Mason told him steadily, "I don't like to do business with crooks."

Grieb got to his feet so violently that the swivel chair shot back on its rollers to crash against the wall. His pasty face mottled into bluish patches.

Charlie Duncan, tilting his chair back against the wall, thrust his thumbs through the armholes of his vest and said chidingly, "Now, boys, don't be like that."

Mason walked across to the desk to stare steadily at Grieb. "Now," he said, "I'll tell you something about where you get off. You're out beyond the twelve-mile limit, which means out of the state. I can serve a subpoena duces tecum on you, have a commission appointed to take your deposition, come out here and make you swear under oath that you haven't got those IOU's, or else make you produce them. In that way I won't have to pay so much as a thin dime."

Charlie Duncan laughed softly. "Sammy's memory's awfully bad at times, Mason."

"Well, mine isn't," Mason snapped. "I'd ask you about those IOU's. If you made false answers I'd do things to you in a federal court. You're outside the state, but you're in United States territory as long as your ship is registered under the American flag.

"Now then, the only chance you stand of getting one cent above the face of those IOU's is to sell them to me. I'll offer you a bonus of one thousand dollars. That doesn't grow on bushes. You can take it or leave it. I'm going to give you thirty seconds to say yes or no, and then I'm going to walk out."

Grieb was breathing heavily. "Keep on walking, as far as I'm concerned," he said. "The answer is no."

Duncan didn't bother to look at Grieb. His eyes were appraising Mason. They were hard and merciless, but his gold teeth still glittered through grinning lips. "I've got something to say about this. Sammy, keep your shirt on. Now, Mr. Mason, you know as well as I do that these notes are worth a lot more than a thousand dollars above their face."

"Not to me they aren't," Mason said.

Grieb snorted. "Throw the piker off the ship, Charlie."

"Take it easy, Sammy," Duncan said, still looking at Mason. "Take your weight off your feet and shut up. I'm handling this."

"I guess I have something to say about it," Grieb protested. "I don't know who the hell you think you are. You're gumming the works. These notes are worth ten thousand dollars above their face, and I won't let them go until I get my share."

Duncan, still tilted back in his chair, said, "You see how my partner feels, Mason. Suppose we compromise on five grand."

"I don't give a damn how your partner feels," Mason said. "I've offered you a thousand dollars and that's my limit. If you suckers keep on holding those notes, you'll find yourselves holding the sack. By the time the smoke blows away, Sylvia isn't going to be able to pay even the face of those notes."

"That's a bluff," Grieb said.

"Now, Sammy, keep your shirt on," Duncan told him.

Grieb started toward Duncan. "Listen, Charlie," he shouted. "I'm running the office end of this business. You haven't invested anything here except a lot of conversation. I know what those IOU's are worth, and you ain't going to make a cheapskate out of me."

Duncan turned to look at him then, and his gold teeth vanished. "Sit down, you damn fool," he said, "and shut up. If Frank Oxman doesn't buy these notes, who's going to?"

"Sylvia will take them up."

"When?"

"Pretty soon."

"For how much?"

"Well, if she knew we had a chance to sell them..."

Duncan's coldly contemptuous gaze silenced his partner. He turned to Mason, "Suppose you boys go out in the other room for a little while," he said, "and let me talk to my partner. I want to be reasonable, but I agree with him a thousand dollars is altogether too small a sum to..."

"Then," Mason interrupted, "there's no need of our waiting. I've offered you a thousand dollars, and that's final. Take it or leave it. Don't ever forget I can put you two birds on the witness stand and find out everything I want to know without its costing me a damn cent. Anytime a..."

"Now, take it easy," Duncan interrupted soothingly. "This isn't going to get us anywhere, Mason. It's a business proposition. You two boys go out in the other room and wait a few minutes." He walked over to the heavy door, jerked the lever which pulled the bolts back, twisted the knurled knob of the spring lock and held the door open. "Make yourselves at home, boys. There's some magazines right over there. We won't be over five minutes."

"If you're as long as five minutes," Mason said, "you won't find us here when you come out."

Grieb yelled, "Go ahead and go, you damn piker, and see who cares!"

Duncan, still smiling, closed the door on Mason and the detective. The spring lock clicked into position. A half second later the iron bars shot home.

Drake turned to Mason and said, "Why not boost it to fifteen hundred, Perry? They'd take that. It would give Grieb a chance to save his face."

Mason said, "To hell with Grieb, and his face too. I don't like his damned blackmailing hide."

Drake shrugged his shoulders. "It's your funeral, Perry."

Mason slowly grinned and said, "No, it isn't. Duncan's nobody's fool. That talk I gave him about taking their depositions scared hell out of him. It's just a question of how long it'll take him to whip Grieb into line... Evidently there's friction between them."

"That's going to make it all the harder for us," Drake said.

Mason shook his head. "No, it isn't, Paul, it's going to make it easier."

"Why?"

"Because this partnership isn't going to last very much longer. They're fighting. Duncan is a shrewd thinker. Grieb flies off the handle. Now then, figure it out. If this partnership is going to bust up, it's a lot better to have eighty-five hundred dollars in cash to divide than seventy-five hundred in IOU's to try and collect."

Drake said, "That's so, Perry. I hadn't figured on that."

"Duncan's figuring on it," Mason said.

They were silent for a moment. Quick, nervous steps sounded in the passageway outside of the office. The two men listened while the steps swung around the right-angle turn in the corridor and approached the door of the reception office. Iron bars were jerked back on the other side of the door from the inner office. A knob twisted. The door opened explosively and Duncan, carrying the IOU's, said to Mason, "Okay. Pay over the money. It'll have to be cash."

"How about your partner?" Mason asked.

"Pay over the cash," Duncan said. "I have the IOU's here. That's all you want..."

The door from the hallway opened. A woman in her middle twenties, her trim figure clad in a dark, tailored suit, stared at them with black, disinterested eyes, then turned to Duncan and said, "I want to see Sam."

Duncan crumpled the oblongs of paper in his right hand and pushed them down into his coat pocket. His gold teeth came into evidence. "Sure, sure," he said. "Sam's right inside." But he continued to stand in the doorway, blocking her passage.

Once more she flashed her eyes in quick appraisal of the two men, then stepped forward until she was standing within two feet of Duncan, who kept his left hand on the knob of the partially opened door. "Well?" she asked smiling. "Do I go in?"

Duncan shifted his eyes to study Mason and Drake, and she, following the direction of his gaze, glanced at them for the third time. Duncan's smile expanded into a grin. "Sure," he said, his eyes focused on Drake's face, "go right on in." He shoved the door open, stepped to one side, raised his voice and said, "Don't you two talk any business until I get there."

She swept through the door and Duncan, still grinning pulled it shut behind her.

"Well, boys," he said, "it's too bad your little scheme didn't work. I'll see a lawyer tomorrow, Mason, and see if we can't pin something on you. We may have something to take before the D.A. In the meantime, don't forget the ship, boys. It's a nice place to gamble. We give you a good run for your money."

Mason said, "No, Duncan, we won't forget the ship."

"And," Duncan assured him, "we won't forget you." He escorted them down the corridor until the uniformed guard had opened the outer door. "Well, good night, boys," he said. "Come back any time."

He turned and retraced his steps down the corridor. Mason took the detective's arm and led him toward the gangway where departing patrons caught the speed boat.

"Was that Sylvia Oxman?" Drake asked.

"It must have been," Mason said, "and when she failed to recognize you and you gave her a dead pan, Duncan saw the play. Remember, you're supposed to be the lady's husband."

"Doesn't that leave us in something of a spot," Drake asked anxiously, "having tried to pick up the lady's notes and pulled all this hocus-pocus?"

"That depends on the breaks," Mason said gloomily. "Evidently it isn't our night to gamble."

Drake pushed his fingers down inside his collar, ran them around the neckband of his shirt, and said, "Let's beat it. If we're going to be pinched, I sure as hell don't want to go to jail in this outfit."

CHAPTER 4

MASON LOOKED across his desk at Matilda Benson and said, "I sent for you because I'm going to ask you a lot of questions."

"May I ask you some first?" she inquired.

He nodded.

"You saw Grieb?"

"Yes."

"Get anywhere?"

Mason shook his head and said, "Not yet. The breaks went against me."

She eyed him in shrewd appraisal. "I suppose you don't go in much for alibis and explanations."

Mason shook his head and was silent.

"Do you want to tell me about it?"

"No."

"Well, then, what's the next move?" she asked.

Mason said, "I'm going to try him again - this time from another angle. Before I do, I want to know more of what I'm up against."

She opened her purse, took out her cigar case and selected a cigar. While she was cutting off the end, Mason scratched a match and held it across the desk to her. She regarded him with twinkling eyes through the first white puffs of cigar smoke and said, "All right, go ahead. Ask your questions."

"What do you know about Grieb?"

"Nothing much. Just what my granddaughter tells me. He's hard and ruthless. I warned you he wouldn't be easy."

"Know anything about Duncan?"

"Sylvia says he doesn't count. He's sort of a yes-man."

"I think your granddaughter is fooled," Mason said.

"I wouldn't doubt it. She's too young to know much about men of that type. She can size up the sheiks all right, tell just about when they're going to start getting ambitious and what their line's going to be, but she can't size up gamblers."

"Her husband wants to get a divorce?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

"Why do men usually want to get divorces?"

Mason shook his head impatiently and said, "You'll have to play fair with me, Mrs. Benson. What's behind all this?"

She smoked in silence for a few seconds and said, "When my granddaughter is twenty-six, which'll be next year, she gets one-half of a trust fund, and her daughter, Virginia, who's six, gets the other half, unless a judge should decide Sylvia isn't a fit person to have the custody of Virginia. In that case, Virginia gets all of it."

"And with a situation like that brewing," Mason said incredulously, "she's given IOU's to a couple of gamblers?"

Matilda Benson nodded. "Sylvia's always done pretty much as she pleased. That's why the property was left in trust and not given to her outright."

"So her husband's trying to get some evidence which'll give him a divorce and cause Sylvia to lose her share of the trust funds?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

"So his daughter will have twice as much money, and so he can have the handling of that money. If he ever finds out about those IOU's, he'll get them and use them to show Sylvia can't be trusted with money. He has other evidence, too, but, right now, he wants to show she can't be trusted with money. You'll have to work fast. I want those IOU's before Sam Grieb finds out how important they are."

Mason said slowly, "I think Grieb already knows."

"Then we're licked before we start."

"No, we're not licked, but I begin to see why you wanted a lawyer. How much is the trust fund?"

"Half a million in all. If Frank Oxman ever gets the custody of Virginia and gets his hands on the money it'll be like signing the kid's death warrant."

"Surely not that bad," Mason said.

"That man's like a rattlesnake."

"He'd be under the control and supervision of the courts," Mason pointed out.

She laughed mirthlessly. "You don't know Frank Oxman. Sylvia isn't any match for him. As long as I'm here I'll fight him, but I'm almost seventy. I'm not going to be here forever."

"But look here," Mason said, "a court wouldn't deprive Sylvia of the custody of her child simply because she'd been gambling."

"There are other things," Matilda Benson said grimly.

"How about Frank Oxman; does he have any money?"

"He has a little to gamble with."

"What sort of gambling?"

"The stock market mostly. That's considered respectable. Sylvia plays roulette, and that's considered immoral. People make me sick. They're hypocrites."

"What I'm trying to find out," Mason said, "is how Oxman is going to get the money to take up those IOU's."

"Don't worry, he'll raise that all right."

"How?"

"There's a ring that will put up money for things like that," she said. "Occasionally Frank is able to fix a prize fight or a horse race or something of that sort. He can always raise the necessary money to make a killing then."

"Sylvia will pay off those IOU's if she gets that money from the trust fund?"

"Of course."

"No matter who has the IOU's?"

Matilda Benson nodded.

"It would help a lot," Mason said slowly, "if she wouldn't."

"What do you mean?"

"If Frank Oxman is going to buy those IOU's he'd have to offer cash for them. He'd have to offer the amount of the notes plus a bonus. If he's borrowing the money, he'd have to put up the IOU's as collateral. If the people who were loaning the money thought the collateral wasn't good, they'd refuse to put up the money."

"No," she said slowly, "that won't work. Sylvia would never go back on her word."

Mason said, "I have an idea. I don't know how good it is, but I think it may work. From what I saw last night, I think there's friction between Grieb and Duncan. I have an idea that friction may be sufficiently intensified to throw them into a court of equity. A court wouldn't consider the gambling business an equitable asset. But there's quite a lot of money invested in furniture and fixtures, and the partnership must have that gambling ship under lease. Now, if I could start the pair fighting, and one of the partners should drag the other into court and have a receiver appointed to wind up the partnership business, they couldn't transfer those notes. And if I pointed out to a federal court that the notes had been given to secure a gambling debt, it would probably refuse to consider them as assets."

Matilda Benson leaned forward. "Listen," she said, "I don't want to be held up by a couple of crooked gamblers. But if you can pull something like this, the sky's the limit so far as expenses are concerned."

"Which brings us," Mason said casually, "to the question of why you're so anxious to get those IOU's. If you make Sylvia a present of them, the effect is just the same as though you'd given her the money to go and pay them off. And that wouldn't take any premium. Therefore..."

Della Street gently opened the door from the outer office and said in a low voice, "Charles Duncan is in the outer office, Chief. He says he wants to see you personally and that it's important."

Matilda Benson's gray eyes stared significantly at the lawyer. "That means," she said, "they've already approached Oxman, and Duncan is going to play one bidder against the other."

Mason shook his head, his forehead furrowed into a puzzled frown. "I don't think so," he told her. "I have detectives on Oxman, Duncan and Grieb. This certainly isn't a matter they'd discuss over the telephone, and if there'd been a personal meeting I'd have known of it."

"Then what does he want to see you about?"

Mason said, "The best way to find out is by talking with him." She nodded. He turned to his secretary and said, "Della, take Mrs. Benson into the law library. Tell Mr. Duncan to come in... Does Duncan know you, Mrs. Benson?"

"No, he never saw me in his life."

"All right, you wait in the law library. I think Duncan is going to make some proposition. It may prove interesting."

Della Street said, "This way, please," escorted Matilda Benson into the law library, and then brought Charlie Duncan into Mason's private office.

Duncan's face was twisted into his customary cordial grin, prominently displaying the burnished gold teeth in his upper jaw, "No hard feelings because of last night?" he asked.

"No hard feelings," Mason said.

"You played a pretty smart game," Duncan went on. "If it hadn't been that the breaks went against you, you'd have had us licked."

Mason said nothing.

Duncan said, "Oh, well, we can't always win, you know."

Mason indicated a chair and said, "Sit down."

Duncan took a cigar case from his pocket and extended it to Mason.

"No," Mason told him, "I only smoke cigarettes."

Duncan sniffed and then indicated Matilda Benson's leather cigar case which she had left on the desk.

"Looks like some client must have left a cigar case here, then."

Mason frowned and said, "My law clerk." He pressed a button which summoned Della Street, handed her the leather cigar case and said, "Take this out to Jackson and tell him he left his cigars in here."

Della Street nodded, a twinkle showing in her eyes. "Yes," she said demurely, "Jackson will be missing his cigars."

She took the cigar case and left the room. Duncan grinned and said, "So the grandmother's your client, eh?"

Mason raised his eyebrows. Duncan laughed and said, "Don't think we're quite such damn fools as you made us seem last night, Mason. Naturally we tried to figure out how you fitted into the picture. We didn't think you were representing Oxman, or you wouldn't have tried to run a ringer on us. You certainly weren't representing Sylvia. But Sylvia has a grandmother who smokes cigars. That was a woman's cigar case."

"Are you asking me or telling me?" Mason asked.

"I'm telling you."

"Nice of you," the lawyer remarked, yawning. "And that's all you wanted to see me about?"

"No."

"What did you want to see me about?"

"About those IOU's."

"What about them?"

Duncan crossed his knees, said, "Now listen, Mr. Mason, I want you to get me straight. I like the way you played the game last night. Checking back on the conversation you had with Sam, we found we couldn't pin anything on you. You never claimed the man with you was Frank Oxman. You had him try to cash a check, and Sam did all the leading from there on. And the damn fool led with his chin. We thought we might have you on that check business because Sam remembered the name of the bank. But we did a little snooping around and found you'd plugged up that loophole. If we could have found a weak point in your play, we'd have been mean about it. But we couldn't find any. It was a slick piece of work."

"And you dropped in to tell me that?" Mason asked.

Duncan shook his head and said, "I dropped in to tell you how you could get those IOU's."

"How?"

"I'd want you to do something for me. You're smart. I need a smart lawyer."

Mason stared steadily at the gambler and said, "Get me straight on this, Duncan: I'm interested in those IOU's. I'm not interested for myself, but for a client. Now, I don't know what you have in mind, but I don't want you to tell me anything you wouldn't want repeated to my client. In other words, you and I are dealing at arm's length. If you tell me anything, I'm not going to keep the conversation confidential. If I can capitalize on what you tell me, I'm going to do it. A lawyer can't serve two masters.

"Now then, with that understanding, if you want to talk about those IOU's, go ahead. I'd advise you not to."

Duncan's gold teeth flashed into prominence. "Well," he said, waving his cigar in a little gesture, "I can't say you didn't warn me."

Mason sat silent.

"Listen," Duncan went on, "I've been a gambler all my life. I'm going to take a chance on you. I have a proposition I think will look good to you."

Mason said slowly, "I'm going to tell you once more, Duncan. I'm not in this business for my health. Whenever I do something it's because some client is paying me money to do it. That means I've already been employed by some client whose interests are adverse to yours. If you don't tell me anything, you won't have anything to regret later on."

"Spoken like a gentleman," Duncan said.

"No," Mason corrected, "spoken like a lawyer."

"Okay," Duncan said, "you've told me - not only once, but twice. If I put my head in a noose it's my own funeral. Is that it?"

"That's it," Mason said.

"All right, now suppose you listen to me for a while. I need a smart lawyer. I need you. You've been employed to get those IOU's. That's the limit of your interest in my affairs, at present. All right, I'll see that you get the IOU's. I'll give them to you. In return, I want you to do something for me.

"I want to get rid of Sam. He's hard to get along with. He thinks he's the whole show. I don't like it. Now then, is it true that when a partnership is organized for an unspecified term, either partner can dissolve the partnership at any time he wants to?"

Mason said, "Supposing that's the law, then what?"

"I want to dissolve that partnership."

"You don't need a smart lawyer to do that," Mason pointed out.

"I need a smart lawyer to do it the way I want to do it."

"Aren't you two doing a pretty good business out there?"

"A land-office business."

"The minute you dissolve the partnership," Mason said, "you'll knock that business into a cocked hat."

"No, we won't," Duncan said. "Let me tell you something, I'm pretty smart, myself. Grieb had some money and a fine opinion of himself. He wanted to open a gambling ship, but good hulls that can be made into gambling ships aren't so easy to find. I happened to know a man who had one. The man didn't know Grieb. He knew me. He gave us a lease, and in that lease there's a clause that any time the partnership of Grieb and Duncan is dissolved, the lease is automatically terminated."

"So what?" Mason asked, his eyes staring steadily in level-lidded scrutiny.

"So," Duncan said, "I'm going to terminate the partnership. That'll terminate the lease. We'll wind up the partnership business. It isn't worth a damn without a place to carry on. The furniture and fixtures won't bring ten cents on the dollar at a forced sale. I'll see there's a forced sale, and I'll bid the stuff in through a dummy. Ten minutes after I have title to it, the owner of the ship will execute a new lease with me. That'll show Mr. Sam Grieb just how smart he is.

"He struts around that place ten inches taller than God, telling me what I can do and what I can't do, trying to give me orders, bossing me around, countermanding my instructions, bullying the employees, and being a general pain in the neck.

"Now then, you can go ahead and represent me in this thing. Part of the partnership assets are those IOU's. I'll get all the partnership assets. I'll turn the IOU's over to you as your fee. I don't care what you do with them afterwards. You can collect as big a bonus as you want. I didn't know the grandmother was interested in 'em, but if she is, you've got her on the one hand and Frank Oxman on the other. You can run the price up and sell out to the best bidder."

"That's not my way of doing business," Mason said.

"Well, you know your way of doing business," Duncan told him, "and I know mine. You know what I want. You know what you'll get. Now then, do we shoot or not?"

"We don't," Mason said unhesitatingly.

"Why not?"

"Because I don't like the way you're going about it, Duncan. I don't want to represent you. I'm representing interests adverse to you. I'm fighting you."

Duncan said affably, "Better think it over, Mason. I'm giving you an out. It's the only out you have. You've tipped your hand on those IOU's. If you don't play ball with me I'll play it both ends against the middle, the grandmother on one side and Frank Oxman on the other, and Sylvia in between. The one who pays the most money gets the IOU's. Oxman'll want 'em for evidence, and the grandmother will want to keep 'em from coming into court. We don't care which side comes out on top. What we're after is money."

Mason shook his head.

Duncan got to his feet. "And to think I thought you were smart!" he said. "That shows what a sucker I was... How do I get out of here?"

"Through that door into the corridor."

Duncan strode across the office, jerked the door open and slammed it shut behind him.

Mason picked up the receiver on his desk telephone and said, "Ring the law library. Tell Della to bring Mrs. Benson back in here, and get Paul Drake on the line for me right away." He dropped the receiver back into place and stared moodily at the blotter on his desk. Just as the door from the law library opened, the telephone rang and Mason, again picking up the receiver, heard Paul Drake's voice say, "Okay, Perry. What is it?"

"Duncan was just in my office," Mason told him.

"You aren't telling me anything, Perry. I've had two men on him ever since he came ashore from the gambling ship."

"I want to know just where he goes and just what he does," Mason said. "No matter what happens, don't lose sight of him. If necessary, put more men on the job."

"Okay, Perry," Drake replied. "Don't worry. He'll never lose the two shadows who are tailing him now."

"Just wanted to make sure," Mason said, "because he's going to be important. I'll tell you about it later." He dropped the receiver into position, smiled up at Matilda Benson and said, "Well, we're getting the breaks."

"What are they?" she asked.

"Duncan," Mason said, "has been playing Sam Grieb for a sucker. Now he's ready to spring the trap. He's got Grieb's money in the business and is now going to throw the whole thing into a receivership so he can take advantage of a joker in the lease."

Matilda Benson relaxed comfortably in the big overstuffed leather chair and said, "I thought Duncan was just a yes-man."

"Well, you're going to have one more think coming. He's smart."

"Can he make it stick?" she asked.

"Yes," Mason said slowly, "I think he can. I think he's got Grieb. Grieb was trying to put Duncan on the spot in some way, but Duncan beat him to it by putting a joker in the lease, and now Duncan is ready to clamp down on Grieb. It's a case of two crooks, each trying to outsmart the other, with Duncan holding more trumps."

"Why did Duncan tell you all this?"

"He wanted me to act as his lawyer."

"Why you? What I mean is, he must know you're hostile to him and..."

"That was the bait he held out," Mason said. "He told me he'd let me have those IOU's as my fee."

"Could he do that?"

"Probably."

"Why didn't you do it?"

"Because, in the first place, I don't like Duncan. In the second place, I don't like business of that sort. And in the third place, we don't have to do it. They're playing directly into our hands. Just because I wouldn't represent him doesn't mean Duncan isn't going ahead. He's ready to shoot now. He'll get some other lawyer. They'll strike out of a clear sky. Duncan will dissolve the partnership and file an action asking to have a receiver appointed. The court will issue an order requiring Grieb to appear and show cause why a receiver shouldn't be appointed. That order will probably be served sometime tonight. I'll arrange to be aboard the gambling ship when the service is made. There'll be a lot of fur flying out there, and what I'll say won't make matters any better. By the time I've finished, I'll have those IOU's."

Matilda Benson got to her feet, ground out the end of her cigar in an ash tray on the desk, smiled at Mason and said, "I like your methods very much, Mr. Mason. The affair is entirely in your hands."

When she had gone, Della Street came over to stand at Mason's side, her right hand resting lightly on his left shoulder. "Listen, Chief," she said, "I wish you wouldn't do it."

"Do what?"

"Go out to that gambling ship tonight."

"Why?"

"There's going to be trouble out there. Those men are going to get nasty."

"I can be nasty myself, on occasion," he told her.

"But you're out on their ship. You'll be out of the jurisdiction of all state laws. You're surrounded by their men who will do exactly what they're told."

"They're rats," Mason said. "I don't like either of them. I'm particularly sore at Grieb. It'll do me a lot of good to point out to Grieb just where he stands and show Duncan where he's overreached himself."

"And then what'll they do?" she said.

"When I get finished they'll turn over the IOU's to me at their face value, or perhaps for a few hundred dollars bonus," Mason said.

She smiled down at him as his arm circled her waist and drew her close. "Well," she told him, "there's nothing like being optimistic."

CHAPTER 5

BEADS OF MOISTURE glinted on the upturned collar of Perry Mason's gray overcoat as he stood in the telephone booth of the beach-town drugstore. His brown felt hat was also covered with glistening particles. From time to time, he snapped his left arm into position to consult his wristwatch. The telephone in the pay station suddenly shattered the silence. Mason jerked the receiver from its hook almost as soon as the bell started to ring. A feminine voice said, "Mr. Perry Mason, please."

"Yes, this is Mr. Mason."

"Go ahead, please."

Mason heard Drake's voice saying, "Okay, Perry. Duncan's filed his lawsuit. He's had a summons and an order to show cause issued and is on his way down to the beach with a deputy marshal who's going to serve the papers. He'll go right to the gambling ship."

Mason said, "Thanks, Paul. When your shadows call in next, tell them not to follow Duncan any farther than the pier."

"Right," the detective said. "Now listen, Perry, here's something else: Frank Oxman is headed for the beach. The operative who's shadowing him telephoned in the report."

"How long ago?" Mason asked.

"About half an hour ago."

"Then Oxman will get aboard the ship before Duncan gets there?"

"It looks that way."

"That," Mason said, "may complicate things. Grieb's evidently..."

"Wait a minute," Drake cut in, "you haven't heard anything yet. Sylvia Oxman's been out somewhere and my men couldn't pick up her trail. I've had operatives shadowing her apartment, and just to be on the safe side, I assigned a man to shadow her maid. Now, the maid went out a little while ago wearing one of Sylvia's Oxman's fur coats. The shadow tailed along, handling it just as a routine assignment; but he drew the lucky number. The maid contacted Sylvia, and my man had a chance to telephone in for instructions. Of course, I told him to drop the maid and pick up Sylvia."

"Know where she was going?" Mason asked. "It's foggy as the devil down here now, Paul, and that fur coat may mean that she's heading for the gambling ship."

"That's what I'm afraid of," Drake said. "Here's a peculiar coincidence, Perry. I had to put so many men on this case that I didn't have a chance to check them over carefully. I've just discovered that the man who's tailing Sylvia knows Duncan and Grieb personally. Will that make any difference?"

"It may. Do they know he's a detective?"

"No, I don't think they do. From all I can learn, this chap, whose name's Belgrade, had some sort of a partnership with Duncan and Grieb and they froze him out. I think he dropped a few thousand. It was all the money he had in the world and he had to go to work. He'd been a detective before, and when he struck me for a job I liked his looks and gave him a trial. He seemed to do all right, so I kept giving him little jobs."

Mason said slowly, "I don't think you'd better let him go aboard the gambling ship, if that's the case, Paul. It might complicate matters."

"That's the way I figured," Drake said. "Of course, shadowing the maid was just a routine job, but after this man contacted Sylvia I remembered something about his having been mixed up with gamblers and looked up his history. Incidentally, Perry, he claims that Duncan is the more crooked and the more dangerous of the two, but that they're both a couple of crooks."

"Well," Mason said, "you'd better jerk him off before he gets out on the ship."

"Yeah, I'm rushing a man down to the wharf to relieve Belgrade. Staples is his name. You'll probably remember him. He worked on that Dalton murder case. Of course, I don't know that Sylvia's headed for the ship. If she is, the relief will take over."

"Okay," Mason said. "Anything else?"

"That's all, Perry, but listen: I don't like the way things are shaping up. You're playing with dynamite. These gamblers are bad actors, and if Grieb gets the idea you encouraged Duncan to play foxy, it may not be so hot. When you get aboard that ship you'll be on the high seas and the men who are working as a crew are pretty tough citizens."

"Forget it," Mason told him. "I'll be all right."

"Well," Drake said, "remember that if Sylvia Oxman goes aboard that ship I'll have Staples shadowing her. Staples knows you. If you should have any trouble you can count on him. He's packing a .38 automatic and knows how to use it. If it comes to a showdown, remember he'll stand back of you."

Mason laughed into the transmitter and said, "You're doing too much worrying, Paul."

"Well, watch your step, Perry."

"Okay," the lawyer said, and hung up. His face was granite-grim as he left the drugstore and went out to his car.

Fog hung over the beach town in a thick, white pall which muffled sounds and blanketed the street lights with reddish, circular auras. Mason drove slowly, his windshield wiper beating monotonously. He speeded up as he came to the better-lighted business district, drove to the amusement pier, parked his car, and walked down the lighted pathway between the concessions.

Here the bright blaze of lights dispersed the gloom of the fog, but a few feet above the tops of the concessions the moisture closed in as a curtain, reflecting the illumination below as a crimson glare.

A man was selling tickets at the steps which led down to the float, where a speed boat was waiting. "Here you are," he said, "three boats running constantly. Take a cruise out to the high seas. Out beyond the twelve-mile limit. Who's next?"

Mason bought a ticket, went down the slippery steps, his gloved hands sliding along the rope rail. Two men came just behind him, and Mason heard the ticket seller say, "That's all for this load. There'll be another boat in, in just a few minutes."

The water was like black oil. The glossy surface barely moved to a long lazy swell which gently rocked the waiting speed boat. Moisture dripped from the wharf to the water; and in the fog-muffled silence could be heard the gentle lapping of waves against the piles of the wharf, the sound of the idling motor in the speed boat.

Mason took his place in a rear seat. A line thudded to the float. The speed boat roared into motion. Moisture from the fog whipped over Mason's face. Behind him, the amusement concessions glowed for a few minutes as a yellow blob of light, then were swallowed into the fog. A horn, operated by compressed air, sent forth mournful warnings as the speed boat hissed through the darkness. The red and green running lights stained the reflecting fog in colored blotches.

By the time the speed boat pulled alongside the gambling ship, Mason was wet and chilled. The crowd which clambered stiffly from the boat to the landing stage showed none of the joyous spontaneity which had characterized those who had disembarked on Mason's previous visit. They climbed the swaying stairway, for the most part in silence, a black, somber line of people who would presently cluster about the bar in an attempt to warm their blood.

There were some half dozen people waiting at the head of the landing-stairs to go back on the speed boat. Mason walked down the deck toward the bar entrance, and heard the staccato exhaust of the launch ripping the silence of the night as it swung away toward land. He ordered a Tom-and-Jerry, sipped it in leisurely appreciation, responding to the genial warmth and the glittering lights which so brilliantly illuminated the interior of the bar. He checked his hat and coat, and heard the exhaust of another speed boat as it arrived and departed.

Mason strolled into the main gambling room and turned toward the passageway which led to the offices. There were perhaps eighty or a hundred players clustered around the various gambling tables. He saw nothing of the uniformed guard who had previously been stationed near the entrance to the offices, so marched unannounced down the echoing wooden passageway, made the right-angle turn, and pushed open the door of the reception office.

At first glance Mason thought the office was empty; then, in a corner, away from the door, he caught sight of a woman, dressed in a blue suit, an orange blouse giving it a splash of color, her face concealed by a magazine she was reading. A stretch of shapely leg showing beneath the skirt caught Mason's eye. Apparently absorbed in the magazine, she didn't look up as the lawyer entered the room. A blue leather handbag lay on her lap.

Mason stepped to the door which led to the inner office and knocked. There was no answer.

The woman in the far corner of the office looked up and said, "I don't think anyone's in there. I knocked several times and got no answer."

Mason stared at the ribbon of light which showed along the side of the door. "The door isn't even latched," he said. "I thought they always kept it locked."

The woman said nothing. The lawyer crossed the office, seated himself in a chair separated from hers by only a few feet, and turned casual eyes to her profile. He recognized her then as the woman he had seen on his last visit to the gambling ship - Sylvia Oxman - whose inopportune arrival had upset his plans.

Mason studied the toe of his shoe for a moment in frowning concentration, then turned to her and said, "You'll pardon me, but do you have an appointment with Mr. Grieb?"

"No," she said, "no appointment. I just wanted to see him."

"I," Mason told her, "have a very definite appointment, and it's for this hour. I don't like to inconvenience you, but it's important that I see him as soon as he comes in. My business will take about twenty minutes. Perhaps it would inconvenience you less if you went out and returned then."

She got swiftly to her feet. "Thank you very much for telling me," she said. And Mason thought there was relief in her voice, as though he had said something she had been hopefully anticipating.

"I'm sorry it's impossible for me to postpone the appointment in your favor," Mason said, smiling affably. "I think I'll wait for him in his private office."

Mason pushed open the heavy door as Sylvia Oxman tossed her magazine on the table and started for the passageway.

Sam Grieb's body, seated in the swivel chair, lay slumped over the huge desk. One shoulder was propped against the side of the desk. The head lolled at a grotesque angle, showing a red bullet hole in the left temple. A shaded lamp, which flooded illumination over the discolored face, was reflected from the glassy surfaces of open, staring eyes. The diamonds on his right hand sent out scintillating brilliance. His left hand was out of sight, under the desk.

Mason whirled back toward the outer office. Sylvia Oxman was just stepping into the corridor. "Sylvia!" he said sharply.

She paused at the sound of his voice, stood uncertainly in the doorway, then turned, dark eyes luminous with some emotion.

"Come here," Mason ordered.

"Just who are you?" she asked. "What do you want? What do you mean by speaking to me in..."

Mason reached her side in three swift steps, clamped strong fingers about her left arm just above the elbow. "Take a look," he ordered.

She hung back for a moment, then tried to shake herself free. Mason circled her swiftly with his arm and swung her through the door of the private office. She turned toward him indignantly, said, "How dare you..." and then broke off as she caught sight of the huddled figure at the desk. She opened her mouth to scream. Mason clamped his hand over her lips. "Steady now," he warned.

He waited until she struggled for breath, then released his hand and asked, "How long had you been waiting in the reception office before I came?"

"Just a minute or two," she said in a low, barely audible voice. She caught her breath. Her eyes, wild and staring, turned away from the desk, then, as though drawn by some overpowering fascination, drifted back.

"Can you prove it?"

"What do you mean?"

"Did anyone see you come in?"

"I don't know. I don't think so. I can't tell... Who... who are you? I've seen you here before. You know my name."

Mason nodded and said, "My name's Mason. I'm a lawyer. Now listen, cut out this acting. Either you did this, or..."

He broke off as his eyes stared down at several oblongs of paper on the blotter. He reached forward and gingerly picked them up.

Sylvia Oxman gasped, "My IOU's! I came to pay up on them."

"Seventy-five hundred," Mason said. "Is that right?"

"Yes."

"You wanted to give Grieb the money for these?"

"Yes."

"That's why you came here tonight?"

"Yes."

"All right," Mason told her grimly, "let's see the money."

"What money?"

"Quit stalling. The seventy-five hundred bucks you were going to give Grieb in return for the IOU's."

"Why should I show it to you?"

Mason made a grab for her handbag. She avoided him, jumped back and stood staring at him with wide, frightened eyes. Mason said, "You haven't got seventy-five hundred dollars."

She said nothing, her rapid breathing slightly distending her nostrils.

"Did you kill him?" Mason asked.

"No... of course not... I didn't know he was in here."

"Do you know who did?" She slowly shook her head.

Mason said, "Listen. I'm going to give you a break. Get out through that door, try to avoid being seen when you leave the passageway. Start gambling at one of the roulette tables. Wait for me. I'll talk with you out there, and you'll tell me the truth. Remember that, Sylvia, no lies."

She hesitated a moment, then said, "Why should you do this for me?"

Mason laughed grimly. "I'll bite, why should I? Just a foolish loyalty I have for my clients. I protect them, even when they lie to me - which most of them do - or try to double-cross me - which has been done."

Her dark, luminous eyes studied the rugged determination of his face. She was suddenly cool and self-possessed. "Thanks," she said, "but I'm not your client, you know."

"Well," he told her, "you're the next thing to it. And I'm damned if I can figure you as being guilty of murder. But you've got to do a lot of explaining before you can convince anyone else. Go ahead, now, get out."

"My IOU's," she said. "If my husband ever..."

"Forget it," Mason interrupted. "Have confidence in me for a change. I'm having plenty in you."

She studied him for a moment thoughtfully, then stepped to the door, her eyes avoiding the desk. "Those IOU's," she said, "are..."

"Beat it," he interrupted, "and don't close the door. Leave it ajar, just as it was."

She slipped through the door, and a moment later the electric signal announced she had rounded the turn in the corridor.

Mason pulled a wallet from his pocket, counted out seventy-five hundred dollars in bills, opened a drawer of the desk with the toe of his shoe, and dropped the bills into the drawer. He kicked the drawer shut, held the IOU's clamped between thumb and forefinger, struck a match, and held the flame to the paper. By the time the flame had burnt down to his hand, the IOU's had withered into dark, charred oblongs, traced with a glowing perimeter which gradually ate its way into the darker centers.

Abruptly, the electric buzzer burst into noise, announcing that someone was coming down the corridor toward the office. A split-second later it zipped into noise once more - two people were approaching.

The lawyer crumpled the bits of burned ash in his hand, thrust the corners which had been unconsumed into his mouth, and stepped swiftly into the reception office, pulling shut the door to the inner office by catching the knob with his elbow. He wiped his darkened hands on the sides of his trousers, threw himself into a chair, opened a magazine, and was unwrapping a stick of chewing gum when the door of the reception office opened, to disclose Duncan, accompanied by a tall man with watery blue eyes, dressed in a tweed suit. Both men wore overcoats, and fog particles glistened from the surfaces of the coats.

Duncan jerked to a dead stop, stared at Mason and said, "What the hell are you doing here?"

Mason casually fed the stick of chewing gum into his mouth, rolled the wrapper into a ball, dropped it into an ash tray, munched the chewing gum into a wad and said, "I was waiting for Sam Grieb because I wanted to talk to him. Now that you're here, I can talk to both of you."

"Where's Sam?"

"I don't know. I knocked on the door, but got no answer, so I decided I'd wait - not having anything else to do... It's a wonder you wouldn't get some up-to-date magazines here. You'd think this was a dentist's office."

Duncan said irritably, "Sam's here. He's got to be here. Whenever the tables are in operation one or the other of us has to be in this office."

Mason shrugged his shoulders, let his eyebrows show mild surprise. "Indeed," he said. "Any way in except through this room?"

"No."

"Well," Mason said, "suppose I talk with you while we're waiting. I understand you've filed your case."

"Of course I've filed it," Duncan said irritably. "You aren't the only attorney in the country. If you're too damned dumb to take good business when it's offered you, there are others who aren't so finicky."

Mason said politely, "How about a stick of gum?"

"No. I don't chew it."

"Of course," Mason said, "now that you've dragged your difficulties into court, you've submitted yourself to the jurisdiction of a court of equity. That throws your assets into court."

"Well, what if it does?"

"Those IOU's," Mason pointed out, "are part of your assets. They were given for a gambling debt. A court of equity wouldn't permit itself to be used as a collection agency for a gambling debt."

"We're on the high seas," Duncan said. "There's no law against gambling here."

"You may be on the high seas," Mason told him, "but your assets are in a court of equity. It's an equitable rule that all gambling contracts are void as being against public policy, whether there's a law against gambling or not. Those IOU's aren't worth the paper they're written on. You've been just a little too smart, Duncan, you've turned seventy-five hundred dollars worth of assets into scrap paper."

"Sylvia would never raise the point," Duncan said.

"I'll raise it," Mason told him.

Duncan studied him with blue, glittering eyes, "So that's why you wouldn't represent me, eh?"

"That's one of the reasons," Mason admitted.

Duncan pulled a leather key container from his pocket, started to fit a key in the lock of the door to the inner office. "If Sam hasn't the door barred from the inside, I'll open it," he said to the man in tweeds, then suddenly turned again to the lawyer. "What's your best offer, Mason?"

"I'll give you the face value of the IOU's."

"How about the thousand-dollar bonus?"

"Nothing doing."

"You made that offer yesterday," Duncan remonstrated.

"That was yesterday," Mason told him. "A lot's happened since yesterday."

Duncan twisted the key, clicked back the spring lock, and flung the door open. "Well," he said, "you sit down and wait a few minutes, and... Good God! What's this!"

He jumped backward, stared at the desk, then whirled to Mason and yelled, "Say, what are you trying to cover up here? Don't tell me you didn't know about this."

Mason pushed forward, saying, "What the hell are you talking about? I told you..." He became abruptly silent.

The man in tweeds said, "Don't touch anything. This is a job for the homicide squad... Gosh, I don't know who is supposed to take charge. Probably the marshal..."

"Listen," Duncan said, speaking rapidly, "we come in and find this guy perched in the outer office, chewing gum and reading a three-months-old magazine. It looks fishy to me. Sam's been shot."

"Suicide, perhaps," Mason suggested.

"We'll take a look around," Duncan said, "and see if it's suicide."

"Don't touch anything," the man in tweeds warned.

"Don't be a sap," Duncan said. "How long have you been here, Mason?"

"Oh, I don't know. Four or five minutes."

"Hear anything suspicious?"

Mason shook his head.

The man in tweeds bent over the desk and said, "There's no sign of a gun. And it's an awkward place for a man to have hit himself with a bullet, if it's suicide."

"Look under the desk," Mason suggested. "The gun might have dropped from his hand."

The man in tweeds kept his attention concentrated on the body. "He'd have had to hold the gun in his left hand to do it himself," he said slowly. "He wasn't left-handed, was he, Duncan?"

Duncan, his blue eyes wide and startled, stood with his back against the vault door, his mouth sagging open. "It's murder!" he said, and gulped. "For God's sake, turn off that desk light! It gives me the willies to see his open eyes staring into that light!"

The man in tweeds said, "No you don't! Don't touch a thing."

Mason, standing in the doorway between the two rooms, taking care not to enter the room which contained the body, said, "Let's make sure there isn't a gun down there on the floor. After all, you know, it's going to make a lot of difference whether this is murder or suicide. I, for one, would like to know before we send out a report. He could have dropped a gun..."

Duncan stepped forward, bent over the body, peered down under the desk and said, "No, there's no gun here."

The man in tweeds asked, "Can you see? I'll get a light and..."

"Sure I can see," Duncan exclaimed irritably. "There's no gun here. You keep your eyes on this guy, Perkins. He's trying to get us both looking for something so he can pull a fast one. He's talked too damn much about a gun being down there."

Mason said ominously, "Watch your lip, Duncan!"

The tall man nodded. "I'd be careful what I said, Mr. Duncan. You haven't any proof, you know. This man might make trouble."

"To hell with him," Duncan snapped. "There's seven thousand five hundred dollars in IOU's somewhere around here, and Mason wants them. I'm going to take a look in the vault. You keep your eye on Mason."

Duncan crossed over to the vault, his back turned to the men as he faced the vault door, rattled the handle, then started spinning the combination. "I don't like the looks of things," he called out over his shoulder. "This guy Mason is smart, too damn smart."

The tall man said, "I wouldn't touch anything, Mr. Duncan. If I were you, I wouldn't open that vault."

Duncan straightened up and turned to face Perkins. "I've got to find out about those IOU's," he said indignantly. "After all, I own a half interest in this place."

"Just the same," Perkins persisted, "I wouldn't open that vault."

Mason, from the doorway between the rooms, said, "And you're leaving a lot of fingerprints on things, Duncan. The police aren't going to like that."

Duncan's face darkened with rage. "A hell of a slick guy, ain't you," he shouted, "standing there and telling us to look for a gun, and to do this and do that until you've got us leaving fingerprints all over things, and then telling us about it!

"To hell with you! You ain't in the clear on this thing - particularly if those IOU's are missing. You could have done the whole job here - easy! Sammy would have let you in, and you could have given him the works, and then gone back out, pulled the door shut, and been waiting here... Perkins, you're an officer. Search him. Let's see if he's got those IOU's. And he may have the murder gun in his pocket. Let's not let him talk us out of anything."

Mason said, "Listen, Duncan, I'm not going to be the goat in this thing."

Duncan faced him with blazing eyes. "The hell you're not! We come in here and find you sitting next to a murdered man, and you have the nerve to try and tell us what you're going to do and what you're not going to do!

"You're going to take it and like it, and you're going to be searched before you have a chance to ditch anything that you might have taken from this room. You know and I know there's something here you want, and want damn bad."

"So I came in and murdered Grieb to get it; is that right?" Mason asked.

The man in tweeds said, "Better be careful, Mr. Duncan, I think he's laying a trap for you. Don't accuse him of anything."

"I'm not afraid of him," Duncan said, "but I sure want to know a lot more about this thing before I let him go wandering off the ship."

"Well," Mason said, "suppose you search me now. I'll dump everything out of my pockets here, and you can both check the stuff."

"That's a good idea," the man in tweeds said. "I'd like to have someone check up on..."

"Take him into my bedroom," Duncan said. "That's through the door marked 'Private,' at the end of the bar. You go down a corridor, and my room's the second door on the left. Take him in there and wait until I come."

"When'll that be?" Mason asked.

"That'll be just as soon as I can get Arthur Manning in here. Manning's the one to handle this business. He's a special deputy. He's around the casino somewhere. You try and find him, Perkins. You'll know him when you see him. He's wearing a blue uniform with a badge on it that says SPECIAL OFFICER."

"You want me to parade around with this guy until I locate this deputy?"

"No - wait a minute - I'll signal him from here."

Duncan stepped behind the desk, reached down past Grieb's body and pressed a concealed button. The man in tweeds said, "I don't know what my legal rights are, but if I'm going to act under your orders, you're going to take all the responsibility. Is that understood?"

"Of course it is," Duncan said impatiently, "but watch Mason. Don't let him pull any fast ones, and don't let him ditch anything."

Mason drawled, "If you feel that way about it, Duncan, in justice to myself, I demand that I be handcuffed."

"You're asking for it?" Perkins inquired. Mason nodded.

Perkins heaved a sigh of relief and said, "You heard him say that, Duncan."

Duncan said, "Sure I did. Don't be so damn technical. Put the bracelets on him."

Mason held out his wrists. Perkins slipped the handcuffs on them and said, "Come on, let's go."

"The second door on the left after you go through the door marked 'Private,' at the end of the bar," Duncan instructed.

The man in tweeds slipped his right arm through Mason's left arm and said, "Put your wrists down, buddy. Then your coat sleeves will conceal the handcuffs. I'll hold my hand here and we can walk through the bar without making a lot of commotion."

Mason, still casually chewing gum, permitted himself to be escorted along the passageway, through the bar, through the door marked "Private," and into Duncan's bedroom.

Perkins closed the door behind them and said, "You understand I haven't any hard feelings."

Mason nodded.

"And I'm just following Duncan's orders. He's the one who's responsible, in case you feel like making any trouble."

"I don't feel like making any trouble," Mason said, "unless you put me in a position where I have to. You're in enough trouble already."

"What do you mean?"

"Leaving Duncan alone in that room."

"Somebody has to stay there until the authorities show up."

Mason shrugged his shoulders as though dismissing the subject. "The name's Perkins?" he asked.

"Yes."

"All right, Perkins, Duncan wants you to search me, and I want to be searched. You can start with the wallet in my inside coat pocket. You'll find some money in there and some business cards, a driving license, and a lodge card."

Perkins pulled the wallet from the inner pocket of Mason's coat, opened it, looked hastily through the wallet, then pushed it back in Mason's pocket. He patted Mason's pockets in search of a gun, then inserted the key in the handcuffs with fumbling fingers and said, "I hope you aren't going to be sore about this, Mr. Mason, I..."

As the handcuffs clicked open, Mason said, "Now wait a minute, Perkins. Let's go at this thing right. I'm doing this for my own protection. Now let's make a good job of it."

Mason walked to the dresser and emptied his pockets, then unfastened his collar.

"What are you doing?" Perkins asked.

"I'm stripping," Mason told him, "and you're going to search every inch of me and every stitch of clothes I've got on. Later on, you're going to get on the witness stand and swear that I didn't take anything out of that room, that I haven't any weapon on me and that you've listed absolutely everything which was in my possession."

Perkins nodded and said, "That suits me swell."

Mason had just taken off his shirt when the door opened and Duncan entered the room.

"What's coming off here?" Duncan asked.

Mason grinned and said, "Everything. I'm going to get a clean bill of health out of this."

"You don't need to go that far," Duncan said, his voice conciliatory.

"Well, I'm going that far," Mason told him.

"But that's absurd. I'm not accusing you of murder or of robbery, but you're a lawyer and I don't know just what your client's up to. I thought perhaps you might have picked up a gun in there, or perhaps there was some evidence you didn't want to have the officers find and..."

"Exactly," Mason said, "so we're going to settle this business right now and right here."

"Just search him for a gun, Perkins," Duncan ordered. "This business of taking off all of his clothes is absurd."

Perkins frowned. "A little while ago," he said, "you wanted him turned inside out. Now you..."

Mason, unbuckling his belt and slipping off his trousers, interrupted him. "Can't you see what he's doing, Perkins? He realizes now that it would have been a lot better for him if he'd let me go out without being searched. Then if anything was missing he could blame it on me. He'd like to have you make just a casual search now, and then, later on, he could claim there was something you didn't find."

"You talk as though you knew all about what I was thinking," Duncan said sarcastically.

Mason kicked off his shoes, pulled off his undershirt, stepped out of his shorts and stooped to unfasten his garters. "Perhaps I do," he said grimly. "Now, Perkins, go through my clothes and make a list of everything you find. As you finish with my clothes, hand them back to me and I'll put them on."

Duncan shoved a cigar into his mouth, took from his pocket a card of matches bearing the imprint of the gambling ship, started to say something, then checked himself and stood, matches in hand, chewing the cigar thoughtfully and watching Perkins go through Mason's clothes and toss them back to the lawyer.

While Mason was dressing, Perkins made a laborious inventory of the articles on the dresser which Mason had taken from his pockets.

Mason turned to Duncan and said, "Light your cigar, Duncan, you make me nervous. Did you lock up the offices?"

Duncan nodded, absently pulled a key from his pocket and held it out to Perkins.

"Any other keys to the door?" Mason asked.

"Only the one Grieb has," Duncan said, "and Arthur Manning's on guard in front of the door, with instructions not to let anyone in. I've sent word by one of the speed boats to telephone the police and have them come out and take charge."

"I suppose," Mason said, "you've stopped anyone from leaving the ship?"

Duncan shook his head. "I haven't any authority to do that. They could sue me for damages. People come and go, and I've got no right to..." As he talked, his voice gradually lost its assurance, first became a mumbling monotone, then faded into dubious silence.

Perkins looked up from making his inventory and said, "Hell, Duncan, they shouldn't be allowed to leave. The police won't like that. The officers will want to interview everyone aboard the ship at the time. Letting people leave is the worst thing you can do." As he spoke, the ripping exhaust of a speed boat gave unmistakable evidence that the launches were continuing their regular trips.

Duncan stepped out into the corridor, pushed open the door to the bar and yelled, "Jimmy, come in here." He returned to the bedroom while Perkins was counting the money in Mason's wallet.

He left the door open, and the bald-headed bartender, wearing his white apron, a genial smile turning up his fat lips, entered the room and let the smile fade into frowning concentration as he surveyed the three men. His eyes grew hard and watchful. "What is it?" he asked.

Duncan said, "We've had some trouble aboard, Jimmy."

The bartender, taking a cautious step toward Perkins and Mason, held his left shoulder slightly forward, his weight on the balls of his feet, his right fist doubled. "What trouble?" he asked ominously.

"Not here," Duncan said hastily, "it's in the other office. Something's happened to Sam Grieb."

"What?" the bartender asked, his eyes still watching Mason and Perkins.

"He was murdered."

"Who did it?"

"We don't know."

"Okay," the bartender said, "what do I do with these guys?"

"Nothing. I want you to stop the launches," Duncan said. "Don't let anyone leave until the police get here."

"Have you sent word to the police?"

"Yes."

The bartender slowly turned away from Mason and Perkins, to stare at Duncan.

"Just how do you want me to go about it?"

"Put a couple of boys at the head of the landing stairs and on the platform. Don't let anyone come aboard or get off."

"You taking charge here?" the bartender asked.

"Yes, of course."

"If you want a suggestion," the bartender said, "why not just pull up the landing-stage for emergency repairs? If we try to stop people coming and going, we've got to make explanations, and we'll have a panic here."

"That's a good idea, Jimmy," Duncan agreed. "I'm leaving it to you."

"Okay," the bartender said as he turned and strode from the room.

Perkins finished counting the money in Mason's wallet and said to the lawyer, "This is the way I've made the inventory. You'd better look it over."

"All right, I will," Mason said. "How about any other entrance to that room, Duncan?"

"There isn't any."

"Are you certain?"

"Of course I'm certain. This ship was completely refinished inside, in accordance with our specifications. It'd been a fishing barge, and the owner turned it into a gambling ship for us. We furnished the wheels and the layout, but he did the rest of it. We designed that office on purpose so people couldn't come busting in from two or three different doors. There's only one way into that private office, and that's through the reception room, and there's only one way into that reception room and that's through the right-angled corridor. We didn't know but what we might have trouble with the boys from some of the other ships; and when we laid the thing out we did it so muscle men couldn't come busting in, pull any rough stuff and get out. There's a bell button on the underside of the desk which calls the officer on duty, and then there's an emergency alarm which is a peach. If a suspicious-looking guy ever came into the office, Sam could press his foot on a little square plate beneath the desk. As soon as he pressed that, it made a contact, and then as long as his foot kept pressing it, nothing happened. But, if he took his foot away, without first throwing a switch, an emergency-alarm signal rang bells all over the ship and even down on the landing-stage. We've never had to use those bells, but if any guys had ever tried to muscle in and take us for a ride, we could have sewed them up. Once those bells rang, the men up in the watch room wouldn't let anyone out of Grieb's office. No one could get off the ship. And the crew had been drilled to grab guns and stand by."

"Then," Mason said, "whoever killed Grieb was someone who entered the office on legitimate business and shot Grieb before Grieb had any idea what was going to happen."

Duncan nodded and said, "You came here on legitimate business, I suppose."

"What do you mean by that crack?" Mason asked.

Duncan said, "I'm not making any cracks. I'm just telling you that the bird who bumped Sam off was someone he'd expected to see on business, someone who was able to walk into the office and pull a rod before Sammy had any idea what was going to happen.

"Sammy opened the door and let him in. Then Sammy went back to his desk, sat down and started talking. While he was in the middle of saying something, this guy, who was probably sitting on the other side of the desk, slipped a gun out of his pocket where Sammy couldn't see it, and all of a sudden pulled up the rod and let Sammy have it right through the head at short range. Then this guy walked out, pulled the door shut behind him and perhaps went on deck to toss the gun overboard, or he might have sat down in the other office for a while, reading magazines."

"Or," Mason said dryly, "might have taken a speed boat and gone ashore, for all you know."

"Well, whatever he did, it isn't my fault. I couldn't have sewed the ship up. Sammy was dead before I came aboard. We don't even know when he was killed. There might have been a dozen boats leave before I discovered it, and then again..."

Duncan glanced meaningly at Perry Mason.

"Then again, what?" Mason asked.

Duncan grinned, and his gold teeth once more flashed into evidence. "Nope," he said, "I'm not making any guesses. That's up to the officers."

Mason said, "There's no need for me to stick around. You've got an inventory of everything that was on me, Perkins. I'm going up on deck and see if anyone's particularly worried about not being able to leave."

Duncan nodded, started for the door, then stopped, frowned thoughtfully and said, "You're pretty smart, ain't you?"

"What do you mean?" Mason asked.

"I mean that you were damned anxious to be searched."

"Of course I was."

"I think I'll be searched," Duncan said. "After all, I was in that room for a minute or two before Manning showed up, and it might be a good idea to be able to prove I didn't take anything away with me."

Mason's laugh was sarcastic. "You might just as well spare yourself the trouble, Duncan. You've had an opportunity to take anything you wanted out of that room, toss it overboard or hide it in any one of a hundred different places. Being searched now isn't going to help you any."

Duncan said, "I don't like the way you say that."

Mason grinned. "I'm so sorry. You could have left the room at the same time we did, Duncan, and then there wouldn't have been any necessity for searching you."

"Yes," Duncan sneered, "and left the place wide open for an accomplice of yours to have come back and..."

"Accomplice of mine?" Mason asked, raising his eyebrows.

"I didn't mean it that way," Duncan admitted. "I meant a client of yours, or an accomplice of the murderer."

Mason yawned. "Personally, I don't like the air in here. It's stuffy. I think I'll mingle around."

"You're sure you made a list of everything he had on him?" Duncan asked Perkins.

Perkins nodded.

"The lining of his coat?"

"You bet," Perkins said. "I used to be a jailer. I know something about where a man hides things. I looked in his shoes, in the lining of his coat."

"Did you look under the collar of his coat?"

Perkins laughed and said, "Don't be silly. Of course I looked under the collar of his coat and in the cuffs of his pants. I went over every inch of cloth with my fingers."

"How much money did he have in that wallet?"

"Twenty-five hundred dollars in hundreds and fifties, and three hundred and twenty dollars in twenties, and then he had four fives, three ones and some silver, six quarters, ten dimes, four nickels and six pennies."

Mason grinned and said, "When you make an inventory, you make a good one, don't you, Perkins?"

"I wasn't a jailer for nothing," Perkins admitted. "Lots of times guys would swear they had a lot more money than they did."

Duncan stared at Mason with narrowed eyes. There was no trace of a smile either on his lips or in his eyes.

"Twenty-five hundred in fifties and hundreds, eh?" he asked.

Perkins said, "That's right."

"Were you," Mason asked, "thinking of something, Duncan?"

"Yes," Duncan said, "I was just thinking that seventy-five hundred dollars from ten thousand would leave twenty-five hundred."

Perkins looked puzzled. Mason's grin was affable. "Quite right, Duncan," he said, "and ten thousand from twelve thousand five hundred would leave twenty-five hundred; and twenty-five thousand from twenty-seven thousand five hundred would still leave twenty-five hundred."

Duncan's face darkened. He said to Perkins, "Could he have folded or wadded up any papers and concealed them on him somewhere?"

Perkins said, with some show of impatience, "Not a chance. I know what to look for, and I know where to look. I've been searching guys for years. Some of 'em used to try putting a flexible saw around the inside of their collars or down the stiffening in the front of their coats. But they didn't get away with it. I'm telling you I searched this guy. He asked for it and he got it."

Duncan jerked the door open and pounded out into the outer corridor. Mason grinned at Perkins. "Did you inventory the chewing gum, Perkins?"

"Sure. Three sticks of Wrigley's Double-Mint. And I even looked at the wrappers to make certain they hadn't been tampered with."

"Well, how about having a stick?" Mason asked. "I think I'll put in another stick to freshen this one."

Perkins said, "No, I don't chew gum, thanks."

Mason paused with the stick of gum half in his mouth and said, "Wait a minute, Perkins. You didn't look in my mouth. Perhaps you'd better do that, just in case there's some question. Duncan, you know, might fight dirty if he had a chance."

"I was thinking of that," Perkins admitted, " - about looking in your mouth, I mean - when Duncan was making all those cracks, but I didn't want to say anything."

Mason moistened his thumb and the tip of his forefinger, pulled out the wad of chewing gum and said, "Well, you'd better take a look now."

Perkins turned Mason's head so that the light showed in his mouth. "Okay," he said, "now raise up your tongue."

Mason raised his tongue. Perkins grinned, nodded, and said, "I'm giving you a clean bill of health. I'll bet fifty bucks you haven't got anything on you except what I inventoried."

Mason slapped Perkins on the shoulder and said, "Let's mingle around and see what Duncan's doing. You can follow his mental processes. First he was damned anxious to have me searched, and then he didn't want me searched. Then, when he realized you were going to search me anyway, he wanted me gone over with a microscope. He figures that something's missing. He's not sure I have it; but if I haven't, he'd like to make me a fall guy, anyhow."

"Well," Perkins said, "so far as I'm concerned, this trip's a bust. I came out here to serve some papers. The man I was to serve them on is dead."

"By the way," Mason said, "how long have you been with Duncan?"

"What do you mean?"

"If it came to a question of an alibi," Mason asked, "how far could you go with Duncan?"

"He picked me up in Los Angeles at ten minutes to five," Perkins said, " - or right around there. It might have been quarter to five, or it might have been around five minutes to five."

"But it was before five o'clock?" Mason asked.

"Yes, I know it was before five o'clock, because he bought me a cocktail and I noticed the clock over the bar. It said five o'clock."

"Then what did you do?"

"We went to dinner; and Duncan explained to me what papers I was to serve and just how I was to go about doing it. He said he wanted to catch Grieb when the place was running full tilt. So I waited around with him until he said okay."

"Did he say why?"

"No, but I gathered it was something about Grieb keeping all the books and the cash. Duncan wanted to serve the papers when the cash was all on the tables and have me go around and make some sort of an inventory, I think."

"Did you have any authority to do that?" Mason asked.

"No, not unless Grieb consented to it, but that would have been the smart thing for Grieb to do."

Mason stepped to the porthole and casually tossed out the wad of gum he had been chewing. "Well, let's go out and see what's happening. Duncan's going to have a job on his hands with these people if he isn't careful. It'll be an hour or so before the officers can get out here."

"When you come right down to it," Perkins said, "this ship's on the high seas, and no one's got any authority here except a representative of the United States Marshal's office."

"Or the Captain," Mason suggested.

"Well, yes, the Captain's entitled to give orders. I suppose they have someone here who rates as a captain, but of course he's just a figurehead. Duncan and Grieb are the big shots. Now Grieb's dead, Duncan's the whole squeeze."

"Yes," Mason said, "and if you wanted to be cold-blooded about it, you could say that Grieb's death hadn't been the worst thing in the world for Charlie Duncan."

"Uh-huh," Perkins grunted noncommittally.

Mason went on, "Duncan, as the surviving partner, will have the job of winding up the partnership affairs. You know, Perkins, if I were you, seeing you have sort of an official status here, I'd stick around to make certain Duncan didn't go back into that room, perhaps long enough to open the vault and start prowling around. You know Manning, who's standing guard, is in the employ of the ship, and, now that Grieb's dead, he's dependent on Duncan for his bread and butter."

Perkins nodded. "I guess that's not a bad idea. The officers may figure I should take charge. I'm a deputy United States Marshal. Thanks for helping me out of a mean situation, Mason. If you'd wanted to be tough about being searched, it would have put me in an awful spot. As an officer, I'd have hated to watch you walk out of that room without being searched, but I'd hate like hell to have had to make a search without a warrant, you being a lawyer and all that."

Mason said, "Don't mention it, Perkins. You know your business, but I really think the place for you is keeping an eye on Manning."

CHAPTER 6

MASON LOOKED over the crowd which milled around the gambling tables. He made certain Sylvia Oxman was not at any of those tables, nor did he see the detective Paul Drake had delegated to shadow her.

He left the gambling salon for the fog-swept moisture of the decks. A little knot of people were grouped about the raised boat landing. A man standing out near the end was pounding on a rivet which held the grated landing stage. One of the group asked irritably, "How much longer is it going to be?"

Jimmy, the bartender, his white apron removed, a gold braided cap pulled low on his forehead, said in the soothing voice of a man who has learned his diplomacy dealing with drunks across a mahogany bar, "It won't be long now. We've got to get these rivets tightened up so they'll be safe. After all, you know, safety first. When we once get it fixed, it'll only take a minute to lower it and get you people started ashore. There are four speed boats working tonight, and they'll all be hanging around ready to unload, fill up and get going... Why don't you folks go back inside where it's warm? We'll call you just as soon as the landing's fixed."

The man with the irritable voice said, "How do we know this isn't a stall to keep us from leaving the ship with our winnings? I'm almost a hundred dollars ahead and I don't like the way this thing's being handled."

"Aw, go on back in the bar and buy yourself a drink with some of your winnings. It'll make you feel better."

There was a chorus of laughter.

Mason mingled with the crowd. Sylvia Oxman was nowhere in sight. He stood at the rail and stared into the foggy darkness. He could see the dim outlines of red and green lights where two of the speed boats were standing by. The sounds of laughter and joking comments which drifted up from these speed boats showed that the passengers were inclined to take the whole thing as a lark, taking advantage of the informality of the occasion to get acquainted with the unescorted women who had journeyed out to try their luck aboard the craft.

Mason re-entered the lighted interior and went to the bar. A feminine voice said, "How do you do, Mr. Mason."

He turned to meet the whimsical challenge of Matilda Benson's gray eyes.

She seemed hardly more than in her late fifties, the low-cut evening gown showing the firm-fleshed, rounded contours of her throat, bosom and shoulders. Her snow-white hair was swept back from her head in a boyish bob. Her gown sparkled with silver, which glittered in the light as she moved, matching the sheen of her hair.

"Well," she asked, "are you going to buy me a drink? I presume you've already attended to your business."

Mason glanced swiftly about him. A young man had taken Jimmy's place behind the bar and was toiling frantically, trying to keep up with the suddenly increased demands for drinks. His hands were flying from the bottles behind the bar to the keys of the cash register. Several of the persons seated at the bar were attired in hats and coats, waiting for the landing-stage to be fixed. They seemed to be entirely engrossed with their own affairs. There was none of that hushed tension which would grip the people when they realized a murder had been committed.

"Come over here," he invited, "and sit down. I want to talk with you."

"Why so grim?" she asked, laughing. "Don't tell me they've got your goat. I saw a man in a gray suit running around here looking as worried as a taxpayer making out his Income tax return. Someone called him 'Mr. Duncan,' asked him some questions, and got a curse for an answer. Surely, if you've got the opposition as worried as that, it's a good sign for us."

Mason said, "Lower your voice. Here, sit down at this table."

"You'll have to go to the bar if you want to get anything," she said. "I never saw such poor service. The bartender's away, and the man who was waiting on tables has had to take his place behind the bar, and..."

"We don't want service," Mason said, "we want to talk. This is a good place. All the others are crowding around the bar. Now, how long have you been here?"

"Quite a little while," she said chuckling. "I was here before you came aboard. I knew this was a pretty tough place and I thought I'd be on hand in case you needed reinforcements."

"Did you see Sam Grieb?"

"No."

Mason stared steadily at her and said, "Did you see anyone whom you knew?"

"Why?"

"Never mind why," Mason said, "go ahead and answer the question. Did you see anyone whom you knew?"

She said slowly, "Frank Oxman came out, but he didn't see me, and he didn't stay."

"How do you know he didn't see you?"

"Because I saw him first and took good care to keep out of his way."

"How long after you came here did he arrive?"

"About an hour and a half. I had dinner aboard, and it wasn't much of a dinner. However, I suppose..."

"Who else did you see?" Mason asked.

"What do you mean?"

"Go on," Mason told her.

"Why are you asking me these questions?"

"Because it's important."

"No one," she said, staring steadily at him.

"Did you know when I came aboard?"

She nodded and said, "I was out on deck, getting some fresh air. It was foggy, so I didn't stay long. I was there by the rail near the bow when you came aboard."

"Did you see anyone else whom you knew aboard the ship?"

"No."

"You'd swear to that?"

"Why, yes, if I had to." She settled back in her chair and said, "Now if you've quite finished, you might go to the bar and get me a Tom Collins. I can't satisfy my craving for tobacco by puffing at these insipid cigarettes. I'm dying for a real smoke. To tell you the truth, I went up on deck to find a place where I could puff on a cigar, but there was an amorous couple huddled against the rail and I was afraid the young man would go into a monastery and shave his head if I shattered his romantic ideals by letting him see what age and freedom will do for a woman."

Mason leaned across the table, studied the twinkling humor of the alert gray eyes and said abruptly, "Sam Grieb's been murdered."

Her face was an expressionless mask. "How do you know?" she asked.

Mason said slowly, "You knew he'd been murdered."

"I didn't know any such thing."

"Then why did you lie to me?"

The gray eyes glinted dangerously. "I'm not accustomed," she said, "to being talked to..."

"Why did you lie to me?" Mason asked.

"What do you mean?"

"You lied to me about Sylvia."

"What about her?"

"She was aboard, and you knew she was aboard. You saw her here."

The gray eyes faltered. She stretched a jeweled hand across the table and said, "Give me one of your cigarettes."

Mason opened his cigarette case. She took a cigarette, Mason scraped a match on the underside of the table, held the flame to her cigarette, took another cigarette for himself, lit it, and exhaled twin streams of white smoke through appreciative nostrils.

"I'm listening," he told her.

She avoided his eyes, puffed rapidly at the cigarette, took it from her lips, ground it into the ash tray and said, "Isn't there some place where we can smoke?"

"It may not be a good idea for us to be together at all," Mason said. "Right now this is the best place for us to talk. The gang's up at the bar with their backs turned to us... and I'm still listening."

She toyed with the rim of the ash tray with nervous fingers, then looked up at him and said, "Yes, Sylvia was out here."

"I know she was out here. Why didn't you tell me she was here?"

"Because... Well, because of lots of things."

"What, for instance?"

"The way Sylvia acted."

"For God's sake," Mason told her impatiently, "quit beating around the bush. I'm a lawyer retained by you to protect Sylvia's interests. How the devil can I do it if you keep playing button-button-who's-got-the-button? Inside of a few minutes the officers are going to show up, and the party may get rough. I want to know what happened, what I've got to guard against, and what I've got to meet."

She said slowly, "Sylvia went to the offices. I was afraid she was going to play right into Grieb's hand, and I didn't know what to do. I didn't want her to see me. That was why I went out on deck. I kept hoping you'd turn up. Sure enough, you came pretty soon after that. I heaved a big sigh of relief. I thought you'd probably run into Sylvia in the office."

"Now wait a minute," Mason said, "let's get this straight. Sylvia came aboard before I did?"

"Yes."

"How many boats before?"

"I don't know. I didn't see her when she first came aboard. Naturally, I hadn't expected she would come here at all. Otherwise I'd have stayed away. I didn't want her to know I was taking an interest in her affairs. If she'd seen me, she'd have known at once..."

"Never mind that," Mason said. "Let's get down to brass tacks and stay there. Where was she when you first saw her?"

"She was just coming into the casino."

"What did you do?"

"I kept out of sight. She went to a table, said something to the croupier, and then headed straight for that corridor which goes into Grieb's office... I slipped up the stairs and went out on deck."

"Was she betting?"

"No, she was asking something of the man at the wheel. I thought perhaps she was asking whether Grieb was in."

"So what?" Mason asked.

"Well, that's all. I went up on deck and stayed there. It was foggy and I got chilled, but I didn't dare go back for fear I'd run into her."

"Now, where was her husband?"

"Frank Oxman," she said, "must have come aboard earlier, perhaps while I was in the casino. The first I knew that he was aboard was when I saw him leave. He came out of the salon wearing a cap and overcoat, walked within a very few feet of me, and I was afraid he'd see me. Then he went to the place where passengers wait, and went down the stairs and took the boat which pulled out just a few minutes after you'd come aboard."

"Was anyone following him?" Mason asked.

She shook her head and said, "I don't think so," then said, "Wait a minute. There was a man who had been wandering around as though he was looking for someone. He kept hanging around but didn't gamble. He went back on the same speed boat Frank took. He may have been a detective."

"And I had arrived on board before that?"

"Yes. But not very long before. He left perhaps ten minutes after you arrived. You may have met him."

Mason frowned thoughtfully, then said, "I wouldn't have known him if I had met him. What about Sylvia?"

"I stayed out on deck. I didn't want Sylvia to see me. I must have been there ten or fifteen minutes when Sylvia came out. A man followed her. He said, 'Frank's aboard. Beat it,' and then he stepped back into the casino. Sylvia went..." She abruptly stopped in mid-sentence.

"Go on," Mason said, "went where?"

She kept her jeweled fingers busy with the edge of the cigarette tray and said, "Went back."

"Back where?"

"Back on the speed boat, of course."

Mason studied her face. "That wasn't what you were going to say."

"Yes, it was."

Mason said, "Don't be a fool. I know you started to say something else."

"Why?"

"Because the way you bit off that sentence showed that you'd almost betrayed yourself into saying something you didn't want to say. Then when I asked you where she went and you said that she went back to the shore, there was relief in your voice to think you hadn't gone far enough with your other sentence to keep from patching it up. Now I want to know where Sylvia went when she came out of the casino."

Matilda Benson lit another cigarette and puffed on it.

"Tell me where she went," Mason demanded insistently.

"She went to the rail."

"And what did she do at the rail?"

Matilda Benson said slowly, "She fumbled with her handbag, and a second or so later I heard something splash in the water."

"Something heavy?"

"It made a splash."

"Was it a gun?"

"I'm sure I couldn't tell you what it was."

"Did anyone else see her?"

Matilda Benson delayed the shake of her head for almost a second.

Mason said, "In other words, someone did see her."

"The young couple who were doing the necking may have seen her. I don't know. It depends upon how engrossed they were in what they were doing. You see, when Sylvia came out of the lighted interior her eyes were unaccustomed to the darkness and she stood quite close to the young couple, apparently without knowing it. Just before the sound of the splash, the neckers acted as though they'd seen something, and I heard them whisper excitedly. Then Sylvia ran down to the speed boat."

"Sylvia was standing close to you?"

"Quite close, yes."

"Now wait a minute," Mason went on. "There was a speed boat waiting at the landing?"

"Yes."

"Couldn't the people in that launch have seen her toss something overboard?"

"I don't know. I don't think so."

"Now, Sylvia came out of the casino and went right to the rail?"

"That's right... This man told her Frank was aboard and to beat it. Then she went right to the rail."

"And from the rail she went right down to the speed boat?"

"Yes."

"Now, who was this man?"

"I don't know. It was someone who'd followed Sylvia up from the casino. He stuck his head out of the door told her Frank was aboard and for her to beat it. Then he ducked back into the door and Sylvia crossed to the rail."

"You didn't see this man?"

"Only as a dim figure popping his head out of the door from the casino."

"Light was streaming through that door?"

"No, it opens from stairs and a curtained corridor. There was very little light."

"How was Sylvia dressed?"

"She had on a dark suit with a three-quarter length jacket."

"And a hat?"

"Yes."

"That was the same way she was dressed when you first saw her in the casino?"

"Yes."

"Now look here," Mason said, "she must have worn a coat over here."

"She has a very nice fur coat that..."

"I know she has," Mason said. "Now here's what I'm getting at: she must have checked that coat. Pretty soon the officers are going to come aboard. They'll get the names and addresses of everyone on the ship. After a while they'll let people go home. Then the check girl will report that someone has left a very valuable fur coat. The police will put two and two together. If Sylvia claims that fur coat, she'll be walking into a trap. If she doesn't claim it, it will be equivalent to a declaration of guilt. The police will trace that coat, and Sylvia will be in a sweet mess. Now do you suppose..."

She interrupted him and said, "Yes, I could go down to the girl at the checking counter, tell her I'd lost my coat check, give her a dollar tip and..."

"Could you describe the fur coat well enough to get it?" Mason asked.

"Yes. I bought the coat for Sylvia. There's a tag on the inside of the pocket with Sylvia's name printed on it and the number of an insurance policy. I could tell the girl I was Sylvia, and get the coat."

Mason surveyed the full-fleshed arms in rather critical appraisal. She nodded and said, "Yes, I can wear the coat. I wouldn't try to button it."

"That," Mason told her, "will leave your coat unaccounted for. You checked it?"

"Well, yes, but I can go down and present my check, get my coat, park it somewhere, then go back and make the stall about Sylvia's coat and go ashore with both coats. I'll go..."

"No," Mason interrupted, "you can't do that. The girl in the check room might remember you, and you haven't enough time to wait more than a minute or two in between trips. It's too dangerous."

"There's no other way out," she said.

"Give me your check," Mason told her, "and wait here."

She opened her handbag, handed the lawyer a printed oblong pasteboard, and remarked, "I like the way you're handling things. I'm going to show my gratitude in a substantial way."

"Yes," the lawyer told her, "you can send me pies and cakes while I'm in jail."

She stared at him with speculative eyes and said, "Apparently you don't mean that as a wise-crack."

"I don't," he told her. "When they check up on me, I'm going to be in a spot. Sylvia left me holding the sack. You wait here."

He walked down the passageway to the checking room, pushed the numbered pasteboard across the counter to the girl on duty and dropped a fifty-cent piece into her outstretched hand. "My wife's seasick," he explained. "Get me that coat in a rush."

"Seasick! Why there's hardly any motion..."

Mason made a grimace and said, "She thinks she's seasick. Suppose you go argue with her?"

The girl's laughter rang out merrily as she handed Mason the coat. Her brown eyes swept the lawyer's broad shoulders and clean-cut features in swift appraisal. "We hope you won't stop coming out," she said, "just because your wife gets seasick."

"I won't," Mason assured her, and took the coat to Matilda Benson. "Here you are," he said. "I'll leave it to you to get the other coat. You may have to..." He broke off as from the outer darkness came the sound of a speed boat roaring through the fog. "That," he said, "sounds like the officers. We'll have to hurry."

"Shall I give them my right name?"

"Not unless you have to," he told her, "but be careful. They'll probably want to see some identification, driver's license or something of that sort. You can tell what you're up against by getting a place near the last of the line-up. There are probably quite a few men and women on board who'd just as soon not give their right names. It'll be a tedious process weeding them out. Along toward the last, the officers may get tired and let down the bars a bit. Be careful you don't get caught in a lie."

She tilted her head back, squared her jaw and said with calm confidence, "I've told some whoppers in my time and made them stick. You'd better go out that door to the left, because I'm going out through the door to the right."

Mason said, "Happy landing," and walked out through the door to the left, into the casino. He was half way to the roulette tables when a man in a rubber raincoat which still glistened with fog and spray, called out, "Attention, everybody! A murder's been committed aboard this ship. No one's going to be allowed to leave. You will all kindly remain inside and not try to leave this room. If you'll co-operate with us, it won't be long. If you don't co-operate, you'll be here all night.

CHAPTER 7

PERRY MASON stood near the end of the long line which serpentined its way toward a table where two officers sat taking names, addresses, and checking credentials.

The deserted gambling tables were an incongruous reminder of the gaiety which had been stilled by death. Laughter, the rattle of chips, and the whirring roulette balls no longer assailed the ears. The only sounds which broke the silence were the gruff voices of the officers, the frightened replies of the patrons, and the slow, rhythmic creaking of the old ship as it swayed on the lazy swells of the fog-covered ocean.

Mason surveyed the line in frowning anxiety. He could find no trace of Matilda Benson, yet every person aboard the ship had been mustered into that line. It was certain that no one could have gone down the companionway without presenting a written pass signed by the officers who were conducting the examination.

In the executive offices, men were busy with the details incident to murder cases. Photographs had been taken showing the location and position of the body. The furniture was being dusted with special powders, designed to bring out latent fingerprints. Men came and went from the entrance to the offices, and the frightened line of shuffling spectators turned anxious faces to regard these hurrying officers with morbid curiosity.

A man emerged from the L-shaped hallway, approached the line and called out, "Where's Perry Mason, the lawyer?"

Mason held up his hand.

"This way," the officer said, turned on his heel, and strode back through the door. Mason followed him. He could hear the sound of voices as he walked down the corridor, voices which held the deep rumble of ominous interrogation. Then he heard the sound of Charlie Duncan's voice, raised in high-pitched, vehement denial.

Mason followed the officer through the door into the outer office. Grim-faced officers were interrogating Duncan. As Mason entered the room, Duncan was saying "...of course I had difficulties with him. I didn't like the way he was running things. I filed suit against him this afternoon, but I didn't do it to take advantage of him. I did it because I wasn't going to be ruined by the goofy ideas of a man who doesn't know the business..."

He stopped talking as he saw Mason.

One of the officers said, "Are you Perry Mason, the lawyer?"

Mason nodded.

"You were in this room when the body was discovered?"

"Yes."

"What were you doing here?"

"Sitting here, waiting."

"Waiting for what?"

"For someone to come in."

"Had you knocked at the door of the inner office?"

"Yes."

"You didn't get any answer?"

"No."

"Did you try the knob of the door?"

Mason frowned thoughtfully and said, "It's hard to tell, looking back on it, just what I did do. When I came in here, I regarded my visit as just a routine call, and, naturally, didn't pay any great attention to a lot of details which didn't impress me as being important or significant."

One of the officers said, "Well, they aren't unimportant and they aren't insignificant."

Mason smiled affably. "It's so difficult to tell in advance - which is probably why our hindsight is better than our foresight."

There was a moment of silence, during which Mason studied the faces of the officers. They had evidently been recruited from various channels, and rushed out to make an investigation. One of the men was apparently a city police officer, with the rank of sergeant. Another was undoubtedly a motorcycle traffic officer. The third was a plainclothesman, apparently a detective. The other was probably a deputy sheriff or marshal, or both.

While Mason was watching them, one of the officers entered the room with Arthur Manning. Accompanying Manning were two people, a young man in his middle twenties, and a girl, who was wearing a beige sport suit. A dark brown scarf, knotted loosely about her throat, matched her brown shoes and bag. She carried a coat with a fur collar over her arm.

Manning said, "I've just found..."

The sergeant checked him by holding up a warning hand and said, "Let's finish with this phase of the inquiry first. Now you, Mr. Mason, were waiting here in the outer office?"

"Yes."

"How long had you been here?"

"Perhaps five minutes, perhaps not that long. I can't tell exactly."

"You were waiting to see Mr. Grieb?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

"I had business with him."

"What was the nature of the business?"

Mason shook his head smilingly. "As an attorney I can't be interrogated about the affairs of my clients."

"You refuse to answer?"

"Yes."

"That's not the law," the sergeant protested angrily. "The only thing you can hold out is a confidential communication made to you by your client. I happen to know, because I heard the point argued in court once."

Mason said deprecatingly, "You can hear so much argued in court, Sergeant, that it's quite discouraging. I, myself, have heard many court arguments."

The plainclothesman grinned. The sergeant flushed, turned to Duncan and said, "When you came in the office, where was Mr. Mason sitting?"

"In that chair."

"What was he doing?"

"Looking at a magazine."

"You don't know what he was reading?"

"No, I don't. He made some remark about the magazine being an old one. I can't remember just what it was."

"The door to the inner office was locked?"

"Yes."

"You had a key for it?"

"Yes."

"Were there any other keys?"

"Only the one Grieb had."

"The one we found on his key ring?"

"Yes."

"It was customary to keep this door locked?"

"Absolutely. That was one rule we never violated. This door was kept closed, locked and barred at all times."

"So that Mr. Grieb, himself, must have opened this door?"

"Yes."

"And then returned to his desk, after admitting some visitor?"

"That's right."

"Now, there's no way of reaching that inner office, except through this door; is that right?"

"That's right."

"How about the porthole?" Mason asked. "There's a porthole directly over the desk, and another on either side. Wouldn't it have been possible for someone to have lowered himself down the side of the ship and fired a shot..."

"No," the sergeant interrupted, "it would have been impossible. Excluding a theory of suicide, which the evidence won't support, the person who fired the fatal shot must have stood near the corner of Grieb's desk, and shot him with a .38 caliber automatic. Moreover, the empty shell was ejected and was found on the floor." He turned back to Duncan. "You opened the door to the inner office," he said, "and found Grieb's body in the chair. Then what did you do?"

"I was pretty excited," Duncan said. "Naturally, it knocked me for a loop. I remember going over to make certain he was dead, and then I said something to Mason and... Oh, yes, we looked around for a gun. There was some question about whether it was suicide."

"Do you remember anything else?"

Duncan shook his head and said, "No. We came on out. Mason was making a few wise-cracks. I wanted him searched..."

"Why did you want him searched?"

"Because he'd been sitting here in the office. Naturally I was suspicious... That is, I thought it would be a good idea to search him and see if perhaps he had a key to that door, or a gun, or... Well, he might have had a lot of things in his pockets."

"Did Mason object to being searched?"

"On the contrary," Mason interrupted, smiling, "I demanded it. Mr. Perkins, an officer who came aboard with Mr. Duncan, handcuffed me, so I couldn't take anything from my pockets, took me into another room, had me undress, and searched me from the skin out. But Mr. Duncan was alone with the body for several minutes."

"No, I wasn't," Duncan retorted angrily. "And that reminds me of something else I did. I pushed the alarm button which called Manning. That button sounds buzzers in various places and turns on a red light in all four corners of the gambling room. Manning came in here within a matter of seconds."

"That's right," the blue-coated special officer corroborated. "I was over at the far corner of the casino, watching a man who looked like a crook. He was rolling dice on the crap table, and he was pretty lucky. Most of the time I hang around by the entrance to these offices, but when I see something that looks suspicious, I go give it the once-over. As a matter of fact, Grieb had given me the tip-off on this guy, himself. That was about fifteen or twenty minutes before Duncan put on the lights for me. I saw the light come on and started for the office. It couldn't have been fifteen seconds until I got there."

"During that fifteen seconds did you see anyone leave the offices?" the sergeant asked.

"Sure. I saw Perry Mason, and this officer who came aboard with Mr. Duncan - Perkins, I think his name was. They tell me that he put handcuffs on Mr. Mason, but I couldn't see the handcuffs. The way they strolled out, arm in arm, I thought they were just buddies, going into the bar to get a drink."

"You saw us leave?"

"I wasn't over six feet from you. You'd have seen me if you'd turned around. I was moving pretty fast. I thought there might be some sort of an emergency."

"Where was Duncan when you entered the room?"

Duncan started to say something, but the sergeant silenced him with a gesture and said, "Just at present, Mr. Duncan, we're questioning Manning. Where was he, Manning?"

"He was right over at that chair where you're sitting," Manning said. "He'd pulled up the cushion and was looking around." Duncan looked sheepish.

"What were you doing there?" the sergeant asked Duncan.

"That was the chair Mason had been sitting in," Duncan said. "He looked just a little too smug and smooth when I came in. I don't know, I can't put my finger on just what it was, but I didn't like the way he looked. And I thought maybe he'd known he was going to be searched, and had ditched something. You see, he must have heard Perkins and me coming four or five seconds before we came in through the door."

"What did you think he might have concealed?"

Duncan said lamely, "I don't know. It might have been a gun."

"Perhaps," Mason suggested, "Duncan picked up something in the inner office and wanted to plant it in the chair where I'd been sitting, but was interrupted by Manning's prompt arrival."

"That's a lie," Duncan yelled, "and you know it's a lie. You were still in the room when I pressed the buzzer for Manning. If I'd wanted time to stall around, I'd never have pressed that button..."

The sergeant interrupted, "That'll do. Now, just how long was it, Manning, from the time you saw Mason leave until you saw Duncan bending over this chair?"

"I don't think it was over four seconds, at the outside," Manning said. "I came down that corridor on the double-quick."

Mason said, "It took us six or eight seconds to walk down that corridor. That gave Duncan ten or twelve seconds."

The sergeant ignored Mason's comment, but kept his eyes on Manning. "Then what did you do, Manning?" he asked.

"Duncan asked me to help him look around. He told me what had happened. I looked through the door into the other room, but Duncan kept on looking around through chairs in this room, and I came over and helped him."

"Did he say what he wanted you to search for?"

"No, he didn't say."

"Did you enter the inner office at all?"

"Just stood in the doorway," Manning said, "and looked in. I asked Mr. Duncan if it was suicide or murder, and he said it was murder if we couldn't find any gun, and that I was to lock up the place and stand guard..."

"One other thing," Duncan interrupted, "speaking about locking up the place reminds me: - are you going to want the vault opened?"

The sergeant said, "Of course we're going to want the vault opened."

"Well," Duncan said, "when you do that, I've got something to say about the way things are handled."

"Just what do you mean?" the sergeant asked.

"I came out here with a deputy marshal and an order to show cause why a receiver shouldn't be appointed, and I was going to make Grieb take a physical inventory in the presence of the deputy. Now, I'm sorry Sammy's dead; but that doesn't alter the fact that he tried to play me for a sucker. He's short in his accounts, and I know he's short, and that's why he..."

"Why he what?" Mason asked coldly, as Duncan paused.

"Why he didn't want to face me," Duncan finished lamely.

"What makes you think he didn't want to face you?" Mason asked.

Duncan turned pleadingly to the sergeant and said, "For God's sake, make this guy keep his trap shut while I'm trying to explain things."

The sergeant said tonelessly, "Shut up, Mason. What were you trying to say, Duncan?"

"Grieb left heirs somewhere," Duncan said. "I don't know just who they are, but they'll be snooping around and making trouble, claiming half of the business. With Sam alive, I could have had a show-down in court and put a receiver in charge. Now that Sam's dead, I've got to go through a lot of red tape with administrators and stuff, and if there's any shortage, in place of my being able to show that Sam lifted the stuff, they'll claim I got away with it after Sam died. So I want you fellows to make a complete inventory of every single thing in that vault and in the coin safe."

The sergeant frowned. "You mean you think something's missing?"

"I know damn well something's missing."

"Making an inventory is out of our line," the sergeant pointed out. "It'll take more time than I can spare right now."

"Well then, how about sealing the vault up?"

"We'll want to look inside of it."

"The minute that vault's opened," Duncan said obstinately, "there's going to be an inventory made."

The sergeant hesitated a moment, then said, "All right, Duncan, we'll make an inventory. Perhaps, after all, we might find something that'll throw light on the motive for the murder."

"Before you open that vault," Manning ventured, "you'd better talk with these two people. They saw a woman throw a gun overboard."

The sergeant stiffened to attention. "Throw a gun overboard!" he exclaimed.

Manning nodded.

"Well, why the devil didn't you say so?"

"I tried to," Manning said, "but..."

"That'll do," the sergeant interrupted, and said to the young man who was staring with apprehensive eyes, "what's your name?"

The man swallowed twice and said, "Bert Custer."

"Where do you work?"

"In a service station at Seventy-ninth and Main."

"What were you doing out here?"

"I took my girl... I mean Marilyn Smith here, out to the ship."

"You were going to do some gambling?"

Custer lowered his eyes, grinned sheepishly and said, "No."

"Then what did you come out here for?"

"For dinner and the trip. You see, they serve a cheap dinner here, with a little floor show, because they want to get folks to come out to the ship. And the speed boats make a low fare for the same reason. I don't have an awful lot of money to spend and I like to get the most I can for my money. Marilyn and I... Well, we had some things we wanted to talk over, and so we came out here... Well, you know how it is. It doesn't cost much to come out in the speed boats, have dinner and then go out on deck and talk. I was showing her a good time without getting stuck for it. Of course, it was pretty cold out there because of the fog, but it had been hot all day and I thought it would be nice to sit out on deck and..."

"And do a little necking?" the sergeant interrupted, grinning.

Custer stiffened and said indignantly, "We were talking."

It was the girl who answered the question. "Sure we were necking," she said. "What'd you think we came out here for?"

"No offense," the sergeant said, laughing. "Now, you were out on deck?"

"Yes," Custer said.

"Where?"

"Amidships... Come to think of it we must have been right above this office."

"And what did you see?"

"A woman with a silver dress and white hair came out of the cabin where they have the gambling, and she acted awfully funny. Both Marilyn and I thought there was something wrong, the way she acted. She seemed to be trying to hide."

"Go on," the sergeant said.

"Well, she stood there for a minute and then another woman came out, and this woman in the silver dress ducked back in the shadows and then Marilyn grabbed my arm and whispered, 'Look!' and I looked just in time to see a gun that this woman in the silver dress had thrown overboard."

"What sort of a gun?" the sergeant asked.

"Well, it was an automatic, but I couldn't tell what make it was nor what caliber. It was a gun. That's about all I can tell."

"You know the difference between an automatic and a revolver?"

"Yes, sure. An automatic is more at right angles, and a revolver has sort of a curve. They're built different. I can't describe them exactly, but I know all about 'em. I sold guns once."

"And this woman in the silver dress threw it overboard?"

"Yes."

"Then what did she do?"

"She stuck around on the deck for quite a while until after the other woman had gone away. And then she walked back down the deck. She was about fifty, I should judge."

"About fifty-five," the girl interrupted. "She had a silver lame dress, as nearly as I could tell, silver slippers, and a string of pearls."

"Just a moment," Mason said; "it sounds strange to me that the woman would have thrown away the gun under those circumstances. As I understand it, you two saw the gun go over the side. Now, isn't it possible that it was thrown by the other woman who had just come out of the casino?"

"That'll do," the sergeant said. "You're not here to pull any cross-examination of witnesses, Mr. Mason. I'll ask the questions."

"But we owe it to all concerned to get this thing straight," Mason asserted.

The girl said, in a low voice, "I wasn't certain who threw the gun. I can't swear which one of the women did it."

"Sure the white-haired dame threw it," Custer said positively, "otherwise what did she want to duck back in the shadows for? She was hiding something, and..."

"But you didn't see the gun until after Miss Smith grabbed your arm and said, 'Look,'" Mason said. "You..."

The sergeant got to his feet and roared, "Now, that's enough! Don't you go trying to mix up these witnesses. I don't know what your interest in this thing is - not yet."

Mason bowed and said, "Of course, Sergeant, you're in charge. I thought you were investigating the facts and would like to have them clarified as you went along. I felt perhaps that such experience as I may have had might be of some assistance."

"Well," the sergeant told him, "I'm fully capable of handling this matter. I don't like the way you're trying to confuse the witnesses."

"I'm not trying to confuse the witnesses. I'm trying to establish the facts."

"Trying to establish them the way you want 'em established. How about this woman in the silver dress? What's your interest in her?"

"Why not ask her?" Mason suggested.

There was a moment of silence, during which the officers exchanged glances. The sergeant said to the man in the traffic officer's uniform, "Go and round up that woman in the silver dress, Jerry. Bring her in. She should be a cinch with the description we've got."

Steps sounded in the outer corridor. The door opened, Perkins entered and said to the sergeant, "I'm all finished out there, Sergeant. Anything else I can do?"

"Yes. We're going to open the vault. Duncan wants you to take inventory."

"Can't we postpone that?"

"No, I want to take a look through the vault. It'll have to be opened, and we should have a complete inventory. We can take a quick look first to make certain that robbery wasn't the motive, and then start taking a detailed inventory. I also want to go through the desk and..."

"I'd like to have the vault and coin safe opened right now," Duncan interrupted. "You see, Sergeant, in addition to the cash used in operating the business, there's nine thousand five hundred that was to have been paid in on some notes early this evening. Sammy may have received this money and put it in the coin safe. It's important that I know..."

"So," Mason interrupted, "you sold them for a two-thousand-dollar bonus, did you?"

Duncan said, "You keep out of this."

"And stay out!" the sergeant snapped.

Mason shrugged his shoulders.

"It makes a lot of difference," Duncan pleaded, "and I think I'm entitled to know."

The sergeant said, "Okay, Duncan. We'll open the vault and the coin safe. I'll have the boys list everything."

"Particularly the stuff in the coin safe," Duncan said.

"Everything," the sergeant snapped. "Come on, Perkins, you come along with Duncan and me. And you come too, Walter. The rest of you stay here. Now, remember, men, I don't want you touching things in the inner office. And particularly, don't go near the desk. I want that glass top for evidence."

Duncan spun the dials of the vault door, opened it and switched on an electric light. The men vanished inside the vault. From the interior came the low hum of voices.

Mason moved casually to Marilyn Smith's side and said, "How about the woman who came to the rail? Could you describe her?"

"Not very well. She had on a dark suit of some kind. It didn't show up in the dark at all; but this woman with the white hair certainly acted suspicious. Bert and I talked about it even before this other woman showed up. But the minute this other woman came out, you could see from the way she acted - the white-haired woman, I mean - that she was afraid, and..."

Bert Custer crowded protectingly forward and said, "I don't want Marilyn to make any statements until the officers are here. This man's a lawyer, Marilyn, and..."

"Bosh and nonsense!" she said. "All this business about lawyers, and getting rattled, and all that stuff makes me sick. We know what we saw, and we'll tell what we saw just the way we saw it. When you come right down to it, Bert, you know as well as I do the reason I thought the white-haired woman threw the gun was because of the way she'd been acting. If you were under oath, you'd have to swear that the first time you saw the gun it was in the air."

"I saw the white-headed woman make some sort of a throwing motion. She did something with her hand, as though she was tossing something," Custer insisted doggedly.

"Bert, you never saw any such thing! You weren't even looking at her. You were looking at me. You had your arms wrapped around me, and you were..." She broke off with a giggle.

"Well," Custer said sullenly, "I could see her out of the corner of my eye, couldn't I?"

Marilyn Smith smiled at Perry Mason and said, "I saw the gun first. I saw it after it had been thrown over the rail. I grabbed Bert's arm, and said, 'Look, Bert.' That was the first he saw of it. You see, there was light streaming out of a porthole and the gun fell across the path of light."

"You were standing almost amidships and on this side of the ship?" Mason asked.

"Yes."

"Then it's possible you saw the gun as it fell across the path of light which was thrown from this porthole, isn't it?"

"Well... perhaps. This probably is the porthole. There's a bright light here, and the illumination sort of fans out into a cone. You could see the path of light in the fog."

"What sort of gun was it?" Mason asked. "Could you see?"

Custer beat her to the answer. "It was an automatic. I guess I should know. I worked in a hardware store and I've sold lots of guns. It was a blued-steel automatic with a wooden handle. Just judging from the size of it, I'd say it was a .38, but you can't tell. Some companies make a pretty heavy .32. And then there's one .45 that's not so much different in size from a .38. You know, just looking at it for a second or two that way, it's hard to tell."

"So," Mason said gravely, "you think it was a .38, if it wasn't a .45 or a .32. Is that right?"

"Yes."

"But it may have been a .45?"

"It might have been."

"Or it might have been a .32?"

"Yes."

"Don't they make a .22 caliber automatic with a heavy frame and a long barrel?"

"Well, yes, they do."

"Could it have been a .22?"

Custer frowned thoughtfully. Marilyn Smith laughed and said, "Just because you sold guns, Bert, you try to know too much about them. You couldn't tell what caliber that gun was. Why, we just saw it for a fraction of a second, as it went down through that shaft of light that was coming from the porthole."

Mason said, "Thank you, Miss Smith."

He stepped to the door of the inner office, and the plainclothesman said, "Don't go in there."

"I'm just looking through the door," Mason said.

The body had been removed. The glass top which had been on the desk was standing on edge, propped against the wall. Powder had been dusted on it to bring out hundreds of latent fingerprints, and near the center of the glass was the print of a whole hand, where apparently someone had leaned over on the glass. The imprint seemed to have been made by a woman's hand.

Mason casually moved over toward Arthur Manning. "Is this going to make quite a change for you?" he asked.

The uniformed special watchman nodded and said gloomily, "I'll say it is."

"Won't you get along okay with Duncan?"

"Well, you know how it is," Manning said. "They were both of them fighting. Duncan gave me my job, but Grieb handled most of the inside business and all the cash, and I naturally saw more of Sam Grieb than I did of Duncan. Grieb gave me orders and I tried to please him. So, the first thing I knew, I was in the position of sort of taking sides with Grieb. Not that I did, at all, but I know Duncan felt that way about me. Now that he's in charge, he'll let me out. He didn't like what I told the officers about the chairs."

Mason said, "I might be able to get you a job. At least a temporary job, with a detective agency."

Manning's eyes brightened.

"Think you'd like that?" Mason asked.

"I'd like any job that pays wages," Manning said, "and I've always wanted to get in a detective agency. I think I could make good in that business and perhaps work up."

"Well," the lawyer went on in a low voice, "suppose you drop into my office first thing tomorrow. Don't tell anyone about it, though. Just drop in on your own. Do you think you could do that?"

"Sure, unless they tie me up here so I can't get ashore. I don't know how long this investigation's going to last."

"Well, just drop in any time," Mason said. "Ask for Miss Street. She's my secretary. I'll speak to her, so you won't be delayed. It'll only take a few minutes. Just run in and I'll introduce you to the head of the detective agency that handles my business."

"Okay, Mr. Mason. Thanks a lot," Manning said.

The men who had been in the vault came back into the room. Duncan pulled the door shut, slammed the bolts into place, and spun the combination savagely. There was no trace of a smile on his face. The sergeant took a roll of gummed paper from his pocket, tore off two pieces, wrote his name across them, moistened them on his tongue, and stuck them across the edges of the vault door.

"Now, I don't want anyone opening that vault until after the Marshal gets here," he said. "You understand that, Duncan?"

"I understand it," Duncan blazed, "but it's a hell of a note when you seal up a man's place of business and say he can't get into it! Now, there's something wrong here. We're ninety-five hundred dollars short that I know of. You said you were going to take a complete inventory. Why don't you go ahead with it?"

"Because there's too much junk in there. It'd keep us busy until morning if we did that. I've sealed the vault door. That will hold things intact until..."

"Intact, hell!" Duncan blazed. "A man could steam off that paper, and..."

"Well, I'll put a guard on duty. How will that be?"

Duncan was mollified. "That might be okay," he conceded.

"Now, how about this ninety-five hundred? You said that was to have been paid in tonight. That might have been a motive for the killing."

Duncan stared at Perry Mason in somber appraisal and said, "I'm not making any statements just yet. Let's take a look through the desk."

"Now, I'll be the one who does that," the sergeant said. "You fellows keep away."

He opened the top left-hand drawer in the desk and exclaimed, "Here's your nine thousand five hundred, Duncan."

Duncan pushed eagerly forward. The sergeant's right hand pressed against the gambler's chest. "Keep away, Duncan, I don't want you touching things here."

He scooped the money from the drawer, slowly counting it. As the bills fell to the desk and the count mounted up, Duncan's lips twisted back in a smile so that his gold teeth were once more visible. Then, after the six-thousand-dollar mark was reached, Duncan's smile slowly vanished as his appraising eyes took stock of the bills remaining in the sergeant's hand. By the time the count was completed, Duncan's lips were once more pressed tightly together.

"Seventy-five hundred," the sergeant announced. "Now, that's two thousand dollars short of the amount you mentioned, Duncan."

Duncan said, "You haven't gone through the desk yet. There may be some more in one of the other drawers."

"That's not the point," the officer remarked. "Grieb was sitting at this desk when he was killed. Now, someone paid him a big sum of money. He evidently hadn't had time to put the money in the coin safe. He certainly wouldn't have planned on letting it stay here in his desk. Therefore, the man who paid this money may have been the last man to see Grieb alive. I want to know who he was."

"I don't know who paid it," Duncan said, his eyes carefully avoiding Mason's.

"You have an idea who might have paid it, haven't you?"

"I haven't any ideas that I'm spilling right now," Duncan said obstinately. "After all, this is our business, and it's confidential."

"I order you to tell me."

"Order and be damned!" Duncan blazed. "I don't know who you think you are. We're still out on the high seas. I'm in charge of this ship."

Perkins coughed, hesitated, then blurted, "There was some talk between Mason and Duncan about some IOU's. It was when we first came aboard, before Mason knew about the murder. I think they said something about seventy-five hundred dollars. Those IOU's may have been what..."

The sergeant whirled to Perry Mason. "Did you pay that money?" he asked.

Mason said casually, "I don't think I have anything to add to Mr. Duncan's statement. It seems to cover the point admirably, Sergeant. I might add that there's quite a difference between seventy-five hundred dollars in obligations and a ninety-five hundred dollar shortage."

"Oh, you're going to get technical, are you?"

"You can express it that way if you wish."

"You were here when the body was discovered," the sergeant pointed out.

Mason quite casually took a cigarette case from his pocket, inserted a cigarette between his lips, struck a match, and not until after he had held the flame to the tip of the cigarette did he say, "Oh, no, I wasn't, Sergeant. I was in the outer office. The door between me and the dead man was locked. I didn't have a key to it. Furthermore, if I had come here to pay seventy-five hundred dollars, and the seventy-five hundred dollars had actually been paid, it's reasonable to suppose that my business would have been completed and that I would, therefore, have left the offices. And if I'd murdered Sam Grieb in order to get possession of something, it's hardly reasonable to suppose I'd have dropped seventy-five hundred dollars in his desk drawer, and then sat around waiting for the corpse to come to life."

The sergeant regarded Mason in frowning appraisal. "I still don't like the looks of the whole business," he said.

Mason nodded and said soothingly, "I never like murder cases either, Sergeant."

Marilyn Smith tittered. The sergeant said savagely, "You're under orders not to leave this ship until I tell you you can."

"You mean," Mason said, "that you're taking the responsibility of placing me under arrest on a ship which is at present beyond the twelve-mile limit?"

"I mean just what I said," the sergeant snapped. "You're not to leave this ship until I tell you you can. And I don't intend to indulge in a lot of argument about the legal effect of my order."

The man in the traffic officer's uniform burst excitedly into the outer office and said, "Sergeant, that woman's hiding somewhere aboard the ship."

"Hiding!" the sergeant exclaimed. "What are you talking about?"

"Just what I said. She isn't in the line-up and the officer at the desk swears she hasn't gone through. But quite a few people remember having seen her aboard the ship. I've got half a dozen people who can give detailed descriptions of her. She was seen after we came aboard, so she hasn't gone ashore. And there are two people who saw her sitting at a table back of the bar talking with this lawyer."

And the officer pointed a dramatic forefinger at Perry Mason.

CHAPTER 8

MASON WAS the first to break the silence which followed the officer's dramatic accusation. "Come to think of it," he drawled, "I believe I was talking with a woman who answered that description."

"What was her name?" the sergeant demanded, frowning.

"I'm sure I couldn't give you her name, Sergeant."

"You mean you don't know who she was?"

"I mean," Mason said, "that I couldn't give you her name."

"But you won't say you don't know who she is."

Mason merely smiled.

"Look here, Mason, your conduct in this thing is open to a good deal of criticism," the sergeant said.

"So I gather from your remarks," Mason told him.

"You can't pull this stuff and get away with it."

"Pull what stuff?" Mason asked innocently.

"The stuff you're pulling."

"Well," Mason said, judicially inspecting the end of his cigarette with critical eyes, "since I've already pulled it, the only question between us is whether I can, as you term it, get away with it. That, I suppose, is a matter of opinion."

The sergeant said to the traffic officer, "Take this guy and lock him up. Don't let him talk to anyone, and don't let him see anyone. You stay in the room with him, and if he tries to talk with you or asks you questions, don't answer them."

"Of course," Mason said, "I'll want it understood that I'm protesting vigorously against such unwarranted and high-handed action."

"Protest and be damned," the sergeant told him. "I've had enough of your lip. Jerry, go ahead and take him out of here, and then I'll search this damned boat from one end to the other until I find that white-headed woman in the silver gown, and don't let anyone else go ashore, no matter whether they have passes or not. I'm going to sew this ship up until I find that woman. She might try to ditch that silver dress and put on men's clothes, or something. The way it looks right now, she's the one who committed the murder, and Perry Mason's her lawyer."

The sergeant turned to Bert Custer and said, "Now you're willing to swear that she came out on deck and threw an automatic out over the rail, aren't you?"

"Yes," Custer said.

Marilyn Smith interposed firmly to say, "No, he isn't. He can only swear that she and another woman were standing out on the deck at the time he saw a gun thrown overboard."

The sergeant said angrily, "That's what comes of letting this damned lawyer stay in here and raise hell with our witnesses! Take him out and lock him up, Jerry."

The traffic officer, his holstered gun ominously in evidence, clapped his left hand on Perry Mason's shoulder. "On your way, buddy," he said.

"But," Mason objected, "I protest..."

The traffic officer spun him around facing the door and said, "You've done too damn much protesting already. Do you want to go sensibly, or do you want to be taken?"

"Oh, sensibly, by all means," Mason said, smiling, and accompanied the officer down a corridor and into a room, where he was held for more than three hours.

It was still foggy when Mason was released from the room. A tall, raw-boned individual with a lazy drawl in his speech, a black sombrero on his head, and a manner of calm unhurried efficiency greeted Mason and said, "I'm the United States Marshal. What were you doing aboard the ship?"

"Visiting."

"Did you have business with Sam Grieb?"

"Yes."

"What was that business?"

"It was business I was handling for a client. I came aboard the ship to see Mr. Grieb. For all I know, he was dead when I got here. I didn't see him alive. I don't know who murdered him, and I'm not making any statement."

The marshal nodded and said, "You know I can take you before the grand jury and make you talk, don't you?"

Mason smiled and said, "You can take me before a grand jury. Whether you can make me talk is a matter of opinion. My personal idea is that you can't."

A slow smile of whimsical humor twisted the lips of the marshal. The sergeant who had been conducting the investigation said belligerently, "Well, we can hold you on suspicion of murder and stick you in a cell and..."

"I'm running this, Sergeant," the marshal interrupted. "That's all, Mr. Mason."

"When can I go ashore?" Mason asked.

"Any time," the marshal said.

"Did you find out anything?" Mason inquired.

The marshal merely smiled.

"Locate the woman in the silver gown?" Mason asked.

The marshal's smile became a grin. "Try reading the papers, Mr. Mason. You'll find a speed boat at the bottom of the landing-stage. Your coat and hat are over there on the table."

Mason struggled into the overcoat, turned up the collar, and silently walked along the hallway, through the deserted bar and casino to the deck.

There was virtually no motion to the ship. The fog had settled like a thick blanket. Moisture slimed the deck, the stairway, and the rope which served as a handhold. A speed boat was waiting at the foot of the landing-stage. Mason was the only passenger, and, so far as he could observe, save for the crew and the officers, no one remained aboard the gambling ship.

He took his seat near the stern of the speed boat, which immediately roared into motion. A moment later the hulk of the gambling ship was swallowed by the gray pall through which the speed boat roared on a compass course toward the shore.

The amusement pier was deserted when Mason landed. Contrary to his expectations, there were no newspaper reporters awaiting him. He found his car, climbed in it, and drove to his office building. He slid the car to a stop at the curb, entered the lobby and rang for the elevator. The night janitor brought up the cage, grinned at Mason, and said, "Pretty late for you to be working so hard, Mr. Mason. Your secretary's up in your office waiting for you."

Mason's face showed surprise. "Been there ever since around eleven o'clock," the janitor said.

Mason thanked him and signed the register while the elevator was shooting upward. His steps echoed down the deserted corridor. He turned a corner and saw lights in his office, transforming the frosted glass of the entrance doorway into a golden oblong, against which appeared in black letters:

PERRY MASON

ATTORNEY AT LAW

Entrance

Mason passed by the door to the entrance room and went to his private office. He opened the plain mahogany door with his key and saw Della Street tilted back in his big swivel chair, her feet propped upon the desk, ankles crossed. She was sound asleep.

She looked up as the latch clicked into place when the door closed. Her eyes, swollen with sleep, blinked in the bright light. "'Lo, Chief," she said sleepily. She lowered her feet from the desk, rubbed her eyes with her knuckles, grinned and said, "I fell asleep after the midnight news broadcast. That's the last one."

She indicated the portable radio which she had placed on the corner of Mason's desk, stretched her arms, yawned, made a little grimace, stamped her feet, and said, "Gosh, my legs have gone to sleep. What time is it?"