"The Case of the Dangerous Dowager" - читать интересную книгу автора (Gardner Erle Stanley)

CHAPTER 10

PERRY MASON was sleeping soundly when Della Street pulled up the shades and let sunshine filter into the apartment. She was trimly dressed in a neat-fitting gray tailored suit, as freshly radiant as though she had been in bed by nine o'clock.

"Hi, Chief," she said, "I hate to do this, but it's necessary."

Mason muttered a mumbling protest in a voice which was thick with sleep.

"Hurry up," she said, "I have to get to the office, because I'm working for a slave driver who insists on my being there by nine-thirty every morning and prefers to have me there to open the mail at nine o'clock."

Mason opened his eyes, blinked in protest against the sunlight and said, "Fire the boss, Della, and get a new one. Why not work for me? I'll let you stay in bed until noon every day."

"Well," she said slowly, as though deliberating his proposal, "I should give the other boss notice, shouldn't I?"

"To hell with the notice," Mason said sleepily, "give him two weeks' salary. And how about my breakfast?"

"All laid out on the table for you," she said. "Coffee in the percolator, orange juice in the ice box, eggs all ready to drop in the boiling water that's on the stove, and a plate of bread by the electric toaster, plenty of butter, strawberry jam and broiled bacon being kept warm in the oven. I let you sleep just as long as I dared, Chief."

Mason sat up in bed, rumpled his hair with his fingers and said, "Young woman, you're begging the question. How about quitting your other boss and going to work for me?"

"I'd have to get in touch with him first," she said, "and no one knows where he is."

He grinned. "You're trying to make me get witty, think up come-backs to your wise-cracks, so I won't go back to sleep after you leave. I'm on to you! Why all the early morning calls?"

"The newspaper," she said, "with an account of the crime, a diagram, a cross marking the spot, a statement from Perry Mason, the attorney, seems to have disappeared, and an awful wallop right between the eyes: one of Drake's men sold out."

"Give me that paper," Mason commanded.

"Not yet, Chief. You shower, breakfast, and think it over. Don't do anything until you've gone over it carefully. I'm going to open up the office. If I don't do that, some smart detective may figure I'm with you and start frisking my apartment."

"Who sold out?"

"George Belgrade."

"Whom did he sell us out to?"

"The newspapers. They paid a top price for his story."

"Let's see, Belgrade was the one who knew Duncan, wasn't he?"

"Yes, he was the man who was shadowing Sylvia Oxman. He sure put both of you in a sweet spot. She was in those offices when you went in, and she came out before you did. Therefore, she must have been in there either when the murder was committed, after it was committed, or before it was committed."

He grinned and said, "That's logical. And she must have either been sitting down, standing up or walking around."

"No," Della Street said, "I'm serious, Chief. This is the way the newspaper has doped it out: If she went in there after the murder was committed, there would have been no reason for you to have protected her. If she was in there while the murder was being committed, she must have done the killing. If she left before the murder was committed, you must have done it.

"Belgrade admits he was hired as a detective by Paul Drake, that he knows Paul Drake does your work, and thinks he was working for you on this case; that you apparently were representing Sylvia Oxman because you're trying to cover up for her. The newspaper's dishing out a lot of dirt, and it's putting you in an awful spot.

"Now, here's something else: the eight-thirty Newspaper-of-the-Air announces that the woman in the silver gown was Matilda Benson, the grandmother of Sylvia Oxman. Both women were evidently aboard the gambling ship at the time the murder was committed. Both women have vanished. Matilda Benson apparently committed suicide by jumping overboard."

Mason flung his legs out of bed and made a grab for the newspaper.

She tossed him the paper and said, "That isn't in the newspaper. It came over the radio as a news flash."

"How do they know she committed suicide?"

"They found her fur coat wrapped around the anchor chain of the gambling ship when it came daylight. Her name was in the coat, and it's been identified by some of her friends."

Mason laughed. "I know the answer to that. It isn't suicide."

"Okay, Chief, have breakfast and read the paper. I'm going up to the office and go through the motions of frantically wondering where you are. Now I won't dare to come back here before five o'clock tonight. You may want to get in touch with me in the meantime. If you want to give me any instructions, you can telephone Paul Drake and leave the message with him. He'll see that I get it. I've brought in my portable radio. There's a card with station numbers and the hours of news broadcasts beside it."

"What time is it?" Mason asked.

"Twenty minutes to nine. I want to be up at the office early so I can answer questions about you."

He nodded and said, "Where's the breakfast, Della, in your apartment or here?"

"Here," she told him. "I brought supplies over from my place. You lock the connecting door after I leave and keep it locked, because some smart dick may start prowling around my apartment."

"Okay, Della," he told her, drawing up his feet to sit cross-legged on the bed while he spread the newspaper open.

"Go on and get your breakfast," she told him. "You'll probably want to explode into some action, and you'll need food in your stomach. You can read while you're eating. I'm on my way. Toodle-oo." She blew him a saucy kiss and gently closed the connecting door to her apartment.

Mason found his bedroom slippers placed under the edge of his bed.

"The perfect secretary," he muttered, grinning, thrusting his feet into his slippers and straightening his pajamas. He went into the kitchenette where a coffee pot was sending forth steaming aromas. Water was briskly boiling on the stove. Three eggs were in a saucer near the water. Mason glanced across at the table, with its white cloth, glittering silver, coffee cup, cream, sugar, jam, butter, bread and electric toaster. He dropped the three eggs into the water, poured himself a cup of coffee, noted the time, and stood over the eggs to wait for the three-minute interval to elapse. He spread the paper fiat against the wall, holding it with his left hand pressed against the upper left-hand corner, while his right held the cup of coffee. As he read the paper, he sipped the coffee. The three minutes passed unnoticed, lengthened into five. Mason set down his empty coffee cup. The eggs danced about in the briskly boiling water.

Mason opened the paper to the inside page and studied the diagram of the gambling ship, the photographs of the hull, waded through a lot of extraneous detail concerning the previous history of the ship and its transition from a proud, square-rigged vessel which sailed the seven seas, to a fishing barge and then a gambling ship.

Suddenly he thought of the eggs, and glanced at his watch. The eggs had been in exactly fifteen minutes.

He turned out the fire, dumped eggs and water into the sink with a frown of disgust, poured himself another cup of coffee, took it over to the table, placed two slices of bread in the electric toaster and switched on the current. He buried his nose once more in the paper and studied the statement of George Belgrade with a frowning concentration which prevented him from noticing the wisping streamers which began to drift upward from the bread in the electric toaster. The streamers grew into a cloud. The apartment was filled with the odor of burning toast. Mason groped with his free hand for the handle of his coffee cup, raised the rim of the cup to his lips and then caught sight of the smoke billowing up from the toaster. With an exclamation, he switched off the toaster. He gulped down the rest of his coffee, forgot about the bacon, dropped the newspaper on the floor, divested himself of his pajamas on the way to the bathroom, showered and shaved. While he was shaving, he was staring with unseeing eyes at his reflection in the mirror. The motions of his shaving were purely mechanical.

Mason foraged around in the cupboard and the icebox and found no food. He tentatively opened one of the hard-boiled eggs in the sink, but it presented too substantial a problem for a breakfast dish. He took the charred toast from the toaster, dropped in two more slices of bread and switched on the radio. He kept a watchful eye on the toast, turned it when one side was a golden brown. The voice of the announcer on the radio finished droning through routine news and announced a flash. Officers who had been searching for Perry Mason, the noted criminal attorney, seeking to serve a subpoena on him to appear for questioning before the grand jury, were now seeking him on a much more serious charge. While they would not divulge the exact nature of the charge, informed sources stated that he was to be arrested upon suspicion of murder, criminal conspiracy, and compounding a felony. Following the spectacular statement of George Belgrade, which had been exclusively released through a local newspaper, the Federal Grand Jury had issued a subpoena for Belgrade. There had followed a battle of wits between the newspaper which had paid Belgrade for his exclusive statement, and the United States Marshal's office, which had been seeking to serve the subpoena and bring Belgrade before the grand jury forthwith. The marshal had won out. Belgrade had been found where he had been concealed by representatives of the newspaper which had hoped to print an exclusive follow-up story. A subpoena had also been issued for Paul Drake, head of the Drake Detective Bureau.

The radio announcer promised to report latest developments in the murder case at the next news broadcasting period. In the meantime, a search of Perry Mason's usual haunts had been fruitless. Perry Mason, Sylvia Oxman and Matilda Benson were all three missing.

By the time the broadcaster had concluded his statement, Perry Mason ruefully inspected the charred remains of his second attempt at toast making and switched off the current.

For more than half an hour, Mason paced the floor in frowning concentration, then, having reached a decision, he dressed, put on his hat, locked the door of the apartment, descended to the street and walked to the boulevard. He called Paul Drake's office from a pay station, asked to be connected with Drake, and a moment later heard the detective's voice on the line.

"Hello, Paul," Mason said. "You know who this is?"

"Yes. Where are you telephoning from?"

"A pay station."

"Where?"

"In a drug store. Is it safe to talk, Paul?"

"I think so. Listen, Perry, I'm sorry as hell about this Belgrade business. You know how it is. I pick my men the best way I can and I never put men on your work unless I've first tested them for honesty and ability and…"

"Forget it," Mason interrupted. "There's no use crying over spilled milk. Hell, Paul, we can't waste time swapping words over what…"

"I know," Drake interrupted. "But I want you to know how I feel."

"I know how you feel. You can't help what happened."

"Well, now I've got that off my chest," Drake said, "I want to see you. Manning's here in the office with some important information. I've been subpoenaed to appear this afternoon at two o'clock before the grand jury. I'm afraid Manning may be subpoenaed, and I think you'd better talk with him. Then you may want to let him stick around and get a subpoena. You know, of course, they're looking for you."

"Yes."

"I want to talk with you about that. You can't…"

"Think you can get away from your office without being followed, Paul?" Mason interrupted.

"I think so. I'll have a couple of the boys tail me, and if anyone's tagging along they can tip me off."

"Okay. You tell Della to leave any messages at your office. You bring Manning with you. Make sure you're not being followed, and go to the corner of Adams and Figueroa. Wait there on the corner. I'll pick up a taxicab, and if no one's on my trail I'll drive by to pick you up. If the coast is clear, take off your hat and stand on the corner with your hat in your hand. If you're at all suspicious, leave your hat on your head and I'll whiz right on by and call your office to pick another meeting place."

"Okay," Drake said. "I think I've got an out for you, Perry."

"That," Mason proclaimed, "will help."

"It's a swell break for you," Drake said. "It's spectacular, dramatic and logical. It clears you and your clients."

Mason said slowly, "Perhaps you think that won't be welcome. How soon can you make it, Paul?"

"If we're not followed, I can be there in ten or fifteen minutes. I'm bringing Manning with me. If we're followed, it'll take a while to ditch the shadows."

"Okay," Mason told him, "… be seeing you," and hung up the telephone. He stopped at the lunch counter in the drug store, ate two soft-boiled eggs, toast and bacon, then waited on the corner for a cruising cab. When one came along, he had it drive to a side street address. He paused there uncertainly, as though debating with himself, then said to the cab driver, "Turn around, go out Figueroa to Adams, turn west on Adams, and then I'll tell you where to go."

The cab driver nodded, turned the car and sent it into speed. Mason leaned forward in the seat, said, "Not too fast as you round the corner into Adams. I want to look at some property there."

"Okay," the driver told him.

Mason saw Paul Drake and Arthur Manning standing on the corner. Drake was holding his hat in his hand.

Mason said, "I think I'll stop and take a good look at this property. Here's enough to cover the meter and leave you a couple of cigars."

The cab driver pulled in to the curb, rang down the meter, opened the door of the cab and said, "I can wait if you ain't going to be long."

"No," Mason told him, "it may be some little time. Don't wait."

The cab driver thanked him and drove on. Drake continued to stand with his hat in his hand, taking no notice whatever of Mason. Not until the cab had rounded the corner, did Drake touch Manning's arm and move on toward the lawyer. He said, "My car's parked around the corner, Perry. We can talk there."

Mason nodded. Manning said, "I sure want to thank you, Mr. Mason, for what you've done for me. Mr. Drake's given me a job. He's going to try me out for a couple of months, and I think I can make good."

"How about Duncan?" Mason asked. "Has he said anything about firing you?"

Manning shook his head and said, "In some ways I feel like a rat with Duncan. He certainly has been square and aboveboard as far as I'm concerned. I took sides against him with Grieb, but Duncan called me in and said he wasn't holding any hard feelings, that he understood just how I'd been situated, and that I couldn't have done anything different. It was damn white of him. He said I could stay on in my regular job."

"Then perhaps you'd prefer to do that instead of working for Drake," Mason said, flashing Drake a warning look.

"No," Manning said slowly, "I think this job has a future, and I'm afraid of Duncan. I can't trust him."

"How do you mean?" Mason asked. "You think he's just kidding you along?"

"That's right. Duncan's clever as hell. Right now he needs me. I'm the only one who can back his story."

Drake said, "Here's the car, Perry. Wait until you hear his story. I've heard it, so you'd better let me ask the questions."

"Okay," Mason said, climbing in the back of the car. Drake slid behind the driver's wheel, and Manning sat next to him.

Drake said, "I want you to talk with Manning, Perry, and hear his story. Before we start on that, I've got something to tell you about Frank Oxman."

"What is it?"

"Something's in the wind there, Perry, sure as hell. Early this morning Oxman dashed out of the Breeden Hotel and went to the offices of Worsham amp; Weaver. They're lawyers, you know. P. C. Worsham, the senior partner, was there, and after a while a stenographer showed up. My men covered the corridor. They couldn't hear what was going on in the office, but they did hear the clack of a typewriter; and a little later a couple of detectives from the homicide squad came in. There was quite a bit of talking. When the dicks left, they took Oxman with them."

"Under arrest?" Mason asked.

"It looked like it."

"Where is he now?"

"At the D.A.'s office, apparently being turned inside out. Something's happening in a big way and one of the newspapers has a tip-off. A reporter is hanging around the Breeden Hotel waiting for Oxman to come back to his room."

Mason said slowly, "Then it isn't a pinch, Paul. If the newspaper has a tip-off and is waiting for Oxman to come back, that means the newspaper knows Oxman's going to be released."

"That's right," Drake agreed. "I hadn't thought of it in just that way."

Mason narrowed his eyes and said, "That could complicate matters, Paul."

For a moment they sat in silence. Then Drake said, "Perry, I want to explain to you about this man Belgrade, who sold us out. You see…"

"Forget it," Mason interrupted. "He sold us out, and that's that. You can't apologize it away, and you can't explain it away. It's happened, and that's all there is to it. It's one of those things that are bound to happen when you have to work through operatives. You can't expect a man who draws eight dollars a day and expenses to pass up a juicy chunk of coin when a newspaper offers it to him."

Drake fidgeted uneasily and said, "I should never have hired the fellow in the first place. His record isn't any too good. And I certainly shouldn't have let him get aboard that ship, in view of the fact that he knew Duncan and Grieb. I sent Staples down to the pier to relieve him. Sylvia Oxman had gone aboard before Staples got there, so he didn't pick her up until after she'd left the ship. Then he relieved Belgrade and took up the shadowing job. Staples was the man I wanted for the job all along. He'd been covering her apartment."

Mason said slowly, "Then Belgrade was relieved before Sylvia went into hiding, is that right?"

"Yes."

"Therefore," Mason went on, "Belgrade can't tip the newspaper off to where Sylvia is now?"

"That's right. Staples picked her up at the wharf and shadowed her into the Christy Hotel, and bribed a bellboy to give him her room number-318. I reported to Della."

"Yes, I know," Mason interrupted, "Della told me."

Drake said, "Well, I wanted to get that off my mind, Perry. You've been damned white about it, but it was a blunder on my part. I shouldn't have let Belgrade have anything to do with the case. So much for the bad part. Now for the good part: I think we've got something that's going to put us in the clear."

Drake turned to Manning, said, "Turn around, Arthur, so Mr. Mason can see your face. I'm going to ask you some questions and I want you to…"

"I can tell my story," Manning said eagerly, "and then you can…"

"No," Drake interrupted, "I want to ask you questions. That's the way your story would come out in court or in front of a grand jury, and I want Mason to see how you handle yourself on answering questions."

"Okay," Manning said with a grin, "fire away."

"How long have you been out there on the gambling ship?"

"Ever since it started."

"And you were friendly to Grieb and unfriendly to Duncan?"

"Not exactly. My original contact was with Duncan. He got me the job. But Duncan was the outside man. Grieb was the inside man. Duncan was in the city most of the time buying supplies, handling publicity, making arrangements with the speed boat men, looking after political fences to keep the beach cities from passing ordinances putting the speed boat men out of business, and all that sort of stuff. So naturally I was thrown more and more in contact with Sam Grieb. Then they commenced to start fighting over little things, and I tried to keep neutral. Gradually I found Duncan was steering clear of me, and Grieb was taking me into his confidence. I tried to keep things from drifting too far that way, but I didn't want to put myself in a position where I had both Grieb and Duncan sore at me; and I figured Grieb was going to come out on top because he was the one who had the money."

"Now then," Drake said, glancing meaningly at Mason, "who murdered Grieb?"

"Nobody."

"How do you figure that?" Drake asked.

"Well, Grieb and Duncan had some IOU's signed by Sylvia Oxman. Grieb was trying to peddle them at a premium, if he could. He had an idea Frank Oxman would pay a bonus to get hold of them.

"Duncan was anxious to get them in the form of cash, because Duncan knew there was going to be a bust-up of the partnership and he figured it would be easier to divide cash than to hold the sack of notes. So Duncan and Grieb had a big fight yesterday afternoon and Duncan made Grieb promise that he'd get those IOU's reduced to cash by seven o'clock that night. Grieb was going to get a premium for them if he could, and, if he couldn't, he was going to let them go for their face value. It seems Mr. Mason had thrown an awful scare into them when he started handling Sylvia's case.

"Now, I was sticking around the offices until about fifteen or twenty minutes before Duncan came in and discovered the murder, and I know Grieb was alive when I left. He sent for me and said the crap table had a slicker working the game, and sent me over there to take a look. Now, no one had come in who could have paid off those IOU's before I went over to the crap table. Three people went in afterward-Sylvia, Frank Oxman, and Mr. Mason. After Duncan found the body, the IOU's were gone, and there was seventy-five hundred bucks in the desk drawer. That was just the amount of those IOU's, so I figured Oxman must have paid them off. Sam held out for a premium and Oxman wouldn't give it to him, so finally Sam took just the face value of the IOU's."

"Then Oxman must have been in there long enough to have talked with Grieb. Is that right?" Drake asked.

"Yes, that's right. I saw him go in. I didn't see him come out. I thought I was keeping my eye peeled all the time, but you know how it is when you're watching a dice slicker, and Oxman must have gone out without my seeing him. It's a cinch someone paid off those IOU's. I don't think the dame did it. She didn't have the dough for one thing."

"Well, then," Mason said, "what you're getting at is that Oxman must have killed him."

"No," Manning said, vigorously shaking his head, "it all builds up to the fact that Oxman didn't kill him."

Drake said, "Wait a minute, Perry, and let me handle this. I know the whole story… Now, Arthur, why do you think Oxman didn't kill him?"

"Because if Oxman had paid off those IOU's and then killed him, he certainly wouldn't have left the seventy-five hundred dollars in the desk drawer, and if he'd killed him before he'd paid the IOU's, he'd never have left the money there."

Mason's face showed disappointment. He said, "I'm sorry, Paul, but this isn't getting us anywhere. This guy's deductions are just deductions. Anyone can guess what happened from…"

"Wait a minute," Drake interrupted significantly.

Mason caught the look in the detective's eye and became silent.

"Now then," Drake said, "having figured that Oxman didn't kill him, who did?

"Well, like I said," Manning remarked, "I don't think anyone killed him."

"How did he die, then?"

"He committed suicide."

"What makes you think he committed suicide?"

"I think Duncan had the goods on him. I think Sam had been dipping into the partnership funds. Duncan suspected it. Grieb put most of his money in the business and then had some losses in the stock market. Grieb handled all the money. I think he knew Duncan was calling for a showdown and knew that, as soon as a receiver stepped in, Duncan could send him to jail, and he knew Duncan wouldn't want anything better than that.

"The only chance Grieb had to make a killing was to get Oxman to pay a fancy sum for those IOU's. I think at first Grieb thought he could get maybe ten thousand bucks premium and make Oxman promise never to say anything about it. Then Grieb could have told Duncan that Oxman wouldn't pay any premium for the notes and he'd had to let them go for their face value. That would have suited Duncan all right for he'd never have checked up on it, and Grieb could have used the extra cash to square off his shortage."

Mason said impatiently, "Damn it, Paul, this isn't getting us anywhere. I can think up a dozen different theories that…"

He once more stopped in mid-sentence as he caught the look in Drake's eyes.

"Now, what makes you think Grieb could have committed suicide?" Drake asked. "The police experts all say it was murder."

"I know they do, but the reason they say that is because they can't find the gun. Now, Grieb was killed with a.38 caliber automatic that he ordinarily kept in the upper left-hand drawer of his desk."

"How do you know?" the detective asked.

"Why, we went over all that in your office," Manning said.

"Never mind what we went over in my office," Drake told him. "You just begin from scratch and tell Mr. Mason the whole story. I want him to hear it the way you tell it and not the way I'd try to tell it."

"Well," Manning said, "it's this way. First, you've got to consider the type of man you're dealing with. Charlie Duncan is a smart hombre. He keeps his face buttoned up until he's ready to say something, and when he says something it's a mouthful. But most of the time he's just sitting on the side lines sizing things up; but he doesn't give you that impression, because of those gold teeth of his. He keeps his mouth open in a grin and the gold teeth sort of draw attention to the fact that he's grinning. People don't look at his eyes, they look at his teeth. Now, I know this, because I know Charlie Duncan. I've known Charlie Duncan for ten years, and I know the way he works. He thinks fast and he doesn't say much. Most people figured Sam Grieb was the big-shot of the business, because Sam was always acting like the big executive. Sam liked to sit behind his desk and impress people, while Duncan liked to get out on the firing line and slip things over. Left to himself, Grieb could never have kept that business going because he didn't have brains enough to handle the political end."

"All right," Drake said, glancing again at Mason, "that gives us a pretty good sketch of Duncan's character. What's that got to do with the suicide?"

"Well, when they started business," Manning said, "they took out one of these policies of business insurance by which each man insured his life in favor of the other for twenty thousand dollars. If one of them died, the twenty thousand dollars was to go to the other partner, who would use that twenty thousand to pay the heirs of the dead partner for the dead man's share in the business. That's usual in lots of partnerships, I understand. Anyway, that's what the insurance salesman told them. I was there when he talked with Sam. You see, when a partner dies, the surviving partner has to wind up the business and then he has to turn over half of the net assets to an administrator or something. That means that the business is wrecked, because the living partner isn't supposed to buy it in; but when the partners all agree on having an insurance provision of this kind, it's legal, and the other partner simply takes the twenty thousand, pays it over to the heirs in the form of cash, and that represents the value of the dead partner's share in the business. Anyway, that's the way the insurance man put it up to them, and…"

"Mason's a lawyer. He knows all about business and partnership insurance," Drake interrupted. "Go ahead and tell us the rest of it."

"Well, those policies had a provision that if a partner committed suicide within the first year, the insurance company only had to pay the amount of the premiums which had been paid in. On the other hand, if the death took place by violence or by accident, the surviving partner got double the face of the policy. Now then, you see where that leaves Charlie Duncan. If Sammy committed suicide, Duncan can't collect a cent under the policy except a few hundred dollars which were paid as premiums. He has to wind up the partnership business and he has to give one-half of all the assets to Sammy's heirs. But if he could prove Sammy was murdered, then he'd get forty thousand dollars instead of twenty. He could keep the whole partnership business, and he'd only have to pay over twenty thousand to the heirs.

"You see what I mean. When they took out the partnership insurance, the insurance had this clause about death by violence, but in the agreement they overlooked that and agreed on a payment of a flat amount of twenty thousand dollars, which one partner would pay to the other."

Perry Mason pursed his lips in thought, met Drake's significant glance and nodded his head.

"Go ahead, Arthur," Drake said.

"Well, Charlie's a quick thinker. Now, I'm just betting that as soon as he walked into that room and saw Grieb dead, he realized the position that he'd be in. I think he knew Sammy had been dipping into the till, and that was one of the reasons he was so anxious to have a receiver appointed.

"Now then. Charlie busted into that room and saw Sammy sitting at his desk, dead. He knew damn well it was a suicide, but Perry Mason, the lawyer, was right there in the office, and Charlie had a deputy United States marshal with him who had been called in to serve the papers on Sammy. Now, I think that Charlie knew there was evidence there which would prove Sammy had killed himself, and what he wanted was to ditch that evidence. In order to do it, he had to get rid of both this man Perkins and Perry Mason, and the best way he could think of was to pretend Perry Mason had bumped Sammy off, and, of course, to protect his own interests, he kept yelling murder right from the start. Charlie's an awfully smooth guy when he has to be. He's a fast worker and a quick thinker, and…"

"Yes, you've told us all that before," Drake interrupted.

"Well, the logical thing for Charlie to do was to make a build-up so he could accuse Perry Mason of murder and order Perkins to take Mason and lock him up somewhere. Now, Charlie knew just as well as I do-in fact a damned sight better-that it wasn't murder, that it was a case of suicide, but he wanted to get Mason and Perkins out of there, so he accused Mr. Mason of the murder and got Perkins and Mason to go out.

"Now, I was watching that runway which led to the offices, and I saw Perkins and Mason go out. I went in just a second after they went out. I told the officers that Charlie was looking around in the chair in the entrance room when I went in there, and that's the truth, but before I went in that room, Duncan had been in the room where Sammy's body was slumped over the desk. I know that because when I opened the door to the outer office I could hear the sound of someone moving fast on the other side of the door, just as though Charlie had come running out of that inside office.

"Now, I'd gone in there on an emergency signal. I didn't know what was up and when I heard all the noise of running feet I stopped long enough to get my gun out of my holster and into my fist. I wasn't going to walk in and have someone stick a gun in my ribs.

"My gun didn't come out easy, and maybe I was a little yellow. I hated like hell to push that door open the rest of the way, but I did it-and there was Charlie fumbling around in the chair, just like I told the officers.

"Now, I think that Sammy killed himself, that the gun had slipped down from his hand and was lying on the floor by the desk, that Charlie saw it there. He got rid of Mason and Perkins long enough to run in and pick up that gun. At first he intended to frame the killing on Mr. Mason. So he figured he'd slip the gun down in the cushions of the chair in which Mason had been sitting. But I came in there and found him fussing around that chair, and he didn't dare to do it then, because he was afraid I'd squeal. So he kept the gun in his pocket and ditched it later."

"How do you know what gun Grieb was killed with?" Mason asked.

Drake nodded and said, "That's the part that's important, Arthur. Just how do you know that?"

"Well," Manning said, "I know something about guns. I fooled around quite a bit with ballistics when I was in the army. The marks on a gun barrel fingerprint a bullet which goes through it just the same as a man's fingerprints on a piece of glass…"

"Yes, we know all about that," Drake said. "Go on."

"Something else that isn't so generally known," Manning said, "is that the firing pin leaves a distinctive mark on the exploded shell. Firing pins aren't centered dead to rights. They're always a little bit to one side or the other.

"Well, one day Charlie Duncan and Sammy Grieb got in an argument about who was the best shot. They were both army men. Charlie bet Grieb fifty bucks he could come closer to a mark than Sammy could. Sammy got sore and put up the fifty. I was in the room at the time and they used me as stake holder. We went below the casino into a long storeroom where there were some heavy timbers and put up a target."

"Who won?" Mason asked.

"Grieb did. That was where he outsmarted Charlie. Charlie's a crack shot, but Grieb was familiar with the gun and Grieb stipulated that they were only to shoot one shot apiece.

"Now, after I got to thinking about what might have happened, I went down there below decks and started prowling around. Sure enough, I found one of the exploded shells that had been ejected by the gun and dug one of the bullets out of this heavy beam. Now I can swear those bullets came from Sam's gun and that's the same gun that Sam was killed with."

Mason raised his head and said to Paul Drake, "Have you checked up on this, Paul?"

Drake nodded. "I've got a photograph of the exploded shell which they found on the floor in the room where Grieb was killed and checked the mark made by the firing pin with that on the shell Manning found down there in the passageway beneath the casino. There's no question but that they were both fired from the same gun."

"And how about the bullet he dug out of the beam?" Mason asked.

Drake took a little glass tube from his pocket. The tube had been sealed up with a strip of gummed paper, on which appeared words written in pen and ink and a scrawled signature.

"I put the bullet Arthur gave me in this tube and sealed it up in his presence," Drake said. "That tube can't be opened without breaking the seal. You see, I've put the wax over the paper at the top."

"Good work," Mason said. "They'd probably accuse us of switching bullets if they could. Have you made a microscopic examination, Paul?"

"No, because I'll have to pull a few wires to get enlarged microscopic photographs of the fatal bullet, but it's a cinch the indentations made by the firing pin on both shells are the same."

Mason said slowly, "You know, Paul, this is important as hell."

"Of course it is," Drake said. "That's why I wanted you to hear Manning's story yourself."

"It's important to a lot of people," Mason went on slowly. "It means the insurance company can save forty thousand bucks in hard cash. It means Charlie Duncan will be out forty thousand bucks, hard cash. It means that, no matter what else happened aboard that ship, a murder charge can't be pinned on anyone for Grieb's death. Now that's going to make quite a commotion in a lot of places."

Drake nodded.

Manning said, "I hope it's going to help you, Mr. Mason. You and Mr. Drake have been on the square with me."

"It'll help us, all right," Mason said, "but I don't know yet just how I'm going to spring it, or when I'm going to spring it. I want you to forget all about this for the time being, Arthur, and don't tell anyone anything about it."

Manning said, "Whatever you two say."

"Well," Mason pointed out, "they may subpoena you before the grand jury that's making the investigation. If they do, you answer questions, don't tell any lies; but, answer the questions in such a way you don't volunteer any information-that is, unless Paul instructs you to play it differently."

"Yes, sir," Manning said, "I can play the game, all right."

"Who else knows about this shooting match?" Mason asked.

"No one except Charlie Duncan, and of course he isn't going to talk."

"Where did you say it took place?"

"Right under the casino; there's a long passageway running the length of the storeroom. They keep a lot of canned goods down there."

"Which way did they shoot, toward the bow or toward the stern?"

"Toward the bow."

"What was the distance?"

"Oh, I'd say about thirty or forty feet."

"And Grieb beat Duncan shooting?"

"Yes."

"But Duncan's a good shot?"

"Yes, but you see, it was Grieb's gun and Grieb knew just how to handle it."

"Is Duncan left-handed?"

"No, he's right-handed. Sam was left-handed. That's why he kept the gun in the upper left-hand drawer of his desk."

"They shot into a beam at the end of the passageway?"

"That's right."

"What was the target they were shooting at?"

"A round piece of tin they'd cut from a can with a can opener."

"How did they hold it in place?"

"Drove a nail through it and stuck it into the beam."

"That piece of tin would have been about two or three inches in diameter?" Mason asked.

"Yes, you know, just the top of a tin can, an average-sized tin can."

"But neither one of them hit it, did they?"

"Sure they did. Grieb hit it almost dead center. Duncan missed the center by about half an inch."

Mason regarded Paul Drake with speculative eyes and said, "How about Duncan, Paul? Is he telling the truth about having been ashore filing papers and all that stuff?"

Drake said, "Yes, Perkins was with him, and then you'll remember that I had men shadowing him. Why, Perry? You don't think…"

"How about those fingerprints on the glass top of the desk? Did you find out anything about them?" Mason interrupted.

"A leak from the D.A.'s office," Drake said, "is that the print of the hand and fingers on the desk was made by Sylvia Oxman. I don't know how they found out, perhaps by getting her fingerprints from the articles in her house. It's a cinch they haven't been able to take any fingerprints from her. She's crawled into a hole and pulled the hole in after her."

Mason said thoughtfully, "And you don't think the police know where she is?"

"No… What do you think about this Benson suicide, Perry?"

Mason said, "I don't think, Paul," and closed one eye in a warning wink. "You'd better go back to the office and tip Della off to play 'em close to her chest. And it'd be a good plan to put Manning some place where the dicks can't find him."

"You're not going to release this story now?" Drake asked.

"No. I want to wait until Duncan has sewed himself up good and tight on the incidental details. I want to let the police build up a swell case against Sylvia. Then I want to smash down the house of cards with one big grandstand. I want to do it in a way that'll stampede the witnesses and hit the grand jury with such a smash the whole case will blow up. There are some things about what Sylvia did that would be better hushed up. And I'm not in such a sweet spot myself if the going gets rough. To make Manning's story hold water it's got to be played up just right… You, Manning, keep absolutely quiet about this. Paul will hide you somewhere…"

"You won't need me out on the ship?" Manning asked. "Getting stuff on Duncan?"

"Hell, no," Mason said. "Not now. We've got enough on him now to raise merry hell with a murder case. That's all I want. I'm not representing the insurance company."

"How about you, Perry?" Drake asked. "Can I take you some place?"

Mason shook his head and opened the car door. "I'm on my way," he said, reaching through the open window on the driver's side to give the detective's shoulder a reassuring squeeze. "Damn good work, Paul," he said. "It's probably saved my bacon."