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

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.