The Case of the Dangerous Dowager (12 page)

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.

"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: