Erle Gardner - The Case Of The Dangerous Dowager

"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?"