Erle Gardner: The Case Of The Dangerous Dowager

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Duncan said chidingly, "Now, Sammy!"

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

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

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

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

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

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

"The check was different," Mason said.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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