The Case of the Dangerous Dowager

"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?"

Duncan, his blue eyes wide and startled, stood with his back against the vault door, his mouth sagging open. "It's murder!" he said, and gulped. "For God's sake, turn off that desk light! It gives me the willies to see his open eyes staring into that light!"

The man in tweeds said, "No you don't! Don't touch a thing."

Mason, standing in the doorway between the two rooms, taking care not to enter the room which contained the body, said, "Let's make sure there isn't a gun down there on the floor. After all, you know, it's going to make a lot of difference whether this is murder or suicide. I, for one, would like to know before we send out a report. He could have dropped a gun…"

Duncan stepped forward, bent over the body, peered down under the desk and said, "No, there's no gun here."

The man in tweeds asked, "Can you see? I'll get a light and…"

"Sure I can see," Duncan exclaimed irritably. "There's no gun here. You keep your eyes on this guy, Perkins. He's trying to get us both looking for something so he can pull a fast one. He's talked too damn much about a gun being down there."

Mason said ominously, "Watch your lip, Duncan!"

The tall man nodded. "I'd be careful what I said, Mr. Duncan. You haven't any proof, you know. This man might make trouble."

"To hell with him," Duncan snapped. "There's seven thousand five hundred dollars in IOU's somewhere around here, and Mason wants them. I'm going to take a look in the vault. You keep your eye on Mason."

Duncan crossed over to the vault, his back turned to the men as he faced the vault door, rattled the handle, then started spi

The tall man said, "I wouldn't touch anything, Mr. Duncan. If I were you, I wouldn't open that vault."

Duncan straightened up and turned to face Perkins. "I've got to find out about those IOU's," he said indignantly. "After all, I own a half interest in this place."

"Just the same," Perkins persisted, "I wouldn't open that vault."

Mason, from the doorway between the rooms, said, "And you're leaving a lot of fingerprints on things, Duncan. The police aren't going to like that."

Duncan 's face darkened with rage. "A hell of a slick guy, ain't you," he shouted, "standing there and telling us to look for a gun, and to do this and do that until you've got us leaving fingerprints all over things, and then telling us about it!

"To hell with you! You ain't in the clear on this thing-particularly if those IOU's are missing. You could have done the whole job here-easy! Sammy would have let you in, and you could have given him the works, and then gone back out, pulled the door shut, and been waiting here… Perkins, you're an officer. Search him. Let's see if he's got those IOU's. And he may have the murder gun in his pocket. Let's not let him talk us out of anything."

Mason said, "Listen, Duncan, I'm not going to be the goat in this thing."

Duncan faced him with blazing eyes. "The hell you're not! We come in here and find you sitting next to a murdered man, and you have the nerve to try and tell us what you're going to do and what you're not going to do!

"You're going to take it and like it, and you're going to be searched before you have a chance to ditch anything that you might have taken from this room. You know and I know there's something here you want, and want damn bad."

"So I came in and murdered Grieb to get it; is that right?" Mason asked.

The man in tweeds said, "Better be careful, Mr. Duncan, I think he's laying a trap for you. Don't accuse him of anything."

"I'm not afraid of him," Duncan said, "but I sure want to know a lot more about this thing before I let him go wandering off the ship."

"Well," Mason said, "suppose you search me now. I'll dump everything out of my pockets here, and you can both check the stuff."

"That's a good idea," the man in tweeds said. "I'd like to have someone check up on…"

"Take him into my bedroom," Duncan said. "That's through the door marked 'Private,' at the end of the bar. You go down a corridor, and my room's the second door on the left. Take him in there and wait until I come."

"When'll that be?" Mason asked.

"That'll be just as soon as I can get Arthur Ma

"You want me to parade around with this guy until I locate this deputy?"

"No-wait a minute-I'll signal him from here."

Duncan stepped behind the desk, reached down past Grieb's body and pressed a concealed button. The man in tweeds said, "I don't know what my legal rights are, but if I'm going to act under your orders, you're going to take all the responsibility. Is that understood?"

"Of course it is," Duncan said impatiently, "but watch Mason. Don't let him pull any fast ones, and don't let him ditch anything."

Mason drawled, "If you feel that way about it, Duncan, in justice to myself, I demand that I be handcuffed."

"You're asking for it?" Perkins inquired. Mason nodded.

Perkins heaved a sigh of relief and said, "You heard him say that, Duncan."

Duncan said, "Sure I did. Don't be so damn technical. Put the bracelets on him."

Mason held out his wrists. Perkins slipped the handcuffs on them and said, "Come on, let's go."

"The second door on the left after you go through the door marked 'Private,' at the end of the bar," Duncan instructed.

The man in tweeds slipped his right arm through Mason's left arm and said, "Put your wrists down, buddy. Then your coat sleeves will conceal the handcuffs. I'll hold my hand here and we can walk through the bar without making a lot of commotion."

Mason, still casually chewing gum, permitted himself to be escorted along the passageway, through the bar, through the door marked "Private," and into Duncan 's bedroom.