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Mason said, "I might be able to get you a job. At least a temporary job, with a detective agency."
Ma
"Think you'd like that?" Mason asked.
"I'd like any job that pays wages," Ma
"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," Ma
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 a
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 pla
"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.