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"You mean he was dead then?"
"Yes. Just like you found him."
"What did you do?"
"At first," she said, "I started to run. Then I realized that the papers on the desk might be my IOU's. I'd just caught a glimpse of them as I pushed the door open. But you know how something like that impresses itself on your mind. It was just as though the whole scene had been etched on my consciousness."
"Go ahead," Mason told her.
"I tiptoed over to the desk," she said. "I didn't want to touch the papers unless they were my IOU's, so I leaned across the desk to look down at them. I found they were my notes, and was just reaching for them when you came down the corridor. That rang the electric signal and threw me into a panic. At first I started to grab the IOU's, hide them and claim I'd paid cash for them before Grieb was murdered, but I realized there might not be seventy-five hundred dollars in the safe. So I decided to dash out in the other room, leave the door partially open, as I'd found it, and wait to see who was coming. Then, later on, I might be able to get rid of whoever it was and get the notes. So I ran back to the office, carefully pulled the door so it lacked about an inch of being closed, went over and sat down. I picked up a movie magazine and pretended to read."
"Then what?" Mason asked.
"Then after a while you came in," she said.
Mason scowled at her and said, "Are you telling me the truth, Sylvia?"
She nodded.
"Why didn't you want me to search your handbag?" he asked abruptly.
She met his eyes steadily and frankly, "Because I had a gun in that bag."
"What did you do with it?"
"I went up on deck and tossed it overboard. I didn't dare to let anyone know I had that gun."
"What sort of gun was it?" the lawyer asked.
"A.32 Smith and Wesson Special."
Mason studied her through half-closed eyes and said abruptly, "Sylvia, you're lying."
She straightened in her chair. Her face flushed under the make-up, then grew white. "Don't you dare accuse me of lying, Perry Mason," she said.
The lawyer made a casual gesture with the hand which held his cigarette, "All right, then," he said, "I'll point out to you the places where your story doesn't hang together."
"Go ahead," she challenged.
"In the first place, I was walking rather rapidly when I came down the corridor which leads to the office. That section of flooring which is wired to the office is within thirty feet of the door. I covered that thirty feet within six seconds. The things you've said that you did would have taken a lot more time than that."
"But it was a long time," she insisted. "You didn't open that office door for two or three minutes after the signal sounded. You must have been standing by the door or something."
Mason shook his head. "It wasn't more than six seconds at the most."
"I know better," she told him. "I heard the sound of the buzzer. That frightened me. At first I was so scared I couldn't do anything. I just stood there, leaning over the desk. Then I straightened, faced the door and waited. When nothing happened, I decided I might be able to sneak out into the other office. I didn't waste any time doing it, but I took pains to adjust the door rather carefully. Then I went over, sat down, picked up a magazine and pretended I was reading. It was quite a while after that when you opened the door. It might have been two or three minutes."
"You were excited," he told her, watching her closely. "Your judgment of time…"
"Forget my judgment of time," she interrupted. "The fact remains you didn't come right down that corridor as you claim. You paused for a minute or two outside the door."
Mason shook his head.
Her mouth was obstinate. "I heard the signal," she insisted.
"Wait a minute," Mason said, "is there any chance someone could have been hiding somewhere in that outer office? Then he could have slipped out when you went into the private office, and the signal you heard…"
"Not a chance," she interrupted.
"You're sure?"
"Yes."
"All right, we'll pass that up for the moment. You say you had a gun in your bag?"
"Yes, that's why I didn't dare to let you touch it."
"And you went on deck and threw the gun overboard?"
"Yes."
"But you didn't kill Grieb?"
"I kill Grieb? Of course not."
"Then why did you throw the gun overboard?"
"Because I'd been in that room, and Grieb had been shot. I didn't want to have people think I'd done it."
"Don't you know," he said, "that a gun leaves distinctive marks on every bullet which goes through the barrel? Don't you know that the experts can tell absolutely what gun fired a fatal bullet?"
"I've heard something like that," she admitted. "But I'd been in a room where a man had been murdered. I thought the safest thing to do was to get rid of my gun. So I got rid of it."
"And in doing that, put it forever out of my power to show that your gun did not kill Grieb," Mason said.
"No one needs to know I had a gun."
"How long had you been carrying it?"
"Some little time. I'd been doing quite a bit of gambling. Sometimes I won and sometimes I lost. I carried considerable cash with me on occasion and I didn't want to be held up."
Mason smoked for a few moments in thoughtful silence, then said, "That story doesn't hang together. It doesn't fit in with the other facts. No jury on earth would ever believe it. But years of practicing law have taught me to put more reliance in my judgment of character than in my ability to correlate events. Looking at you when you talk, I feel you're telling the truth. I'm going to stick with you, Sylvia; but God help you if you ever have to tell that story to a jury."
"But I won't have to," she said. "No one knows I was in there… except you."
He shook his head, watched the smoke eddy upward from the tip of his cigarette, and said, "In addition to Belgrade's sell-out, there's another hurdle. You left fingerprints, Sylvia."
"Where?"
"On the desk. When you put your left hand on the glass top and leaned over to look at the IOU's, you left a perfect print of your palm and fingers."
She frowned. "Couldn't you claim that had been done earlier in the day?"
"No. They know better, Sylvia. There were no other prints on top of that hand print. It wasn't even smudged."
"All right," she said, "I'll take my medicine if I have to. But don't think you'll ever get me to go on the witness stand and tell a story which isn't the truth. I'll tell the truth if it kills me."
"It probably will," Mason said grimly… "Why did you run out on me, Sylvia?"
"I told you why. Because I'd learned my husband was aboard."
"How did you learn it?"
"A man told me."
"Who was this man?"
"I don't know."
"Had you ever seen him before?"
"Not before that night, but I'd seen him two or three times during the evening. I…"
"Go on," he urged, as her voice trailed away into silence.
"I have an idea he may have been following me."
"What did he say to you?"
"He said, 'Beat it, Sylvia, your husband's aboard,' or something like that. I remember he used the words, 'Beat it.'"
"When did he tell you that?"
"Just as I stepped out on deck."
"Could you describe him?"
"Yes. He wore a blue serge suit, black shoes with thick soles, a blue-and-black striped tie with an opal tie pin. He was about fifty years old, with thick, black hair, and a stubby black mustache. He wasn't particularly tall, but he was quite heavy."
"Had you spoken to him during the evening?"
"No."
"And you thought he might be following you?"
"Well, you understand how it is with an unattached woman on a gambling ship. People look her over. Some of the more persistent hang around."
"In other words, you thought this man was a masher?"