The Case of the Dangerous Dowager

"Why?"

"I have an idea you're figuring on calling on Frank Oxman."

"So what?"

"Don't do it," Drake said earnestly. "That man's dangerous, and you're already in one hell of a hot spot, Perry."

"It won't get any cooler if I stick around in that one spot," Mason told him.

"Well, lay off Frank Oxman. He's dangerous… Oh, by the way, Perry, I think we've found out who's backing him."

Mason, looking up and down the street to make certain there were no radio cars in sight, said, "All right, Paul. Give it to me fast."

"We're keeping a tail on Oxman, just as you instructed," Drake said, "and we find that he telephoned a man by the name of Carter C. Squires, at the Poindexter Hotel. Squires is the head of a gambling ring that dopes race horses, fixes prize fights, and bets on sure things. He spends most of his time in the lobby of the Poindexter and hanging around the bar. Incidentally, he has a police record somewhere, and he's crooked as a corkscrew, but he has money. He finances a lot of crooked schemes and takes a big cut. Oxman talked with Squires on the telephone. He seemed in an awful lather trying to get the call through."

"You couldn't get in on the conversation?" Mason asked.

"No, I couldn't. But Oxman was talking for almost ten minutes."

"That was after he went to the Christy Hotel?"

"Yes."

"Well," Mason said slowly, "I think I'll take a chance on Oxman, at that… I have a little surprise for Oxman… I want to see how he can take it. So far, he's only been dishing it out."

CHAPTER 13

MASON ENTERED the lobby of the Christy Hotel, and paused to take mental inventory. Sylvia Oxman was nowhere in sight. Mason walked to the elevators, went to the fifth floor, walked rapidly down the corridor to Room 519, and tapped on the door. After a moment he heard motion, the sound of a bolt sliding back, and the door opened.

A thin, almost foppishly dressed man in a double breasted gray suit stood on the threshold and surveyed Mason with hostile eyes.

Mason said simply, "I'm coming in, Oxman."

Oxman hesitated a moment, then stepped to one side, and held the door open. After Mason went in, he kicked the door shut and twisted the bolt.

"You left your hotel rather suddenly," Mason remarked affably.

Oxman indicated a chair with a well-manicured hand, on the third finger of which appeared a huge diamond. His hair, neatly waved back from his forehead, reflected glinting highlights from the window. His suit was spotless and freshly pressed, his shoes burnished to a resplendent shine. After Mason had seated himself, Oxman perched on the edge of the bed and propped pillows between his back and the wall. After a moment he said, "I wanted to dodge newspaper reporters."

"Any chance you wanted to dodge the police?" Mason asked.

A slight smile flirted about the corners of Oxman's mouth. "No," he said, "I'm not dodging the police."

Mason, staring steadily at him, said, "I'm Perry Mason, the lawyer."

"Yes, I knew who you were," Oxman said tonelessly. "You left your apartment rather suddenly, didn't you, Mason?"

Mason gri

"Did you," Oxman inquired, "know the police were looking for you?"

Mason raised his eyebrows. "For me?"

"Yes."

"On what charge?"

"Murder," Oxman said. "Being an accessory after the fact is, I believe, the specific charge."

"Well," Mason told him, "it's fortunate I found you, then."

"Go on," Oxman told him, "spring it."

"I see by the paper," Mason said, "that you bought some IOU's from Grieb."

"What if I did?"

"And paid cash for them."

"Yes?"

"Cash which was found in the left-hand drawer of Grieb's desk."

"I believe so," Oxman agreed.

Mason slowly and impressively took from his pocket the three IOU's which Sylvia Oxman had signed that morning in the hotel. "Take a look at these, Oxman," he said.

Oxman moved forward on the bed. Mason, crossing his legs, held three IOU's pressed tightly against his leg so that Oxman could see the three signatures.

"So what?" Oxman asked.

"If these," Mason suggested, "are the original IOU's, where does that leave you, Oxman?"

Oxman yawned, patted his lips with four polite fingers, and said, "Really, Mason, I'd have expected something far more clever from you."

"Has it ever occurred to you," Mason went on, "that if I hold those original IOU's, the ones you have are forgeries?"

"Oh, I don't think Sam Grieb would have sold me forged IOU's."

"We can prove in court that they're forgeries."

Oxman's tongue made clucking noises against the roof of his mouth. "Grieb shouldn't have sold me forgeries," he said. "That wasn't a nice thing for Grieb to have done. Of course, if they are forgeries, which remains to be proven, I can then recover the seventy-five hundred dollars from Grieb's estate. So you see, Mason, I personally have nothing to lose. Until you prove they're forgeries, I can collect on them as genuine. If you can prove they are forgeries, then, on the strength of the proof you've made, I can recover from Grieb's estate."

"So that's the way you figure it, is it?" Mason asked.

Oxman nodded.

"You've thought this all out in advance as an argument to use in case you were confronted with the original IOU's," the lawyer charged.

Oxman gestured contemptuously toward the three IOU's Mason was holding and said, "Keep your shirt on. Those notes don't prove a damn thing, Mason."

"Why not?"

"You're Sylvia's attorney. You've doubtless seen her since my signed statement was released to the papers. She can sign as many IOU's as she wants to. All she needs is a fountain pen. You can get the blanks in any stationery store. Probably you thought you could throw a scare into me by coming in here and flashing those IOU's on me. I'm not that simple. I'm surprised that you thought I was. You know, Mason, you're playing in bigtime stuff now. You're not up against simple boobs you can twist around your fingers with a lot of cheap bluff. Those IOU's you have may have been signed by Sylvia. That doesn't mean the IOU's I have weren't signed by Sylvia. She can sign her name as many times as she wants to."

Mason said, "You can't get away with it, Oxman."

Oxman's laugh was sarcastic. "That's what you think. You're the one who can't get away with it. You're representing Sylvia. Sylvia murdered Grieb."

"Why?" Mason asked.

"To get possession of those IOU's."

"Why didn't she get them then?"

"Because I'd already bought them. Grieb didn't have them."

Mason stretched his legs out in front of him, crossed his ankles, exhaled cigarette smoke, and said, "That's the trouble with you, Oxman. You're not a logical thinker."

"All right," Oxman said, "go ahead and think some logic for me. I'll listen."

Mason said, "Grieb and Duncan were fighting. They wanted to reduce their assets to cash. They saw a chance to collect not only the face value of those IOU's, but a little bonus as well. They gave you to understand you could have them by paying a two-thousand-dollar bonus. You raised ninety-five hundred dollars, went out to the gambling ship to pick up the IOU's. You found your wife aboard and Grieb dead. At first it occurred to you you'd simply step out of the picture, then you figured it might be possible to involve Sylvia, have her convicted of murder, and put her out of the way.

"This morning you read the newspapers and learned that the police had discovered seven thousand five hundred dollars in cash in Grieb's desk. You suddenly saw an opportunity to do a little chiseling. You figured Sylvia had probably recovered and destroyed the original IOU's. You were pla