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Oxman yawned ostentatiously and said, "You bore me, Mason. I'd really expected a man of your caliber would show more intelligence."
Mason went on doggedly, "When you first saw Sylvia, she was in the room with Grieb's body. Your first impulse was simply to get out, so you slipped back out of the way. Later on, when you realized Sylvia had failed to report the murder, and had also ducked out-but had left fingerprints on the top of Grieb's desk-you saw an opportunity to charge your wife with murder, claim you'd paid seventy-five hundred dollars for the IOU's, turn two thousand dollars back to your associates, together with the forged IOU's, and sit tight.
"If Sylvia had destroyed the original IOU's, she could never admit she'd done so. If someone else had paid cash for the notes, that person would never dare to come forward, because that would make him the last person to have seen Grieb alive. If…"
"All wrong, Mason," Oxman interrupted. "You must have been smoking marihuana."
"Or," Mason went on evenly, "you noticed the original IOU's on the desk when you saw Sylvia in the room, and figured she was going to destroy them. If anything happened, and the originals turned up in the hands of some individual who was willing to admit having paid seventy-five hundred dollars for them-about one chance in a thousand-you could still claim Grieb had blackmailed you by selling you forged promissory notes. There was no one to disprove your story."
Oxman said, "You know, Mason, this is boring me. Let's have a little more entertainment, or else let's call in the police, let them take you into custody, and have this rather tiresome visit over with."
Mason flicked ashes from the end of his cigarette and said, "You see, Oxman, I can prove what I'm saying."
Oxman raised politely incredulous eyebrows.
"A detective shadowed you all day yesterday," Mason said. "We know what time you went aboard the ship. And we know what you did after you boarded it. You went down the corridor once, and only once."
Oxman's face showed surprise. "My God, Mason, do you mean to say you have practiced law as long as you have, and still put confidence in private detectives? Your man, Drake, may be on the square, but the boys he hires are just like any other private dicks. About half of them are crooked as corkscrews."
"These reports check with the facts," Mason said with dogged patience.
Oxman laughed. "What a sap you are, Mason! And you're supposed to be a big-time lawyer! Good Lord, man, I know I was being shadowed. I got a kick out of it. But if my shadow claims he followed me aboard that gambling ship, he's a liar. I purposely stuck around the pier until there was room for only one more in the launch. Then I took that one seat. The man who was shadowing me tried to follow me but couldn't make it."
Mason said, "Another detective was on duty who saw you go down the passageway to the offices. He says you went down only once."
Oxman laughed scornfully. "The only detective you had out there was Belgrade. He wasn't shadowing me. He was covering Sylvia. He doesn't know where I was. What's more, he's sold you out to the newspapers… Good Lord, Mason, what an easy mark you are! Come around some day when I have some time. I'd like to play a little poker with you. You're so damned simple and your bluffs are so obvious, you'd be duck soup for me."
Mason went on patiently, "Then, after you went ashore, my man shadowed you to your hotel."
"Good God, Mason, you surely didn't think that was any news to me, did you?" Oxman asked.
"You knew he was following you," Mason went on steadily, "and threw a scare into him by standing in the door of the hotel and looking ostentatiously behind you."
"Check on that," Oxman agreed easily. "This dick ducked into a doorway and then stuck around outside, watching the hotel. He was afraid to come in."
"But," Mason pointed out, "I'd anticipated all that, and had another man stationed in the lobby, an operative who was ready to pick you up as soon as you came in."
The easy, patronizing smile didn't leave Oxman's features, but, for a moment, the muscles tightened. Then he took a cigar from his pocket, cut off the tip and scraped a match on the sole of his shoe. He took a watch from his pocket and placed it on the bed beside him. "Mason," he said, "if you're just talking-killing time to keep me from calling the police-it isn't going to do you any good. In precisely three minutes I'm going to let the house detective know you're here."
"Now then," Mason said, ignoring the interruption, "we come to the really significant part of the entire transaction. You took particular pains to call the attention of the hotel night clerk to the fact that you were depositing ninety-five hundred dollars in the safe. The way I figure that, Oxman, is that you'd raised ninety-five hundred dollars with which to take up those IOU's. When you found out Grieb had been murdered, you were afraid you might be implicated in the murder, and were particularly anxious to build up an alibi which would show you hadn't accomplished your business with Grieb before he'd been killed.
"Later on, you thought it over, read the morning papers, and decided there was a chance to knock down seventy-five hundred dollars."
Oxman rotated the cigar in the flame of the match, in order to get it burning evenly, shook the match out, and said, "You're a rotten bluffer, Mason."
"I'm not bluffing," the lawyer told him. "I can prove the ninety-five-hundred-dollar business by the night clerk in the hotel. I don't need to rely on my private detectives there."
"Yes," Oxman said, studying the tip of the cigar with thoughtful eyes, but still keeping the faintly scornful smile about the corners of his mouth, "you could do that, all right. What you have overlooked is that you'd have to prove I had only ninety-five hundred dollars when I went aboard that gambling ship. As a matter of fact, I had seventeen thousand dollars. After I paid seventy-five hundred dollars for the IOU's, I had nine thousand five hundred left. I got the IOU's for about half what I expected I'd have to pay."
For a moment the two men smoked in silence. Gradually, the smile on Oxman's lips broadened into a grin. "You see, Mason," he said, "as a lawyer it should have occurred to you, but probably hasn't, that you'd have to prove I had only ninety-five hundred dollars when I went aboard the ship. There's no way on God's green earth you can prove it. As a matter of fact, it isn't so. I had seventeen thousand dollars."
Mason pinched out the end of his cigarette. "You don't understand what I'm getting at, Oxman. I'm not talking now about what I intend to prove in court. When I leave here, I'm going to Carter Squires. I'm going to tell him my story. Squires was financing you in this thing. He knows how much money you took aboard that ship. When he finds out you tried to double-cross him by knocking down seventy-five hundred dollars, leaving him holding the sack, he won't like it. From all I can hear, Squires is a poor man to cross… Well, the three minutes are up, Oxman. Go ahead and telephone the house detective."
Oxman sat motionless on the bed, his eyes hard and glittering, staring at Mason with hatred and apprehension. There was no trace of a smile about the corners of his mouth.
"All right, then," Mason said, "I'll be on my way." He started toward the door. Bed springs squeaked as Oxman jerked himself upright and started after the lawyer. "Now, wait a minute, Mason," he said. "Let's talk this thing over."
Mason turned toward him. "What do you want to talk over?" he asked.
Oxman said, "You're all wet, but I'd hate to have you go to Squires with a story like that."
"Well?" Mason inquired.
Oxman shrugged his shoulders and said, "Nothing. I'd just hate to have you do it. Squires can't make any trouble for me, you know, but I've been friendly with him for some time, and I'd hate to have you introduce an element of friction."