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"You can expedite matters in front of the Grand Jury if you'll state freely and frankly at this time exactly what you know about Grieb's murder."
Mason lit a cigarette and said cheerfully, "Well, if I'm going to be the goat in this thing, I should have an opportunity to say something in my own behalf."
The district attorney said, somewhat testily, "I don't care particularly about a statement from you, Mr. Mason. I know what you have done. You have made yourself an accessory after the fact and compounded a felony."
Mason said, "You'll agree with me that one can't be an accessory after the fact unless the person he aids is actually guilty of a felony."
Wilson's mouth, under his frosty, gray mustache, became uncompromisingly hard. "If," he said, ominously, "you think you can find a legal loop-hole for Sylvia Oxman, your previous victories, which have been due largely to luck, have left you unduly optimistic."
Mason waved his hand in a gesture of dismissal, as though brushing the district attorney's comment aside. "The gun," he said, "which the officers found in Sylvia's room was planted there by someone who knew she was in the hotel and who tossed it over the transom of Sylvia's room. Find the one who did that, and you'll find the murderer."
"We've already heard that story," Wilson said, "and you are at liberty to raise the point in front of a jury if you wish. I think you will find that even the most impressionable masculine juror will consider that explanation too weird to be taken seriously."
Mason nodded to Arthur Ma
"All right, Ma
Ma
"Yes," Mason said, "I mean tell them what you know."
Ma
"Did what!" Basil Wilson exclaimed.
"Committed suicide."
"Impossible!" the district attorney said.
"Go ahead, Arthur," Mason said, "and tell the district attorney what you told me. Tell it as briefly as possible."
"Well," Ma
"I hate to say this, but…"
"That's all right," Mason said, "go right ahead, Arthur, and make your statement."
"Well," Ma
The Federal District Attorney frowned at Ma
"Of course I do," Ma
"Have you any proof, or is this just surmise?"
"Well," Ma
"No, I didn't," Duncan blazed. "Mason, you'll have to admit that I pressed the button which gave the signal for Ma
"Yes," Mason admitted, "you did."
"And how long was it after the signal lights went on before you got into the office, Arthur?" Duncan demanded.
"Well," Ma
"Not over six or eight seconds, was it?"
"Well, I don't know exactly how long it was, but…"
"Where was Perry Mason when you started for the office?"
"He'd just left the office. Perkins had him handcuffed."
"And it didn't take you over four or five seconds to answer my call, did it?"
"Well, no. But you had plenty of time to throw a gun overboard, and I can prove that Sammy was killed with his own gun."
"How?" Duncan asked.
"You remember the time you and Sammy shot at that piece of tin can down below the casino?"
"Yes, what of it?"
"I dug out the bullets. They were fired from the same gun that killed Sammy. And you know you were using Sam's gun on that target practice."
"All right. What if we were?" Duncan asked. "That doesn't prove anything. And you're all wet about this insurance business. There wasn't any insurance."
"I was in the room when you signed the papers," Ma
Duncan interrupted him. "Sure you were, Arthur. We signed the applications, all right, but Sam couldn't pass the physical examination, so the policies were never issued."
Ma
"Exactly!" Duncan said. "It didn't make a dime's worth of difference to me whether Sam was murdered or committed suicide."
The Federal District Attorney glanced at Perry Mason and permitted himself a smile.
"So," he said, "that seems to dispose of that phase of the inquiry. And I'm willing to admit Grieb was killed with his own gun. Our ballistic experts have fired test shots from the weapon which was found in Sylvia Oxman's room when she was arrested, and there's no question but what it's the murder gun. Now, if you want to prove it was Grieb's gun, so much the better. That simply accounts for the fingerprints left by Sylvia Oxman when she leaned over the desk. She braced herself by leaning on her left hand when she jerked the gun from the drawer with her right hand."
Perry Mason asked easily, "Well then, how about Oxman?"
"What do you mean?" Wilson asked.
"Why did he skip out?"
"Probably because he feared publicity. Oxman's statement checks in every detail with the testimony of Mr. Belgrade."
Belgrade nodded, frowned, cleared his throat, and said, "Pardon me, Mr. Wilson."
The district attorney frowned. Mason said, "Go ahead, Belgrade."
Belgrade said importantly, "I was shadowing Sylvia Oxman. I saw her go into the offices. While she was in there, Frank Oxman went down the corridor, just as he says he did. Then he turned around and came out again. It couldn't have been more than seven or eight seconds. After he'd gone out, Mr. Mason went in. Then Sylvia Oxman came out and stuck around the casino. Then Charlie Duncan and Perkins went in. Then Mason and Perkins came out and, within a few seconds, Charlie Duncan came out, and Sylvia Oxman went up on deck. I followed her up on deck and saw her…"
"Wait a minute," Duncan interrupted. "You were where you could see the entrance to the offices, weren't you?"
"Yes."
"And you know how long it was after Mason and Perkins came out that I came out?"
"It couldn't have been over a few seconds."
"As much as a minute?" Duncan asked.
"No, Charlie, I don't think it was."
"You see," Duncan said to the Federal District Attorney, "this substantiates my statement that…"
"Fiddlesticks!" Mason interrupted. "If you were there alone for as much as three seconds, you had an opportunity to pitch a gun out of the porthole."
Basil Wilson said, "I think as far as this office is concerned, Duncan, you're out of it. The evidence points to Sylvia Oxman as being the guilty party. Do you wish to make any statement, Mrs. Oxman?"
"No," Mason said, "she doesn't."
Wilson frowned at Mason. "Do I understand that, as her attorney, you're advising her to make no statement?"
"That's right."