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Mason shook his head, his forehead furrowed into a puzzled frown. "I don't think so," he told her. "I have detectives on Oxman, Duncan and Grieb. This certainly isn't a matter they'd discuss over the telephone, and if there'd been a personal meeting I'd have known of it."
"Then what does he want to see you about?"
Mason said, "The best way to find out is by talking with him." She nodded. He turned to his secretary and said, "Della, take Mrs. Benson into the law library. Tell Mr. Duncan to come in… Does Duncan know you, Mrs. Benson?"
"No, he never saw me in his life."
"All right, you wait in the law library. I think Duncan is going to make some proposition. It may prove interesting."
Della Street said, "This way, please," escorted Matilda Benson into the law library, and then brought Charlie Duncan into Mason's private office.
Duncan 's face was twisted into his customary cordial grin, prominently displaying the burnished gold teeth in his upper jaw, "No hard feelings because of last night?" he asked.
"No hard feelings," Mason said.
"You played a pretty smart game," Duncan went on. "If it hadn't been that the breaks went against you, you'd have had us licked."
Mason said nothing.
Duncan said, "Oh, well, we can't always win, you know."
Mason indicated a chair and said, "Sit down."
Duncan took a cigar case from his pocket and extended it to Mason.
"No," Mason told him, "I only smoke cigarettes."
Duncan sniffed and then indicated Matilda Benson's leather cigar case which she had left on the desk.
"Looks like some client must have left a cigar case here, then."
Mason frowned and said, "My law clerk." He pressed a button which summoned Della Street, handed her the leather cigar case and said, "Take this out to Jackson and tell him he left his cigars in here."
Della Street nodded, a twinkle showing in her eyes. "Yes," she said demurely, " Jackson will be missing his cigars."
She took the cigar case and left the room. Duncan gri
Mason raised his eyebrows. Duncan laughed and said, "Don't think we're quite such damn fools as you made us seem last night, Mason. Naturally we tried to figure out how you fitted into the picture. We didn't think you were representing Oxman, or you wouldn't have tried to run a ringer on us. You certainly weren't representing Sylvia. But Sylvia has a grandmother who smokes cigars. That was a woman's cigar case."
"Are you asking me or telling me?" Mason asked.
"I'm telling you."
"Nice of you," the lawyer remarked, yawning. "And that's all you wanted to see me about?"
"No."
"What did you want to see me about?"
"About those IOU's."
"What about them?"
Duncan crossed his knees, said, "Now listen, Mr. Mason, I want you to get me straight. I like the way you played the game last night. Checking back on the conversation you had with Sam, we found we couldn't pin anything on you. You never claimed the man with you was Frank Oxman. You had him try to cash a check, and Sam did all the leading from there on. And the damn fool led with his chin. We thought we might have you on that check business because Sam remembered the name of the bank. But we did a little snooping around and found you'd plugged up that loophole. If we could have found a weak point in your play, we'd have been mean about it. But we couldn't find any. It was a slick piece of work."
"And you dropped in to tell me that?" Mason asked.
Duncan shook his head and said, "I dropped in to tell you how you could get those IOU's."
"How?"
"I'd want you to do something for me. You're smart. I need a smart lawyer."
Mason stared steadily at the gambler and said, "Get me straight on this, Duncan: I'm interested in those IOU's. I'm not interested for myself, but for a client. Now, I don't know what you have in mind, but I don't want you to tell me anything you wouldn't want repeated to my client. In other words, you and I are dealing at arm's length. If you tell me anything, I'm not going to keep the conversation confidential. If I can capitalize on what you tell me, I'm going to do it. A lawyer can't serve two masters.
"Now then, with that understanding, if you want to talk about those IOU's, go ahead. I'd advise you not to."
Duncan 's gold teeth flashed into prominence. "Well," he said, waving his cigar in a little gesture, "I can't say you didn't warn me."
Mason sat silent.
"Listen," Duncan went on, "I've been a gambler all my life. I'm going to take a chance on you. I have a proposition I think will look good to you."
Mason said slowly, "I'm going to tell you once more, Duncan. I'm not in this business for my health. Whenever I do something it's because some client is paying me money to do it. That means I've already been employed by some client whose interests are adverse to yours. If you don't tell me anything, you won't have anything to regret later on."
"Spoken like a gentleman," Duncan said.
"No," Mason corrected, "spoken like a lawyer."
"Okay," Duncan said, "you've told me-not only once, but twice. If I put my head in a noose it's my own funeral. Is that it?"
"That's it," Mason said.
"All right, now suppose you listen to me for a while. I need a smart lawyer. I need you. You've been employed to get those IOU's. That's the limit of your interest in my affairs, at present. All right, I'll see that you get the IOU's. I'll give them to you. In return, I want you to do something for me.
"I want to get rid of Sam. He's hard to get along with. He thinks he's the whole show. I don't like it. Now then, is it true that when a partnership is organized for an unspecified term, either partner can dissolve the partnership at any time he wants to?"
Mason said, "Supposing that's the law, then what?"
"I want to dissolve that partnership."
"You don't need a smart lawyer to do that," Mason pointed out.
"I need a smart lawyer to do it the way I want to do it."
"Aren't you two doing a pretty good business out there?"
"A land-office business."
"The minute you dissolve the partnership," Mason said, "you'll knock that business into a cocked hat."
"No, we won't," Duncan said. "Let me tell you something, I'm pretty smart, myself. Grieb had some money and a fine opinion of himself. He wanted to open a gambling ship, but good hulls that can be made into gambling ships aren't so easy to find. I happened to know a man who had one. The man didn't know Grieb. He knew me. He gave us a lease, and in that lease there's a clause that any time the partnership of Grieb and Duncan is dissolved, the lease is automatically terminated."
"So what?" Mason asked, his eyes staring steadily in level-lidded scrutiny.
"So," Duncan said, "I'm going to terminate the partnership. That'll terminate the lease. We'll wind up the partnership business. It isn't worth a damn without a place to carry on. The furniture and fixtures won't bring ten cents on the dollar at a forced sale. I'll see there's a forced sale, and I'll bid the stuff in through a dummy. Ten minutes after I have title to it, the owner of the ship will execute a new lease with me. That'll show Mr. Sam Grieb just how smart he is.
"He struts around that place ten inches taller than God, telling me what I can do and what I can't do, trying to give me orders, bossing me around, countermanding my instructions, bullying the employees, and being a general pain in the neck.
"Now then, you can go ahead and represent me in this thing. Part of the partnership assets are those IOU's. I'll get all the partnership assets. I'll turn the IOU's over to you as your fee. I don't care what you do with them afterwards. You can collect as big a bonus as you want. I didn't know the grandmother was interested in 'em, but if she is, you've got her on the one hand and Frank Oxman on the other. You can run the price up and sell out to the best bidder."