The Case of the Dangerous Dowager (22 page)

"And is it your custom to burn the toast, to leave bacon in the oven, and hard-boil your eggs?" the officer asked suspiciously.

Mrs. Benson sighed and said meekly, "None of my husbands cared much for my cooking." She meditatively inspected the end of her cigar, raised steady gray eyes to encounter those of the officer, and added with a smile, "But that's the only complaint they ever made, young man."

The officer stared at her in nonplused silence, then said with sudden determination, "Get up and dress. I'm going to see this thing through. You're going to the district attorney's office for questioning. You too, Miss Street. Bill, telephone the D.A. and tell him we're on our way up. Get him to round up the others."

Wilson, a man in his middle fifties, with a close-cropped, iron-gray mustache and deep pouches under tired-looking eyes, said in a deep-timbred voice which filled the room with musical resonance, "Let's see if we're all here: Sylvia Oxman, Paul Drake, Arthur Manning, Matilda Benson, Dick Perkins, George Belgrade, Della Street, Perry Mason, Charlie Duncan, Frank Oxman."

"Frank Oxman isn't here," one of the deputies at the door said. "He's not in his room at his hotel. He must have sneaked out the back door. The clerk swears he didn't go out past the desk."

The district attorney showed his irritation. "We want him," he said. "He's a material witness. We can make out a case without him, but his testimony corroborates the circumstantial evidence. Get him!"

"We're expecting to pick him up at any time," the deputy said, in a voice which somehow failed to carry assurance.

"Well, we have his signed statement and know what his story is," the district attorney remarked. "For the purpose of this inquiry, we'll take that statement as being true. He's under a subpoena and if he tries to skip out, it'll be that much the worse for him when we do catch him."

Mason stole a surreptitious glance at Paul Drake. The detective slowly closed his glassy eyes, almost imperceptibly nodded his head. Mason settled back in his chair.

Basil Wilson said, "I want you people to realize the position you're in. I'm not making any definite charges right now, but I think it's due to the influence of Mr. Mason that you've been playing fast and loose with the law. You can't do that and get away with it. You're all of you under subpoena to appear before the Federal Grand Jury, which is now in session. I'm not making any promises of immunity, and I'm not making any concessions, but I've called you together in this office to tell you that each and every one of you is going before the Federal Grand Jury and is going to be put under oath. I'm not particularly disposed to be harsh on those who have innocently followed the advice of an attorney.

"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 Manning.

"All right, Manning," he said, "do your stuff."

Manning raised his eyebrows and said, "You mean…"

"Yes," Mason said, "I mean tell them what you know."

Manning took a deep breath. "I know," he said, "that Sam Grieb committed suicide."

"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," Manning said, "it's this way: Sam Grieb kept a.38 automatic in the upper left-hand drawer of his desk. He was left-handed. He'd been dipping into the partnership funds, I think. When he knew Charlie was going to have a receiver appointed, and the books audited, he pulled the gun out of the desk drawer and shot himself.

"I hate to say this, but…"

"That's all right," Mason said, "go right ahead, Arthur, and make your statement."

"Well," Manning went on, "you see, it was like this: Grieb and Duncan took out partnership insurance. The policies didn't pay anything if the man who was insured should commit suicide within a year. They paid twenty thousand if he died a natural death, and forty thousand if he died by violence. Charlie Duncan found Sammy Grieb had committed suicide, and he thought fast enough to know it'd make just forty thousand dollars difference to him if he could make it look like a murder. So he got Mason and the deputy marshal out of the office long enough to pick up Grieb's gun, where it had fallen under the desk, and pitch it overboard."

The Federal District Attorney frowned at Manning and said, "Do you understand what you're saying?"

"Of course I do," Manning said.

"Have you any proof, or is this just surmise?"

"Well," Manning said, "you can figure it out for yourself. Grieb was shot with his own gun. Charlie Duncan saw to it that he was left alone in the room with the body…"

"No, I didn't," Duncan blazed. "Mason, you'll have to admit that I pressed the button which gave the signal for Manning to come before you left the office. Didn't I?"

"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," Manning said, "it was a little while."

"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," Manning said. "Maybe you don't remember, but I was standing right by…"

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."

Manning's face showed consternation. "You mean there wasn't any insurance?"

"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."

"The Federal Grand Jury," Wilson said coldly, "will hold that against her."

Mason nodded easily. "That's all right. You see, Wilson, she can't very well make a statement without implicating me."

The Federal District Attorney picked up a file of papers. "Well, we'll go into the Grand Jury room and… What was that last statement you made, Mason?"

"I said," Mason repeated, the corners of his mouth twisting into a smile, "that she couldn't very well make a statement without implicating me."

"I think I know what you mean," Wilson said, "but if you'd like to elaborate on your remark, I'd be willing to listen."

Mason said, "Sylvia Oxman went aboard the gambling ship to see Sam Grieb. She found the door of the office slightly ajar. She pushed it open and found Sam Grieb murdered. He was seated at his desk in exactly the position the officers subsequently found the body. The three IOU's she'd given him, in an amount of seventy-five hundred dollars, were on a corner of the desk. About that time, she was alarmed by the noise made by an electric signal, which indicated someone was coming down the corridor. She was rattled, and didn't know just what to do, so she turned around and ran into the outer office and sat down, pretending she was waiting for a chance to see Grieb. A few moments later I entered that office and found her there. She was holding an open magazine. I said something to her, and then, noticing the door of the inner office was ajar, pushed it open and entered…"

"Wait a minute… Wait a minute," the Federal District Attorney interrupted, jabbing frantically at the push-button on his desk, "I'm going to have this statement taken down in shorthand."

"Go ahead," Mason said easily.

Paul Drake looked across at Mason, an expression of startled incredulity on his face. Duncan glanced triumphantly about him and lit a cigar. A man with a shorthand notebook and fountain pen came hurrying in from an adjoining office. The Federal District Attorney said, jabbing his finger at Perry Mason, "This is Perry Mason, the lawyer. He's making a confession. Take it down."

"A confession?" Mason asked.

"Go right ahead," the Federal District Attorney said, "we won't quibble over words. You've already admitted pushing open the door. You've admitted Sylvia Oxman was in the outer office at the time, and had been in the private office. You gentlemen have heard that statement?"

Wilson's eyes swept the circle of faces, and received grave nods of acquiescence. "Let the record show," he said to the shorthand reporter, "that the people in this room all reply in the affirmative."

"Let the record show that I'm nodding too," Mason said, grinning, apparently enjoying himself hugely… "Well, as I was remarking, I entered the inner office and found Grieb's body slumped over the desk. I grabbed Sylvia Oxman as she was leaving the office. She admitted then she'd been in there before. I told her to go on out. When she'd gone, I opened the drawer of Grieb's desk, deposited seventy-five hundred dollars, the face value of the three IOU's Sylvia Oxman had signed, touched a match to the IOU's and burned them up."

"You what?" the district attorney asked, his eyes wide.