“Faulkner was the money-maker?”

  “Faulkner was the money-maker.”

  “What about Carson?”

  “Carson was an associate,” Dixon said suavely. “A man who had an equal interest in the business. One third of the stock was held by Faulkner, one third by Carson and one third by Genevieve.”

  “That still isn’t telling me anything about Carson,” Mason said.

  With every simulation of candid surprise, Dixon raised his eyebrows. “Why, I thought that was telling you everything about Carson.”

  “You haven’t said anything about his business ability.”

  “Frankly, Mr. Mason, my dealings were with Faulkner.”

  “If Faulkner was the mainspring of the business,” Mason said, “it must have galled him to do the bulk of the work and furnish the bulk of the capital, and then receive only one third of the income.”

  “Well, of course, he and Carson had a salary—a salary that was fixed and approved by the court.”

  “And they couldn’t raise those salaries?”

  “Not without Genevieve’s consent, no.”

  “And were the salaries ever raised?”

  “No,” Dixon said shortly.

  “Was any request made to raise the salaries?”

  Dixon’s eyes twinkled. “Several times.”

  “Faulkner, I take it, didn’t feel too friendly toward his first wife?”

  “I’m sure I never asked him about that.”

  “I presume that originally Harrington Faulkner furnished most of the money which started the firm of Faulkner and Carson.”

  “I believe so.”

  “Carson was the younger man and Faulkner relied on him perhaps for an element of young blood in the business?”

  “As to that, I couldn’t say. I only represented Genevieve after the separation and during the divorce.”

  “You had known her before then?”

  “No. I was acquainted with the attorney whom Genevieve employed. I’m a businessman, Mr. Mason, a business adviser, an investment counselor, if you wish. I try to be a good one. You really haven’t stated the object of your visit.”

  Mason said, “Primarily, I’m interested in finding out what I can about Harrington Faulkner.”

  “So I gathered. But the reason for your interest is not apparent. Doubtless, many people would like to know something of the affairs of Mr. Faulkner. There’s a difference between a casual curiosity, Mr. Mason, and a legitimate interest.”

  “You may rest assured I have a legitimate interest.”

  “Mr. Mason, I merely wanted to know what it was.”

  Mason smiled. “I will probably be the attorney for a claimant against the Faulkner Estate.”

  “Probably?” Dixon asked.

  “I haven’t as yet definitely accepted the case.”

  “That makes your interest rather—shall we say, nebulous?”

  “I wouldn’t say so,” Mason said.

  “Well, of course, I wouldn’t have a difference of opinion with an attorney who has such an established reputation, Mr. Mason. So perhaps let us say you have your opinion and I will try to keep an entirely open mind. I’m perfectly willing to be convinced.”

  Mason said, “With two thirds of the stock and complete control of the corporation, Faulkner, I guess, controlled the corporation with an iron hand?”

  “There’s no law against guessing, Mr. Mason, none whatever. There are times when I find it a rather interesting occupation, although of course one hardly dares to reach a decision predicated solely upon a mere guess. One prefers to have facts to justify one’s opinion.”

  “One does, indeed,” Mason said. “Therefore, one asks questions.”

  “And receives answers,” Dixon told him suavely.

  Mason’s eyes twinkled. “Not always the most definite answers that one would want.”

  “That’s quite right, Mr. Mason. That’s something I myself have found repeatedly in my business dealings. For instance, you’ll remember I asked you about your interest in the unfortunate death of Harrington Faulkner. You stated, I believe, that you were considering representing a person who had a claim against the estate. May I ask the nature of that claim? I don’t think you told me.”

  Mason said, “It involved a claim based upon a formula that was worked out for the cure of a fish disease.”

  “Oh, Tom Gridley’s formula,” Dixon said.

  “You seem to know a good deal about the business, Mr. Dixon.”

  “As the person who represents a client whose financial eggs are virtually all in one basket, Mr. Mason, it behooves me to know a great deal about the details of the business.”

  “Now, to go back,” Mason went on. “Faulkner was in the driver’s seat until suddenly, and I presume out of a clear sky, Genevieve Faulkner sued him for divorce. Quite evidently she must have had the goods on him.”

  “The evidence in that case has all been introduced and a decision long since reached, Mr. Mason.”

  “That decision must have been gall and wormwood to Harrington Faulkner. In place of controlling the corporation he suddenly found that he was in the position of being a minority stockholder.”

  “Of course,” Dixon pointed out somewhat smugly, “since under the laws of this state man and wife are presumed to be partners, if the marriage is dissolved it becomes necessary for some sort of a settlement to be made.”

  “And I presume,” Mason went on, “that with the constant threat being held over Faulkner’s head that you would go back into court and ask the judge to reopen the alimony settlement in the event of any failure on the part of Faulkner to accede to your wishes, you must have incurred Faulkner’s enmity.”

  Once more the eyebrows went up. “I merely represent Genevieve’s investments. Naturally, I represent her interests to the best of my ability.”

  “You talked with Faulkner occasionally?”

  “Oh yes.”

  “He told you many of the details of the business?”

  “Naturally.”

  “Did he come to you and tell you the details voluntarily, or did you ask him?”

  “Well, of course, Mr. Mason, you’d hardly expect a man in Mr. Faulkner’s position to run to me with every little detail about his business.”

  “But you were interested?”

  “Quite naturally.”

  “Therefore, I take it you asked him?”

  “About the things I wanted to know, yes.”

  “And that included virtually everything?”

  “Really, Mr. Mason, I couldn’t say as to that, because naturally I don’t know how much I didn’t know. I only know the things I did know.”

  And Dixon beamed at the lawyer with a manner that indicated he was trying his best to co-operate in giving Mason any information that was available.

  “May I ask you when you last talked with Faulkner?” Mason asked.

  Dixon’s face became as a wooden mask.

  “Of course,” Mason said, “it’s a question that the police will ask sooner or later.”

  Dixon carefully placed the tips of his fingers together, regarded his nails for a moment.

  “I take it,” Mason said, “that you talked with him sometime yesterday evening.”

  Dixon raised his eyes. “Really, Mr. Mason, what is the ground for that assumption?”

  “Your hesitancy.”

  “I was deliberating.”

  Mason smiled. “The hesitancy may have been due to deliberation, but it was nevertheless a hesitation.”

  “A very good point, Mr. Mason. A good point, indeed. I’m frank to admit that I was deliberating and therefore hesitating. I don’t know whether to answer your question or whether to reserve my answer until I am interrogated by the police.”

  “Any particular reason why you shouldn’t tell me?”

  “I was debating that with myself.”

  “Anything to conceal?”

  “Certainly not.”

  “Then why conceal it?”

  “I think that’s unfair, Mr. Mason. I am not concealing anything. I have answered your questions fully and frankly.”

  “When did you last talk with Faulkner?”

  “Well, Mr. Mason, as you have so shrewdly deduced, it was yesterday.”

  “What time yesterday?”

  “Now, do you mean when I talked with him personally, face to face?”

  Mason said, “I want to know when you talked with him personally and I want to know when you talked with him over the telephone.”

  “What makes you think there was a telephone conversation?”

  “The fact that you differentiate between a conversation with him face to face and another conversation.”

  Dixon said, “I’m afraid I’m no match for you, Mr. Mason. I’m afraid I’m in the hands of a very shrewd lawyer.”

  “I am,” Mason said, “still waiting for an answer.”

  “You have, of course, no official right to ask that question.”

  “None whatever.”

  “Perhaps I wouldn’t choose to answer it. What then?”

  “Then,” Mason said, “I would ring up my friend, Lieutenant Tragg, tell him that you had seen Harrington Faulkner on the day he was murdered, perhaps on the evening he was murdered; that you had apparently talked with him over the telephone. And then I would hang up, shake hands with you, tell you I appreciated your cooperation, and go away.”

  Once more, Dixon put his fingers together. Then he nodded his head, as though having reached some definite decision. But he still remained silent, a chubby figure with a masklike countenance, sitting behind a huge desk, slowly nodding his head in impressive acquiescence with himself.

  Mason waited silently.

  Dixon said at length, “You make a very powerful argument, Mr. Mason. You do indeed. You would make a good poker player. It would be hard to judge what was in your hand when you shoved your chips into the pot—very hard indeed.”

  Mason said nothing.

  Dixon nodded his head a few more times, then went on to say, “I will, of course, be called on eventually by the police. In fact, I have debated with myself whether I should telephone the police and tell them exactly what I know. You will, of course, be able to get all this information sooner or later, else I wouldn’t be talking to you. You still haven’t told me your exact interest in finding out the facts.”

  Dixon looked up at Mason, his attitude that of a man who is courteously awaiting a reply to a routine question.

  Mason sat absolutely silent.

  Dixon drew his eyebrows together, looked down at his desk, then slowly shook his head in a gesture of negation, as though after giving the matter thoughtful consideration, Mason’s refusal to be more frank had caused him to reverse his former decision.

  Still Mason said nothing.

  Suddenly the business counselor put both hands flat on the desk, palms down, the gesture of a man who has definitely reached a decision. “Mr. Faulkner conferred with me several times yesterday, Mr. Mason.”

  “In person?”

  “Yes.”

  “What did he want?”

  “That goes beyond the scope of your original question, Mr. Mason.”

  Mason said, “I am more concerned with the question than with the reason for asking it.”

  Dixon raised and lowered his hands, the palms making little patting noises on the desk. “Well, Mr. Mason, it’s asking for a good deal, but, after all—Mr. Faulkner wanted to buy out Genevieve’s interest.”

  “And you wanted to sell?”

  “At a price, yes.”

  “The price was in dispute?”

  “Oh, very much.”

  “Was there a wide difference?”

  “Quite a wide range. You see, Mr. Faulkner had certain ideas as to the value of the stock. To be perfectly frank, Mr. Mason, he offered to sell his stock to us at a certain figure. Then he thought that in case we didn’t want to accept that offer, we should be willing to sell our stock at the same figure.”

  “And you weren’t?”

  “Oh, definitely not.”

  “May I ask why?”

  “It’s rather elemental, Mr. Mason. Mr. Faulkner was operating the company on a very profitable basis. He was receiving a salary that had not been raised during the past five years. Nor had Mr. Carson’s. If Genevieve had purchased Mr. Faulkner’s stock, Mr. Faulkner would then have been at liberty to step out into the commercial world and capitalize upon his own very remarkable business qualifications. He could even have built himself up another business which might well have been competitive to ours.

  “On the other hand, when it came to fixing a price for which Genevieve Faulkner would be willing to sell her stock, I was forced to adopt the position that the value of the stock, so far as she was concerned, was predicated upon the income she was receiving from it, and if she were to sell out, she would want to get a sum of money which would draw an equal return. And, of course, investments are not nearly as profitable as they once were, nor do they have the element of safety. That made a wide difference, a very, very wide difference, Mr. Mason, between our selling price and our buying price.”

  “I take it that made for some bad feeling?”

  “Not bad feeling, Mr. Mason. Surely not bad feeling. It was merely a difference of opinion about a business transaction.”

  “And you held the whip hand?”

  “I’d hardly say that, Mr. Mason. We were perfectly willing to let matters go on in status quo.”

  “But Faulkner found it very galling to be working for an inadequate salary . . .”

  “Tut, tut, tut, Mr. Mason. The salary wasn’t inadequate, it was the same salary he had been drawing when he owned a two-thirds interest in the corporation.”

  Mason’s eyes twinkled. “A salary which he had fixed so that Carson wouldn’t be in a position to ask for any salary increases.”

  “I certainly don’t know what Mr. Faulkner had in mind. I only know that the arrangement which was made by all parties concerned when the divorce decree was granted by the court was that salaries could not be raised without Genevieve’s consent unless the court was called in to reopen the whole business.”

  “I can imagine,” Mason said, “you had Harrington Faulkner in a position that was very, very disagreeable to him.”

  “As I have stated several times before, Mr. Mason, I am not a mind reader, and I see no reason for speculating upon Mr. Faulkner’s ideas.”

  “You saw him several times yesterday?”

  “Yes.”

  “In other words, the situation was approaching a crisis?”

  “Well, Mr. Faulkner definitely wanted to do something.”

  “Of course,” Mason said, “if Faulkner had bought Genevieve’s stock, he would then once more have been a two-thirds owner in the company. Faulkner would have been in a position to have got rid of Carson, and firing Carson would have been a perfect answer to Carson’s lawsuit.”

  “As a lawyer,” Dixon purred, “you doubtless see possibilities which, as a layman, I would not see. My own interest in the matter was simply to get the best possible price for my client in the event a sale was to be made.”

  “You weren’t interested in buying Faulkner’s interest?”

  “Frankly, we were not.”

  “Not at any price?”

  “Well, I wouldn’t go so far as to say that.”

  “In other words, what with Faulkner’s quarrel with Carson, the various and sundry suits Carson had been filing, and the situation in which your client found herself, you were in a position to force Faulkner to buy at your price?”

  Dixon said nothing.

  “It was something in the nature of a legalized holdup,” Mason went on, as though thinking out loud.

  Dixon straightened in the chair as though Mason had struck him. “My dear Mr. Mason! I was merely representing the interests of my client. There was no longer the slightest affection between her and Mr. Faulkner. I mention that merely to show that there was no reason for any sentiment to be mixed with the business matter.”

  “All right. You saw Faulkner several times during the day. When was the last time you talked with him?”

  “Over the telephone.”

  “About what time?”

  “At approximately . . . well, sometime between eight and eight-fifteen. I can’t fix the time any closer than that.”

  “Between eight and eight-fifteen?” Mason said, his voice showing his interest.

  “That’s right.”

  “And what did you tell him?”

  “Well, I told him that in the event any sale was going to be consummated, we wanted to have the matter disposed of at once; that if the matter wasn’t terminated before midnight, we would consider that there was no use taking up further time with discussions.”

  “And what did Faulkner say?”

  “Faulkner told me that he would be over to see me between ten and eleven; that he wanted to look in very briefly on a banquet of goldfish fanciers, after which he had an appointment. He said that when he saw me he would be in a position to make us a final offer. That if we didn’t accept the proposition he’d make us at that time, he would consider the matter closed.”

  “Did he say anything about anyone else being there with him at the time you phoned?”

  “No, sir. He did not.”

  “That conversation might have been as late as eight-fifteen?”

  “Yes.”

  “Or as early as eight o’clock?”

  “Yes.”

  “Earlier than eight o’clock?”

  “I’m quite sure it wasn’t, because I remember looking at my watch at eight and speculating whether I’d hear any more from Mr. Faulkner that evening.”

  “And you don’t think it was later than eight-fifteen?”

  “At eight-fifteen, Mr. Mason, I tuned in a radio program in which I was interested, so I’m quite certain of the time there.”

  “There’s no question but what it was Harrington Faulkner with whom you were talking?”

  “No question whatever.”

  “I take it Faulkner didn’t keep his appointment with you?”