“Suppose there isn’t any executor or administrator? What happens to the property?”

  “It goes to the heirs.”

  “I’m not positive there are any heirs.”

  “You should have an administrator appointed, anyway, to protect yourself.”

  Karr shook his head emphatically.

  “Why not?” Mason asked.

  “That would have to go through court, wouldn’t it?” “Yes.”

  “Suppose the business was something you couldn’t take to court?”

  “Why not?”

  “Too dangerous.”

  “For whom?”

  “Me.”

  Mason said, “Then you could absolve yourself from responsibility by paying the dead partner’s share of the funds to his heirs. But under those circumstances, you would have to take all the responsibility of seeing that you got all of the heirs and met the . . .”

  “You mean,” Karr interrupted, “that if I paid money to someone who wasn’t the nearest relative, I might have to pay it all over again?”

  “That’s right. Moreover, the nearest relative isn’t always the heir. Suppose a partner left a son, for instance, and sometime later on it appeared that he had been secretly married or he might have left a will which might not have been offered for probate.”

  Karr fastened Mason with his alert, intense eyes, and said, “I understand. It’s better to take that risk than to have the court asking a lot of questions.”

  “Was that the matter that you wanted me to handle?” Mason asked.

  Karr leaned back in the chair and closed his eyes. After a few moments he said, “That was it—at first. I wanted you to investigate the possibility of my late partner having left an heir. Now this other matter has come up.”

  “You mean the murder?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you want me to do something in connection with the murder?”

  “Yes, I think I do. I think I’d like to have you see that it’s cleared up just as quickly as possible. I can’t afford to have that develop into one of those mysteries that they spread all over the front pages of the newspapers. How soon do you think Tragg will solve it?”

  “It shouldn’t take him long. He’s a good man.”

  “Tell you what you do. You’re a good man. Give him a hand. See that the thing gets cleaned up and cleaned up fast.”

  “You want me to find out who committed the murder?” Mason asked.

  “That’s right.”

  Mason said, “Make a note of that, Della.”

  Her pen still poised over the notebook, Della said, “I did.”

  “Why do you want a note of that?” Karr asked.

  Mason said, “Because if you’re guilty, and I uncover the evidence that sticks your neck in the noose, I want to be in a position to send your estate a bill for doing it.”

  Karr laughed. “You’re a great one! You really are. You measure up to expectations. Salty character. Individuality. All right, Mason, go ahead. Start working. Get that detective agency of yours on the job. Uncover everything you can. Help Tragg find out what actually happened. Turn over any evidence you find to him. Gow Loong, go massah’s bedroom. Drawer, on right-hand topside. Ketchum money. You savvy? You bring’m money. This lawyer man wants cash money now.”

  “Can do,” Gow Loong said, and started for the bedroom.

  Johns Blaine said easily, “Don’t let that idea of having Karr as a suspect cramp your style any, Mason. Just go right ahead. Karr’s absolutely in the clear, and I’d say the best way to get Lieutenant Tragg off his neck was to help him get some evidence.”

  Mason said, “It’s all right, but I just wanted to have all the cards on the table. In this business, we find that a person who has anything to conceal wants to cover it up. You take a witness who’s lying on the witness stand, and he almost invariably starts stroking his cheeks with the tips of his fingers, then slides his hand around so that he’s concealing his mouth as much as possible while he talks. We know those signs and get to look for them. Mr. Karr’s idea about keeping his legs warm may be all to the good, but as far as Lieutenant Tragg is concerned, that heavy robe over his legs gave him the idea Mr. Karr was covering them up because he had something to conceal.”

  Karr threw back his head and laughed. “And gave you the same idea, Mason?” he asked. “Come on, now, be frank. Didn’t it?”

  Mason looked down at the heavy blanket.

  “Yes.”

  Gow Loong returned from the bedroom, carrying a tin cash box. He placed it gently on Karr’s lap. Karr threw back the lid of the box, reached in, picked up a sheaf of currency, and said to Mason, “How much do you charge in these cases, Counselor?”

  Mason regarded the bundle of currency. “Usually all the traffic will bear,” he said.

  Once more Karr threw back his head and laughed. “I like you, Mason. I mean I really do! You don’t beat around the bush.”

  “No,” Mason said. “I don’t beat around the bush.

  “And may I ask whether you want to retain me to solve that murder or to advise you in connection with your old partnership?”

  “Both,” Karr said, “but we’ll do one thing at a time, Mason. I want that murder case off my neck. That’s a nightmare. Couldn’t possibly have happened at a more inopportune time. As I see it, the only way to keep it from becoming a mystery is to clean it up—only way to clean it up is to solve the damn case. Perhaps you can solve it by this afternoon. That’ll give me a chance to do what I have to do. Personally, I don’t see why the devil this man What’s-his-name couldn’t have picked a more opportune time to get himself killed. Damned inconsiderate, I call it.”

  Chapter 4

  Mrs. Gentrie seemed somewhat overawed by the importance of her visitor. Aunt Rebecca and Delman Steele, sitting together at the dining-room table working a crossword puzzle, looked up as Mason introduced himself to Mrs. Gentrie. They stood up as Mrs. Gentrie escorted Mason toward them.

  Mrs. Gentrie performed the introductions. “Mr. Mason, the lawyer you’ve read about,” she announced. “This is my husband’s sister, Miss Gentrie.” It was always necessary to emphasize the “Miss” in introducing Aunt Rebecca. So many people were inclined to call her Mrs. if they hadn’t been paying attention when the introduction was performed, and that led to a correction later which, somehow, always seemed like an embarrassing explanation. “And Mr. Steele, a roomer, who is also a crossword addict,” Mrs. Gentrie added.

  Aunt Rebecca was by no means overawed. She looked Mason over critically, said, “Humph! You don’t look so formidable. Reading about you, I’d always imagined you bristled with hostility like a battleship.”

  Mason laughed, sized up Delman Steele, a young man in the twenties, who met his eye steadily enough, yet who seemed, somehow, on the defensive. He was good looking, and there was plenty of character in his face, but something about the tight line of his lips indicated that he might, perhaps, have something to conceal.

  Mrs. Gentrie said, “Mr. Steele is usually at his work by this time, but after what happened next door, the police insisted on holding everyone here—except they did let the two younger children go to school. Junior, that’s the oldest, is around somewhere. Here he is coming up from the basement now. Junior, come and meet Mr. Mason, the lawyer. He’s here because he—well, what are you doing here, Mr. Mason?” she asked as Junior shook hands with the lawyer.

  “Just investigating the case,” Mason said.

  “You have a client who’s interested in it?”

  “Well, only indirectly. Not the person who’s charged with murder.”

  “Have they charged anyone yet?”

  “No,” Mason said and laughed. “That’s why I can speak with assurance when I say I’m not representing the person who’s charged with the murder.”

  He turned to study Junior, a lad of about nineteen, who had a high, sensitive forehead which seemed at odd variance with the thickness of his lips. However, his nose was straight and well proportioned, and Mason realized that while the young man would never be considered as a matinee idol, he was, nevertheless, sufficiently good looking to get by nicely with the opposite sex.

  Junior looked at the dictionary on the table in front of Aunt Rebecca. “No wonder that’s never in my room,” he said. “Every time I have to use it, I put in half an hour looking for it.”

  Aunt Rebecca rattled into quick reproach. “Now, Junior, don’t be selfish with your things. After all, it doesn’t wear your dictionary out to look up a word once in a while. You should learn . . .”

  “And my flashlight,” Junior interrupted. “Somebody’s always taking that and running the batteries down.”

  “Why, Junior,” Mrs. Gentrie said, “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I only borrowed it for a few minutes yesterday when I was looking at the preserves on the shelf in the cellar. I didn’t have it on for as much as a minute or a minute and a half altogether.”

  “Well, somebody must have left the switch on for a while,” Junior said. “The batteries were all run down this morning.”

  “Perhaps you used it last night.”

  He said, “That’s the point. I couldn’t find it last night.”

  “Why, I put it back in your room. I . . .” Her voice suddenly lost its assurance, and Junior, wise in the ways of family life, said, “You mean you intended to put it back in my room, but I suppose you left it hanging around some place.”

  “I . . . well, perhaps I did leave it down here. I had that basket of mending, and I put it . . . Where did you find it, Junior?”

  “In my bedroom this morning.”

  “Wasn’t it there last night?”

  He shook his head.

  Mrs. Gentrie laughed and said, “Well, Mr. Mason isn’t interested in all of our domestic troubles. That’s the way it is with a large family, Mr. Mason. Someone’s always feeling that his rights are being infringed upon.”

  Aunt Rebecca said, “Well, I suppose Mr. Mason wants to ask us a lot of questions, but before he does, I’m certainly going to take advantage of his being here to find out about that thing that was bothering us in the crossword puzzle.”

  Mrs. Gentrie said, “Oh, Rebecca, don’t intrude your silly . . .”

  “If I can help, I’ll be only too glad to,” Mason said. “Fire away.”

  “It’s a five-letter word, and the second two letters are u-a. It’s a legal term, meaning—what is it, Delman? How did they express it?”

  Steele ran his finger down a list of numbers and then said, reading, “A legal term meaning ‘as if; as though; as it were.’ ”

  “Five letters?” Mason asked.

  “That’s right.”

  The lawyer frowned a moment, then said, “Why not try quasi?”

  Rebecca grabbed up the pencil, lettered in the word, moved her head back, and perked it on one side as though she had been a bird critically examining a dubious bug. “Yes,” she said abruptly, “that’s right! That’s absolutely right! That’s exactly what it is. Quasi. I never heard of it before.”

  “It’s a term used extensively by lawyers,” Mason said.

  “Well,” Rebecca announced, “that is going to get us over the hump, Delman. I suppose Mr. Mason wants to know everything—just as the police did. . . .”

  “Please be seated, Mr. Mason,” Mrs. Gentrie invited.

  As Mason sat down, Rebecca said, “I certainly hope you don’t start asking a lot of questions, Mr. Mason. I’m all on edge. I started this crossword puzzle to try and quiet my nerves. Mr. Steele’s been kind enough to help me on quite a few of them. Do you do crossword puzzles, Mr. Mason?”

  “I’m afraid I don’t have much time for them.”

  “Well, perhaps I should be doing something else—and yet I don’t know what else to do. I think it’s a lot better to do crossword puzzles than just fritter away your time. After all, Mr. Mason, it does do wonders for your vocabulary.”

  “I assume it does,” Mason said.

  Mrs. Gentrie said, “Come, Rebecca. Mr. Mason’s time is valuable. He didn’t come here just to talk about crossword puzzles.”

  “Well, I don’t want to start talking about that murder again. It all happened yesterday when you upset me with that story about the empty can. I haven’t been able to concentrate since.”

  “Empty can?” Mason asked.

  Mrs. Gentrie said indulgently, “That’s just a household mystery. You mustn’t mind Rebecca. She’s always digging up little household mysteries.”

  “I’m interested in mysteries,” Mason said, his eyes twinkling. “I collect mysteries the way your sister-in-law collects crossword puzzles.”

  “Well,” Rebecca said, “I wish you’d solve this one, Mr. Mason. I just can’t get it off my mind.”

  “Rebecca!” Mrs. Gentrie rebuked.

  “No, go ahead. I’d like to hear it,” Mason said. “I really would.”

  Mrs. Gentrie, evidently quite embarrassed, said, “It was nothing, Mr. Mason. I went down in the cellar yesterday to check over the tins and jars of preserved fruit, I found an empty tin on the shelf.”

  “Just an empty tin?” Mason asked.

  “Yes.”

  “No. That isn’t all of it,” Rebecca interpolated. “It was an absolutely brand new tin, Mr. Mason. It had been put up on that shelf with the preserves. There wasn’t any label on that tin, and it had been sealed up—you know, crimped over, the way you seal preserves in a can.”

  “You have one of those sealing machines here?” Mason asked.

  “Yes. We put up a good deal of fruit and vegetables. Some we put up in jars, and some we put up in tins. We have a sealing machine which crimps the top on.”

  “And this can was empty?”

  “Just exactly as it came from the store,” Mrs. Gentrie said.

  Rebecca said, “It wasn’t any such thing, Florence. The more I think of it, the more I realize there was something strange about that can. A can isn’t hermetically sealed when it comes from a store.”

  “What did you do with the tin?” Mason asked.

  “Tossed it in the box of old tins,” Mrs. Gentrie said, laughing.

  “You didn’t open it to look inside?”

  “Gracious, no. It was too light to have had anything in it. It was just an empty can.”

  “But you didn’t look inside to make certain it was empty?”

  Rebecca said, “Arthur did that. That’s Florence’s husband, Mr. Gentrie, you know.”

  “Was he here when you found it?”

  “No. He was looking around for a tin to mix some paint in last night. He found this tin down in the box.”

  “It was empty?” Mason asked.

  “That’s what he said.”

  Delman Steele said, “I saw the can, Mr. Mason. I went down in the basement last night to ask Mr. Gentrie a question. He was painting around the woodwork of the windows, and the door which leads to the garage. I asked him if he’d seen the tin . . .”

  Rebecca interrupted, “I’m the one that asked Mr. Steele to go down and dig that tin up. I just couldn’t get it off my mind.”

  Steele laughed and said, “And thereby almost got me in bad with this lieutenant who’s investigating the shooting next door.”

  “How did that happen?” Mason inquired.

  “He was checking up on all of the persons who had been down in the basement last night,” Steele said. “I sometimes go down to chat with Arthur Gentrie or look in on Miss Gentrie when she’s in her darkroom. But I don’t think I’d have gone down last night if it hadn’t been for Miss Gentrie asking me about the can.”

  “What’s being in the basement got to do with the murder?” Mason asked.

  Steele said, “It’s beyond me. Tragg was down there prowling here and there, then came back and asked a lot of questions.”

  Rebecca said, “I’m going to put a lock on my darkroom door. They pulled the door open and flung the dark curtain to one side, let daylight stream in, and fogged half a dozen films for me. Personally, I think the police should be more considerate.”

  Mason said, “I find myself getting interested in that can. You say that Mr. Gentrie had used it to mix paint in, Mr. Steele?”

  “That’s right. I guess it’s still down there.”

  “How did he open it?”

  “Oh, there’s a can-opening machine down there in the cellar.”

  Rebecca said, “I’m certain you’ll agree with me, Mr. Mason, that it’s something that should be looked into. That tin didn’t grow on the shelf. It was a brand new tin. It hadn’t been there long—and why should anyone hermetically seal up an empty can?”

  “I’m certain I don’t know,” Mason said.

  “Well, neither do I, but someone did.”

  “You mentioned a garage door,” Mason said to Steele. “That’s a door which communicates with the garage where Mr. Hocksley keeps his car?”

  “That’s right,” Mrs. Gentrie said. “There’s a double garage with one door leading to the cellar. You see, the house is built on a sloping lot, and the ground is so steep they made the cellar in two levels. I presume the house was built before the days of automobiles—or at least before people appreciated the importance of having a garage in connection with the house. Then, later on, someone remodeled that end of the basement so as to include a two-car garage. We keep our machine in one of them, so we have the other one for rent. The side that has the door to the cellar is a little the more desirable, so we rent that, and, of course, use that door to the cellar to come in and out of our house, particularly when it’s rainy.”

  Mason said, “If you don’t mind, I’d like to take a look at the garage.”

  “You can come right down the cellar stairs, Mr. Mason, and open the door—or you can walk around the sidewalk and come in through the garage door.”

  “I think I’d prefer to go in through the cellar.”

  Mrs. Gentrie said, “If you’ll just come this way, Mr. Mason.”

  Rebecca firmly pushed the dictionary and the crossword puzzle to one side, got to her feet, and smoothed down her skirts. “If you think you’re going down in that cellar with Mr. Mason and talk about that empty can, and have me sitting up here where I can’t hear what you’re saying, Florence Gentrie, you’re very much mistaken. The more I think of it, the more I think that empty tin may just as well as not be a clue to what happened.”