There were some half dozen people waiting at the head of the landing-stairs to go back on the speed boat. Mason walked down the deck toward the bar entrance, and heard the staccato exhaust of the launch ripping the silence of the night as it swung away toward land. He ordered a Tom-and-Jerry, sipped it in leisurely appreciation, responding to the genial warmth and the glittering lights which so brilliantly illuminated the interior of the bar. He checked his hat and coat, and heard the exhaust of another speed boat as it arrived and departed.

  Mason strolled into the main gambling room and turned toward the passageway which led to the offices. There were perhaps eighty or a hundred players clustered around the various gambling tables. He saw nothing of the uniformed guard who had previously been stationed near the entrance to the offices, so marched unannounced down the echoing wooden passageway, made the right-angle turn, and pushed open the door of the reception office.

  At first glance Mason thought the office was empty; then, in a corner, away from the door, he caught sight of a woman, dressed in a blue suit, an orange blouse giving it a splash of color, her face concealed by a magazine she was reading. A stretch of shapely leg showing beneath the skirt caught Mason's eye. Apparently absorbed in the magazine, she didn't look up as the lawyer entered the room. A blue leather handbag lay on her lap.

  Mason stepped to the door which led to the inner office and knocked. There was no answer.

  The woman in the far corner of the office looked up and said, "I don't think anyone's in there. I knocked several times and got no answer."

  Mason stared at the ribbon of light which showed along the side of the door. "The door isn't even latched," he said. "I thought they always kept it locked."

  The woman said nothing. The lawyer crossed the office, seated himself in a chair separated from hers by only a few feet, and turned casual eyes to her profile. He recognized her then as the woman he had seen on his last visit to the gambling ship - Sylvia Oxman - whose inopportune arrival had upset his plans.

  Mason studied the toe of his shoe for a moment in frowning concentration, then turned to her and said, "You'll pardon me, but do you have an appointment with Mr. Grieb?"

  "No," she said, "no appointment. I just wanted to see him."

  "I," Mason told her, "have a very definite appointment, and it's for this hour. I don't like to inconvenience you, but it's important that I see him as soon as he comes in. My business will take about twenty minutes. Perhaps it would inconvenience you less if you went out and returned then."

  She got swiftly to her feet. "Thank you very much for telling me," she said. And Mason thought there was relief in her voice, as though he had said something she had been hopefully anticipating.

  "I'm sorry it's impossible for me to postpone the appointment in your favor," Mason said, smiling affably. "I think I'll wait for him in his private office."

  Mason pushed open the heavy door as Sylvia Oxman tossed her magazine on the table and started for the passageway.

  Sam Grieb's body, seated in the swivel chair, lay slumped over the huge desk. One shoulder was propped against the side of the desk. The head lolled at a grotesque angle, showing a red bullet hole in the left temple. A shaded lamp, which flooded illumination over the discolored face, was reflected from the glassy surfaces of open, staring eyes. The diamonds on his right hand sent out scintillating brilliance. His left hand was out of sight, under the desk.

  Mason whirled back toward the outer office. Sylvia Oxman was just stepping into the corridor. "Sylvia!" he said sharply.

  She paused at the sound of his voice, stood uncertainly in the doorway, then turned, dark eyes luminous with some emotion.

  "Come here," Mason ordered.

  "Just who are you?" she asked. "What do you want? What do you mean by speaking to me in..."

  Mason reached her side in three swift steps, clamped strong fingers about her left arm just above the elbow. "Take a look," he ordered.

  She hung back for a moment, then tried to shake herself free. Mason circled her swiftly with his arm and swung her through the door of the private office. She turned toward him indignantly, said, "How dare you..." and then broke off as she caught sight of the huddled figure at the desk. She opened her mouth to scream. Mason clamped his hand over her lips. "Steady now," he warned.

  He waited until she struggled for breath, then released his hand and asked, "How long had you been waiting in the reception office before I came?"

  "Just a minute or two," she said in a low, barely audible voice. She caught her breath. Her eyes, wild and staring, turned away from the desk, then, as though drawn by some overpowering fascination, drifted back.

  "Can you prove it?"

  "What do you mean?"

  "Did anyone see you come in?"

  "I don't know. I don't think so. I can't tell... Who... who are you? I've seen you here before. You know my name."

  Mason nodded and said, "My name's Mason. I'm a lawyer. Now listen, cut out this acting. Either you did this, or..."

  He broke off as his eyes stared down at several oblongs of paper on the blotter. He reached forward and gingerly picked them up.

  Sylvia Oxman gasped, "My IOU's! I came to pay up on them."

  "Seventy-five hundred," Mason said. "Is that right?"

  "Yes."

  "You wanted to give Grieb the money for these?"

  "Yes."

  "That's why you came here tonight?"

  "Yes."

  "All right," Mason told her grimly, "let's see the money."

  "What money?"

  "Quit stalling. The seventy-five hundred bucks you were going to give Grieb in return for the IOU's."

  "Why should I show it to you?"

  Mason made a grab for her handbag. She avoided him, jumped back and stood staring at him with wide, frightened eyes. Mason said, "You haven't got seventy-five hundred dollars."

  She said nothing, her rapid breathing slightly distending her nostrils.

  "Did you kill him?" Mason asked.

  "No... of course not... I didn't know he was in here."

  "Do you know who did?" She slowly shook her head.

  Mason said, "Listen. I'm going to give you a break. Get out through that door, try to avoid being seen when you leave the passageway. Start gambling at one of the roulette tables. Wait for me. I'll talk with you out there, and you'll tell me the truth. Remember that, Sylvia, no lies."

  She hesitated a moment, then said, "Why should you do this for me?"

  Mason laughed grimly. "I'll bite, why should I? Just a foolish loyalty I have for my clients. I protect them, even when they lie to me - which most of them do - or try to double-cross me - which has been done."

  Her dark, luminous eyes studied the rugged determination of his face. She was suddenly cool and self-possessed. "Thanks," she said, "but I'm not your client, you know."

  "Well," he told her, "you're the next thing to it. And I'm damned if I can figure you as being guilty of murder. But you've got to do a lot of explaining before you can convince anyone else. Go ahead, now, get out."

  "My IOU's," she said. "If my husband ever..."

  "Forget it," Mason interrupted. "Have confidence in me for a change. I'm having plenty in you."

  She studied him for a moment thoughtfully, then stepped to the door, her eyes avoiding the desk. "Those IOU's," she said, "are..."

  "Beat it," he interrupted, "and don't close the door. Leave it ajar, just as it was."

  She slipped through the door, and a moment later the electric signal announced she had rounded the turn in the corridor.

  Mason pulled a wallet from his pocket, counted out seventy-five hundred dollars in bills, opened a drawer of the desk with the toe of his shoe, and dropped the bills into the drawer. He kicked the drawer shut, held the IOU's clamped between thumb and forefinger, struck a match, and held the flame to the paper. By the time the flame had burnt down to his hand, the IOU's had withered into dark, charred oblongs, traced with a glowing perimeter which gradually ate its way into the darker centers.

  Abruptly, the electric buzzer burst into noise, announcing that someone was coming down the corridor toward the office. A split-second later it zipped into noise once more - two people were approaching.

  The lawyer crumpled the bits of burned ash in his hand, thrust the corners which had been unconsumed into his mouth, and stepped swiftly into the reception office, pulling shut the door to the inner office by catching the knob with his elbow. He wiped his darkened hands on the sides of his trousers, threw himself into a chair, opened a magazine, and was unwrapping a stick of chewing gum when the door of the reception office opened, to disclose Duncan, accompanied by a tall man with watery blue eyes, dressed in a tweed suit. Both men wore overcoats, and fog particles glistened from the surfaces of the coats.

  Duncan jerked to a dead stop, stared at Mason and said, "What the hell are you doing here?"

  Mason casually fed the stick of chewing gum into his mouth, rolled the wrapper into a ball, dropped it into an ash tray, munched the chewing gum into a wad and said, "I was waiting for Sam Grieb because I wanted to talk to him. Now that you're here, I can talk to both of you."

  "Where's Sam?"

  "I don't know. I knocked on the door, but got no answer, so I decided I'd wait - not having anything else to do... It's a wonder you wouldn't get some up-to-date magazines here. You'd think this was a dentist's office."

  Duncan said irritably, "Sam's here. He's got to be here. Whenever the tables are in operation one or the other of us has to be in this office."

  Mason shrugged his shoulders, let his eyebrows show mild surprise. "Indeed," he said. "Any way in except through this room?"

  "No."

  "Well," Mason said, "suppose I talk with you while we're waiting. I understand you've filed your case."

  "Of course I've filed it," Duncan said irritably. "You aren't the only attorney in the country. If you're too damned dumb to take good business when it's offered you, there are others who aren't so finicky."

  Mason said politely, "How about a stick of gum?"

  "No. I don't chew it."

  "Of course," Mason said, "now that you've dragged your difficulties into court, you've submitted yourself to the jurisdiction of a court of equity. That throws your assets into court."

  "Well, what if it does?"

  "Those IOU's," Mason pointed out, "are part of your assets. They were given for a gambling debt. A court of equity wouldn't permit itself to be used as a collection agency for a gambling debt."

  "We're on the high seas," Duncan said. "There's no law against gambling here."

  "You may be on the high seas," Mason told him, "but your assets are in a court of equity. It's an equitable rule that all gambling contracts are void as being against public policy, whether there's a law against gambling or not. Those IOU's aren't worth the paper they're written on. You've been just a little too smart, Duncan, you've turned seventy-five hundred dollars worth of assets into scrap paper."

  "Sylvia would never raise the point," Duncan said.

  "I'll raise it," Mason told him.

  Duncan studied him with blue, glittering eyes, "So that's why you wouldn't represent me, eh?"

  "That's one of the reasons," Mason admitted.

  Duncan pulled a leather key container from his pocket, started to fit a key in the lock of the door to the inner office. "If Sam hasn't the door barred from the inside, I'll open it," he said to the man in tweeds, then suddenly turned again to the lawyer. "What's your best offer, Mason?"

  "I'll give you the face value of the IOU's."

  "How about the thousand-dollar bonus?"

  "Nothing doing."

  "You made that offer yesterday," Duncan remonstrated.

  "That was yesterday," Mason told him. "A lot's happened since yesterday."

  Duncan twisted the key, clicked back the spring lock, and flung the door open. "Well," he said, "you sit down and wait a few minutes, and... Good God! What's this!"

  He jumped backward, stared at the desk, then whirled to Mason and yelled, "Say, what are you trying to cover up here? Don't tell me you didn't know about this."

  Mason pushed forward, saying, "What the hell are you talking about? I told you..." He became abruptly silent.

  The man in tweeds said, "Don't touch anything. This is a job for the homicide squad... Gosh, I don't know who is supposed to take charge. Probably the marshal..."

  "Listen," Duncan said, speaking rapidly, "we come in and find this guy perched in the outer office, chewing gum and reading a three-months-old magazine. It looks fishy to me. Sam's been shot."

  "Suicide, perhaps," Mason suggested.

  "We'll take a look around," Duncan said, "and see if it's suicide."

  "Don't touch anything," the man in tweeds warned.

  "Don't be a sap," Duncan said. "How long have you been here, Mason?"

  "Oh, I don't know. Four or five minutes."

  "Hear anything suspicious?"

  Mason shook his head.

  The man in tweeds bent over the desk and said, "There's no sign of a gun. And it's an awkward place for a man to have hit himself with a bullet, if it's suicide."

  "Look under the desk," Mason suggested. "The gun might have dropped from his hand."

  The man in tweeds kept his attention concentrated on the body. "He'd have had to hold the gun in his left hand to do it himself," he said slowly. "He wasn't left-handed, was he, Duncan?"

  Duncan, his blue eyes wide and startled, stood with his back against the vault door, his mouth sagging open. "It's murder!" he said, and gulped. "For God's sake, turn off that desk light! It gives me the willies to see his open eyes staring into that light!"

  The man in tweeds said, "No you don't! Don't touch a thing."

  Mason, standing in the doorway between the two rooms, taking care not to enter the room which contained the body, said, "Let's make sure there isn't a gun down there on the floor. After all, you know, it's going to make a lot of difference whether this is murder or suicide. I, for one, would like to know before we send out a report. He could have dropped a gun..."

  Duncan stepped forward, bent over the body, peered down under the desk and said, "No, there's no gun here."

  The man in tweeds asked, "Can you see? I'll get a light and..."

  "Sure I can see," Duncan exclaimed irritably. "There's no gun here. You keep your eyes on this guy, Perkins. He's trying to get us both looking for something so he can pull a fast one. He's talked too damn much about a gun being down there."

  Mason said ominously, "Watch your lip, Duncan!"

  The tall man nodded. "I'd be careful what I said, Mr. Duncan. You haven't any proof, you know. This man might make trouble."

  "To hell with him," Duncan snapped. "There's seven thousand five hundred dollars in IOU's somewhere around here, and Mason wants them. I'm going to take a look in the vault. You keep your eye on Mason."

  Duncan crossed over to the vault, his back turned to the men as he faced the vault door, rattled the handle, then started spinning the combination. "I don't like the looks of things," he called out over his shoulder. "This guy Mason is smart, too damn smart."

  The tall man said, "I wouldn't touch anything, Mr. Duncan. If I were you, I wouldn't open that vault."

  Duncan straightened up and turned to face Perkins. "I've got to find out about those IOU's," he said indignantly. "After all, I own a half interest in this place."

  "Just the same," Perkins persisted, "I wouldn't open that vault."

  Mason, from the doorway between the rooms, said, "And you're leaving a lot of fingerprints on things, Duncan. The police aren't going to like that."

  Duncan's face darkened with rage. "A hell of a slick guy, ain't you," he shouted, "standing there and telling us to look for a gun, and to do this and do that until you've got us leaving fingerprints all over things, and then telling us about it!

  "To hell with you! You ain't in the clear on this thing - particularly if those IOU's are missing. You could have done the whole job here - easy! Sammy would have let you in, and you could have given him the works, and then gone back out, pulled the door shut, and been waiting here... Perkins, you're an officer. Search him. Let's see if he's got those IOU's. And he may have the murder gun in his pocket. Let's not let him talk us out of anything."

  Mason said, "Listen, Duncan, I'm not going to be the goat in this thing."