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him in Vegas when I was working for a paper out there. If a thing wasn’t legit he wouldn’t touch it. That’s why I can’t figure this one.”
    He stretched his legs and sucked idly on his pipe, frowning, the side of his thumb scratching the hairy triangle at the base of his throat. After that the silence came until Jeff thought of something else and put it into words.
    “Maybe you knew my stepbrother in Las Vegas. Arnold Lane.”
    “Lane?” Spencer glanced up. “Sure. At least I knew who he was. He’s in town here now—I guess maybe you knew that—except he calls himself Grayson.” He might have said more if the outer door had not opened at that moment to admit the man they were talking about.
    In that first instant when Arnold Grayson made a quick inspection of the room Jeff started to rise. It was an automatic impulse based on the social habit of shaking hands with someone you had not seen in a long time. Then he knew that such a gesture would be sheer hypocrisy, just as he knew that Grayson would probably ignore it.
    “Hello, Junior,” Grayson said, all the old arrogance Jeff remembered so well still in his voice. “I hear your old man finally decided to cut me in on the family fortune. What happened? Conscience bother him?”
    Jeff settled back, a muscle bulging in his jaw as his mouth tightened, his eyes dark with resentment but his temper in hand as he was reminded of the job he had to do. He had come a long way and he realized it would be foolish to antagonize his stepbrother at this point. He sat still, noting the changes the last four years had made.
    Taller than Jeff, more muscular in his younger days, Arnold Grayson was still well proportioned, the excess weight skillfully minimized by the well-cut double-breasted suit. The face was puffy but tanned, the wavy light-brown hair was thin and sharply receding, and a small mustache—a new addition—helped disguise a too-small mouth that, Jeff knew, could be smiling and twisted with fury in alternate minutes. For all of that he had about him a look of importance when viewed objectively; only those who knew him understood how impressed he was with his own self-importance. Now Jeff gave him a small mirthless smile,
    “Sit down, Arny,” he said casually. “Relax.”
    But Grayson was not yet ready to sit down. “Hello, Miss Holmes,” he said. “Hi, Spence. What’s this about Harry Baker?”
    “Somebody shot him,” Spencer said.
    “Where?”
    “They didn’t tell me.”
    “I mean, where was he?” Grayson said, his impatience showing.
    “In his room. Miss Holmes had a date for dinner and stopped by to see if he was ready.” Spencer waved his pipe. “He was on the floor.”
    “When was this?”
    “Who knows?”
    Grayson looked at Jeff, vertical grooves at the bridge of his nose and worried glints in his light-gray eyes. The change in his manner was at once apparent to Jeff and he wondered why this should be. Before he could speculate, the inner door opened and a swart, white-haired man with the features of an Indian beckoned.
    They filed past him, Spencer leading the way, and continued across a second windowless office. Its only other occupant was an attractive young woman who sat behind a flat-topped desk and watched them pass through the door on her left. This opened into a third paneled office, larger than the others but still without windows.
    Zumeta stood beside the desk. Behind it and also on his feet was Pedro Vidal, who was as tall as Zumeta but leaner, an immaculately groomed man with well-kept hands and thick black hair. He bowed slightly as he acknowledged Zumeta’s introductions. When he asked them to sit down his voice was quiet, his English excellent.
    Apparently Zumeta had briefed him well because he turned at once to Jeff and said: “I understand you employed Mr. Baker to find your brother—”
    “Stepbrother,” Jeff cut in.
    “—to inform him of a recent inheritance,” Vidal went on, ignoring the interruption. “How