Read The Case of the Dangerous Dowager for Free Online

outside of the office. The two men listened while the steps swung around the right-angle turn in the corridor and approached the door of the reception office. Iron bars were jerked back on the other side of the door from the inner office. A knob twisted. The door opened explosively and Duncan, carrying the IOU's, said to Mason, "Okay. Pay over the money. It'll have to be cash."
    "How about your partner?" Mason asked.
    "Pay over the cash," Duncan said. "I have the IOU's here. That's all you want…"
    The door from the hallway opened. A woman in her middle twenties, her trim figure clad in a dark, tailored suit, stared at them with black, disinterested eyes, then turned to Duncan and said, "I want to see Sam."
    Duncan crumpled the oblongs of paper in his right hand and pushed them down into his coat pocket. His gold teeth came into evidence. "Sure, sure," he said. "Sam's right inside." But he continued to stand in the doorway, blocking her passage.
    Once more she flashed her eyes in quick appraisal of the two men, then stepped forward until she was standing within two feet of Duncan, who kept his left hand on the knob of the partially opened door. "Well?" she asked smiling. "Do I go in?"
    Duncan shifted his eyes to study Mason and Drake, and she, following the direction of his gaze, glanced at them for the third time. Duncan's smile expanded into a grin. "Sure," he said, his eyes focused on Drake's face, "go right on in." He shoved the door open, stepped to one side, raised his voice and said, "Don't you two talk any business until I get there."
    She swept through the door and Duncan, still grinning pulled it shut behind her.
    "Well, boys," he said, "it's too bad your little scheme didn't work. I'll see a lawyer tomorrow, Mason, and see if we can't pin something on you. We may have something to take before the D.A. In the meantime, don't forget the ship, boys. It's a nice place to gamble. We give you a good run for your money."
    Mason said, "No, Duncan, we won't forget the ship."
    "And," Duncan assured him, "we won't forget you." He escorted them down the corridor until the uniformed guard had opened the outer door. "Well, good night, boys," he said. "Come back any time."
    He turned and retraced his steps down the corridor. Mason took the detective's arm and led him toward the gangway where departing patrons caught the speed boat.
    "Was that Sylvia Oxman?" Drake asked.
    "It must have been," Mason said, "and when she failed to recognize you and you gave her a dead pan, Duncan saw the play. Remember, you're supposed to be the lady's husband."
    "Doesn't that leave us in something of a spot," Drake asked anxiously, "having tried to pick up the lady's notes and pulled all this hocus-pocus?"
    "That depends on the breaks," Mason said gloomily. "Evidently it isn't our night to gamble."
    Drake pushed his fingers down inside his collar, ran them around the neckband of his shirt, and said, "Let's beat it. If we're going to be pinched, I sure as hell don't want to go to jail in this outfit."

CHAPTER 4
    MASON LOOKED across his desk at Matilda Benson and said, "I sent for you because I'm going to ask you a lot of questions."
    "May I ask you some first?" she inquired.
    He nodded.
    "You saw Grieb?"
    "Yes."
    "Get anywhere?"
    Mason shook his head and said, "Not yet. The breaks went against me."
    She eyed him in shrewd appraisal. "I suppose you don't go in much for alibis and explanations."
    Mason shook his head and was silent.
    "Do you want to tell me about it?"
    "No."
    "Well, then, what's the next move?" she asked.
    Mason said, "I'm going to try him again – this time from another angle. Before I do, I want to know more of what I'm up against."
    She opened her purse, took out her cigar case and selected a cigar. While she was cutting off the end, Mason scratched a match and held it across the desk to her. She regarded him with twinkling eyes through the first white puffs of cigar smoke and said, "All right, go ahead. Ask your