"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."
Duncan faced him with blazing eyes. "The hell you're not! We come in here and find you sitting next to a murdered man, and you have the nerve to try and tell us what you're going to do and what you're not going to do!
"You're going to take it and like it, and you're going to be searched before you have a chance to ditch anything that you might have taken from this room. You know and I know there's something here you want, and want damn bad."