He stopped talking as he saw Mason.

One of the officers said, "Are you Perry Mason, the lawyer?"

Mason nodded.

"You were in this room when the body was discovered?"

"Yes."

"What were you doing here?"

"Sitting here, waiting."

"Waiting for what?"

"For someone to come in."

"Had you knocked at the door of the inner office?"

"Yes."

"You didn't get any answer?"

"No."

"Did you try the knob of the door?"

Mason frowned thoughtfully and said, "It's hard to tell, looking back on it, just what I did do. When I came in here, I regarded my visit as just a routine call, and, naturally, didn't pay any great attention to a lot of details which didn't impress me as being important or significant."

One of the officers said, "Well, they aren't unimportant and they aren't insignificant."

Mason smiled affably. "It's so difficult to tell in advance-which is probably why our hindsight is better than our foresight."

There was a moment of silence, during which Mason studied the faces of the officers. They had evidently been recruited from various channels, and rushed out to make an investigation. One of the men was apparently a city police officer, with the rank of sergeant. Another was undoubtedly a motorcycle traffic officer. The third was a plainclothesman, apparently a detective. The other was probably a deputy sheriff or marshal, or both.

While Mason was watching them, one of the officers entered the room with Arthur Manning. Accompanying Manning were two people, a young man in his middle twenties, and a girl, who was wearing a beige sport suit. A dark brown scarf, knotted loosely about her throat, matched her brown shoes and bag. She carried a coat with a fur collar over her arm.

Manning said, "I've just found…"

The sergeant checked him by holding up a warning hand and said, "Let's finish with this phase of the inquiry first. Now you, Mr. Mason, were waiting here in the outer office?"

"Yes."

"How long had you been here?"

"Perhaps five minutes, perhaps not that long. I can't tell exactly."

"You were waiting to see Mr. Grieb?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

"I had business with him."

"What was the nature of the business?"

Mason shook his head smilingly. "As an attorney I can't be interrogated about the affairs of my clients."

"You refuse to answer?"

"Yes."

"That's not the law," the sergeant protested angrily. "The only thing you can hold out is a confidential communication made to you by your client. I happen to know, because I heard the point argued in court once."

Mason said deprecatingly, "You can hear so much argued in court, Sergeant, that it's quite discouraging. I, myself, have heard many court arguments."

The plainclothesman grinned. The sergeant flushed, turned to Duncan and said, "When you came in the office, where was Mr. Mason sitting?"

"In that chair."

"What was he doing?"

"Looking at a magazine."

"You don't know what he was reading?"

"No, I don't. He made some remark about the magazine being an old one. I can't remember just what it was."

"The door to the inner office was locked?"

"Yes."

"You had a key for it?"

"Yes."

"Were there any other keys?"

"Only the one Grieb had."

"The one we found on his key ring?"

"Yes."

"It was customary to keep this door locked?"

"Absolutely. That was one rule we never violated. This door was kept closed, locked and barred at all times."

"So that Mr. Grieb, himself, must have opened this door?"

"Yes."

"And then returned to his desk, after admitting some visitor?"

"That's right."

"Now, there's no way of reaching that inner office, except through this door; is that right?"

"That's right."

"How about the porthole?" Mason asked. "There's a porthole directly over the desk, and another on either side. Wouldn't it have been possible for someone to have lowered himself down the side of the ship and fired a shot…"

"No," the sergeant interrupted, "it would have been impossible. Excluding a theory of suicide, which the evidence won't support, the person who fired the fatal shot must have stood near the corner of Grieb's desk, and shot him with a.38 caliber automatic. Moreover, the empty shell was ejected and was found on the floor." He turned back to Duncan. "You opened the door to the inner office," he said, "and found Grieb's body in the chair. Then what did you do?"

"I was pretty excited," Duncan said. "Naturally, it knocked me for a loop. I remember going over to make certain he was dead, and then I said something to Mason and… Oh, yes, we looked around for a gun. There was some question about whether it was suicide."

"Do you remember anything else?"

Duncan shook his head and said, "No. We came on out. Mason was making a few wise-cracks. I wanted him searched…"

"Why did you want him searched?"

"Because he'd been sitting here in the office. Naturally I was suspicious… That is, I thought it would be a good idea to search him and see if perhaps he had a key to that door, or a gun, or… Well, he might have had a lot of things in his pockets."

"Did Mason object to being searched?"

"On the contrary," Mason interrupted, smiling, "I demanded it. Mr. Perkins, an officer who came aboard with Mr. Duncan, handcuffed me, so I couldn't take anything from my pockets, took me into another room, had me undress, and searched me from the skin out. But Mr. Duncan was alone with the body for several minutes."

"No, I wasn't," Duncan retorted angrily. "And that reminds me of something else I did. I pushed the alarm button which called Manning. That button sounds buzzers in various places and turns on a red light in all four corners of the gambling room. Manning came in here within a matter of seconds."

"That's right," the blue-coated special officer corroborated. "I was over at the far corner of the casino, watching a man who looked like a crook. He was rolling dice on the crap table, and he was pretty lucky. Most of the time I hang around by the entrance to these offices, but when I see something that looks suspicious, I go give it the once-over. As a matter of fact, Grieb had given me the tip-off on this guy, himself. That was about fifteen or twenty minutes before Duncan put on the lights for me. I saw the light come on and started for the office. It couldn't have been fifteen seconds until I got there."

"During that fifteen seconds did you see anyone leave the offices?" the sergeant asked.

"Sure. I saw Perry Mason, and this officer who came aboard with Mr. Duncan-Perkins, I think his name was. They tell me that he put handcuffs on Mr. Mason, but I couldn't see the handcuffs. The way they strolled out, arm in arm, I thought they were just buddies, going into the bar to get a drink."

"You saw us leave?"

"I wasn't over six feet from you. You'd have seen me if you'd turned around. I was moving pretty fast. I thought there might be some sort of an emergency."

"Where was Duncan when you entered the room?"

Duncan started to say something, but the sergeant silenced him with a gesture and said, "Just at present, Mr. Duncan, we're questioning Manning. Where was he, Manning?"

"He was right over at that chair where you're sitting," Manning said. "He'd pulled up the cushion and was looking around." Duncan looked sheepish.

"What were you doing there?" the sergeant asked Duncan.

"That was the chair Mason had been sitting in," Duncan said. "He looked just a little too smug and smooth when I came in. I don't know, I can't put my finger on just what it was, but I didn't like the way he looked. And I thought maybe he'd known he was going to be searched, and had ditched something. You see, he must have heard Perkins and me coming four or five seconds before we came in through the door."