Mason said, 'There's no need for me to stick around. You've got an inventory of everything that was on me, Perkins. I'm going up on deck and see if anyone's particularly worried about not being able to leave.'
Duncan nodded, started for the door, then stopped, frowned thoughtfully and said, 'You're pretty smart, ain't you?'
'What do you mean?' Mason asked.
'I mean that you were damned anxious to be searched.'
'Of course I was.'
'I think I'll be searched,' Duncan said. 'After all, I was in that room for a minute or two before Manning showed up, and it might be a good idea to be able to prove I didn't take anything away with me.'
Mason's laugh was sarcastic. 'You might just as well spare yourself the trouble, Duncan. You've had an opportunity to take anything you wanted out of that room, toss it overboard or hide it in any one of a hundred different places. Being searched now isn't going to help you any.'
Duncan said, 'I don't like the way you say that.'
Mason grinned. 'I'm so sorry. You could have left the room at the same time we did, Duncan, and then there wouldn't have been any necessity for searching you.'
'Yes,' Duncan sneered, 'and left the place wide open for an accomplice of yours to have come back and…'
'Accomplice of mine?' Mason asked, raising his eyebrows.
'I didn't mean it that way,' Duncan admitted. 'I meant a client of yours, or an accomplice of the murderer.'
Mason yawned. 'Personally, I don't like the air in here. It's stuffy. I think I'll mingle around.'
'You're sure you made a list of everything he had on him?' Duncan asked Perkins.
Perkins nodded.
'The lining of his coat?'
'You bet,' Perkins said. 'I used to be a jailer. I know something about where a man hides things. I looked in his shoes, in the lining of his coat.'
'Did you look under the collar of his coat?'
Perkins laughed and said, 'Don't be silly. Of course I looked under the collar of his coat and in the cuffs of his pants. I went over every inch of cloth with my fingers.'
'How much money did he have in that wallet?'
'Twenty-five hundred dollars in hundreds and fifties, and three hundred and twenty dollars in twenties, and then he had four fives, three ones and some silver, six quarters, ten dimes, four nickels and six pennies.'
Mason grinned and said, 'When you make an inventory, you make a good one, don't you, Perkins?'
'I wasn't a jailer for nothing,' Perkins admitted. 'Lots of times guys would swear they had a lot more money than they did.'
Duncan stared at Mason with narrowed eyes. There was no trace of a smile either on his lips or in his eyes.
'Twenty-five hundred in fifties and hundreds, eh?' he asked.
Perkins said, 'That's right.'
'Were you,' Mason asked, 'thinking of something, Duncan?'
'Yes,' Duncan said, 'I was just thinking that seventy-five hundred dollars from ten thousand would leave twenty-five hundred.'
Perkins looked puzzled. Mason's grin was affable. 'Quite right, Duncan,' he said, 'and ten thousand from twelve thousand five hundred would leave twenty-five hundred; and twenty-five thousand from twenty-seven thousand five hundred would still leave twenty-five hundred.'
Duncan's face darkened. He said to Perkins, 'Could he have folded or wadded up any papers and concealed them on him somewhere?'
Perkins said, with some show of impatience, 'Not a chance. I know what to look for, and I know where to look. I've been searching guys for years. Some of 'em used to try putting a flexible saw around the inside of their collars or down the stiffening in the front of their coats. But they didn't get away with it. I'm telling you I searched this guy. He asked for it and he got it.'
Duncan jerked the door open and pounded out into the outer corridor. Mason grinned at Perkins. 'Did you inventory the chewing gum, Perkins?'
'Sure. Three sticks of Wrigley's Double-Mint. And I even looked at the wrappers to make certain they hadn't been tampered with.'
'Well, how about having a stick?' Mason asked. 'I think I'll put in another stick to freshen this one.'
Perkins said, 'No, I don't chew gum, thanks.'
Mason paused with the stick of gum half in his mouth and said, 'Wait a minute, Perkins. You didn't look in my mouth. Perhaps you'd better do that, just in case there's some question. Duncan, you know, might fight dirty if he had a chance.'
'I was thinking of that,' Perkins admitted, '-about looking in your mouth, I mean-when Duncan was making all those cracks, but I didn't want to say anything.'
Mason moistened his thumb and the tip of his forefinger, pulled out the wad of chewing gum and said, 'Well, you'd better take a look now.'
Perkins turned Mason's head so that the light showed in his mouth. 'Okay,' he said, 'now raise up your tongue.'
Mason raised his tongue. Perkins grinned, nodded, and said, 'I'm giving you a clean bill of health. I'll bet fifty bucks you haven't got anything on you except what I inventoried.'
Mason slapped Perkins on the shoulder and said, 'Let's mingle around and see what Duncan's doing. You can follow his mental processes. First he was damned anxious to have me searched, and then he didn't want me searched. Then, when he realized you were going to search me anyway, he wanted me gone over with a microscope. He figures that something's missing. He's not sure I have it; but if I haven't, he'd like to make me a fall guy, anyhow.'
'Well,' Perkins said, 'so far as I'm concerned, this trip's a bust. I came out here to serve some papers. The man I was to serve them on is dead.'
'By the way,' Mason said, 'how long have you been with Duncan?'
'What do you mean?'
'If it came to a question of an alibi,' Mason asked, 'how far could you go with Duncan?'
'He picked me up in Los Angeles at ten minutes to five,' Perkins said, '-or right around there. It might have been quarter to five, or it might have been around five minutes to five.'
'But it was before five o'clock?' Mason asked.
'Yes, I know it was before five o'clock, because he bought me a cocktail and I noticed the clock over the bar. It said five o'clock.'
'Then what did you do?'
'We went to dinner; and Duncan explained to me what papers I was to serve and just how I was to go about doing it. He said he wanted to catch Grieb when the place was running full tilt. So I waited around with him until he said okay.'
'Did he say why?'
'No, but I gathered it was something about Grieb keeping all the books and the cash. Duncan wanted to serve the papers when the cash was all on the tables and have me go around and make some sort of an inventory, I think.'
'Did you have any authority to do that?' Mason asked.
'No, not unless Grieb consented to it, but that would have been the smart thing for Grieb to do.'
Mason stepped to the porthole and casually tossed out the wad of gum he had been chewing. 'Well, let's go out and see what's happening. Duncan's going to have a job on his hands with these people if he isn't careful. It'll be an hour or so before the officers can get out here.'
'When you come right down to it,' Perkins said, 'this ship's on the high seas, and no one's got any authority here except a representative of the United States Marshal's office.'
'Or the Captain,' Mason suggested.
