“You boosted the ante five hundred dollars and took those documents. Well, you can’t get away with it. You have no right to them. I’m Fremont’s widow. I’m entitled to everything in the estate. Give me those papers at once.”
“There is some doubt,” Mason told her, “about just who will be settling up the estate. There is even some doubt about your being Fremont Sabin’s widow.”
“You tangle with me,” she said, “and you’ll be sorry. I want those papers, and I’m going to get them. You can save time by turning them over to me now.”
“But I see no reason to save time,” Mason told her, smiling coldly. “I’m not in a hurry.”
Her eyes glittered with the intensity of her feeling. “You,” she said, “are going to try to frame something on Steve. You can’t make it stick. I’m warning you.”
“Frame what on him?” Mason asked.
“You know perfectly well. Those forgeries.”
Mason said, “I’m not framing anything on anybody. I’m simply taking charge of evidence.”
“Well, you have no right to take charge of it. I’ll take charge of it myself.”
“Oh, no,” Mason said, “I couldn’t think of letting you do that. You might lose the forged checks. After all, this is rather a trying and exciting time, Mrs. Sabin. If you should mislay these checks and couldn’t find them again, it would give the forger altogether too much of a break — particularly when we consider that the forger is, in all probability, the murderer.”