Mason frowned thoughtfully. “All right,” he said. “Do exactly as I told you, no more and no less. If the police should catch you, refuse to make any statement, refuse to identify the body as that of your brother, refuse to admit you ever had a brother, and refuse to talk about anything until you’ve seen me. Can you do that?”
“How,” she asked, “would that help matters any?”
Mason said, “I haven’t time to make explanations. Will you do what I say?”
“Yes.”
“If you do exactly that,” Mason said, “both of you, I can help you. If you don’t follow my instructions, one or both of you is quite apt to get a first degree murder rap pinned on you.”
“Your instructions,” Leeds said dubiously, “are simple enough, but I don’t see how they can help matters. Even if you have all of those papers, there’s going to be an investigation. The police will want to know what Conway had on me, why I paid the twenty thousand.”
“Don’t tell them,” Mason said.
“And if I don’t tell them, they’ll claim I murdered him in order to free myself of a blackmailer.”
“Not if I say that he telephoned me after you left,” Emily Milicant said.
Leeds stared steadily at her. “You know damn well he didn’t telephone you,” he said.