The Case of the Stuttering Bishop (5 page)

He nodded, eyes brimming with the joy of living. "How I love a mystery, Della," he said. "I hate routine. I hate details. I like the thrill of matching my wits with crooks. I like to have people lie to me and catch them in their lies. I love to listen to people talk and wonder how much of it is true and how much of it is false. I want life, action, shifting conditions. I like to fit facts together, bit by bit, like the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle."

"And you think this stuttering bishop is trying to slip something over on you?" she asked.

Mason twisted the stem of his empty cocktail glass in his fingers. "Darned if I know, Della," he told her. "The bishop's playing a deep game. I sensed it the minute he came into the office, and somehow, I have the feeling that he wanted to keep me in the dark as to his real purpose. That's why I'm going to get such a kick out of outguessing him, figuring what he wants before he's willing to let me know just what he wants. Come on, let's dance." He swept her out on the dance floor, where they moved with the perfect rhythm of long practice together. The dance over, they returned to find the first course of the dinner set before them.

"Tell me about it," she invited him, "if you want to."

"I want to," Mason said. "I want to run over all of the facts, just to see if I can't fit them together. Some of them you know, some of them you don't know.

"Let's begin at the beginning. A man who claims to be an Australian bishop comes to call on me. He's excited and he stutters. Every time he stutters, he gets mad at himself. Now why?"

"Because," she said. "he knows that a bishop shouldn't stutter. Perhaps it's some habit he's developed recently, due to an emotional shock, and he's wondering what will happen if he returns to Australia and stutters."

"Swell," he told her. "That's a good logical explanation. That's the one which occurred to me right at the start. But suppose the man isn't a bishop but is some crook masquerading, for one reason or another, as Bishop Mallory of Sydney, Australia. He's inclined to stutter when he becomes excited. Therefore, he tries his darnedest not to stutter, the result being that he stutters just that much more. He's afraid that stuttering is going to give him away." She nodded slowly.

"Now then," Mason said, "this bishop wants to see me about a manslaughter case. He doesn't mention names, but it's virtually certain the manslaughter case is one involving the Julia Branner who became Mrs. Oscar Brownley, Oscar Brownley being the older of Renwold C. Brownley's two sons.

"I don't need to tell you about Brownley. The younger son died six or seven years ago. Oscar went away with his wife, no one knows just where. Then he came back. The woman didn't. Manslaughter charges were pending against her in Orange County. But those charges weren't filed until some time after the automobile accident."

"Well?" she asked.

"Well," Mason said, "suppose I should tell you that Renwold Brownley knew that his son Oscar was coming back to him and was afraid the woman was going to try to come back. Wouldn't it be a smart move for Renwold Brownley to pull some political wires and get a warrant of arrest issued for her? Then the minute she returned to California he could have her thrown into jail on a manslaughter charge."

Della Street nodded absently, pushed back her soup dish and said, "Aren't there two grandchildren living with Brownley?"

"That's right," he said. "Philip Brownley, whose father was the younger son, and a girl whose first name I've forgotten, who's the daughter of Oscar. Now Bishop Mallory comes over on the Monterey, stays four or five days in San Francisco, puts some ads in the local papers and…"

"Wait a minute," she interrupted. "I've just remembered something. You say the bishop came over on the Monterey?"

"Yes, why?"

She laughed nervously and said, "Chief, you know a lot about human nature. Why do stenographers, secretaries and shop girls read the society news?"

"I'll bite. Why do they?"

She shrugged her shoulders. For a moment her eyes were wistful. "I'm darned if I know, Chief. I wouldn't want to live unless I could work for a living, and yet I like to read about who's at Palm Springs, who's doing what in Hollywood and all the rest of it, and every secretary I know does the same thing."

Watching her narrowly, Mason said, "Skip the preliminaries, Della, and tell me what this's all about."

She said slowly, "I happen to remember that Janice Alma Brownley, the granddaughter of Renwold C. Brownley, was a passenger on the Monterey from Sydney to San Francisco, and the newspapers said that the attractive young heiress was the center of social life aboard the ship, or words to that effect, if you get what I mean. You see, Chief, you don't know the granddaughter's first name, but I can tell you lots about her."

Mason stared across the table at her and said, "Twelve."

"What?" she asked.

"Twelve," he repeated, a twinkle in his eyes.

"Chief, what on earth are you talking about?"

"I told you a minute ago that when I added two and two in this case I didn't get four, but six, and it bothered me," he said. "Now I add two and two and make twelve."

"Twelve what?"

He shook his head and said, "Let's not even think of it for a while. It's not often that we have a chance to relax, Della. Let's eat, drink and be merry, have a few dances, go back to the office and get Paul Drake in for a conference. By that time the thing I'm chasing will probably turn out to be just a mirage. But in the meantime," he said, somewhat wistfully, "just in case it shouldn't be a mirage, what a gosh-awful case it would be. A regular humdinger of a case. A gee whillikins of a case!"

"Tell me, Chief."

He shook his head and said, "It can't be true, Della. It's just a mirage. Lets not talk about it and then we won't be disappointed if Paul Drake unearths information which shows we're all wet."

She regarded him thoughtfully and said, "Do you mean that this girl…"

"Tut, tut," he told her warningly, "don't argue with the boss. Come on, Della, this is a fox-trot. Remember now, we're giving our minds a recess."

Mason refused to be hurried through the dinner, or to discuss any business. Della Street matched his mood. For more than an hour they enjoyed one of those rare periods of intimacy which comes to people who have worked together, sharing disappointments and triumphs, who understand each other so perfectly that there is no need for any of the little hypocrisies which are so frequently the rule rather than the exception in human contacts.

Not until after the dessert had been taken away and the lawyer had sipped the very last drop of his liqueur did he sigh and say, "Well, Della, let's go back to our mirage-chasing and prove that it really is a mirage after all."

"You think it is?" she asked.

"I don't know," he told her, "but I'm afraid to think it isn't. In any event, let's telephone Drake to meet us at the office."

"Listen, Chief," she said, "I've been thinking. Suppose this woman, knowing there was a felony warrant out for her arrest in California, fled to Australia and suppose…"

"Not a word," he said, gripping her shoulder. "Let's not go jumping around in the clouds. We'll keep our feet on the ground. You telephone Paul Drake to meet us at the office, and I'll get a cab."

She nodded, but her eyes were preoccupied. "Of course," she said, "if he shouldn't be the real bishop but should be an impostor…"

Mason pointed a rigid forefinger at her, crooked his thumb as though it had been the trigger of a revolver, and said, "Halt, or I fire."

She laughed and said, "I'll call Paul while I'm powdering my nose, Chief," and vanished into the dressing room.

Paul Drake tapped on the door of Perry Mason's private office and Della Street let him in. "You two look well fed," Drake remarked, grinning at them.

Mason had lost the carefree mannerism of the cabaret. His face was thoughtful, his eyes half closed in concentration. "What about the bishop, Paul?" he asked.

"The bishop is at present perfectly able to navigate under his own power," Drake said. "He's out of the hospital and back at his hotel. He can't wear a hat, though. His head is so covered with bandages that only one eye and the tip of his nose are showing. According to last reports, he's pursuing the even tenor of his ecclesiastical ways."

"And how about the Seaton girl?"

"Still in her apartment on West Adams Street. She hasn't budged. Apparently she's waiting for a call from the bishop and isn't going to leave until it comes in."

Mason frowned thoughtfully and said, "That doesn't make sense, Paul."

"It's one of the few things that does make sense," the detective rejoined. "She was packing up when we busted in on her. Evidently she was getting ready to go places. She admitted she was to travel with the bishop or with some patient he was to get for her. So she's waiting for the bishop to give her definite instructions. She hasn't stuck her nose outdoors since the bishop went to the hospital."

"Hasn't been out to dinner?"

"Hasn't even opened the back door to dump out any garbage," Drake said.

"You've got two men watching the front and back of the apartment?"

"That's right. The man who followed her to the apartment was watching the front, and I had an operative at the back within five minutes of the time we left there."

Mason said, "Della supplied a fact which may be important. Janice Alma Brownley came over on the Monterey from Australia."

"Well," Drake asked, "what about it?"

"Bishop Mallory came over on the same ship. They were together for two or three weeks on shipboard. And, mind you, unless there's a nigger in the woodpile somewhere, the woman the bishop is inquiring about on the manslaughter business is the mother of the Brownley girl."

Drake frowned thoughtfully.

Mason said, "Della and I have been toying around with an idea, Paul. It may be goofy. I haven't dared to think about it out loud. I want you to listen to it and see what you think."

"Go to it," Drake told him. "I'm always willing to punch holes in ideas."

"Suppose," Mason said, "the Branner woman skipped out to Australia. Suppose, after Oscar Brownley went back to the States, she had a baby. Suppose Bishop Mallory, being at that time a Church of England minister, was given the child to put in a good home somewhere. Suppose he gave her to a family named Seaton, and then suppose when he came to the United States on the Monterey he found some girl on the ship posing as Janice Brownley and knew she was an impostor; but suppose he wanted to play his cards pretty close to his chest and get some definite proof before he started any fireworks, and among other things, wanted to dig up the real Brownley girl – now why wouldn't that fit with the facts?"

Drake thought for a moment and then said, "No, Perry, that's goofy. In the first place, it's all surmise. In the second place, the girl couldn't have been received into the Brownley household without the mother knowing about it, and if it had been the wrong girl she'd have raised merry hell."

"Suppose," Mason interrupted, "the mother was out of the state and didn't know about it but is just finding it out. Then she'd come on here to really raise some hell."

"Well," Drake said, "she hasn't showed up. That's the best answer to that. Also, don't forget that good-looking gals change a lot from the time they're little pink morsels of humanity until they blossom forth into dazzling heiresses. Bishop Mallory is probably far more interested in ecclesiastical duties than tagging babies whom he has farmed out for adoption… No, Perry, I think you've got a wrong hunch. But this may be the case: Someone may be going to pull a shake-down and in order to work it they need a Bishop Mallory to lay the foundation, so if they had a fake Bishop Mallory call on a credulous but aggressive lawyer and spill a sob-sister story they might throw enough monkey wrenches in the Brownley machinery to get a rake-off."

"So you think the bishop is a fake?" Mason asked.

"Right from the first," Drake said, "I figured this bishop was a crook. I don't like that stuttering business, Perry."

Mason said slowly, "Neither do I, when you come right down to it."

"Well," Drake said, grinning, "we're right down to it."

"So," Mason said, "I think we'll talk with Bishop Mallory again – that is, unless he gets in touch with me first. How long's he been at the hotel, Paul?"

"Around half an hour I'd say. They patched him up at the hospital, and after he recovered consciousness he was none the worse for wear, except for the headache and the flock of bandages on his head."

"What did he tell the police?"

"He said he opened the door of his room and someone jumped out from behind the door and hit him, and that's all he remembers."

Mason frowned and said, "That wouldn't account for the broken mirror and the busted chair, Paul. There was a fight in that room."

Drake shrugged his shoulders and said, "All I know is that that's the story he told the police. Of course, Perry, sometimes when a man's been given a knock on the bean that way he forgets a good deal of what happened."