attorney?'
He shook his head, keeping his eyes on the road.
'Couldn't I take the rap? Couldn't I say that I took the stuff, that I took the key?'
'No,' he said, 'Burger's after me. He doesn't think he's holding any malice, but, for a long time now, he's been predicting that I'd come a cropper. Naturally, he's prejudiced in favor of making his predictions come true.'
'Chief,' she said, snuggling close to him, 'you know I'd do anything, anything.'
Mason kept his left hand on the steering wheel, slipped his right hand about her shoulders, squeezed her affectionately. 'Good kid, Della,' he said, 'but there's nothing you can do. We've just got to take it.'
'Listen, Chief,' she said, 'how was that crime committed? It doesn't sound reasonable that the district attorney's theory is right.'
'Julia might have done the shooting in a wild blaze of temper,' he admitted, 'but in that case there'd have been some sort of an argument first. She didn't lure him down there to kill him, that's a cinch. Otherwise, she wouldn't have left so broad a back trail.'
'Then why did she lure him down there?'
'That's something I can't tell you,' he said, 'but it has something to do with our stuttering bishop, our disappearing Janice Seaton, and perhaps a few others.'
'And she didn't intend to kill him when she left the apartment?'
'Not one chance in a hundred,' Mason said.
'But didn't you tell me that when you went there in the morning Stella Kenwood had been sitting up all night, that her attitude showed she knew Julia Branner had gone out to do something that was going to get her into trouble if she was caught?'
Mason suddenly slammed the brakes on the car, skidded into the curb, kicked out the gear lever and stared at Della Street with wide eyes. 'Now,' he said, 'you're talking.'
'What do you mean, Chief? You mean…?'
'Wait a minute,' he said, 'I want to think.' He sat there in the car, the motor running, traffic streaming past. Once or twice he nodded his head. Then he said, 'Della, it's so damned wild that it doesn't sound logical, but it's absolutely the only thing which will explain the facts in this case, and, when you stop to think of it, it's so absolutely plain and open that the great wonder is we didn't realize it before. Have you got your shorthand notebook with you?'
She opened her purse and nodded her head.
Mason slammed home the gear shift lever, kicked in the clutch. 'Come on,' he said, 'we'll go places.' He swung the car out from the curb and made time to the frame apartment house on Beechwood, rang Stella Kenwood's bell, received an answering buzz which released the catch on the door. 'Come on, Della,' he said, 'we'll go up. When we get in that room, pull out your notebook and take down everything that's said and don't lose your head, no matter what happens.'
They climbed the stairs and walked down the corridor to Stella Kenwood's apartment. Mason knocked on the door. Stella Kenwood opened it, peered at him with a white, anxious face, blinked her faded, watery eyes, and said in a thin, expressionless voice, 'Oh, it's you.'
Mason nodded.
'Come in,' she said.
'My secretary, Miss Street.'
'Yes, I saw her in court today. What does it mean, Mr. Mason? Aren't they going to take any evidence against Julia?'
Mason said, 'Sit down, Mrs. Kenwood. I want to ask you some questions.'
'Yes,' she said tonelessly, 'what?'
Mason said, 'Your daughter has been in an automobile accident. I want you to prepare yourself for a shock.'
Her mouth sagged open. Her eyes grew wide.
'My daughter?' she asked.
'Yes.'
'But I haven't any daughter… she's dead. She died two years ago.'
Mason shook his head and said, 'I'm sorry, but it all came out. She's dying and she wants you to come to her. She made a complete confession.'
The woman sat perfectly still, staring at Mason with her tired eyes, her white face apathetic and hopeless. Finally she said in a tired voice, 'I knew something like this would happen. Where is she?'
'Get your hat,' Mason said, 'we'll go to her. How long had you been planning on the substitution, Stella?'
'I don't know,' she said in that same lifeless voice, 'ever since Julia told me about her daughter, I guess. I realized what a chance there'd be for some girl.'
'So you got in touch with Mr. Sacks?'
'Yes. He was a detective in Salt Lake.'
'And he worked through Jaxon Eaves here?'
'That's right. Tell me, how did the accident happen?'
'A crash at a crossing,' Mason said. 'Come on, we'll have to hurry to get there in time.'
The woman buttoned a faded blue coat with threadbare elbows about her thin frame. Mason said to Della Street, 'Get District Attorney Burger on the line and tell him to meet me in the reception room of the Good Samaritan Hospital. Read him this conversation over the telephone. Tell him to burn up the road getting there.'
Stella Kenwood said, 'He won't try to make things hard for my daughter now, will he? If it's the end, he won't trouble her with a lot of questions, will he?'
'I don't think so,' Mason said. 'Come on, let's go.'
He left Della Street in the apartment while he escorted Stella Kenwood down the stairs and into his car. He raced the car into speed, said to Stella Kenwood, 'I'm afraid you'll have to make a complete statement to the district attorney in order to get him to let you be with her at the last.'
'There's no hope?' she asked.
'None whatever,' Mason told her.
'I'm sorry,' she said. 'I tried to do what was best, but somehow I knew it was going to work out all wrong, and then when it looked as though we were going to be exposed…'
Mason roared the car into speed.
'Yes?' he prompted. 'When it looked as though you were going to be exposed, then what?'
She took a handkerchief from her purse, sobbed into it quietly, nor would she answer any more questions.
Mason looked at his wristwatch from time to time, drove his car frantically through traffic. He skidded to a stop in front of the Good Samaritan Hospital, helped Stella Kenwood from the car. They walked up the stairs through an entrance door and into a reception room. Hamilton Burger, his face wearing a puzzled frown, arose to meet them. A man with a shorthand notebook open in front of him sat at a table. He did not look up as they entered.
Perry Mason said, 'Stella, you know the district attorney?'
'Yes, he questioned me the day they took Julia to jail.'
Mason turned to the district attorney. 'Burger,' he said, 'this is the end. Stella Kenwood's daughter is dying. We want to get all of the preliminaries over with as soon as possible so Stella can be with her daughter. Perhaps I can save time if I give you the highlights of the story as her daughter told it to me. Then Stella can confirm it and you can let her go in to the bedside.
'Stella Kenwood had a daughter about the same age as Julia Branner's daughter. Julia Branner had an apartment with Stella in Salt Lake and told Stella her history. Stella realized what a wonderful chance there'd be to get her daughter a home with a millionaire if she could convince Brownley that her daughter was his granddaughter. She talked with Peter Sacks, who was a private detective in Salt Lake. He got in touch with Jaxon Eaves. The less said about their methods, the better, but because Stella had secured all of the facts and all of the little incidental details from Julia, she managed to make a build-up which completely fooled Brownley. And so Stella Kenwood's daughter became Janice Brownley, and Julia knew nothing whatever about it. As Janice Brownley, the Kenwood girl won Brownley's confidence, became a favorite, was in line for an enormous inheritance.
'Then she went to Sydney, Australia, returned on the Monterey, going, of course, under the name of Janice Brownley, granddaughter of Renwold C. Brownley. Bishop William Mallory was a passenger on that boat, and Bishop Mallory hadn't forgotten. He asked questions, and, in a panic, the girl realized that her answers were inadequate and that Mallory suspected the truth. She wirelessed her mother, and her mother appealed to Sacks, who was now living in Los Angeles, where he could protect his interests.
'Stella was anxious to keep Julia from finding out about it. You see, they'd persuaded Renwold Brownley that it would be very poor business to permit any publicity when the girl came to live with them, so it was all handled very quietly. Sacks, of course, was frightened because he thought the bishop might go directly to Brownley.
'But the bishop did a little wirelessing on his own account, definitely ascertained that the girl he had met on the boat was an impostor and then wired Julia Branner to meet him in Los Angeles, and, in Los Angeles, Bishop Mallory also found Janice Seaton, the real grandchild. From a letter received from an attorney who was probating the estate of the last of Janice's adopted parents, Bishop Mallory learned there was no longer any need to keep the pledge of secrecy he had given when the girl was adopted. Furthermore, the bishop received evidence indicating to him that when Seaton lay dying, realizing his own financial affairs had become so hopelessly involved he couldn't leave the girl any substantial amount of property, he had tried to get a message to Bishop Mallory asking the bishop to disclose the girl's real identity. Seaton was too far gone to make his message clear to those who were listening; but he said enough so the bishop knew what was wanted and decided to act accordingly.
'When Julia showed up, Stella was frantic. She got in touch with Sacks. Sacks realized he had to get the real granddaughter out of the way if he could.
'This is right, is it, Mrs. Kenwood?'
She nodded her head and said in a low voice, 'Yes, that's right as far as I know. You know more about the bishop than I do. But the rest of it's right. Go ahead, let's get it over with.'
Mason said, 'They were frantic. Sacks was willing to go to any lengths, even murder, and then Julia threw Stella into a panic by announcing she was writing a note to get Brownley to meet her down at the harbor, where she was going to show him his real granddaughter. You see, Janice Seaton had grown to look very much like her father. Julia had seen her that afternoon, and felt that if Brownley could see her he'd recognized the family resemblance right away. She knew she had one sure way of luring Brownley to a rendezvous with her, and that was Oscar Brownley's watch, the one Renwold had given him. Renwold wanted that watch very, very badly.
'Stella knew that would be the end of everything. The conspiracy would be discovered. She didn't care for herself, but it would mean jail for her daughter. She was desperate, so she slipped the gun from Julia's purse. She told Julia to take her Chevrolet and she borrowed or rented another Chevrolet. Julia was wearing a white rain coat. Stella dressed herself in a white rain coat. She raced down to the beach and actually beat Julia there, but her plan almost went astray when Julia showed up before Brownley. In fact, Julia was the one who first climbed on the running board of Brownley's car. That's when Julia left the fingerprint on the window of the coupe. But Stella hadn't given up hope. Julia had intended to have Brownley drive slowly around a bit so that she could see he wasn't followed. Stella knew that, and she decided to take a chance. She kept hidden while Brownley drove in a big loop around a couple of the streets, then ran out from the shadows and beckoned to Brownley. Brownley naturally stopped the car. Stella jumped to the running board, fired five shots from Julia's automatic, dropped it inside the car, raced for her machine and drove away.
'In the meantime, Julia, as soon as she heard the shots, had run to her own car; but she didn't get it started for a few minutes. Stella beat Julia home, undressed, and waited for her. Julia was so excited she didn't go directly back to the apartment, but drove around for a while, calming her nerves.'
