wouldn't stop at anything. She…' Philip Brownley's voice choked with indignation. For several seconds the only sounds were those of the storm, the rain drumming on the roof of the closed car, the tossing branches of the trees, the rush of the wind.
Mason, staring steadily at the young man, said, 'So what?'
'I want you to stop it.'
'How?'
'I don't know how. That's up to you. I just want you to know you can count on my support-but it must be secret. Grandfather must never know it.'
'Can you come to my office?' Mason asked.
'No. He'd find it out.'
'How do you know she's a fake?'
'The way she's gone about wheedling her way into his affections.'
'That's not evidence.'
'There are other things.'
Mason said, 'Look here, young man, when you first talked about her, you referred to her as 'Jan.' That's sort of a pet name. Now you may be trying to help me, and you may be trying to pump me to find out what I plan on doing. I've offered you a chance to come to my office with me. You won't. You won't even meet me. You can't tell me your grandfather keeps you under such close supervision. Moreover, anyone who might be watching from that house can see I've stopped my car to talk with you…'
'Good Lord!' the young man interrupted, 'I never thought of that!' He whirled and dove for the shadows of a hedge.
Mason waited a few minutes, then kicked the car into gear and stepped on the throttle. He drove directly to a branch office of the Western Union. Standing at the counter, with rain trickling down from the skirts of his coat, he wrote a message to be sent by wireless: BISHOP WILLIAM MALLORY S.S. 'MONTEREY' EN ROUTE TO SYDNEY AUSTRALIA VIA HONOLULU-IMPORTANT DEVELOPMENTS MAKE IT IMPERATIVE YOU VOUCH FOR IDENTITY OF WOMAN CLAIMING TO BE JULIA BRANNER WHO CALLED ON ME THIS EVENING SHORTLY AFTER YOUR BOAT SAILED.
He signed the message, paid the charges, and stepped into the telephone booth, where he closed the door and called the number Julia Branner had given him. A woman's voice, thin, toneless, and self-effacing, answered the telephone. 'Is this Julia Branner?' Mason asked.
'No. This is her friend, Stella Kenwood. Is this Mr. Mason, the lawyer?'
'Yes.'
'Just a moment, Mr. Mason. She'll talk with you.'
After the thin, reedy voice of Stella Kenwood, Julia Branner's resonant, throaty tones seemed to flow over the wire and fill the confines of the telephone booth, in which the warmth of Mason's body, evaporating the moisture from his woolen garments, made the atmosphere close and stuffy. 'What did you find out?' she demanded. 'Tell me quickly!'
Mason said, 'Nothing encouraging. Brownley's a man of considerable determination. He's planning to make a will leaving the bulk of his property to the girl who's been living there in the house as his granddaughter. He's also planning to convey her most of his property outright, leaving only a life estate in himself.'
'He's done that already?' Julia Branner said.
'No. He's going to do it in the morning.'
Mason could hear her inhale a quick breath. 'Is there anything we can do between now and morning?' she asked.
'No,' he said. 'Unless we could show he was incompetent, we couldn't stop him from doing as he pleased with his property at any time he pleased. But we have a remedy he hasn't thought of. I'll explain it to you in the morning.'
There were several moments of silence during which Mason could hear only the buzzing of the wire. Then Julia Branner's voice said. 'Do you think there's anything you can do. Mason?'
'I'll talk it over with you in the morning,' he said.
'It sounds very discouraging to me,' she insisted. 'I think he has us licked, unless…'
'Unless what?' Mason asked, after she became silent.
'Unless I do something that I didn't intend to do except a last resort.'
'What?' he asked.
'I think I have one way of convincing Renwold Brownley,' she said. 'It all depends on whether he wants something which I have badly enough to do exactly what I tell him to.'
Mason said, 'Now, listen. You keep out of this and sit tight. I'll talk with you in the morning. You can't force Brownley do anything. He's shrewd, obstinate, and ruthless.' When there was no answer to what he had said, Mason tapped transmitter with his knuckles and said, 'Did you hear me?'
'Yes. I heard you,' she said in a noncommittal tone. 'What time can I see you in the morning?'
'Ten o'clock,' he told her, 'at my office,' and hung up receiver.
Chapter 7
Rain was beating with steady insistence against the windows of Perry Mason's apartment when he was awakened by the steady ringing of the telephone. He groped for the switch of his bed lamp, propped himself up in bed and lifted the receiver to his ear. The damp breeze which came in through the open window and whipped the lace curtains in flapping protest against the wet screens, blew cold across the lawyer's chest. He groped for his bathrobe and was pulling it up under his chin as he said, 'Hello,' and heard Paul Drake's voice saying, 'Here's a break, Perry. It looks as though you've drawn another one.' Mason rubbed sleep from his eyes and said thickly, 'What's happened? What time is it?'
'It's exactly three-fifteen,' Drake said. 'One of my men has telephoned from Wilmington. You wanted the Brownley angle covered, so I put a shadow out at the house. About an hour ago old Brownley climbed into his coupe and started going places. It was raining hard. My man followed. He tagged along without any difficulty until Brownley got down to the harbor district. He figured Brownley was heading straight for the yacht he keeps. So my man got just a little careless. He let Brownley get too far ahead of him and lost him, figured there was nothing to it, went over to the yacht and waited. Brownley didn't show up. My man started making a swing around, trying to find the car. He'd been driving around about ten minutes when he saw a man running and waving his arms. My man stopped the car. This chap ran up to him and said that Brownley had been murdered; that some woman in a white rain coat had stepped out of the shadows, climbed onto the running board of Brownley's car, fired five or six shots, and then beat it.
'This guy was pretty rattled. He wanted to telephone headquarters right away. My operative ran him to a telephone, and they called the ambulance and the police, although this witness insisted the man was so dead there was no use getting an ambulance. After they'd telephoned, my operative went back to find the car and the body. They couldn't find it. The police showed up and they couldn't find it. I'm going down to look the situation over and I figured you might like to come along.'
'It was Renwold C. Brownley?' Mason asked.
'In person.'
'That,' the lawyer said, 'is going to make a splash.'
'Are you telling me?' Drake said. 'Every newspaper in the city will be getting out extras within the next two hours.'
'Where are you now?'
'At my office.'
'Drive down for me and I'll be dressed and standing on the sidewalk by the time you get here,' Mason said.
He hung up the telephone, jumped out of bed and closed the window with his right hand while he was unbuttoning his pajamas with his left. Mason tied his necktie in the elevator, struggled into his rain coat as he crossed the lobby of the apartment house, and reached the pavement just as Drake's automobile slewed around the corner, sending the twin beams of dazzling headlights dancing through the rain, illuminating the little mushrooms of water which geysered up from the wet pavement as the big drops bulleted downward. As Drake skidded the car away from the curb, Mason settled himself against the cushions and said, 'A woman did the killing Paul?'
'Yes, a woman in a white rain coat.'
'What happened?'
'As nearly as I could get it over the telephone, Brownley was looking for someone. He had slowed his car almost to a stop and was crawling along the pavement when this woman stepped out from the deeper shadows. He had evidently been expecting her because he stopped his coupe and rolled down the window. She climbed up on the running board, raised an automatic, and fired a bunch of shots. Then she jumped back to the street, sprinted around the corner, and made a get-away. The witness saw the get-away car. It was a Chevrolet, but he couldn't get the license number. He took a look in the coupe and saw Brownley all in a huddle against the steering wheel. Apparently every one of the shots had taken effect. The witness started to run without any very definite objective. He said he'd run for four or five minutes when he saw the headlights of my operative's machine.'
'Some chance he was confused in his directions?' Mason asked.
'Every chance on earth. It's a ten to one bet that he was.'
Drake pushed the throttle down close to the floorboards and said, 'Are you nervous, Perry?'
'Go to it,' Mason told him. 'Don't hesitate on my account. How are your tires?'
'Swell,' Drake said, grinning. 'According to my theory, a skid is simply an attempt on the part of the hind end to catch up with the front end. If you keep the front end going fast enough, the hind end can't catch up until you try to stop.'
Mason lit a cigarette and said, 'Have you ever made your will, Paul?'
'Not yet.'
'Well, you'd better stop in in the morning and have me draw up one for you. What did you hear about the bishop?'
Drake said, 'I guess my Australian agency must have thought I was giving them a bit of leg pulling, or whatever you call it on that side of the water. They sent me back a cable in answer to my inquiry which said simply, 'Bishops seldom stutter.''
Mason said, 'Of course that doesn't answer the question. How about a description of the bishop? Did you get that?'
'Yes, in another cable.'
Drake fumbled in his inside pocket, driving with one hand, pulled out a cablegram and handed it across to Mason when the lawyer yelled, 'Watch that turn!'
Drake dropped the cablegram, grabbed the steering wheel and fought against the skid as the car lurched into a sickening swing. He spun the wheel hard to the left without effect. A great wave of water was thrown up by the wheels on the right-hand side of the car. Suddenly the front wheels caught. The car snapped into a turn in the opposite direction as Drake spun the steering wheel as though it had been the steering wheel of a yacht. He gave the car the gas as it careened around to the right. The turn loomed in front of the headlights. They swept into it sideways, then the wheels gathered traction. As the car shot for the side of the road, Drake fought it under control just before the front wheels hit the soft shoulder. 'Where's the cablegram?' the detective asked. 'You didn't drop it, did you?'
