The Case of the Stuttering Bishop pm-9

by Erle Stanley Gardner

  "At that, these detectives took an unfair advantage. Sacks is just a big bruiser, but Stockton is deadly as hell. He's got brains, and don't ever kid yourself he hasn't. Sacks, acting under instructions from Stockton, contacted Julia and gave her a song and dance about being a torpedo who would bump off anyone so it could never be traced, and Julia fell for it hook line, and sinker… That's the story I get from the newspaper men. And I think Jaxon Eaves used Sacks in the original substitution-getting him to pump Julia. Then afterward, when Eaves died, Sacks cut Stockton in on the deal."

  "Why can't Pete Sacks be lying?" Mason asked. "If there's a big cut coming to him of the inheritance, why wouldn't he make this whole story up out of whole cloth, just so he could get Julia in bad?"

  Drake shrugged his shoulders and said, "He would, but the D.A. believes he's telling the truth. Perhaps you can make a jury believe he's lying, but what's the D.A. going to be doing with you, before you get Sacks before a jury?"

  "Do you know anything more about where Janice Brownley went?" Mason asked.

  "She's got an air-tight alibi."

  "Really air-tight, or does it just look air-tight?"

  "It looks air-tight, and I think it is air-tight. Victor Stockton has already reported to the D.A. He says Janice telephoned him that she thought her grandfather had gone out to make some sort of a deal with Julia Branner, and she wanted to talk things over with Stockton. Stockton wanted to come to see her, but she said she was all dressed and could drive down to his place quicker, so Stockton told her to come ahead. He lived down on Fifty-second Street, and, as I told you, he's a foxy guy. He had his wife present when Janice arrived, and then he went across the hall and got a notary public out of bed and had the notary come in."

  "And the notary was there all the time?"

  "Yes."

  "In the same room with Janice and Stockton?"

  "That's my understanding."

  Mason shook his head and said, "I don't like it, Paul."

  "You shouldn't," Drake said grimly.

  "If Bishop Mallory was the real McCoy," Mason said. "then…"

  Della Street interrupted to say, "There's another wireless from Captain Johanson on the Monterey, Chief. They've found a couple of suitcases labeled 'William Mallory, Stateroom 211,' but Stateroom 211 is taken by people who don't answer the description of William Mallory and claim they never heard of him. The suitcases contain several yards of bandage and a suit of black broadcloth, an ecclesiastical collar, and black shoes. They were delivered to Stateroom 211 together with the baggage which really belonged there."

  Mason sat down at his desk and made little drumming motions with the tips of his fingers. "And that doesn't make sense," he said. "Suppose Bishop Mallory is a phoney. Then where is the real bishop? On the other hand, if this was the real bishop, why should he have played ring-around-the-rosy and ducked out of the picture?"

  Drake shrugged his shoulders and said, "I've got one more thing on Bishop Mallory. This is a tip which Jim Pauley, the house dick at the Regal Hotel, gave me. Before we had the bishop spotted, and before our men got on the job, a man called on Mallory. His name was Edgar Cassidy. Pauley knows him. He visited the bishop in his room and was there for about half an hour."

  Mason's face showed keen interest. "Good Lord, Paul," he said, "this is the break we've been looking for. Someone who knows the bishop could tell us whether…"

  "Hold everything," Drake interrupted. "It's just a false alarm. I rushed men out to interview Cassidy. He said that a friend of his in Sydney had written him Bishop Mallory was a good scout and was going to be visiting in Los Angeles at the Regal Hotel and to do anything he could for the bishop. Cassidy's quite a yachtsman. He has a neat little job, the Atina, which he uses for swordfishing. He thought the bishop might like to go out, so he dropped in to get acquainted. His testimony isn't going to help you a damned bit. He said his friend had told him the bishop was an enthusiastic fisherman, but when he contacted the bishop he didn't even get to first base. The bishop apparently wasn't interested in fishing and wasn't even cordial. Cassidy was sore when he left."

  Mason resumed pacing the floor. Suddenly he paused to turn to the detective. "Cassidy's a yachting enthusiast," Mason said. "Find out if Cassidy knows Bixler. When you stop to think of it, Bixler's story about walking through the rain at that hour in the morning sounds just a little bit goofy."

  Drake pulled a notebook from his pocket, scribbled a note and said without enthusiasm, "Okay, I'll find that out."

  "And in the meantime," Mason said significantly, "it might be a good-plan if Pauley didn't say anything to the D.A.'s men about Cassidy. I don't suppose they could use Cassidy's testimony, because it's all hearsay and conclusions, but I'd just as soon the newspapers didn't get hold of it."

  Drake grinned and said, "Don't worry, Perry, that's all taken care of already. Pauley's a good friend of mine, and a little salve goes a long way with him… How about young Brownley? We can't find out anything about where he was when the murder was committed, but his car wasn't in the garage this morning."

  "I've talked with him," Mason said, "and he's going to talk with the D.A. His story isn't going to hurt Janice Brownley at all, but I still think there's something phoney about that alibi, and I don't trust Stockton."

  "Stockton's nobody's fool," Drake said warningly. "Don't tangle with him, Perry, unless you have to."

  Mason fished in his vest pocket and pulled out a key which he tossed to the detective. "I have to," he said, "meaning that I already have. I'm in this thing up to my necktie, Paul. That key may fit the apartment where Julia Branner was staying, out at 214 West Beechwood. I want you to find out if it does, and I want you to find out just as fast as you can, and then go back to your office where I can get you on the telephone."

  Drake stared moodily at the key and said, "How did you happen to get the key to Julia Branner's apartment, Perry?"

  Della Street sucked in a quick breath and said, "Why, Chief, isn't that the key…"

  She bit the sentence in two and lapsed into abrupt silence. Mason stared moodily at her and said, "I'm going up to the district attorney's office. These smart dicks are trying to pin something on me, and I don't like it."

  Drake said warningly, "This is a hell of a time for you to be going to the district attorney's office, Perry."

  "Ain't it," Mason said, and slammed the door behind him.

  Chapter 13

  Hamilton Burger, the district attorney, had the build of a huge bear. He was a broad-shouldered, deep-chested, thick-waisted individual with a manner of dogged determination, short restless arms which moved with well-muscled swiftness as he made gestures. He looked across the desk at Perry Mason and said, "This is rather an unexpected pleasure." His voice showed the surprise, but not the pleasure.

  Mason said, "I want to talk with you about that Branner case."

  "What about it?"

  "Where do I stand in it?"

  "I don't know."

  "A man told me today," Mason said, "that a warrant was going to be issued for my arrest."

  Burger looked him squarely in the eyes and said, "I think it is, Perry."

  "When?"

  "Not until I've made a complete investigation."

  "What's the warrant about?"

  "Assault and battery, grand larceny and conspiracy."

  "Want me to explain?" Mason asked.

  "You don't have to," Burger told him. "I know pretty much what happened. You were shadowing Janice Seaton's apartment. You wanted her in the worst way. A couple of private detectives were also on her trail. She showed up and went to another apartment. The other side got there first. That didn't suit you. You busted in and tried to pull a fast one and it came to a show-down. You smashed a guy's nose, stole his evidence against Julia Branner, pulled a gun on his partner, spirited the Seaton girl out and hid her. That may be your idea of the way to win lawsuits, but it's my idea of a way to get in jail."

  "Want to hear the facts?" Mason asked.
/>   Burger studied Mason for a moment and said, "You know, Perry, I've always had a great deal of respect for you, but I've always known that some day your methods were going to get you in trouble. You can't pull the stuff you do and get by with it. You've been lucky as hell, but there was bound to come a day of reckoning. It looks like this was it. I'm not going to persecute you, and I'm not going to give out any information to the newspapers until I know definitely just where we stand, but I'm inclined to think you've just about finished your professional career, and it's a damned shame.

  "You know, I've always had a horror of prosecuting innocent men. I want to be certain a person's guilty before I bring him into court. You've got a wonderful mind. There are times when you've unscrambled some mighty tough cases which would otherwise have resulted in the escape of the guilty and the conviction of the innocent, but you simply won't keep within ethical limits. You won't sit in your office and practice law. You insist on going out to try and get hold of evidence, and whenever you do, you start matching wits with witnesses and pulling some pretty fast plays, altogether too damn fast."

  "Finished?" Mason asked.

  "No, I haven't even started."

  "Then let me interrupt," Mason said, "to tell you something."

  "Perry," Burger said, "I've fought you in court. A couple of times you've made me seem pretty damned ridiculous. If you had come to me with some of the evidence you had in those cases I'd have co-operated with you. You chose to grandstand in court. That's your privilege. Now I'm called on to prosecute you. I'm going to do my duty. I don't think I hold any malice, in fact I like you personally, but you were bound to get it sooner or later. You're a pitcher that insists on going to the well too often. Therefore, I want you to understand me when I tell you that anything you say can be used against you, and it will be. There's going to be nothing confidential about this interview."

  "All right," Mason said. "A couple of smart dicks come snooping into your office with a lot of stuff about me, and you fall for it without even giving me a chance to explain where I stand."

  "It happens," Burger said, "that one of those smart dicks, as you call them, had some very tangible and incriminating evidence involving Julia Branner. He'd communicated with me about it and was acting under my instructions."

  "All right," Mason said grimly, "here are the facts. You were right when you said I was looking for Janice Seaton, but I didn't find Janice Seaton. I wanted to find her, and I wanted to find out who the two men were who were sticking around waiting for her to show up. They weren't your men, and they weren't mine. I took a chance that they didn't know Janice Seaton, but only had her description. Her outstanding characteristic was a bunch of red hair, so I got Della Street, my secretary, to dye her hair, show up in the Seaton girl's apartment, check out and go to another apartment, where I'd rented a place directly across the hall so I could watch the door. I'd told Della that when anyone came in she was to string them along and find out who they were and what they were after. If the party got rough, she was to blow a whistle.

  "All right, Della went to this apartment. This guy Sacks busted in on her. She was going to leave the door open. Sacks locked it. I heard something which didn't sound just right and busted in the door. I was just in time to keep Sacks from murdering Della Street. He was trying to smother her. He pulled a gun on me. I took it away from him and smashed his nose."

  Burger's face showed surprise. "And it wasn't Janice Seaton at all?"

  "No. It was Della Street."

  "Sacks claims to have had plenty of evidence against her to convict her of several felony charges. He claims he was trying to call the police and she jumped on him, that he tried to take her in custody and you busted in."

  "He choked her," Mason said, "and was trying to smother her with bedclothes when I busted in the room… Does that mean anything to you?"

  The district attorney nodded. "Yes," he said, "it means a lot."

  Mason got to his feet. "All right, I just wanted to tell you."

  "That," Burger said, "doesn't explain a lot of other things."

  "What, for instance?"

  "I don't want to give away my case against the Branner woman," Burger said slowly, "but Sacks met her and posed as a mobster. She offered him a big reward to kill Brownley. She gave him the key to her apartment. That key was evidence. It corroborates the story Sacks told me. When you beat him up you took everything from his pocket. You had no right to do that, Perry, under any circumstances. Among several other things, you took that key. I want it."

  "I haven't got it," Mason said.

  "Where is it?"

  "I can produce it a little later on," Mason told him. "Have you anything except the word of this man that it really is the key to Julia Branner's apartment?"

  "Yes, I have," Burger said. "But when you return the key, if it isn't the right one, I won't have anything except your word that it's the same key you took from Sacks. That's going to put you in rather an embarrassing position, because Sacks swears he went up to call on Julia Branner at about three o'clock in the afternoon and used the key, and Victor Stockton was with him and corroborates everything Sacks says."

  "Why did Sacks go there?"

  The district attorney said, "That's part of my case. I don't intend to disclose it. I'll tell you what I'm going to do, Perry. I'm going to hold a prompt preliminary examination in the Branner case. If you want to co-operate with me in having a complete investigation of that case, you can walk into court at ten o'clock tomorrow morning and we'll start examining witnesses. If you do that I won't have any warrant issued against you or say anything about my warrant being issued until after the evidence is all in and I know more where we stand."

  "That's rushing things pretty much," Mason said. Burger shrugged his shoulders. "I could demand more time than that," Mason said. Burger lit another cigarette and said nothing. "Do I understand," Mason said, "that if we don't go into court tomorrow morning you'll order a warrant for my arrest?"

  "No," Burger said slowly, "I don't want you to put it that way. I'm not trying to force you. I'm simply telling you that I want to investigate the circumstances thoroughly before a warrant is issued. I'm offering you one way of assisting that investigation. If you don't want to take it, I'll make an independent investigation."

  "And order a complaint filed and a warrant issued?" Mason asked.

  "That," Burger said, "will depend on the result of the investigation."

  Mason stared steadily at the district attorney and then said bitterly, "You're giving me a hell of a break! A couple of private dicks that you don't know anything about show up with a cock-and-bull story, and you swallow it hook, line and sinker. I tell you that they're crooks, that the guy tried to kill Della Street when he thought she was the Seaton girl, and you promise to make an investigation. You're worked up a lot more over my busting the guy's nose than over his trying to kill Della Street."

  Burger shook his head and said patiently, "You make it sound pretty bad, Perry, but that's not a fair statement."

  "Why isn't it?"

  "Because when you assaulted this man you took some of the evidence that I was relying on to help you get a conviction in the Branner case. Of course, it might have been just a coincidence, but the fact remains that these two chaps had a piece of evidence which was going to put your client in bad and you met up with them, smashed the chap's nose and took the evidence with you. Asking me to believe that's just a coincidence is, on the face of it, a lot."

  "How much value could you put on evidence like that?" Mason protested. "It would be an easy matter for those chaps to get a key to the apartment. Give me twenty-four hours and I'll get you a key to any apartment in the city."

  Burger said doggedly, "That's not the point, Perry, and you know it's not the point. That key may be trivial in itself and standing by itself, but it doesn't stand by itself. It's simply one link in the chain of evidence against your client. It's all right for you to claim it's a weak link, but that doesn't explain how you happ
ened to assault a witness and take that bit of evidence away from him. That makes it look as though you knew it was a most important bit of evidence. I'm not taking their word against yours; I'm telling you frankly that I'm going to make an investigation and I'm not going to do anything until I've concluded that investigation. But these men are asking for a warrant. The story is going to get out to the newspapers that you beat up one of them, pulled a gun on the other and stole a piece of corroborating evidence which a jury might regard as a considerable importance. If you think I'm going to sit back and take that, you're mistaken. I've told you what I was willing to do, and that's all I'm willing to do. That's absolutely definite and absolutely final. You can either accept my proposition or not, just as you see fit."

  Mason pushed back his chair and said, "Let me telephone you a little later on, can I?"

  "I think we can decide the matter now," Burger told him.

  "I'll telephone you within ten minutes."

  "Very well," Burger said.

  Mason didn't offer to shake hands. He left the office, stepped into a public telephone in the corridor, called Paul Drake and said, "Paul, did you try that key?"

  "Yes," Drake said. "It fits."

  "You're certain?"

  "Absolutely. I opened both the outer door and the apartment door. Where does that leave you, Perry?"

  Mason said, "I don't know, Paul. These dicks have hypnotized Burger. That key was evidence against Julia. It was pretty weak evidence before I took it, but my grabbing it made it loom like a ferry boat in a fog. It was a tough break. I'll be seeing you." He hung up the telephone, stepped back to the district attorney's office and said to the girl at the information desk, "Please tell Mr. Burger that Perry Mason will agree to hold the preliminary examination of Julia Branner at ten o'clock tomorrow morning. We can stipulate away all the red tape."