The half quizzical smile faded from Perry Mason's face. The impatience left his eyes. His voice showed quick sympathy.
"Like that?" he asked.
"Like that," the detective said.
"What did Brunold do?"
"Brunold got the letter, okay."
"And ducked out?" Mason asked, in cold, hard accents.
"No, he didn't. It was a small burg and he didn't dare to send a telegram because he didn't want the telegraph operator to know anything, but he hopped a train and started for Sylvia. That's where fate took a hand. Those were the days when railroad beds were like you found them. My God, I can remember one time when I took a trip on one of those hick lines that I tossed around in an upper berth like a bunch of popcorn in a corn popper on a hot stove…"
"The train was wrecked," the lawyer interrupted. "I suppose Brunold was hurt."
"Cracked his dome, punctured his eye, and gave him a loss of memory. The doctors took the eye out, put him in a hospital and gave him a nurse. I found the hospital records and was lucky enough to locate the nurse. She remembered the case because when Brunold got his memory back she surmised something of what must have been in the back of his mind.
"He put in a persontoperson call for Sylvia and got a report back that Sylvia had disappeared. Brunold was like a crazy man. He had a relapse and was delirious. He talked in his delirium. The nurse figured it was a professional secret and she wouldn't tell me much, but I think she knew."
"Sylvia?" Mason asked, and there was no longer any banter in his tone.
"Sylvia," the detective said, "had been fed up for months with stories about the city slickers, about the women who paid and paid and paid. It was the age of literature that got fat on putting erring daughters out in snow storms. Sylvia's parents had been good at dishing out this sort of dope. When Brunold didn't show up, Sylvia figured there was just one reason. So she busted her little savings bank and beat it. No one knew how she left town. There was a little junction on another road three miles away. The kid must have hoofed it and got a milk train. She went to the city."
"How do you know?" Mason asked.
"I got a break," Drake told him. "I'd like to make you think it was just highclass detective work, but when she got married, and in connection with the boy's adoption, she gave some data that enabled me to check back."
"She married Basset?" Mason asked.
"That's right. She came to the city and took the name of Sylvia Loring. She worked as a stenographer as long as she could. After the child was born she went back to the office. They'd held the place open for her. She worked there for years. The boy kept getting to be more and more of an expense. He needed an education. She met Hartley Basset. He was a client in the law office. His intentions were honorable. She didn't love him—at least I don't figure it that way. She'd never loved anyone except Brunold. She figured Brunold had taken a walkout powder, so she was off of men."
"And she made Basset adopt the boy?"
"That's right she didn't marry him until he'd legally adopted the boy. The boy took Basset's name and apparently proceeded to hate his stepfather with a bitter hatred, probably because of the way Basset treated Sylvia."
"What was wrong with it?" Mason asked.
"All I know is servants' gossip," Drake said, "but servants' gossip can be pretty reliable at times. Basset was a bachelor. He hadn't been an easy man to work for. His idea of marriage was that a wife was a species of ornament in public and a servant in private."
"And," Mason said slowly, "by reason of the adoption, Dick Basset would have inherited a share of Hartley Basset's property."
Drake nodded his head slowly and said, "That's the way Edith Brite figures it. She's a housekeeper. Only she doesn't figure there was any idea of gain in connection with it. She feels the boy was doing his mother a good turn."
"She thinks Dick killed him?" the lawyer asked.
"That's right. I had to get her crocked, but when she got in vino veritas she babbled a lot. Sylvia had been through hell. The boy knew it. Hartley Basset was just one of those things. She thinks the boy bumped him off."
Della Street said, "Wait a minute, Paul, you haven't finished with the romance. How about Brunold? Did he find her or did she find him?"
"He found her. He'd been searching ever since he left the hospital. He didn't know how to go about such things and for a while Sylvia had kept herself pretty much under cover."
Perry Mason hooked his thumbs through the arm holes of his vest and started pacing the floor.
"Did Dick know Brunold had found his mother and know who Brunold was?" he asked.
Drake shrugged his shoulders. "I'm a detective," he said, "not a mind reader. Your guess is as good as mine. Apparently Sylvia Basset figured she'd made her bed and was going to lie in it. Brunold wanted her to leave, that's a cinch. The fact that she didn't walk out right then and there shows that something was holding her. From the slant I can get on Hartley Basset's character, it may have been his threat to set aside the adoption proceedings on the ground of fraud, brand Dick as illegitimate, make a big stink generally. Or it may have been that he wouldn't give her a divorce and she wouldn't join Brunold unless she could marry him, on account of the kid."
Mason, still pacing the floor, said, "Where's Mrs. Basset now?"
"She ducked out and went to a hotel somewhere."
"See if you can find her," Mason said. "You shouldn't have any great difficulty. She's the type who would go to one of the better class hotels. There weren't a great number of unescorted women who registered at the better class hotels after midnight last night. You've got pictures of her, I presume."
"Oh, sure."
"All right, run her down."
"This other stuff going to help you?" Drake asked.
"Very much, I think," Mason told him.
A buzzer gave the signal that Della Street was wanted in the outer office. She glanced at Mason, who nodded.
"Were the eyes okay?" Paul Drake asked.
"I think they'll do the work all right, although I'm afraid we got them a little late."
"I was wondering about that when I heard about the bloodshot eye that was clutched in Hartley Basset's right hand."
Mason said cheerfully, "Oh, well, it'll all come out in the wash."
Drake uncoiled himself from the chair and moved toward the exit door.
"You don't want anything else except putting a finger on Sylvia Basset, is that right?"
"That's all for the present. And that was good work, Paul, tracing that stuff down with the limited time you had."
"There wasn't so much of it," the detective said, "except a lot of detail work. The newspaper men had pumped the servants dry. Brunold had left a wide open trail. It was a cinch to chase him down, and, in the adoption proceedings, Sylvia Basset had given the true date and location of the boy's birth. By that time, I guess, she figured it didn't matter much. It happened that I was able to locate the doctor, and the doctor put me in touch with the nurse. The nurse remembered that there had been a pile of love letters, tied with the conventional ribbon, in the girl's suitcase. They'd been addressed to Sylvia Berkley, and she'd read of the disappearance of Sylvia Berkley in the newspapers."
"And kept her mouth shut?" Mason inquired.
The detective nodded. "Nurses," he said, "see quite a few of those cases. They don't see as many of them now as they did twenty years ago."
"Has she ever got in touch with her folks?" Mason asked.
"I don't know. I haven't been able to find that out."
"Are her folks living?"
"I'll have the dope on that this afternoon. I didn't know just how much attention you wanted to attract, so I'm making my inquiries about them in rather a roundabout manner."