"Who was the woman?"
"She had been Julia Branner," Drake said, "but at the moment she was Mrs. Oscar Brownley. And in case you don't know it, Oscar Brownley was the son of Renwold C. Brownley."
Mason gave a low whistle and said, "Wasn't there some sort of scandal about that marriage, Paul?"
"Remember," Drake said, "that was back in 1914. Brownley made nearly all of his money on the big bull market and was wise enough to get out and duck out just before the crash in '29. Brownley in 1914 was dabbling around in real estate. Twelve years later he was a millionaire."
"Couldn't they have arrested the woman easily enough if they'd really wanted her?" Mason asked.
"No. She and Oscar had a fight with the old man and went places. About a year later, Oscar came back. The old man had turned some good real estate deals in the meantime. He rode the crest of the subdivision wave, then switched into the stock market, made a killing, and got out."
"Where's Oscar now? Didn't he die?"
"That's right. He died two or three years ago."
"He left a daughter, didn't he?"
"Yes. There's something more or less mysterious about that daughter. You know, Renwold was all wrapped up in Oscar. It wasn't until after Oscar died that he was willing to recognize the granddaughter. You see, he'd bitterly disapproved of the marriage, and apparently figured the daughter was a mistake on the part of the mother, rather than any offspring of his son. Two years ago he hunted up the granddaughter and took her in to live with him. No great commotion was made over it. The girl simply moved in with Renwold."
Mason frowned thoughtfully, clamped the receiver to his ear with his left hand, made drumming motions with the fingertips of his right hand on the edge of the desk. "Then the mother of the girl who is now living in the lap of luxury in Renwold Brownley's Beverly Hills residence is a fugitive from justice on a manslaughter warrant issued in Orange County twenty-two years ago?"
"That's right," Drake said.
"This thing," Mason told him, "commences to be really interesting. What do you hear from the bishop, Paul?"
"Still unconscious at the Receiving Hospital, but surgeons say it's nothing serious. He'll regain consciousness any minute. They're taking him to a private hospital. I'll find out where it is and let you know."
"You're keeping shadows on that Seaton girl?"
"I'll tell the world. I've got two men there, one watching the front of the apartment house and one the back. I wish you had let me tear into her, Perry. We had her on the run and then..."
Mason chuckled and said, "You don't know your red-heads, Paul. It'll turn out all right. Find out all you can about that Brownley angle and let me know just as soon as you get anything definite."
"By the way," Drake said, "I found out a little more about the bishop. He came in six days ago on the Monterey and was in the Palace Hotel in San Francisco for four days. Then he came down here."
"Well, see what you can find out in San Francisco," Mason said. "Find out who called on him at the hotel and all that sort of stuff. Let me know as soon as you get anything else. I'll be here for an hour or so. Then Della and I are going out to get some eats."
Mason hung up the receiver and resumed his pacing of the office. He had taken only two turns, however, when Della Street said excitedly, "Wait a minute, Chief. You were right after all. Here it is!"
"What?"
"The ad."
He strode to her secretarial desk, stood with one hand on her shoulder, leaning over, looking at the ad she was indicating with the point of a polished naiclass="underline" "IF THE DAUGHTER OF CHARLES W. AND GRACE SEATON, WHO FORMERLY LIVED IN RENO, NEVADA, WILL GET IN TOUCH WITH BOX XYZ LOS ANGELES EXAMINER SHE WILL LEARN SOMETHING OF GREAT ADVANTAGE TO HERSELF."
Mason whistled and said, "In the personal column, eh?"
Della Street nodded, grinned up at him and said, "You see, I have more faith in your judgment than you have. If you thought she was telling the truth about an ad, I was willing to gamble on it. But when we couldn't find it in the 'Help Wanted' or 'Business Opportunities,' I decided to take a look at the 'Personals.'"
Mason said, "Let's look at the Times and see if he has one in there. When was this?"
"Yesterday," she said.
Mason pulled out the Times classified ad section of the same date, ran hurriedly down the "Personals" and then gave a low whistle and said, "Look at this, Della."
Together, they stared at an ad reading: "WANTED: INFORMATION WHICH WILL ENABLE ME TO GET IN TOUCH WITH A JANICE SEATON WHO WILL BE TWENTY-TWO YEARS OF AGE ON FEBRUARY 19TH. SHE IS A GRADUATE NURSE, RED-HEADED, BLUE EYES, ATTRACTIVE, WEIGHT ABOUT A HUNDRED AND FIFTEEN, HEIGHT FIVE FEET ONE. IS THE DAUGHTER OF CHARLES W. SEATON WHO WAS KILLED SIX MONTHS AGO IN AN AUTOMOBILE ACCIDENT. $25 REWARD TO THE FIRST PERSON FURNISHING AUTHENTIC INFORMATION. BOX ABC LOS ANGELES TIMES.
Della Street picked up a pair of scissors and snipped both ads from the papers. "Well?" she asked.
Mason grinned and said, "Saves my face with Paul Drake."
"And," she told him, "I take it the plot thickens?"
Mason frowned and said, "Yes, it thickens like the gravy I made on my last camping trip - all in a bunch of lumps, which don't seem to be smoothing out."
She laughed up at him and said, "Did you apologize for the gravy, Chief?"
"Hell, no!" he told her. "I told the boys that it was the latest thing out, something I'd learned from the chef in a famous New York restaurant; that it was Thousand-Island Gravy.
"Ring up Paul Drake, tell him we're going to dinner. Don't tell him anything about the ad. Let's see if he finds it. Tell him to meet us here after dinner."
"Listen, Chief," she told him, "aren't you sort of getting the cart before the horse? We're finding out a lot about the bishop, but not very much for him. After all, what the bishop wanted to know was about a manslaughter case."
Mason nodded thoughtfully and said, "That's what he said he wanted to know about. But I smelled something big in the wind, and the scent keeps getting stronger. The thing which bothers me is that it's getting too strong. I tried putting two and two together, and the answer I get is six."
CHAPTER 4
Perry Mason was in a rare good humor as he ordered cocktails and dinner. Della Street, watching him with the insight which comes from years of close association, said, as she tilted her cocktail glass, "Riding the crest, aren't you, Chief?"
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."