"And Janice was wearing her rain coat?"
"Yes."
"The same one she had worn earlier?"
"Yes, of course."
"What did she do?"
"She and this fellow climbed in her car and turned it around and started back toward town. I made a run for my car, but by the time I got into it, started it and turned around they were far enough away to be out of sight. I stepped on the gas and finally caught up to where I could see them. I turned up the collar of my overcoat so they wouldn't recognize me, and turned on my headlights so it would be hard for them to see what the car looked like."
"But they knew, of course, you were following, after you turned your headlights on?"
"I guess so, yes. But they didn't slow down any or try to ditch me."
"There were other cars on the road?"
"Not very many. I think I met one or two, and maybe passed one. I can't be certain. I was watching Janice."
"And what did she do?"
"She drove directly to this hotel. She and this man got out. I had a chance to see him then. I think he has gray eyes and a gray mustache. He wears glasses and…"
"Ever see him again?" Mason asked.
"Yes. He's up there now. He went in about fifteen or twenty minutes ago."
"The same man?"
"Yes."
"You're sure?"
"Yes."
"Look here," Mason said slowly, "there was a back exit from that apartment house?"
"Yes."
"Did you watch it while you were shadowing the place?"
"No. That's what I've been trying to explain. I watched the front and that was all. After it got light enough to see, I got where I could see both front and back, but that was only a few minutes before they came out."
"And lights were on in these apartments when Janice got there?"
"Yes."
"And you stayed there all the time, watching the place?"
"Yes."
"But she might have gone in the front, out the back and then returned through the back door any time before daylight. Is that right?"
"Yes, of course she could have done that."
"And you think she did?"
Brownley nodded.
"What makes you think so?"
"Because she was desperate. She's an impostor. She was going to be showed up and sent to jail."
Mason said slowly, "The thing doesn't make sense."
Brownley's tone was impatient. "I'm not claiming it makes sense," he said. "I'm telling you what happened."
Mason frowned thoughtfully at the tip of his cigarette for several minutes, then slowly opened the door of the car.
"Have you told anyone about this?" he asked.
"No. Should I?"
Mason nodded and said, "Yes, you'd better tell the D.A."
"How will I get in touch with him?"
"Don't worry," Mason said grimly, "they'll get in touch with you," and slammed the door of the car shut behind him.
Chapter 12
Mason, his face wearing a worried frown, sat in the visitor's room and looked through the wire mesh to where Julia Branner sat directly across from him. A long table stretched the length of the room. Down the center of the table ran the wire mesh, separating visitors from prisoners. A jail matron stood at the far corner of the room on the jail side. On Mason's right, back of a barred partition which was between Mason and the door, two officers were on duty. Back of them was a little room containing a veritable arsenal of revolvers, tear bombs and sawed-off shotguns.
Mason tried to hold Julia Branner's eyes with his, but she kept avoiding his gaze. Mason said, "Julia, look down at my hand-not that one, the other one. Now I'm going to open that hand causally. There's something in the palm. I want you to look at it and tell me if you've ever seen it before."
Mason glanced at the matron, looked out of the corner of his eye at the two officers, slowly opened his right hand, but carefully avoided letting his own eyes drop. Julia Branner stared as though fascinated at the hand. Slowly, Mason closed it again into a fist and pounded gently on the table as though emphasizing some point. "What is it?" he asked.
"A key."
"Your key?"
"What do you mean?"
"A man by the name of Sacks," Mason said, "a private detective, is going to claim you gave him that key and…"
"It's a lie! I don't know any Sacks. I don't…"
"Wait a minute," Mason cautioned. "Not so loud. Take it easy, sister. You probably didn't know him as Sacks, and of course you didn't know he was a detective. He's a tall, broad-shouldered chap, about forty-two or forty-three, with gray eyes and regular features-that is, he did have regular features," Mason added with a grin. "His features aren't so regular now."
"No," she said, putting her hand to her mouth, "I never saw him. I don't know him."
"Take your hand from your mouth," Mason said, "and quit lying. Is this the key to your apartment?"
"I haven't any apartment."
"You know what I mean-the one where you were living with Stella Kenwood."
"No," she said in a faint voice. "I don't think that's the key. It's a frame-up."
Mason said, "Why did you send a message to Renwold Brownley, telling him to go down to the water-front?"
"I never did."
"Don't try to pull that," he said, frowning irritably. "They can prove you did. There's a taxi driver and…"
"I'm not going to say anything more," she interrupted, clamping her lips together. "I'll take my medicine if I have to."
"Look here," Mason told her, "I had faith in you and I tried to help you. You're not playing fair with me. I may be able to get you out of this, but I've got to know just exactly what happened. Otherwise, I'm like a prize fighter going into the ring blindfolded. You mustn't tell anyone else, but you've got to tell me."
She shook her head.
Mason said, "I tried to give you a square deal. Now you're lying down on me."
"You don't need to handle my case," she said. "Just get out of it. It's probably the best thing for you to do."
"Thanks for the advice," Mason said sarcastically, "but you've got me in so deep I can't get out, and you know it. I don't know how much of what I've heard is true. Perhaps you didn't plan to drag me into the case and leave me holding the sack, but it sure looks as though you did. If I try to get out now and they convict you, I'll either go up as an accessory or I'll be disbarred, and, so far as I'm concerned, it won't make a whole lot of difference which-and I think that's just the way you planned it. You wanted to get me in so deep I couldn't quit. I started playing around the edges and got in over my head before I knew where the deep spots were. Now I've got to get you out in order to get myself out."
She kept her lips tightly compressed. Her eyes remained downcast.
"Look here," Mason told her, "the story is that you got someone to impersonate Bishop Mallory so you could talk me into taking the case. Then you were going to make a quick clean-up and get out. Now somewhere there's a real Bishop Mallory. You may or may not be the real Julia Branner. Janice Seaton may or may not be your real daughter, and she may or may not be Renwold Brownley's granddaughter. There are things about this case that don't look good and don't smell good, and, in addition to all of them, there's a murder to be explained and…"
The woman interrupted him with a half scream. She jumped to her feet, turned toward the matron and said, "Take him away! Take him away! Don't let him talk to me!"
The matron rushed toward her. One of the officers jerked out his revolver, clicked back the lock on the barred door and moved aggressively toward Perry Mason.
Mason dropped the key from his right hand into his vest pocket and got to his feet.
"What the hell's the idea?" the officer asked.