The Case of the Stuttering Bishop by Erle Stanley Gardner Read Free Book Online Page A

couldn't have been received into the Brownley household without the mother knowing about it, and if it had been the wrong girl she'd have raised merry hell."
    "Suppose," Mason interrupted, "the mother was out of the state and didn't know about it but is just finding it out. Then she'd come on here to really raise some hell."
    "Well," Drake said, "she hasn't showed up. That's the best answer to that. Also, don't forget that good-looking gals change a lot from the time they're little pink morsels of humanity until they blossom forth into dazzling heiresses. Bishop Mallory is probably far more interested in ecclesiastical duties than tagging babies whom he has farmed out for adoption… No, Perry, I think you've got a wrong hunch. But this may be the case: Someone may be going to pull a shake-down and in order to work it they need a Bishop Mallory to lay the foundation, so if they had a fake Bishop Mallory call on a credulous but aggressive lawyer and spill a sob-sister story they might throw enough monkey wrenches in the Brownley machinery to get a rake-off."
    "So you think the bishop is a fake?" Mason asked.
    "Right from the first," Drake said, "I figured this bishop was a crook. I don't like that stuttering business, Perry."
    Mason said slowly, "Neither do I, when you come right down to it."
    "Well," Drake said, grinning, "we're right down to it."
    "So," Mason said, "I think we'll talk with Bishop Mallory again – that is, unless he gets in touch with me first. How long's he been at the hotel, Paul?"
    "Around half an hour I'd say. They patched him up at the hospital, and after he recovered consciousness he was none the worse for wear, except for the headache and the flock of bandages on his head."
    "What did he tell the police?"
    "He said he opened the door of his room and someone jumped out from behind the door and hit him, and that's all he remembers."
    Mason frowned and said, "That wouldn't account for the broken mirror and the busted chair, Paul. There was a fight in that room."
    Drake shrugged his shoulders and said, "All I know is that that's the story he told the police. Of course, Perry, sometimes when a man's been given a knock on the bean that way he forgets a good deal of what happened."
    "You've got a man trailing the bishop?" Mason asked.
    "Two men," Drake said. "Two men in two separate cars. We're not letting him out of our sight."
    Mason said thoughtfully, "Let's go talk with this Seaton girl again, and let's take Della along. The kid's a redheaded spitfire, but she may loosen up if Della talks to her."
    Drake's voice showed resentment. "We'll never get anything out of her now," he said.
    "Why the accent on the now?" Mason asked.
    "I don't like the way you handled it, Perry. I know her type. We should have kept her on the run, made her think the bishop had been murdered, pretended she was a logical suspect, and then she'd have told the truth in order to clear her skirts."
    "She told some of the truth, anyway," Mason said, "about getting in touch with him through an ad, for instance." Mason motioned to Della Street, who handed over the ads she had clipped from the personal columns. Mason gave them to the detective who stared at them frowningly and said, "What the devil's the idea, Perry?"
    "I don't know, Paul, unless it's the way I outlined to you. Have you heard anything more from Australia, Paul?"
    "No. I've wired my correspondents for a description and asked them to cable the bishop's present address."
    Mason said thoughtfully, "I keep thinking that Seaton girl holds the key to this thing. We'll drop in on her, ask a few more questions, and then go see His Nibs, the Stuttering Bishop. And by that time I think we'll have an earful."
    Paul Drake said, "Of course, Perry, it's none of my business but why go to all this trouble over a case which probably isn't going to amount to anything, which hasn't paid you any fee and where no one seems to be in particularly urgent need of your services?"
    He shrugged and