He turned to Drake’s operative. “Put her in your car,” he said. “Drive her up to Drake’s office. Let her stay there for a couple of hours. If that man, Kelsey, should be waiting outside and try to make trouble — do you think you can handle him?”
“With one hand,” the operative said with calm confidence.
“All right,” Mason said, “handle him.”
The lawyer turned, dashed down the corridor, took the stairs two at a time, jumped in his car and hurried to the heliport.
Bancroft and Della Street were waiting for him.
“Been here long?” Mason asked.
“Just a few minutes,” Bancroft said. “The pilot said the fog is lifting down at the bay.”
“Let’s go,” Mason told him.
They strapped themselves in the helicopter, and the pilot revved the engine and abruptly took off. They gained elevation rapidly, skimming over the city and the outskirts, then came down lower and raced along over relatively open country.
The fog bank was still ahead of them but as they approached the bay the fog was melting into wisps and streamers, and the pilot, carefully skirting the edge of the fog, slowed the helicopter so that it was hovering motionless over the bay.
“All right,” Bancroft shouted, “there’s the yacht club over there. There’s the mooring that the Jinesa usually occupies.”
“Now show me the oil and gasoline wharf which was recognized last night,” Mason said.
“A little over to the right,” Bancroft told the pilot.
The helicopter hovered over the water.
“Right down here,” Bancroft said.
“No sign of a boat here,” Mason said. “Was there any wind last night?”
“No wind. It was dead calm. That’s the reason a fog came in and stayed so long. There hasn’t been any wind. It’s just beginning to clear off with a slight land breeze.”
Mason said, “The tide was coming in last night. Keep working up to the head of the bay.”
The pilot obediently kept the helicopter moving slowly up the bay.
“Look! Look ahead!” Bancroft said suddenly. “That looks like her.”
“Where?”
“About a mile up ahead.”
Mason nodded to the pilot who sent the helicopter into more rapid forward motion, eventually hovering over a yacht which was anchored out by the edge of the shore line along some mud and sand flats at the head of the bay.
“That your boat?” Mason asked. Bancroft nodded.
“It seems to be anchored,” Mason said.
“That’s right.”
“The tide is now running out?”
“Right.”
“And the anchor is holding it.”
“Yes.”
“Any idea about how deep the water is here?”
“Judging from what I know of the bay and the angle of the anchor chain, I’d say the water was ten or twelve feet deep and there’s about twenty or twenty-five feet of anchor chain out.”
Mason said, “Notice that the dinghy is still attached to the boat.”
“I’ve noticed that,” Bancroft said.
Mason said, “Evidently the boat has been stolen. I think we’d better have a representative of the sheriff’s office with us when we go aboard.”
The helicopter pilot said, “There’s a sheriff’s substation up here a little ways. I can land the helicopter there if you want. Also I have an aerial camera set up in this crate. I can take pictures if you want.”
“We want,” Mason said. “Both the sheriff and the pictures, but don’t say anything about the pictures for a while.”
A few moments later the helicopter settled to a landing by a sheriff’s substation.
Mason quickly explained to the deputy, “We have reason to believe that Mr Bancroft’s yacht was stolen last night. We’ve been looking for it and finally found it. It’s riding at anchor out here and whoever stole it is probably still aboard because the dinghy is still tied to it. Want to look?”
“We’ll look,” the deputy said.
“Got a boat?”
“We have a boat.”
“Let’s go,” Mason told him.
“I’ll stay with the helicopter until you get back,” the pilot said.
The deputy drove them to a landing where they boarded a fast yacht and started up the bay.
“Just keep going,” Mason said. “We’ll tell you when you’re coming to it.”
“It’s about four miles up here near the sand flats,” Bancroft said.
“At anchor?”
“At anchor.”
They moved at high speed up the channel, then slowed as they got into shallower water.
“This is your boat ahead?” the deputy asked.
“That’s it,” Bancroft said.
The deputy piloted the yacht around the boat. “Ahoy the Jinesa!” he called. “Anyone aboard?”
There was no answer.
The deputy said, “I’m going aboard and take a look.”
“Want us with you?” Mason asked.
The deputy shook his head. “You’d better wait here. You say the boat was stolen?”
Bancroft made no answer.
The deputy manoeuvered the speedboat up to the side of the Jinesa, put over a couple of rubber bumpers and tied the two boats together, then sprang aboard lightly.
Bancroft said in a low voice to Mason, “Mason, I’m going to take the rap.”
“What do you mean?”
“If Gilly is dead I’m going to say that I shot him and—”
“You keep your mouth shut,” Mason said, “The best that we can do now is to rely on the fact that the state has to prove a case against a defendant beyond all reasonable doubt.
“Now, you can take this much responsibility. You can state that your wife was hysterical, that you gave her a strong sedative and insisted that she take enough so that it completely put her out.
“But remember this. They can’t find the gun that did the shooting because your wife dropped the gun overboard when she jumped.”
“But can’t they find where she jumped and send down a diver and pick up the gun? It’s in shallow water on a smooth bottom.”
“She doesn’t need to tell her story,” Mason said. “She’s gone this far without it and she’s got to sit tight now. This isn’t the way I like to handle a case, but we’re in a spot where it’s the only way we can handle the case. If and when the time comes for your wife to tell her story, we’ll tell it. But remember that your wife boarded the yacht with a man by the name of Irwin Fordyce. The police find the yacht with Fordyce gone and Gilly killed. They’re not going to make any charges until they find Fordyce and get his story.”
“And when they get his story?” Bancroft asked.
“When they get his story,” Mason said, “the case may be mixed up all to hell. Your wife has simply got to adopt the position that there are reasons why she can’t tell everything that happened. She is going to have to sit tight as to certain phases of what happened last night. She’ll state that she’ll tell her story at the proper time, but that there are reasons why she doesn’t want to make a public statement at this time.”
“That’s going to look like hell,” Bancroft said.
“You got any suggestions that will keep it from looking like hell?” Mason asked. “What you should have done was to have called me last night and let me tell her story to the police about how she had been attacked and had fired wildly in self-defence, not knowing whether she had hit her assailant or not.”
“She knows she hit him,” Bancroft said. “He fell forward and was motionless. Evidently the bullet killed him instantly. She—”
The deputy came back on deck and said, “Look here, we’ve got a complicated situation. There’s a dead man aboard. He’s been dead for some time. Apparently he’s been shot through the heart.”
“That,” Mason said, “complicates the situation.”