Drake squinted his eyes and said, "It looks like it to me, Perry."
Della Street said positively, "Yes, that's the Atina."
"That's the yacht owned by the Cassidy who called on Bishop Mallory?"
Drake nodded.
Mason said, "Della and I are going places. I've got a hunch, Paul. Suppose you and Harry go take a look aboard the yacht."
"What for?" Drake asked.
"For anything you may happen to find," Mason said slowly.
"We may have some trouble getting aboard. There's a watchman, and it's a private mooring."
Mason said irritably, "For the love of Mike, do I have to tell you how to run a detective agency?"
"No, you don't," Drake drawled. "All I'm trying to find out is how strong we should go. How important is it that we get aboard that yacht?"
Mason, squinting his eyes against the sunlight which was reflected from the water of the bay, said, "Paul, I think it's damned important. You and Harry get aboard that yacht."
"That's all we wanted to know," Drake said. "Come on, Harry."
Mason motioned to Della Street. "Come on, Della," he told her, "we've got a job."
"What sort of a job, Chief?" she asked.
"Checking the records of receiving hospitals," he told her. "Let's go."
Della Street emerged from the telephone booth with a list of names. "These are the emergency cases you wanted to know about," she said, "together with the outcome. Numbers three, four and ten are dead. They were all identified. Number two is the only one who's still unconscious and unidentified."
Mason took the list, nodded and said, "Come on, we're going places." He snapped on the ignition, slammed the car into gear and started driving at high speed back towards Los Angeles.
"What did you think Drake was going to find aboard the Atina?" Della Street asked.
"Frankly," he told her, "I don't know."
"Why didn't you stay to find out?"
"Because," he said, "I doped out a theory of the case which may hold water."
"What is it?"
"I'll tell you," he said, "when I see whether it checks out. In solving a crime, a man has to figure out lots of theories. Some of them hold water, and some of them don't. A man who wants to build up a reputation for himself will keep his thoughts to himself until he knows that they check out."
Her eyes were tender as she studied his profile. "Do you want to build up a reputation for yourself, Chief?" she asked softly.
"And how!" he told her. They made the rest of the trip in silence. Mason brought the car to a stop before a hospital. Together they entered the office, and Mason said, "We want to look at the man who was picked up with a fractured skull on the morning of the fifth."
"He's not allowed visitors and…"
"I think," Mason said, "we can identify him."
"Very well. One of the internes will permit you to enter the room. He's still unconscious. You'll have to promise to remain absolutely silent." Mason nodded. The girl pressed a bell and said to a white-robed intern who appeared, "Please take these parties to 236. It's a matter of identification. They've promised to remain silent."
They followed the intern down a corridor and into a ward past long rows of beds to a cot which was in a corner hidden by screens from the rest of the ward. The intern folded back one of the screens. Della Street gasped, and her hand shot to her throat.
Mason stared down at the unconscious figure, then nodded to the intern, who replaced the screen. Mason pulled a roll of bills from his pocket. "See that this man has the best medical attention money can buy," Mason said. "Transfer him to a private room and give him a day and a night nurse."
"You know him?" the intern asked curiously. Mason nodded and said, "The man is Bishop William Mallory of Sydney, Australia."
Chapter 18
Mason sat in the swivel chair behind his office desk, body tilted back, feet propped on the edge of the desk, ankles crossed. He was smoking a cigarette, and a satisfied smile played around the corners of his lips.
Della Street, perched informally on the corner of the desk, grinned across at him and said, "All right, Mr. Human Enigma, what's the theory? It's held water, so kick through and tell me what it is. Don't be such a tightwad. How did you know that was Bishop Mallory, and what did you expect Drake was going to find aboard the Atina?"
Mason studied the twisting smoke from his cigarette for a few seconds, then began to speak in a low, meditative voice. "Julia didn't intend to kill Brownley, but she did want him to go down to the beach. Therefore, there was something she expected to do when he was at the beach, something which was important enough so that some other people were willing to kill Brownley in order to keep him from doing it.
"Now there's only one answer, only one logical conclusion. Janice Seaton looked enough like the dead Oscar Brownley so that the minute Renwold clapped eyes on her he'd know she was Oscar's daughter, and, since Oscar only had one daughter, that would put the fake Janice Brownley out on the end of a limb. So, naturally, when Stella realized that Julia Branner had some hold by which she could make Renwold Brownley go to the beach, and knew that while he was at the beach he was going to be confronted with his real granddaughter, whose features would be unmistakable proof of her identity, Stella was faced with a show-down. She didn't care on her account. What she did was done through mother-love, a warped mentality, and because of a situation a couple of crooks had engineered her into. She had a rain coat which was very similar to that worn by Julia Branner, which was probably a coincidence, because she didn't intend to be seen, but she did intend to kill Renwold Brownley with Julia's gun, so she loaned Julia her car and then made arrangements to get another.
"Now then, look at the case from the other end. Julia evidently knew that the matured Janice Seaton was the spitting image of Oscar Brownley. This was one bit of irrefutable proof none of us had taken into consideration. But how did Julia know it? The only way she could possibly have known it is that she must have seen Janice arriving here from Salt Lake City. Since only Bishop Mallory knew the whereabouts of the real Janice, it follows, therefore, that Mallory must have met her and brought mother and child together before Julia Branner came to my office and before Drake's men got on the job shadowing Mallory at the Regal Hotel.
"Now then, Julia wanted Renwold to go to the beach. She was going to meet him. She was going to take him to Janice Seaton, and she intended at that time to furnish Brownley with unmistakable proof of Janice Seaton's relationship to him. Therefore she must have intended, first, to show him the family resemblance, and, second, to confront him with Bishop Mallory. Therefore Bishop Mallory was to be someplace at the beach; but Bishop Mallory knew he was being followed, knew that an attempt had been made on his life and doubtless surmised that the people he was fighting would be only too willing to murder Janice Seaton if they could locate her, so Bishop Mallory went to the beach and disappeared. He used the Monterey as a means of disappearance. He might have chosen any one of a dozen different stepping stones toward invisibility. The reason he chose the Monterey was because it was conveniently located. Therefore, he must have arranged for a hiding place near the waterfront, and he had been called on earlier in the day by Cassidy, who was the owner of the Atina.
"What's more reasonable than to suppose that Bishop Mallory and Janice were waiting for Julia and Renwold Brownley aboard the Atina? The bishop was smart enough to know that the other side would kill Janice if they had a chance, and therefore Julia had insisted that Renwold Brownley was to come alone. She was to meet him at a spot close enough to enable her to take him at once to the Atina, yet far enough removed from the place of concealment so the other side wouldn't know where Janice was hidden, if Brownley should mention where he was going.