Not until after the dessert had been taken away and the lawyer had sipped the very last drop of his liqueur did he sigh and say, "Well, Della, let's go back to our mirage-chasing and prove that it really is a mirage after all."

"You think it is?" she asked.

"I don't know," he told her, "but I'm afraid to think it isn't. In any event, let's telephone Drake to meet us at the office."

"Listen, Chief," she said, "I've been thinking. Suppose this woman, knowing there was a felony warrant out for her arrest in California, fled to Australia and suppose…"

"Not a word," he said, gripping her shoulder. "Let's not go jumping around in the clouds. We'll keep our feet on the ground. You telephone Paul Drake to meet us at the office, and I'll get a cab."

She nodded, but her eyes were preoccupied. "Of course," she said, "if he shouldn't be the real bishop but should be an impostor…"

Mason pointed a rigid forefinger at her, crooked his thumb as though it had been the trigger of a revolver, and said, "Halt, or I fire."

She laughed and said, "I'll call Paul while I'm powdering my nose, Chief," and vanished into the dressing room.

Paul Drake tapped on the door of Perry Mason's private office and Della Street let him in. "You two look well fed," Drake remarked, grinning at them.

Mason had lost the carefree mannerism of the cabaret. His face was thoughtful, his eyes half closed in concentration. "What about the bishop, Paul?" he asked.

"The bishop is at present perfectly able to navigate under his own power," Drake said. "He's out of the hospital and back at his hotel. He can't wear a hat, though. His head is so covered with bandages that only one eye and the tip of his nose are showing. According to last reports, he's pursuing the even tenor of his ecclesiastical ways."

"And how about the Seaton girl?"

"Still in her apartment on West Adams Street. She hasn't budged. Apparently she's waiting for a call from the bishop and isn't going to leave until it comes in."

Mason frowned thoughtfully and said, "That doesn't make sense, Paul."

"It's one of the few things that does make sense," the detective rejoined. "She was packing up when we busted in on her. Evidently she was getting ready to go places. She admitted she was to travel with the bishop or with some patient he was to get for her. So she's waiting for the bishop to give her definite instructions. She hasn't stuck her nose outdoors since the bishop went to the hospital."

"Hasn't been out to dinner?"

"Hasn't even opened the back door to dump out any garbage," Drake said.

"You've got two men watching the front and back of the apartment?"

"That's right. The man who followed her to the apartment was watching the front, and I had an operative at the back within five minutes of the time we left there."

Mason said, "Della supplied a fact which may be important. Janice Alma Brownley came over on the Monterey from Australia."

"Well," Drake asked, "what about it?"

"Bishop Mallory came over on the same ship. They were together for two or three weeks on shipboard. And, mind you, unless there's a nigger in the woodpile somewhere, the woman the bishop is inquiring about on the manslaughter business is the mother of the Brownley girl."

Drake frowned thoughtfully.

Mason said, "Della and I have been toying around with an idea, Paul. It may be goofy. I haven't dared to think about it out loud. I want you to listen to it and see what you think."

"Go to it," Drake told him. "I'm always willing to punch holes in ideas."

"Suppose," Mason said, "the Branner woman skipped out to Australia. Suppose, after Oscar Brownley went back to the States, she had a baby. Suppose Bishop Mallory, being at that time a Church of England minister, was given the child to put in a good home somewhere. Suppose he gave her to a family named Seaton, and then suppose when he came to the United States on the Monterey he found some girl on the ship posing as Janice Brownley and knew she was an impostor; but suppose he wanted to play his cards pretty close to his chest and get some definite proof before he started any fireworks, and among other things, wanted to dig up the real Brownley girl-now why wouldn't that fit with the facts?"

Drake thought for a moment and then said, "No, Perry, that's goofy. In the first place, it's all surmise. In the second place, the girl 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."