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"Did you get his name?" Drake asked.
"Yeah, sure I got his name. It was Gordon Bixler."
"He the chap who told you about the shooting?" Mason asked.
"Yes."
"What did he say?" Drake wanted to know.
"Wait a minute," Mason said. "We have the highlights on that, but what I want to know is what this chap was doing down here. That sounds fishy to me."
"He's okay," the operative said. "I checked on his story. He's a yachtsman who was coming in from Catalina. He was delayed by the storm and had telephoned for his Filipino boy to meet him with a car. The boy evidently didn't like the rain, or was playing around, because he didn't show up, and Bixler, mad as hell, was starting to walk to some place where he could either get a taxi or a telephone. I made him show me his driving license and his cards, and give me the name of his yacht. The cops also checked up on him."
"Okay," Mason said, "I just wanted to know. Go ahead and give us the dope."
"Well, Bixler said he'd seen a big coupe come crawling along slowly, as though the guy who was driving it was looking for someone. Then a jane in a white rain coat flagged the coupe and it slowed down. The jane climbed on the ru
"Bixler figured this guy might give him a lift, so he stood out in the middle of the street. The car came along, still ru
"Bixler reached the coupe. The driver had slumped over against the door on the left of the car. His arm, shoulder and head were hanging out, with blood streaming down the side of the car to the ru
"How does he know it was Brownley?" Mason asked.
"I went into that with him, too. You see, this guy's a yachtsman, and Brownley's a yachtsman. They'd met once or twice at di
"Then what happened?" Drake asked.
"Bixler started ru
"So this bird kept yelping he wanted to telephone the police, and I figured I might not be in so good with the law if I kept ru
"Then what happened?" Mason asked.
"The cops showed up and listened to what we had to say and…"
"You didn't tell 'em you'd been tailing Brownley, did you?" Drake interrupted.
"Not a chance," the man said scornfully as though resenting the question. "I said I was just driving along, trying to find a party who was on a yacht. I said I was working on a divorce case."
"They ask you who the party was, or anything of that sort?"
"Not yet. They will later. They were too busy then. I let on she was a blonde."
"Could the police find the car?"
"No; now this is the fu
Mason said, "Where is this dock?"
"Drive on," the detective told them, "and I'll show you. I was just waiting here until you showed up, because this was the place I'd said I'd meet you. Go straight ahead until I tell you to turn."
Drake eased the car into motion, ran for several hundred yards and then the detective said, "Turn to the right here."
As soon as Drake turned, he encountered a string of parked automobiles. Several flood-lights gave a dazzling illumination. A portable searchlight had its beam focused on the water. A wrecking car, equipped with derrick and windlass, was parked at the edge of the wharf. The drums were winding slowly on a taut cable which stretched down into the darkness. From the flattened springs of the wrecking automobile, it was apparent it was lifting some heavy weight. Drake ran the car as far as he could, stopped and said to the operative, "Find a parking place, Harry. Come on, Perry."
The lawyer was already out in the rain. Together, the two men sloshed through the moisture underfoot. Sheeted rain lashed their faces. They joined a small knot of men who were clustered about a corner of the wharf, too engrossed in what they were watching to notice the two newcomers.
Mason peered over the edge. The cable, taut as a bowstring stretched down into the inky waters, the blackness of which was intensified by the glare of light which beat down through the rain-filled darkness, etching the tense faces of the spectators into a white brilliance. The power-driven winches of the huge wrecking car moved regularly. Occasionally the cable gave forth little snapping noises and sent showers of water spattering from its oily surface.
A man's voice yelled, "There she comes!"
A photographer pushed past Mason and pointed a camera downward. A flashlight puffed blinding illumination into the lawyer's eyes as the top of a coupe moved slowly upward from the rain-lashed waters. Men crowded and jostled. Someone yelled, "Don't raise it any farther until we get another hook on it! It'll weigh more when it gets out of the water. We can't afford to have it break loose."