The Case of the Stuttering Bishop

"In a way, yes."

Mason said, "Your Honor, I object to an attempt to prove that conversation until proof has been made of the corpus delicti."

Shoemaker said, "Your Honor, I'm not going any farther into the conversation at this time. Later on I expect to prove that Perry Mason learned on the evening of the fourth that Renwold Brownley intended to execute on the morning of the fifth documents which would transfer the bulk of his estate to his granddaughter, Janice Brownley; that Mason communicated that information to his client, and that this furnished the motive for murder. However, I am not going into it at the present time. You may cross-examine, Mr. Mason."

Mason said, "You were waiting for me when I left your grandfather's house?"

"Yes."

"How long had you been waiting?"

"Only a few minutes."

"You knew when I left the room where I had been talking with your grandfather and went to my car, didn't you?" Mason asked.

"Yes. I heard you leave the room."

"And then you went out to stand in the driveway and wait for me. Is that right?"

"Yes."

"But," Mason said, "your clothes were soaking wet. It was raining hard, but not hard enough to wet you to the skin in the few seconds which clasped between the time I left the room where I was with your grandfather and the time you met me in the driveway. How do you account for that?"

Young Brownley lowered his eyes and said nothing.

"Answer the question," the Court ordered.

"I don't know," Brownley said.

"Isn't it a fact," Mason asked him, "that you had been standing out in the rain before I left the house? Isn't it a fact that you could hear much, if not all, of what was said in my interview with your grandfather? Weren't you listening outside one of the windows?"

Brownley hesitated. "You answer that question," Mason thundered, getting to his feet, "and tell the truth."

"Yes," young Brownley said after a moment, "I stood outside of the window and tried to hear what was being said. I couldn't hear it all, but I heard some of it."

"So," Mason said, "you knew then that your grandfather was going to execute these documents in the morning, documents which would irrevocably place the bulk of his estate in the hands of the young woman who was living there in the house as Janice Brownley."

"Yes," Philip Brownley said slowly.

"So," Mason went on, "so far as motive is concerned, you had a motive for murdering your grandfather. In other words, you stood to profit by his death. If he died before those documents were executed, your inheritance would have been one-half of the estate, in the event Janice Brownley was really a granddaughter. And if it could be proved that she was not the granddaughter, your inheritance would have been the entire estate. Is that right?"

Shoemaker jumped to his feet. "Your Honor," he shouted, "I object! The question is argumentative, irrelevant, incompetent and immaterial. It's not proper cross-examination. It calls for a conclusion of the witness upon matters of law."

"I am asking it," Mason said, "only to show bias on the part of the witness."

"I think," Judge Knox ruled, "that the question is argumentative and calls for a conclusion. If you want to prove it, you'll have to do it by asking the witness how much of the conversation was heard, just what was said, and leave the legal effect of it for the Court to determine."

Mason shrugged his shoulders and said, "I have no further questions of the witness."

Shoemaker hesitated as though debating the advisability of asking further questions on re-direct, then shook his head and said, "The witness is excused. Call Gordon Bixler."

Gordon Bixler, a bony-faced individual of about forty-five, wearing a gray business suit, took the witness stand and testified that his name was Gordon Bixler; that he was a yachtsman, was the owner of the yacht Resolute; that on the night of the murder he had been on a trip to Catalina in his yacht; that he had returned in a driving rain and had telephoned from the clubhouse for his Filipino boy to meet him with a car; that he had then attended to certain details in co

The witness then admitted that he became rattled and confused; that he ran blindly through the rain until he encountered a car driven by some man whom he did not know, but who had later turned out to be Harry Coulter, a private detective; that in company with this detective, the witness searched for the Brownley car and failed to find it that they had telephoned officers, who had finally arrived and taken up the search; that the time, as nearly as he could fix it, when the shooting took place was about two forty-five in the morning, that he had telephoned for officers about ten or fifteen minutes past three o'clock.

Shoemaker turned the witness over to Mason for cross-examination.

"You were badly rattled?" Mason asked.

"I was, yes, sir. It was all so sudden and so unexpected that I became very much confused."

"Why didn't you get into Brownley's car and drive it and him to the nearest hospital?"

"I just never thought of it, that's all. When I saw this dead man sprawled out with his head and shoulders hanging over the window, and realized it was Renwold Brownley and that he'd been murdered, I became confused."

"And you were pretty much confused before you recognized Brownley, weren't you? The knowledge that this woman in the white rain coat had fired several shots at close range at the driver of that car had naturally upset you, hadn't it?"

"Yes, sir, it had."

Mason placed the tips of his fingers together and took his eyes from the witness to stare intently at his fingertips. "It was raining?" he asked.

"Yes."

"Raining hard?"