Free The Case of the Stuttering Bishop by Erle Stanley Gardner

hardly places matters of, shall we say financial importance, in the hands of an attorney whose forte seems to be mental agility rather than…"
    "Responsibility?" Mason asked sarcastically as Brownley hesitated.
    "No, that isn't what I meant," Brownley said, "but your skill lies along the lines of the spectacular and the dramatic. As you become older, Mr. Mason, you'll find that men who have large interests tend to fight shy of the spectacular and the dramatic."
    "In other words, you didn't consult me."
    "That's right."
    "And since you didn't elect to avail yourself of my services I am at perfect liberty to offer those services to people who are on the other side."
    The ghost of a smile twitched the lips of the man who sat a the mahogany table surrounded by the environments of his wealth, entrenched in an aura of financial power as though it had been a fortress. "Well put," he said. "Your skill in turning my own comments back on me is well in keeping with what I've heard of your talents."
    Mason said, "I've explained to you generally over the telephone what brings me here. It's about your granddaughter. Regardless of what you may think, Mr. Brownley, I'm not merely a paid gladiator fighting for those who have the funds with which to employ me. I'm a fighter, yes, and I like to feel that I fight for those who aren't able to fight for themselves, but I don't offer my services indiscriminately. I fight to aid justice."
    "Are you asking me, Mr. Mason, to believe that you only seek to right wrongs?" Brownley asked in a thinly skeptical voice.
    "I'm not asking you to believe one Goddamn thing," Mason told him. "I'm telling you. You can believe it or not."
    Brownley frowned. "There's no call to get abusive, Mr. Mason," he said.
    "I think," the lawyer told him, "that I'm the best judge of that, Mr. Brownley." And with that he sat down and lit a cigarette, conscious that the super-composure of the financier had been considerably jarred. "Now then," Mason went on, "whenever a man has something which other men want, he's subject to all sorts of pressure. You have money. Other men want it. They try all sorts of schemes to get you to give up that money. I have a certain ability as a fighter and men try to impose upon my credulity in order to enlist my sympathies.
    "Now I'm going to put my cards on the table with you. The whole chain of events leading up to my interest in this matter has been very unusual. I'm not certain that it hasn't been an elaborate build-up in order to gain my partisan support. If it has, I don't want to lend any such ability as I may have to perpetrating an injustice or bolstering a fraud. If, on the other hand, the chain of circumstances isn't part of an elaborate stage-setting, but represents a genuine sequence of events, there's a very great possibility that the person whom you believe to be the daughter of your son Oscar and Julia Branner isn't related to you."
    "You have some authority for making this assertion?" Brownley asked.
    "Naturally." Mason paused to regard the smoldering tip of his cigarette, then, letting his eyes meet the lidless scrutiny of the other man, said, "I have it on the authority of the only surviving parent, Julia Branner herself."
    There was no sign of emotion upon Brownley's face. His smile was distinctly frosty. "And may I ask," he inquired, "who in turn has identified Julia Branner?"
    Mason held his face in rigid immobility. "No one," he admitted, "and that is why I came to you. If there is any fraud on my side of the case, you are the person to expose it."
    "And if I convince you that such fraud exists?" Brownley asked.
    Mason made a spreading gesture with his palms and said, "The case will no longer interest me. But understand, Mr. Brownley, I must be convinced."
    "Julia Branner," Brownley said, "is an adventuress. My detectives have gathered things concerning her past life before she met my son. It is rather an extraordinary compilation."
    Mason conveyed his cigarette to his lips,