The Case of the
Stuttering Bishop – Erle Stanley Gardner, 1936
Ace lawyer Perry Mason is being forced by his secretary
Della Street to deal with the mail. He is rescued by a visit from a man from
Australia who claims to be a bishop. Mason suspects William Mallory from the
first because he stutters, an impediment that would surely prevent a career
that involved talking all the time.
The bishop has a bizarre story involving an inheritance.
He says the wealthy but rotten magnate Renwold C. Brownley -- now there’s a
Dickensian-Gardnerian name – broke up his own son’s marriage. He then forced his daughter-in-law, Julia
Branner, to flee to Australia, where she had to put her baby girl up for adoption. Renwold C. Brownley
wanted the child, his only grandchild, and hired detectives to find her. The
bishop tells Mason that the dodgy PI’s have brought forward a young woman who
claims to be the heir. Julia however says it’s not so. The bishop tells Mason
all this on background, predicting that Julia herself will soon contact Mason.
Mason takes the case, but is dubious that he knows
everything there is to know. Mason tells Paul Drake to have Mallory followed.
However, after Mallory is attacked in his lodgings and recovers in hospital, he
disappears on his way to embark on a ship back to Oz. Mason meets Julia to get
her story straight. Then the victim is offed and it turns out to be – you got
it in one -- Renwold C. Brownley. Julia as a client accused of murder one is
totally uncooperative with Mason in that she won’t even tell him why she is
innocent.
Any number of imposters go through their poses in this
novel. It is doubtless one of the most complicated plots ever devised by
Gardner, who was a master of complexity. Because the number of suspects is not
large, it is fairly easy to guess the culprit, but I’ll bet the reader will
still be enlightened by Perry’s reveal to Della and Paul. This is only the 9th
Perry Mason novel so Mason and the DA Ham Burger have a cordial enough
relationship to have a conference outside of the courtroom. Later Burger was to
give no quarter, which was okay with Mason who never quailed from a fight.
Bottom line: Well worth reading for both hardcore fans
and readers who may be wondering why back in the day Gardner was the
best-selling mystery writer in the world.
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