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that Renwold Brownley knew that his son Oscar was coming back to him and was afraid the woman was going to try to come back. Wouldn't it be a smart move for Renwold Brownley to pull some political wires and get a warrant of arrest issued for her? Then the minute she returned to California he could have her thrown into jail on a manslaughter charge."
    Della Street nodded absently, pushed back her soup dish and said, "Aren't there two grandchildren living with Brownley?"
    "That's right," he said. "Philip Brownley, whose father was the younger son, and a girl whose first name I've forgotten, who's the daughter of Oscar. Now Bishop Mallory comes over on the Monterey, stays four or five days in San Francisco, puts some ads in the local papers and…"
    "Wait a minute," she interrupted. "I've just remembered something. You say the bishop came over on the Monterey?"
    "Yes, why?"
    She laughed nervously and said, "Chief, you know a lot about human nature. Why do stenographers, secretaries and shop girls read the society news?"
    "I'll bite. Why do they?"
    She shrugged her shoulders. For a moment her eyes were wistful. "I'm darned if I know, Chief. I wouldn't want to live unless I could work for a living, and yet I like to read about who's at Palm Springs, who's doing what in Hollywood and all the rest of it, and every secretary I know does the same thing."
    Watching her narrowly, Mason said, "Skip the preliminaries, Della, and tell me what this's all about."
    She said slowly, "I happen to remember that Janice Alma Brownley, the granddaughter of Renwold C. Brownley, was a passenger on the Monterey from Sydney to San Francisco, and the newspapers said that the attractive young heiress was the center of social life aboard the ship, or words to that effect, if you get what I mean. You see, Chief, you don't know the granddaughter's first name, but I can tell you lots about her."
    Mason stared across the table at her and said, "Twelve."
    "What?" she asked.
    "Twelve," he repeated, a twinkle in his eyes.
    "Chief, what on earth are you talking about?"
    "I told you a minute ago that when I added two and two in this case I didn't get four, but six, and it bothered me," he said. "Now I add two and two and make twelve."
    "Twelve what?"
    He shook his head and said, "Let's not even think of it for a while. It's not often that we have a chance to relax, Della. Let's eat, drink and be merry, have a few dances, go back to the office and get Paul Drake in for a conference. By that time the thing I'm chasing will probably turn out to be just a mirage. But in the meantime," he said, somewhat wistfully, "just in case it shouldn't be a mirage, what a gosh-awful case it would be. A regular humdinger of a case. A gee whillikins of a case!"
    "Tell me, Chief."
    He shook his head and said, "It can't be true, Della. It's just a mirage. Lets not talk about it and then we won't be disappointed if Paul Drake unearths information which shows we're all wet."
    She regarded him thoughtfully and said, "Do you mean that this girl…"
    "Tut, tut," he told her warningly, "don't argue with the boss. Come on, Della, this is a fox-trot. Remember now, we're giving our minds a recess."
    Mason refused to be hurried through the dinner, or to discuss any business. Della Street matched his mood. For more than an hour they enjoyed one of those rare periods of intimacy which comes to people who have worked together, sharing disappointments and triumphs, who understand each other so perfectly that there is no need for any of the little hypocrisies which are so frequently the rule rather than the exception in human contacts.
    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