Эрл Гарднер - The Case of the Buried Clock

“Well, no.”

“In other words, you didn’t look for a dog’s footprints?”

“Well, not particularly. Come to think of it, the footprints of a coyote are so much like — no sir, I’m not going to swear one way or another.”

“You have already sworn both ways,” Mason said. “First that no dog was up there, second that you looked specifically for a dog’s footprints, third that you didn’t look for a dog’s footprints, fourth, that a dog may have been up there... Now, what is the fact.”

Jameson said irritably, “Oh, go ahead, twist everything I say around—”

“The witness will answer questions,” Judge Canfield admonished.

“What,” Mason asked suavely, “is the fact?”

“I don’t know,” Jameson said.

Mason smiled. “Thank you, Mr. Jameson, and that is all.”

Judge Canfield glanced at the clock, then down at the discomfited McNair. “It appears,” the judge said slowly and deliberately, “that it has now reached the time for the afternoon adjournment.”

Perry Mason paced the floor of his office, head thrust forward, thumbs pushed into the armholes of his vest. Della Street, sitting over at her secretarial desk, watched him silently, her eyes filled with solicitude.

For nearly an hour now, Mason had been pacing rhythmically back and forth, occasionally pausing to light a cigarette or to fling himself into the big swivel chair behind his desk. Then after a few moments he’d restlessly push back the chair, and once more begin his pacing back and forth.

It was almost nine o’clock when he said abruptly, “Unless I can think of some way of tying in the astronomical angle of this case, I’m licked.”

Della Street welcomed the opportunity to let words furnish a safety valve for his pent-up nervousness. “Can’t you let the clock speak for itself? Surely it isn’t just a coincidence that it’s keeping perfect sidereal time.”

“I could let the clock speak for itself,” Mason said, “if I could get it introduced in evidence; but how the devil am I going to prove that it has anything whatever to do with the murder?”

“It was found near the scene of the murder.”

“I know,” Mason said, “I can stand up and argue till I’m black in the face. ‘Here’s a buried clock. It was found near the scene of the murder. First, the day of the murder, second, the day after the murder. Then it disappeared until weeks later when we’re trying the case’ — and Judge Canfield will look at me with that cold, analytical gaze of his, and say, ‘And suppose all that is true, Mr. Mason. What possible connection does all that have with the case?’ And what am I going to say to him then?”

“I don’t know,” Della admitted.

“Neither do I,” Mason said.

“But there must be someone connected with the case that is interested in astrology.”

Mason said, “I’m not so darned sure. That astrological angle was a good thing to use as a red herring to try and get the Kern County district attorney interested, but a person doesn’t have to know sidereal time in order to play around with astrology. A person wants sidereal time for just one purpose: that is, to locate a star.”

“Please explain again how you can locate a star by a clock,” she said.

Mason said, “The heavens consist of a circle of three hundred and sixty degrees. The earth rotates through that circle every twenty-four hours. That means fifteen degrees to an hour... All right, astronomers divide the heavens into degrees, minutes and seconds of arc, then translate those degrees, minutes and seconds of arc into hours, minutes and seconds of time. They give each star a so-called right ascension, which is in reality nothing but its distance east or west of a given point in the heavens, and a declination, which is nothing but its distance to the north or south of the celestial equator.”

“I still don’t see how that helps,” Della Street said.

“An astronomer has a telescope on what is known as an equatorial mounting. The east and west motion is at right angles to the axis of the earth. As the telescope moves, an indicator moves along graduated circles. Once you know the right ascension and declination of a star, you only have to check that against the sidereal time of that particular locality, swing the telescope along the graduated circle, elevate it to the proper declination, and you’re looking at the star in question... Now, you tell me what on earth that has to do with the murder of Jack Hardisty.”

“I can’t,” she said, and laughed.

“Neither can I,” Mason said, “and unless I can find some way of doing it, I’m damned apt to have a client convicted of first-degree murder.”

“Do you think she’s guilty?”

Mason said, “It depends on what you mean by being guilty.”

“Do you think she killed him?”

“She may have,” Mason conceded. “But it wasn’t coldblooded, premeditated murder. It was an accident, something that came about as a result of some unforeseen development... But she may have pulled the trigger.”

“Then why doesn’t she tell the complete circumstances?”

“She’s afraid to, because in doing that she’ll implicate someone else... But what we’re up against, Della, is a double-barreled crime.”

“How do you mean?”

“How does this look? Jack Hardisty takes that money up to the tunnel. He buries it. Someone gives him a dose of scopolamine, he talks, and under the influence of the drug babbles his secret. That person goes up and gets the money; or else goes up and finds that some other person has been there first and got the money.”

“And you don’t think that was Milicent Hardisty?”

Mason shook his head. “If Milicent Hardisty or Doctor Macon had found that money, they’d have gone to Mr. Blane and said, ‘Here you are. Here’s the money.’ That’s what all the trouble was about. They were trying to get that money back because it was going to put Blane in a spot if he had to make it good.”

“Yes. I can see that,” Della Street admitted.

“Therefore,” Mason said, “some third party intervened. Someone has the ninety thousand dollars, and is hanging onto it. And just as sure as you’re a foot high, that clock is connected with it in some way, and simply because I can’t find out what the connection is before court convenes tomorrow morning, I’m letting a damned whippersnapper, smart-Aleck deputy district attorney nail my hide up against the side of the tannery.”

“It isn’t as bad as that,” she protested. “You’ve certainly got them worried about that gun now.”

Mason nodded almost absently, said, “The gun is a red herring. It’s a little salt in an open wound, but that clock — damn it, Della, that clock means something!”

“Can’t we tie it in with something else?” she asked. “The piece of broken glass from the spectacle lens, for instance. Couldn’t you—”

Paul Drake’s knuckles pounded three knocks on the door, then after a pause, two short sharp knocks.

“Paul Drake,” Mason said. “Let him in.”

Della Street opened the door. Drake, grinning on the threshold said, “You’ve got them all churned up, Perry. They’re up there prowling around that canyon with spotlights, flares, floodlights, flashlights, and matches. Jameson swears he’s going to go into court tomorrow morning and prove to you that there isn’t a gun anywhere in the whole damned barranca.”

Mason nodded absently, said, “I thought he’d do that. I may have some fun with him on cross-examination, but that isn’t telling me how the clock ties into the case.”

“Astrology?” Drake suggested.