The Case of the Buried Clock

Chapter 24

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.

Mason said, “That astrological angle is interesting, but it’s nothing we can sell Judge Canfield.”

Drake said, “Don’t be too certain. I’ve just found out something about Mrs. Payson.”

“What about her?”

“She’s a student of astrology.”

Mason gave that matter frowning consideration.

“I’m going to tell you something else,” Drake said. “You’ll remember that when we got the oculist’s report on that sliver of broken spectacle lens, he said he thought it was from Jack Hardisty’s spectacles, the same as the other piece was. Well, I checked with another oculist, and he says you were right. Remember you weren’t at all certain that it was from the same—”

“Never mind that,” Mason interrupted. “What’s the latest?”

“It’s a pretty small sliver to check on, Perry. That first man was afraid to say it wasn’t Hardisty’s because the sheriff had the big chunk, and said it was... Well, anyway, I’ve stumbled onto an oculist who has made some very delicate and complete tests. He says this piece isn’t from Hardisty’s spectacles, but that the piece the sheriff has is made to Hardisty’s prescription. That means there were two broken spectacles.

“Now, according to this oculist, the normal eye has a certain power of adjustment, or what is known as accommodation. It’s really an ability to change the thickness of the lens of the eyeball, which has the effect of bringing objects into focus — just the same as you move the lens of a camera in and out, in order to focus it on some object.”

Mason nodded.

“That power is lost as a person becomes older. At the age of about forty, a person needs bifocals; at about sixty, he loses the power of accommodation altogether. Of course, some persons are more immune to the effects of age so far as the eye is concerned, but on a general average, an optician can tell the age of a person pretty well from the correction of his eyeglass. Now, this oculist tells me that just making a guess — not something he’d be willing to swear to under oath, but making a darned close guess — that the spectacle lens came from the glasses of a person just about thirty-six years old.

“Now, Jack Hardisty was thirty-two. Milicent Hardisty is twenty-seven, Adele is twenty-five. Harley Raymand is twenty-five, Vincent Blane is fifty-two, Rodney Beaton is about thirty-five, but he doesn’t wear any glasses. He’s one of those chaps who have perfect eyes... But here’s something you haven’t considered. Myrna Payson seems to be thirty or so, but she may be a lot older. She doesn’t ordinarily wear glasses, but she may wear ’em when she’s reading — or when she’s checking astronomical time in connection with a buried clock.”

Mason flung himself into his big creaking swivel chair. He melted back in the chair, rested his head against the cushioned back, closed his eyes, then said abruptly, “Done anything about it, Paul?”

Drake shook his head. “The idea just occurred to me. Somehow I hadn’t considered her in connection with those glasses and the clock.”

“Consider her now, then,” Mason said without opening his eyes.

“I’m going to,” Drake said, getting to his feet. “I’m starting right now. Is there anything else?”

“Nothing else,” Mason said. “Only we’ve got to tie up that sidereal time angle tight by tomorrow morning. I think McNair is going to throw the case into my lap sometime tomorrow. Then I’ll have to start putting on evidence. I haven’t any to put on. The only thing I can do is to use that clock to inject such an element of mystery into the case that McNair will have to take notice of it.”

“Can’t you do that anyway?” Drake asked.

“Not unless I can get the clock introduced into evidence.” Mason said, “and how I’m going to prove that sidereal time has anything to do with the murder of Jack Hardisty, is beyond me. The more I cudgel my mind on it, the more I find myself running around in circles.”

Drake started for the door. “Okay,” he said, “I’m going up and do a little snooping around Myrna Payson’s cattle ranch.”

“Watch out for her,” Della Street said, laughing. “She oozes sex appeal.”

Drake said, “Sex appeal means nothing to me.”

“So I’ve noticed,” Della Street observed.

Drake had reached the door when he paused, took a wallet from his pocket, opened it and said, “I’ve got something else here, Perry. I don’t think it has a darn thing to do with the case, but I found it out there by the rock, not over twenty-five yards from where the clock was first found... See what you make of it.”

Drake opened an envelope he took from the wallet, and handed Mason a small circular piece of black paper, not quite the size of a silver dollar.

Mason inspected it, a puzzled frown drawing his eyebrows together. “It seems to be a circle carefully cut from a piece of brand-new carbon paper.”

“That’s it,” Drake agreed, and “that’s all of it. You can’t make another darn thing out of it.”

Mason said, “The circle was carefully drawn. You can see where the point of a compass made a little hole here. Then the circle was drawn and cut with the greatest care. The carbon paper had evidently never been used, otherwise there’d be lines on it or the imprint of type.”

“Exactly,” Drake agreed. “Evidently someone wanted to make a tracing of something, but never used the circular bit of paper — it’s about the size of a small watch. It probably doesn’t mean a darn thing, Perry, but I found it lying there and thought I’d better bring it along.”

“Thanks, Paul. Glad you did. It may check up with something later.”

Paul Drake said, “Well, I’ll be on my way. Be seeing you.”

Mason remained tilted back in the swivel chair for nearly five minutes after Paul Drake had left, then he straightened himself, drummed his fingers on the edge of the desk for a few moments, then shook his head.

“What’s the matter?” Della Street asked.

“It doesn’t click,” Mason said. “It just doesn’t fit. The clock, the glasses, the stars, the—” Abruptly Mason broke off. He frowned, and half closed his right eye, staring fixedly at the far wall of the room.

“What is it?” Della Street asked.

“Martha Stevens,” Mason said slowly.

“What about her?”

“She’s thirty-eight.”

“I don’t get you.”

“Thirty-eight,” Mason said, “wears spectacles. A practical nurse, trained in the giving of hypodermics, because she gives Vincent Blane his insulin shots... Now, do you get it?”

“Heavens, yes!”

“And,” Mason went on, “the night after the murder when Adele Blane disappeared, she went to the San Venito Hotel and registered as Martha Stevens... We never found out why.”

“Do you know now?” Della asked breathlessly.

Mason said, “I know what might have been a reason.”

“What?”

“Martha Stevens had a date with someone at the San Venito Hotel. She couldn’t keep it. Adele went there and registered under the name of Martha Stevens, so she could meet whatever person was to call on Martha Stevens.”

“Who?” Della asked.

Mason hesitated for a moment, drumming with his fingers on the edge of the desk. Abruptly he picked up the telephone, and gave Vincent Blane’s number in Kenvale.

After a few minutes, he said, “Hello. Who is this speaking please? Oh, yes, Mrs. Stevens... Is anyone home except you?... I see. Well, Mr. Blane wanted you to take his hypodermic syringe — the one he uses on his insulin shots — to the office of the Drake Detective Agency. You can just leave it here. He wanted you to catch the first interurban bus and bring it in. Do you think you can do that?... Yes, right away... No, I don’t know, Mrs. Stevens. All I know is that’s what Mr. Blane asked me to notify you. He’s feeling rather upset — the strain of the trial and all — yes, I understand. Thank you. Good-by.”

Della Street looked at him curiously. “What good does that do?” she asked.

Mason pulled open a drawer in his desk, took out a bunch of skeleton keys.

“It gives us an opportunity to go through the room of Martha Stevens, and do a little searching along lines that probably haven’t occurred to the police... And perhaps steal a pair of glasses.”

“That comes under the head of burglarious house-breaking?” Della Street asked.

Mason grinned. “In view of the fact that I’m employed by the owner of the house, and might be considered to have his implied permission, there’s a technical question as to the burglarious intent.”

“Would the district attorney appreciate such a technicality?”

“I’m afraid he wouldn’t. Hamilton Burger, the district attorney, or Thomas L. McNair, the brilliant trial deputy, would hardly think there was anything to differentiate the act from burglary — if I got caught.”

“Can’t you get the evidence in the regular way?”

“There isn’t time. If I can find some peg on which to hang the evidence of that clock, I’ve got to know about it tonight. And if I can’t find anything, the sooner I know that, the sooner I can start on some other approach.”

Della Street walked over to the cloak closet and took her hat down from the shelf.

“Where,” Mason asked, “do you think you’re going?”

“Along.”

Mason grinned. “Okay. Come on.”