The Case of the Buried Clock

Chapter 7

Mason stopped by the Kenvale Hotel to find Della Street waiting in the lobby.

“Find out about that cabin?” he asked.

“Yes. I went to the county assessor’s office and got the thing definitely located.”

“Just where?” Mason asked.

“It’s in Los Angeles County, but as near as I could tell from making measurements on the map, the cabin is just about fourteen hundred feet from the county line.”

“But the road to the cabin crosses the line into Kern County?”

“That’s right. The private road to the cabin turns off just beyond the county line.”

“How far beyond?”

“Not far — around two hundred feet.”

Mason chuckled.

“What is it?” she asked.

Mason said, “If the murder was committed where the car was pushed over the grade, and the body was then brought back to the cabin, the murder was committed in Kern County. But if the murder was committed in the cabin, then, of course, it was committed in Los Angeles County. Right now the officers may not know the answer to that.”

“Isn’t there some law that covers that, though?” Della Street asked suspiciously.

“Exactly,” Mason said. “Section 782 of our Penal Code... And that’s going to make it nice.”

“Come on, tightwad, loosen up.”

“That section provides that when a murder is committed within five hundred yards of the boundary of two or more counties, the jurisdiction lies in either county.”

“Then why the chuckle? In this case either county could take jurisdiction.”

Mason said, “You’ll see, if it works out — and I think it will.”

“What happened out at the house?” she asked.

Mason ceased smiling.

“I sure led with my chin on that one. She was there.”

“Milicent Hardisty?”

“Yes.”

“But wasn’t she supposed to be there?”

“That’s what the officers supposed. Blane told me she wasn’t.”

“Was Blane lying to you?”

“I don’t know. I don’t think so. It certainly made me feel as though someone had kicked me in the stomach when she opened the door. There I was, standing helplessly by, letting the officers get hold of my client before I’d had any chance to talk with her... Has Adele Blane called you up yet?”

“No.”

“She will. I want to see her. She may as well come home now. Tell her that when she calls — only to be certain to see me first.”

Della glanced at him, said, “You sound almost as though you’d arranged her disappearance... What did they do with Mrs. Hardisty?”

“Put her under arrest and they’re going to bury her.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“Ordinarily prisoners charged with murder are taken to the county jail, but if the authorities have an idea they can do more with a prisoner by taking him to some other jail, they do so... You can see the situation with Milicent Hardisty. I told her not to answer questions. Perhaps she will. Perhaps she won’t. In any event, they know I’m going to try to see her. It’s a ten-to-one bet that instead of taking her to the Los Angeles jail where I can find her, they’ll take her to some other town in the county and hold her there. By the time I finally locate her, they’ll have had plenty of time to work on her. That’s what is known as ‘burying a prisoner.’ ”

“Isn’t that unethical?”

Mason grinned. “There are no ethics when you’re dealing with the police. Or I should say when the police are dealing with you. You’re supposed to be bound by ethics. The police don’t have ethics. They act on the assumption that they’re ‘getting the truth,’ whereas you are ‘protecting a criminal.’ ”

“That doesn’t seem right,” Della said.

“Of course, you have to admit this. The police are trying to solve crimes. They sincerely believe that everything they do has a tendency to uncover the truth, that anything they’re stopped from doing is a monkey-wrench in the machinery. Therefore they look on all laws which are passed to protect the citizen as being obstacles thrown in front of the police... Well, I suppose I’ve got to go start proceedings for a writ of habeas corpus. It’ll take me two or three hours. You stay here and run things while I’m gone.”

“What do you want me to do?”

Mason said, “Harley Raymand for one. Get him to go back to that cabin and look around.”

“Why?”

“I’m not entirely satisfied with some things.”

“What, for instance?”

“Evidently Jack Hardisty wore nose-pincher glasses. I saw the marks on his nose where the supports dug in.”

“Well?”

“He didn’t have his glasses on.”

“Wasn’t he partially undressed?”

“Yes.”

“Men don’t go to bed with their glasses on.”

“I couldn’t see them anywhere in the room.”

“He probably put them in his coat pocket when he undressed.”

“Perhaps — but other things indicate he didn’t undress himself.”

“What?”

“The shoes.”

“What about the shoes?”

“The shoes,” Mason said, “looked as though Hardisty had just stepped out of a shoeshining parlor.”

“What’s wrong with that?”

“If Harley Raymand and Adele Blane are telling the truth, Hardisty got out of his car and walked around among the pine needles. That would make the shoes pretty dusty, but there’s something else about the shoes that bothers me.”

“What?”

“I noticed that they were put under the bed with the toes pointing toward the bed.”

“Well?”

Mason said, “Nine persons out of ten sitting on a bed and undressing will take off their shoes and put them down so the toes are pointing away from the bed; but if another person puts shoes down by a bed where a person is sleeping, he’ll almost invariable point the toes toward the bed.”

Della thought that over, then nodded thoughtful acquiescence.

“Now, then,” Mason went on, “if you had noticed the bottom part of Jack Hardisty’s trousers, you’d have observed that there was a little mud on them — a dried, reddish clay — not much, but enough to show. Now it hasn’t rained here in Southern California for a month. Jack Hardisty would hardly have carried mud around on his trousers for a month... I want to get Harley Raymand to explore around and see if he can find some place where a stream of water runs through reddish clay.”

“But if he walked in the reddish clay, why didn’t it stick to his shoes?”

“That’s exactly it. He either took off his shoes and socks, and walked in there barefooted, or else cleaned his shoes afterwards.”

“Good Heavens, why?”

Mason grinned and said, “Perhaps ninety thousand dollars in cash would be the answer.”

“Oh, I see... Do you want me to point that out to Mr. Raymand?”

“Definitely not.”

“Anything else?”

“Yes. Tell Raymand to make a search for that clock, keep listening for the sound of ticking. If he gets his hands on the clock again, have him bring it to me at once.”

“Okay,” Della Street said, “I’ll start Raymand out. Any—”

“Yes. Here’s something I want you to do with Paul Drake. It’s going to be tricky, but he can put it across.”

“What?”

“Under that section of the penal code, the jurisdiction lies in either Kern County or Los Angeles County. Now, if Paul Drake could get some newspaper reporter to put a bug in the ear of the district attorney of Kern County that this was going to be a spectacular case, with a chance for big notoriety and a possibility of political advancement for the district attorney who tries it — well, you know how it is. That’s the sort of thing that prosecutors in small counties eat up.”

“Then you want the case to be tried in Kern County?”

“No. I want each county to think the other is trying to steal the show.”

“I’ll tell Paul to fix it up. Anything else?”

“I think,” Mason told her, “that will be enough.”