The Case of the Turning Tide

Chapter 19

Pete Lassen, the sheriff, was very much in evidence as the diver adjusted his helmet. The group of men clustered on the deck of the murder yacht were tense and silent. The newspapers had been notified and several reporters were there to cover the story. Cameras were held in readiness.

Duryea, always inclined to hold himself aloof when the duties of his office brought him to the attention of the public, remained somewhat detached from the other officers. Gramps Wiggins at his side was puffing furiously at a blackened, disreputable pipe.

The diver lowered himself into the water. The air lines and telephones were tested. Then the diver slipped rapidly from sight, and only a thin stream of air bubbles coming up marked the spot where he had slipped from sight.

Up on the deck of the yacht, two attendants kept the handles of the manual pump swinging with regular monotony. One of the men had earphones clamped on so that he could keep in communication with the diver. From time to time, he relayed bits of information to the little group which clustered along the rail of the yacht.

“Ocean floor’s clean and sandy,” the man at the pump re-ported, then there followed an interval of silence while the men worked rhythmically at the pump handles. The little group gathered closer.

“He’s found something — a bent gold wire... two gold wires... They’re embedded in the sand... It’s a pair of spectacles. He wants a basket lowered.”

Bill Wiegart picked up a steel-meshed covered basket suspended on a rope which had been left in readiness by the rail of the yacht, and lowered it down. A moment later the man with the earphones said, “Okay, pull her back up.”

Wiegart pulled up the basket. The men gathered around to examine the gold-rimmed spectacles.

The man at the pumps reported, “Found ’em about fifteen feet off the port quarter, lenses about half an inch deep in sand, the bows sticking up.”

Newspaper reporters scribbled furiously.

Slowly the stream of air bubbles worked their way around the yacht. A little manipulation kept the hose and lines from fouling on the mooring as the diver moved.

The man with the earphones reported, “That seems to be all. A few empty tin cans pretty well buried in the sand, but nothing else.”

“Tell him to look particularly for a typewriter,” Lassen said.

“He has. There isn’t anything.”

Gramps sidled over to the district attorney.

“Well, he may as well come up,” Lassen said.

Gramps took the pipe out of his mouth. “Tide’s runnin’ out, huh?”

“That’s right.”

“Comin’ in when the bodies were discovered Sunday?”

“I believe so.”

“It was low tide Saturday about the time of the murder?”

“What difference does it make?” Duryea asked as Gramps mumbled his mental computation of tide tables.

Gramps said, “I’m just tryin’ to find out which way she was pointed. A yacht’ll swing with the wind and tide. There wasn’t any wind Saturday afternoon, or Sunday morning, so she was swingin’ entirely with the tide.”

“Well?”

Gramps pushed the coal of tobacco down into the bowl of his pipe with a horny forefinger. “Well now,” he said, “the way I look at it, this here yacht’s over a hundred feet long. Now you take the moorin’ chain an’ figure the angle of that... You get it?”

Duryea got it. He stepped toward the group and said, “Wait a minute. Don’t have him come up yet. Have him go about a hundred and fifty feet toward shore.”

Lassen said, “There wouldn’t be anything in there, Frank.”

Duryea said, “Notice the way she’s swinging with the tide. She’s pointing toward the shore now, but, at various times since the murder, she must have been swung around toward land, with the bow pointing toward the ocean.”

The sheriff frowned. One of the newspaper reporters glanced quickly at Duryea and scribbled a note on the folded newsprint which he held in his hand. The string of air bubbles which marked the location of the diver hissed upward as the diver moved toward the shore.

There followed some two or three minutes of anxious silence. The sheriff said, “Ain’t no use...” and was interrupted by the excited voice of the man who was keeping in touch with the diver. “He’s found it!” he shouted. “Found a thirty-eight caliber revolver.”

“Wait a minute,” Duryea said, stepping forward. “We want to mark that place. Have him mark it with a float or some-thing.”

“You can send down a float and weight in this basket when we pick up the gun,” the man at the pump said to Bill Wiegart. “He’ll have to take the skiff and row over there. You can see where he is from the air bubbles.” Into the mouthpiece, he said, “We’ll be out with a skiff to pick up the gun. Mark exactly where you found it. They’re sending out a heavy weight and buoy.”

Duryea said, “Also have him go back to where he found the spectacles and mark that place with a buoy.”

Wiegart and another man tumbled into the skiff. One of the newspaper reporters tossed them the metal basket. There was a moment of confusion while they were looking for weights, then one of the men came up from the engine room carrying a peculiarly shaped wrench. “This all right to use?” he asked. One of the reporters answered the question. “It’s just an oil-well tool.” Lassen said, “Okay, boys, use that.”

It took a few moments to affix a fish line and a piece of wood, then Wiegart rowed the skiff out to a point nearly two hundred feet from the bow of the yacht. He lowered the basket, raised it with the gun inside, and a few minutes later, the bit of wood bobbing on the water marked the exact point where the gun had been found. The diver walked toward the yacht to mark the spot where he had found the spectacles.

Wiegart rowed back to the yacht, and the group crowded about a thirty-eight blued-steel revolver, in the cylinder of which were two discharged shells. Newspaper reporters brought out their cameras, and Pete Lassen stepped out to stand by himself at the rail of the yacht, holding the gun up in front of him. “Okay, boys,” he said. “Get your pictures.”

Gramps Wiggins drew Duryea off to one side. “You get it, son?” he asked, his manner excited.

Duryea laughed. “Of course, I get it. Everyone gets it. Pete Lassen is a nice chap, but he always tries to hog the limelight whenever there’s any publicity. Not that it makes a great deal of difference. He...”

“No, no,” Gramps interrupted, his voice becoming high-pitched with excitement. “To hell with that tub o’ lard. I’m talkin’ about the evidence.”

“What about it?”

“You been lookin’ up the tides?” Gramps asked.

Duryea shook his head.

“You’d oughta looked ’em up,” Gramps said reproachfully. “They’re the best clue in the whole dingbusted case.”

“What do you mean?”

Gramps said, “It was dead slack low-tide water at 5.06 P.M. Saturday afternoon. The next dead-low water was at 5.34 Sunday morning. She was high water at 11.55 Sunday morning, low water at 5.56 Sunday afternoon, and high water again at 11.48 Sunday night. Gee gosh, come on! Let’s get away from here. I got to be where I can get this pointed out to you. We got a clue, a humdinger of a clue, a geewhillikins of a clue!”

Duryea smiled indulgently at the little old man’s excitement. “Okay, Gramps,” he said, “let’s get going.”

Gramps started for the skiff, then suddenly turned and pointed a rigid finger at Duryea’s buttonhole. “Now you listen to me, son,” he said, jabbing away with his forefinger like a woodpecker pecking at a fence post, “no matter what else you do, you keep those buoys markin’ the place where they found those glasses an’ that gun, an’ have somebody from the county engineer’s office come out here an’ make a map o’ that harbor showin’ the moorin’ of the yacht, an’ the place where those things were found by the diver. You get me?”

“I get you,” Duryea said. “We’d probably do that anyway — although I don’t see why it’s so terribly important.”

Gramps dragged him by the coat sleeve. “You come along with me,” he said.

It wasn’t until Gramps had the district attorney in a secluded corner back of the yacht club that he felt free to expound his theory.

“Now you listen to me,” he said, pounding his right fist down on his left palm. “We got the very best clue, the best all-fired thing you could get anywhere. It...”

“All right, what is it?”

“There weren’t no wind on Saturday afternoon or Saturday night,” Gramps said. “Wind didn’t come up until late Sunday night. Even then it was just a breeze. Saturday night an’ Sunday was dead calm.”

“Well, what about it?”

“Don’t you see.” Gramps said, “we got a clock that was run by nature an’ tells us just exactly the whole dad blame story.”

“I don’t get it,” Duryea said.

“The way a yacht swings to its moorings,” Gramps pointed out impatiently. “Here, take a look at this.” He dropped down to sit on his heels while he traced a diagram on the cement with the tip of his forefinger. “You get me? Here’s a tide runnin’ out. What happens to a yacht that’s moored? It swings around on the moorin’, an’ the bow points toward shore. Doesn’t it?”

Duryea nodded, still deriving so much amusement from Gramps Wiggins’ excitement that he failed to pay much attention to the point the old man was trying to put across.

“All right,” Gramps went on, “the tide changes. There’s a period when the water is just slack, when there ain’t no cur-rents at all. Then the incomin’ tide starts movin’ in, slow at first, but gradually gatherin’ speed, an’ a yacht that’s moored by the bow starts swingin’ slowly around. After a while, when the tide’s runnin’ in good, the yacht’s swung around so the bow is pointin’ out to sea. Now you take a yacht that’s a hundred feet long, an’ then figure that the moorin’ cable stretches at an angle from the bottom up to the surface of the water, an’ between dead low tide and dead high tide there’s quite a bit o’ movement. The bow moves mebbe around a twenty-foot circle, but the stern swings way around. You get what I’m drivin’ at?”

Gramps looked up at the district attorney’s smiling face, jumped to his feet, and, fairly dancing in his excitement, said, “No, you don’t either. You ain’t gettin’ it at all. Here.” Gramps whipped off his glasses, and said, “How far could you throw these?”

“Not very far,” the district attorney admitted.

“That’s just it,” Gramps said, “an’ you wouldn’t try to throw ’em. There ain’t no reason for throwin’ glasses away, but if you was havin’ a fight with someone, you’d take off your glasses, wouldn’t you?”

“Probably.”

“Sure, you would. You’d take ’em off, an’ put ’em down some place where you could pick ’em up afterwards. If you was gettin’ in a fight with somebody on a yacht, you’d take your glasses off an’ put ’em on the rail. It’d be a darn poor place to put ’em, but it would be a place just the same... Then you’d have a fight, an’ your glasses would get knocked overboard, like as not. In that case, they’d drop right down to the bottom of the ocean, just about underneath where they was dropped, wouldn’t they?”

Duryea nodded.

“Now then, you take a gun,” Gramps said. “You could throw a gun a long ways, but if it was daylight an’ people were watchin’ on the shore, you wouldn’t dare to throw it at all. It’d go whirlin’ through the air an’ reflect in sunlight, an’ people would see it.”

Again, Duryea nodded.

“So,” Gramps went on, “if you was tryin’ to ditch a gun that had been used in a murder, an’ there was people on the shore, you’d take the gun out to the deck of the yacht, walk around on the side that was away from the shore, an’ just quietly drop it over the side, wouldn’t you?”

The smile faded from Duryea’s face now. His eyes began to show interest. “Yes,” he said, “I believe you would, Gramps.”

“Sure, you would,” Gramps shrilled. “Don’t you see what happened? Look at the distance between where those glasses was found an’ where the gun was found. You get what I mean? Whenever the fight took place that knocked those glasses over-board, the tide was runnin’ out. The yacht was pointin’ out to sea. Now that gun was dropped when the yacht had swung way around so the stern was facin’ the land. In other words, son, that gun was dropped when the tide was runnin’ in, an’ them murders took place when the tide was runnin’ out. Had to be like that.”

Duryea was frowning now. “You mean then that the gun wasn’t dropped at the time the murder was committed?”

“That’s exactly what I mean. That gun was dropped a whole lot later, probably three or four hours anyhow, but more like to be longer. Don’t you get it? Everything indicates that this here widow of Right is tellin’ the absolute truth. You remember Mrs. Rodman says she left the yacht a little after four o’clock, an’ there was kinda a tension between the two men. Something had happened. This here Stearne was in good humor when he started dictatin’ the letters. When she brought ’em back to have ’em signed, he was curt an’ short with her. Well, she went ashore with the letters, an’ Right an’ Stearne went out toward the stern o’ the yacht, an’ got in an argument. There’s a deck there on the stern that’s covered with an awning, an’ at low tide, with the stern pointed out toward the breakwater, people sittin’ on the beach couldn’t see what was goin’ on. Well, they had a fight. One o’ the men took off his glasses, an’ the glasses got knocked overboard. Then the fight was over, but the hard feelin’s weren’t. There was a shootin’. I wouldn’t doubt a bit if when you check the numbers on that gun, you find it’s Right’s gun. I’m tellin’ you it’s a murder an’ a suicide just the way that woman claimed. An’ what you got to do is find the missin’ will, and that there statement.”

Duryea, keenly interested now, said, with respect in his voice, “You’ve got something there, Gramps.”

“You’re gol-dinged right I got somethin’! Some time the next mornin’ that Moline girl came aboard. She found the bodies sprawled out down there in the cabin, an’ the gun was lyin’ on the floor, an’ probably a long-winded statement that Right had made and signed. Something he’d written on the typewriter, judgin’ from the position it was in. An’ there was somethin’ in that statement she didn’t like, somethin’ she wouldn’t want spread out in the papers, so she ditched that statement. Then she decided she’d better ditch the gun, too. She was afraid to come on deck an’ drop it, because someone might see the glint of the sun on the gun barrel as it went overboard. That fainting business was a frame-up. She had that gun stuck in her blouse, an’ when she pitched overboard, she just let it slip to the bottom.”

“That’s making a lot of deduction from just a slender clue,” Duryea objected.

“Slender clue, hell!” Gramps shrilled. “It’s a natural! You can’t get away from it. You take a pencil an’ paper an’ start figgerin’ the position of that yacht, an’ you’ll find out that the gun was dropped with the tide comin’ in, an’ the glasses was dropped when the tide was goin’ out. An’ the murder was committed when the tide was goin’ out. Now, tides vary, but you’ll find that around Saturday an’ Sunday the periods between high water and low water was just about six hours even. So there was quite an interval between the time the glasses were knocked overboard, an’...”

“You’re pinning a lot of faith on those glasses,” Duryea said. “They may have been dropped overboard from someone’s pocket. In fact, they might be glasses that have been in the water for a month or so.”

“Not glasses,” Gramps said. “The way glasses are shaped they’d keep workin’ their way down in the sand. But you can find out pretty darn soon. You can get the prescription of glasses worn by those two fellows an’ check up on the glasses an’...”

Duryea said, “Come on, Gramps. I’ll get up to the office and get started on that stuff.”

Duryea walked rapidly along the macadamized walk. Gramps, tagging along, his short legs taking almost two steps to the district attorney’s one, had at times to break into a half-trot in order to keep up. However, despite the tax on his wind and strength, he managed to interpose occasional bits of advice.

“That Moline girl,” he said. “I noticed... when you was lookin’ at Tucker... Tucker didn’t get your signal right away... But she did... She was lookin’... at him. An’ she was worried... Now listen, why don’t you... Hey, gol-ding it, stop a minute! I got me an idea, an’ I can’t... tell it to you while the wind’s bein’ jolted outa me... Stop a minute.”

Duryea looked at his watch, then slowed his pace. “I’m sorry, Gramps. What is it?”

“You let me... catch my wind,” Gramps puffed.

Duryea stopped and lit a cigarette. Gramps quickly regained his breath. “I got an idea that might work,” he said. “I was watchin’ that Moline girl’s face when Tucker an’ his wife came into the room. She ain’t dumb, that girl. She knew you was bringin’ those people in because they was witnesses to somethin’. She kept watchin’ your face, an’ you kept signalin’ Tucker by raisin’ your eyebrows an’ jerkin’ your head over toward the Moline girl. I could see she was havin’ kittens, so darned afraid Tucker was actually goin’ to identify her.”

“Well,” Duryea said, “we can’t change any of that now.”

“Then Tucker shook his head, an’ she got smart right away. You could just see the way a load rolled off her shoulders.”

“All right,” Duryea said, “that’s finished. Tucker can’t change his testimony.”

Gramps rushed on, “This here scheme of mine is a peach of a scheme. I read it once in a detective book, where an officer pulled it on a person he couldn’t break no other way. He...”

“What is it?” Duryea interrupted.

“Well,” Gramps said, “just pick up another couple. It don’t make no difference who they are, just so the Moline girl ain’t seen ’em before. You just put on an act in pantomime. You get her in the office, an’ this couple comes in. You go through all this business of raisin’ the eyebrows all over again, but this time just have the man an’ the woman nod their heads vigorously. Then you smile as though you’d just cut yourself a nice piece of cake, an’ tell ’em that’ll be all, to wait outside. Then you start talkin’ to that Moline woman, an’ see what happens.”

Duryea said, “I’m afraid I can’t very well do that, Gramps.”

“Why not?”

“We haven’t anything on Miss Moline except a lot of theories. She’s represented by an attorney. She’s inherited money. She’s no one you can shove around. The district attorney can’t resort to expedients like that unless he’s dealing with someone whom he’s morally satisfied has committed a crime. He...”

“Doggone it,” Gramps said. “Don’t be like that. Don’t be so damned conservative. Hell’s bells, you married a Wiggins. You must have a streak in you somewhere that’ll take a chance!”

Duryea laughed at the old man’s excitement. “I’m afraid, Gramps,” he said, “that’s one of the things that works fine in a story but might not work so well in real life.”

“The heck it wouldn’t,” Gramps said. “I tell you I was watchin’ her face. When Tucker shook his head, she perked right up. Now suppose Tucker had just nodded, an’ then after a minute his wife had nodded, too. Then what would she have done?”

“I don’t know,” Duryea said.

“Neither do I, but I’m makin’ a bet she’d have started explainin’, and when you get somebody like that startin’ to explain, you...”

“Well,” Duryea said with a note of finality in his voice, “it’s nothing I can do now, Gramps. It wouldn’t be in accordance with the dignity of my office. The people I used as stooges might talk, either then or afterwards, and it wouldn’t be ethical to...”

“All right, all right,” Gramps said disgustedly. “Come on, let’s go trace that gun.”