“Well, I — do you mean, Mr. Mason, that the defendant had two guns?”
“I don’t mean anything,” Mason said. “I’m merely asking questions. I am trying to find out what investigation was made.”
“Well, we didn’t look in the bottom of the canyon, or along the slope.”
“So, for all you know, Mrs. Hardisty may have thrown a gun in the bottom of the canyon.”
“Well, yes.”
“And that gun may have been the thirty-eight caliber revolver which fired the bullet which the witness Pringle states had been used to bring about the death of a dog.”
“Well... I wouldn’t say that.”
“The question is argumentative,” McNair objected.
“I think it’s within the bounds of legitimate cross-examination, however; bearing in mind that counsel is entitled to show bias of the witness,” Judge Canfield ruled, “the objection is overruled. Answer the question.”
“Well... I — oh, I suppose she could have shot a dog and buried it at Dr. Macon’s house, and then driven up to the top of the canyon and thrown the gun away,” the witness said, with an attempt at sarcasm.
“And,” Mason observed, “by the same token, she could have driven up a little farther, killed a dog near the cabin and thrown the gun away. Then Dr. Macon could have found the dog, carried it home and buried it near his garage, couldn’t he?”
“Well, I don’t think it happened that way.”
“Oh, you don’t think it happened that way?”
“No.”
“So what you want this jury to do is to return a verdict of guilty of murder in the first degree, predicated on the way you think the thing must have happened.”
“Well, not exactly that.”
“Pardon me. I must have misunderstood you. That was what I understood to be the effect of what you said, the position you had adopted.”
“Well, there wasn’t any dog up at the cabin.”
“How do you know?”
“Well, there was no evidence that a dog had been up there.”
“And just what would you expect to find in the line of evidence that would convince you a dog had been up there, Mr. Jameson. Speaking as a detective, what evidence would you say a dog might leave behind that would tell you he had been there?”
Jameson tried to think of some answer, and failed.
“Come, come,” Mason said. “It’s approaching the hour of adjournment. Can’t you answer the question?”
“Well... well, no dog was up there.”
“And how do you know?”
“Well, I just know he wasn’t.”
“What convinced you?”
“There’s no evidence a dog had been up there.”
“That,” Mason announced, “brings us right back to the point where you stalled before. What evidence would you expect to have found?”
“Well, there weren’t any footprints.”
“Did you look for footprints?”
“Yes.”
“For a dog’s footprints?”
Jameson smiled. “Yes, sir.”
“And that was before there had been any evidence connecting a dog with this case?”
“Well, I guess so, yes.”
“But you were looking for a dog’s footprints?”
“Well... well, not exactly.”
“Then you weren’t looking for a dog’s footprints?”
“Well, not for a dog’s. We were looking the ground over.”
“And did you notice any dog’s footprints?”
“No, sir.”
“How about a coyote’s prints? Is that what those tracks were?”
Jameson thought for a moment and said, “Well, now wait a minute... Now, come to think of it, I’m not going to swear there weren’t any dog’s footprints, Mr. Mason.”
“And you aren’t going to swear that there were any?”
“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.”
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.”