“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.”