“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.”
Chapter 25
Vincent Blane’s house went back to an ancient day of architecture when huge frame houses garnished with gables, ornamental half turrets and balconies sprawled over spacious grounds, in an era of tranquillity, financial security and happiness.
Mason surveyed the big spaciousness of the house. “I presume,” he said, “it will be one of the rooms in the back.”
“Probably on the ground floor,” Della said. “Let’s try the back door first.”
“No,” Mason said. “The back door will be locked from the inside, and have the key in it. The front door will have a nightlatch. We can work it with one of these passkeys — if we’re lucky.”
They waited until the street was deserted, then slipped up to the dark porch. Della Street held a small fountain-pen flashlight while Mason ran through his bunch of skeleton keys, looking for the right one.
“Here’s where we give another statute a compound fracture,” Della Street said. “I was afraid our law-abiding rôle was getting too irksome.”
Mason selected a key he thought might do the work, and inserted it tentatively in the lock. “We’re doing it in an emergency to clear a client who may be innocent.”
“If she’s innocent,” Della Street said spitefully, “why doesn’t she tell you the true story of what happened?”
“Because she’s afraid to. The truth looks too black. She—” The lock clicked back in the middle of the explanation. Mason opened the door, grinned and said, “Did it with the first key. That’s an omen, Della.”
The house was warm, with an aura of human occupancy. There was a comfortable, lived-in aroma clinging to the rooms, the faint after-smell of good cigars and well-seasoned cooking — the mellow feeling which clings to huge wooden houses and is almost never found in fireproof apartments.
Mason said, “Okay, we’ll head for the back of the house. There are back stairs. I remember seeing them that day when the officers came to get Milicent Hardisty.”