“He wouldn’t talk for a while, then finally he got to talking. At first I thought that magazine article was on the up-and-up. He said he was just about ready to call the whole thing off and go to Blane and make a clean breast of it He said that he didn’t have the nerve for a job like that, that every time he hid the stuff he was afraid the police would find it. He said he’d hid it in his house first. Then he’d got nervous and gone up to the tunnel with it, buried it in the end of the old mining tunnel. That had been only an hour or so ago, but he’d got nervous before he’d driven half a mile and began thinking of other and better places. He said after he’d hidden the stuff in the tunnel it seemed like any school kid would have picked the tunnel as a place to look.
“Of course, it’s easy to look back now and see what this guy was doing to us. Martha had made the mistake of telling him this drug was going to make him tell the truth. Maybe it would have if we’d given it a chance, but he out-foxed us. He pretended it had taken effect before he even felt it, and sent us on a wild-goose chase.”
“You mean you went to the tunnel?” Mason asked.
“Sure. We fell for it, hook, line and sinker. We left him there at the rock, and Martha and I went up to the tunnel. We took his spade along to dig with.”
“And you dug?”
“I’ll say we dug. I haven’t shoveled so much dirt in a year — and the lousy crook had the swag right there in his car all the time. He just outsmarted us, that’s all.”
“What did you do when you realized he’d been lying to you?” Mason asked.
“We came back to see if we could question him some more. Naturally, we couldn’t find him. He’d dusted out, lock, stock and barrel, as soon as he got rid of us. So then we came on back home.”
“Exactly where was it that you met Hardisty?”
“Right by that big granite rock. He was there with the spade. Looked like he was getting ready to do some digging. If we’d only laid low we could have caught him red-handed. It was this hypo that queered things, gave him his chance to slip one over on us.”
“And this was before dark?”
“Sure. It was late in the afternoon, but it was light, all right.”
“While you were driving up, did you meet Adele Blane on the road?”
“She drove right past us just before we made the turn off to the cabin,” Smiley said, “but she didn’t see us. She had some fellow with her.”
“Did you see anything of a clock that was buried near that—”
“Nope,” Smiley interrupted. “I read about that buried clock. It doesn’t make sense to me. Why would Hardisty want to bury a clock?”
For a long moment there was silence, then Mason said, “You came back to this house with Martha Stevens?”
“Nope. We were afraid there might be a kickback on that dope business. She put me on the interurban. I went in to Los Angeles. She was to meet me there the next night at a hotel. She’d registered, all right, but she went out again and didn’t come back. I called there and hung around for a while, but she never did show up.”
“And you didn’t go back to recover your gun?” Mason asked.
“No. I just chucked it away when he hung one on Martha. Then after I got him licked and he got started talking, I forgot all about the gun. As soon as he said he’d buried the stuff in the tunnel, Martha and I fell for it. We beat it up there. I did want to take him with us, but he acted dopey and just sat down all caved-in like, and his eyes got glassy. Martha pushed the spade at me and said to come on, that she knew where the tunnel was... Shucks, the guy had never been near the tunnel. I tell you he had the dough right there in the car with him.”
“Did you go into the cabin when you got back from the tunnel?” Mason asked.
“No. We saw Jack Hardisty’s car was gone, so we took it for granted he’d beat it. We left the spade up there, got in our car and came back.”
“How long were you up at the tunnel?”
“I don’t know, maybe an hour and a half from the time we left until we got back. It was pretty dark when we got back to the cabin.”
“How did it happen you didn’t pick up the gun, if you picked up the broken glasses?”
“We picked up the glasses right after the fight. You know how a person picks up glasses as soon as they get broken. Martha was picking up pieces of glass almost as soon as he’d knocked ’em off.”
“Who picked up his glasses?”
“I did. I put ’em in my pocket. There was just one big piece knocked out of his. I was afraid to give ’em to him, sort of afraid they might be evidence.”
“And you knew the gun was found later on?”
“Oh, sure. I read the papers about the trail and all that, and Martha’s told me stuff... How come Martha hasn’t told you this?”
“Where were you working?” Mason asked.
“Turret Construction Company — defense work. Been there for six months.”
“You read in the papers about Hardisty’s body being discovered in the cabin?”
“Sure.”
“Do you know whether he was in the cabin when you got back from the tunnel?”
“No I don’t. His car was gone — and I was getting an awful case of cold feet. You know, jabbing a man full of a drug—”
“I know. Where did Martha get this drug, do you know?”
“She told Mrs. Hardisty she wanted to get it. I don’t know what excuse it was she gave to Mrs. Hardisty, or what she said she wanted it for. I think she told Mrs. Hardisty the old man wanted it, or intended to use it, somehow... Anyhow, Mrs. Hardisty was friendly with a doctor, and she said she could get it. I don’t think Hardisty’s own wife even knew he was short. Martha found out about it listening to Blane talking on the long distance phone with the bank directors over at Roxbury.”
Mason said abruptly, “You haven’t told anyone anything about this?”
“No.”
“Not a soul?”
“Not a soul.”
Mason said, “Well, I think Martha Stevens will be home pretty quick. You can wait here, if you want.”
“Not me. I don’t like to come in the house unless Martha’s here. I don’t think the old man would like it. I saw the light up here and threw a little gravel against the window pane. That’s our signal... I’ll go out and wait around outside, until Martha gets here. You don’t think it will be long?”
“No, I don’t think it will be long,” Mason said.
Della Street closed her notebook, dropped it into her bag, screwed the cap on the fountain pen, glanced at Perry Mason. He shook his head, almost imperceptibly.
The three of them walked out of the house. Mason said, “Well, good night, Smiley.”
“Good night, sir.”
Mason helped Della Street into the automobile.
“Couldn’t you have used him somehow?” she asked in a low voice.
Mason said, “If he ever told that story in front of a jury, Mrs. Hardisty would be out of the frying pan and into the fire. This is one of those cases where they throw everything at you except the kitchen sink... You can begin to understand now why Milicent is keeping her mouth shut, why Dr. Macon doesn’t dare to say a word. Dr. Macon thinks she did it.”
“Are you sure?”
“It’s a cinch,” Mason said. “Remember, she went to him for the scopolamine. Remember, she was a trained nurse before she was married. Dr. Macon thought she wanted to try this drug on Jack Hardisty. Evidently there’d been a magazine article on it... He probably thinks Milicent is lying to protect her father as well as herself.”
“But if they had Milicent’s gun, what gun was it that she threw away?”
Mason said, “It wasn’t what she threw away, it was what I threw away.”
“How do you mean?”
“The only point I had to argue to a jury,” Mason went on, “was that if Milicent Hardisty had thrown her gun down an embankment, that same gun couldn’t very well have been found beside the big granite rock... I couldn’t keep my big mouth shut. I had to take what seemed to be a minor discrepancy at the time, and use it to heckle Jameson. Now Jameson is up there searching for that gun, and if he finds it— Well, if he finds it, we’re not only licked, we’re crucified — unless I can figure out some way I can get that damned clock introduced in evidence.”