“You’re not the least amusing. Furthermore, those aren’t your figures, and you didn’t look them up in the almanac. Mr. Zane had all that figured out on a piece of paper.”
“I looked it up in the almanac to make sure,” O’Hanna said. “Zane’s arithmetic was right. His comet would have been on the meridian at ten hours, twenty minutes, and thirty seconds P.M. Now, does any astronomer in the crowd care to explain just exactly what the meridian is?”
The redhaired lady professor said, “I’ve already explained it to you. It’s the point where the comet would be highest in the sky.”
The house dick peered at the other girl. “Is that all it is, Miss Zane?”
Spica Zane said thinly: “I don’t know. I never pretended to understand anything about these things.”
O’Hanna’s Irish-gray glance ranged on to Joseph J. McGuffey. The fat man cleared his throat and said: “Well, technically speaking, the meridian would be an imaginary line through the heavens from north to south. It’s also the point where any celestial object is highest in the sky.”
O’Hanna’s tone became careful.
“At ten-twenty P.M., the comet would appear due north?”
“Yeah. Sure.”
“But an hour earlier — at nine-twenty — the telescope would have been pointed somewhere else to see this fireball?”
“Yeah. Sure.”
“Where?”
McGuffey said: “It’d be slightly east. The stars rise in the east like the sun. They move around a complete circle in a day, which is fifteen degrees in an hour.”
“O.K. Now, take a look at this telescope. Can you tell if it’s pointed fifteen degrees east of due north?”
The fat man said obligingly: “That’s no trick at all.” He aimed a plump finger at the brass-work mounting. “That’s what we call an equatorial telescope. The degrees are marked off in the hour-circle.” He craned forward, narrowed the eyes behind his thick-paned spectacles. He said in vast surprise: “Nope, something’s wrong. It’s aimed almost exactly nineteen degrees east of north...”
O’Hanna said: “Let’s work out the answers in our heads. Fifteen degrees equals one hour, so nineteen degrees must equal one hour and sixteen minutes. Subtract it from ten-twenty P.M., and you get four minutes after nine. Correct me if I’m wrong.”
The house dick turned to Inez Martin, watched color flood the redhead’s cheeks. He asked: “Why don’t you tell the folks — those aren’t my figures, and I didn’t get them out of the almanac! They’re your mathematics, and they don’t mean declination, or whatever you called it.” His voice boomed. “Nine-oh-four is the time Charley Zane stopped focusing on his comet because that’s when he got a bullet through his bald spot!”
Inez Martin’s greenish eyes chilled. “That’s ridiculous!”
O’Hanna said, “Come, come, where’s your scientific spirit? Those stars have been running on schedule for thousands of years. Mere man-made clocks and watches are regulated by comparing them with the stars. You don’t think the heavens overhead suddenly clicked out of line sixteen minutes tonight?”
The lady astronomer said: “Of course not. But Miss Zane and I heard the shot—”
“You heard a shot. It wasn’t necessarily the shot that killed the guy.”
Spica Zane gulped, put her hand to her mouth. O’Hanna swung to the blond. “Well, what?”
“I... I didn’t think it was important. That’s why I didn’t tell you before. But it was such a nice night, I went out for a short walk. That was about nine o’clock. Uncle Charley could have been killed while I was out. That’s possible, isn’t it?”
Professor Inez Martin said sharply: “Nonsense. If the man had been dead for a quarter of an hour, why didn’t you notice it right away? Why didn’t the doctor suspect anything?”
Little Doc Raymond eyed the young woman sternly.
“Good heavens, Professor Martin, corpses aren’t comets. Corpses are peculiar! Rigor mortis can begin to occur anywhere from two to six hours after death. Anyway, it’s beside the point. A bullet in the brain isn’t necessarily instantaneously fatal. Abraham Lincoln remained alive nine hours after he’d been shot. Of course, this was a modern, powerful bullet. It undoubtedly destroyed the brain’s function entirely. But a feeble spark of life may have remained for five or ten minutes—”
O’Hanna cut in. He said: “But let’s not go into that. Let’s turn to pleasanter topics we can all understand. I refer, of course, to the hundred-thousand-dollar will.”
Leather creaked as Sheriff Gleeson tugged at his belt. “Now you’re getting somewhere. This stuff about comets is so educational it goes completely over my head. I’m afraid the idea of two guys being murdered over a comet that’s invisible to the naked eyes wouldn’t go down with a country jury. What can you tell us about the will?”
The house dick shrugged. “It was the cheapest bribe on earth, and Professor Martin knew it.”
He turned toward Inez Martin. “After you named the comet in Zane’s honor, you knew nothing could keep him from tearing up that will and making a brand new one. Your observatory wouldn’t get a thin dime — unless he died immediately.”
The lady astronomer stormed: “You’re accusing me of murder?”
O’Hanna brooded: “A jury could get to like the idea. Look at you — a beautiful creature, abnormally obsessed with a passion for component stars and hydrogen carbide! It’s obvious you’re a crank. The natural feminine instincts have soured in you. You’re a cold-blooded example of a scientific fiend, to whom the ordinary human values of life mean nothing.”
He grinned wryly. “That’s why you kept quiet about the telescope. Charley Zane’s niece might contest that will. A smart lawyer could make it look bad for you, if the truth came out you had no alibi for the actual time of the shooting. Even though you were perfectly innocent of any crime.”
Manager Endicott was astounded. “Mike! You mean you don’t think she did it?”
“I think she’s too cold-blooded to be guilty,” the house dick declared.
“Too — huh?”
“She’s too scientific to overlook a clue like a telescope pointed at the wrong angle. Besides, if she’d killed Zane, she’d have known when it happened — she wouldn’t have had to figure it out by subtracting nineteen degrees from the meridian.” O’Hanna formed a smile. He said: “Also, her eyesight’s O.K. Joe McGuffey’s isn’t. He had to bend over close to read off the nineteen degrees. Working by flashlight and in a hurry, he might have overlooked that detail entirely.”
McGuffey made fat fists. Behind them, he blustered: “Hell, you can’t pin anything like that on me!”
“On you, it looks pretty good. You’d hated Charley Zane for years. You’d sent his brother to the penitentiary. Since the feud started over finances, and you were the prosecuting witness, I assume that you lost a sizable chunk of money.”
The fat man said: “That far you’re right. The Zanes swindled me out of a cool twenty thousand dollars.”
“He’s lying!” Spica Zane’s voice broke. “My father was innocent!”
Joe McGuffey glared at the blonde. “Your father was a dumb crook. Charley Zane was a smart one. The dumb one took the rap. The smart one took my dough.”
The fat man pivoted to O’Hanna. He said: “I’ll prove I didn’t kill Zane. I wanted him alive. I wanted to see him squirm. I was in a position to show him up for the double-crossing crook he was. That comet was the chance I’d been waiting for the last twenty years. I had him where I wanted him.”
“Do tell. Do tell.”
“You can’t hurt a man like Charley Zane by showing him up as a financial highbinder. He thinks that’s just smart business. The crowd he runs with think it’s smart business. But if they caught him playing poker with marked cards, they kick him out of every club in town. If they caught him turning in a phony score-card in a golf tournament, he’d be an outcast for life. That’s why I took up Charley Zane’s hobbies — cards, golf, and star-gazing. I figured sooner or later his crooked streak would show up in a spot where it’d hurt him, where he’d be ashamed to show his face in front of his own friends.”