Mrs. Payson smiled. “She doesn’t have a chance. A man of forty considers himself in the prime of life and starts ogling girls in the twenties. He reasons that other men of forty may be a little passé, but not him. He’s ‘exceptionally well preserved.’ He’s a man who ‘looks ten years younger.’ ”
Mason grinned at her. “Well, how about the men in the sixties and seventies?” he asked.
Mrs. Payson reached for a cigarette. “I think,” she announced laughing, “that you’ve got something there.”
Chapter 10
At the hotel Mason found Della Street waiting in the lobby.
“Hello,” she exclaimed. “I’m starved! What do we do about it?”
“We eat,” Mason proclaimed.
“That’s swell. Paul Drake’s here.”
“Where?”
“Up in his room. They gave him a room next to yours, with a communicating door... They say the hotel dining room is a fine place to eat, one of the best in the city.”
“We can eat,” Mason said, “on one condition.”
“What’s that?”
“That Jack Hardisty was killed before seven o’clock last night.”
“But that’s just the time Milicent was up there. You don’t want the murder to have been committed while she was there, do you?”
“If it was,” Mason said, “it’s unfortunate, but there’s nothing I can do. If it was committed later, it’s also unfortunate, but there’s a lot I’m going to have to do.”
“What?”
“For one thing, I’ve got to take a chance — that the person to whom Milicent would turn when she was in desperate trouble, in whom she’d have utter and complete confidence, and who had recently been able to put two brand-new tires on his automobile, would be the family physician.”
Della Street thought that over, said, “It sounds logical.”
“Okay. Go telephone Vincent Blane. Make your question sound just as casual as possible. Ask him what physician in Roxbury could give us a certificate that Milicent is in a precarious nervous condition due to the strain of her domestic relations.”
“Then what?” she asked.
“That’s all. Just note the name of the doctor. Then come up to Paul Drake’s room... Is the local evening paper out?”
“Yes.”
“Anything in it about Milicent?”
“Not a line. They haven’t released a bit of information about the arrest.”
“The story of the murder is in there?”
“Oh yes. Not a great amount of information, just the statement expanded and amplified and rehashed — the way they do with news nowadays.”
“All right. Go put through that call. I’ll run up to see Paul.”
“Do you want me to telephone from my room or from the lobby?”
“Booth in the lobby. The girl at the switchboard might be curious.”
Della Street nodded, moved over toward the telephone booth. Mason went up in the elevator, unlocked the door of his own room, crossed through the communicating door to the adjoining room, and found Paul Drake standing in front of the mirror just finishing shaving with an electric razor.
“Hello, Perry,” Drake said, disconnecting the razor and splashing shaving lotion on his face. “What’s news?”
“That’s what I came up to find out.”
Drake put on his shirt and knotted his necktie.
“Well?” Mason asked.
Drake said nothing for the moment, concentrating his attention on getting his tie knotted just right. He was tall, limber, loose-jointed, and his appearance was utterly at variance with the popular conception of what a detective should be. In repose, his face held a lugubrious lack of interest; his eyes, which missed nothing, seemed to be completely oblivious of what was taking place about him. Behind this mask a logical mind worked with mathematical certainty and ball-bearing speed.
“What’s the matter?”
“That Milicent girl.”
“What about her?”
“You told me to find her, that I could pass up all the tips that she’d be easy to find. You gave me a pretty broad hint that I’d hear she was in her house but that that was just a gag you’d thought up to hand to the cops. Well, I put a flock of men—”
“I know,” Mason interrupted, “I was fooled worse than you were.”
Drake looked at him, trying to read more meaning into the lawyer’s words. “It wasn’t a stall you’d thought up for the police?”
Mason merely smiled.
“It floored me,” Drake went on. “I was looking in all the hideout places, and here she was at her father’s house, tucked safely in bed, with a housekeeper answering all inquiries by saying, ‘Yes, she’s here, but she can’t be disturbed.’ ”
“And there she was,” Mason said.
“Exactly.”
“Well, Paul, you’ve crabbed from time to time that I gave you jobs that were too tough. This was an easy one. All you had to do to locate her was phone her father’s house.”
Drake said, “Don’t give me any more of those ‘easy’ ones or I’ll go nuts.”
“What else have you done?” Mason asked.
“Think I’ve got some place with the Kern County idea. The D.A. over there could use a little publicity.”
“What’s he doing?”
“Nothing violent yet, but he’s sitting up and taking interest. If we could dig up a spectacular angle on the case, I think he’d fall for it... You know, the newspapers like to get an interesting handle they can tack onto a murder — the Tiger Woman Case, the White Flash Case, the Snake-Eyes Murder... Thought maybe you could work out something with that buried clock that would be an angle. Then the city newspapers would go to town on it, and when that happened I think Kern County would move in.”
“What time was the murder committed?” Mason asked.
“Can’t tell you that yet,” Drake said. “I’ve got a man working on that angle.”
Mason frowned. “The autopsy surgeon must have made at least a preliminary report.”
Drake said, “That’s the queer part of it. They’re not releasing anything based on a preliminary report. Makes it seem there’s something in the case that doesn’t fit.”
Mason nodded.
Drake said, “You don’t seem very enthusiastic about that, Perry.”
“I’m always suspicious of the things in cases that don’t fit,” Mason said. “I’ve seen too many lawyers grab hold of some isolated fact that didn’t fit and brandish it around in front of a jury. Then something would click and that particular fact fitted into a particular interpretation that hung the client.”
When Drake was thinking, he always sought for complete bodily relaxation, propping himself against something or sprawling all over a chair. Now he placed an elbow on the back of a chair, then after a moment, sidled around so that he was sitting on the rounded overstuffed arm, his elbow resting against the back, his hand propping up his chin. “What I’m afraid of is that the D.A.’s office isn’t going to pay any attention to that buried clock. They think it’s a fairy story. If they play it down the newspapers won’t play it up.”
Mason said, “I can almost give them a theory on that clock, Paul.”
Drake said, “Give me a theory that will hold water, and I’ll show you some action.”
“Ever hear of sidereal time, Paul?”
“What’s sidereal time?”
“Star time.”
“Are you kidding me?”
“No.”
“Why is star time different from sun time?”
“Because the stars gain a day on the sun every year.”
“I don’t get you.”
“The earth makes a big circle around the sun and returns to the place where it started once each year. The effect of that circle is to make the stars rise about two hours earlier every month, or a total gain of twenty-four hours in the twelve months. By keeping clocks that run about four minutes fast every day, astronomers can keep star time instead of sun time.