The courtroom broke into audible merriment which the judge made no effort to control.
The discomfited deputy district attorney said, “I think, if the Court please, I’m entitled to an explanation.”
“The Court,” Judge Newark said, “is doing a little amateur detective work along the lines indicated by Mr. Mason’s testimony. You will notice that this candle shown in the photograph is placed on an incline.”
“Well, what of it?” Linton asked.
“The protractor shows that the angle of that candle is approximately seventeen degrees from perpendicular.”
“All right, what if it is?” Linton said. “Whenever a murderer hastily puts a candle into position, he doesn’t use a plumb bob, or a square to make certain that he’s got it lined exactly straight up and down.”
“What I think you overlooked,” Judge Newark said, “and the point which I’m quite certain is in Mr. Mason’s mind, is that the wax which has run down from this candle seems to be quite evenly distributed on each side of the candle.”
“Well, what’s that got to do with it?” Linton demanded. “The wax would run down on both sides equally, wouldn’t it?”
“Not if the candle were on a slant,” Judge Newark said with a smile. “The candle itself is mute testimony of the fact that when it was burning the candle was in a perpendicular position.”
“But how could that be?” Linton said. “You can look at that photograph and it shows the candle well out of the perpendicular.”
“Exactly,” Judge Newark said. “And I think Mr. Mason’s point is, that because the candle is out of perpendicular, it is very good evidence as to the time when the candle was lit. That is your point, Mr. Mason?”
“Exactly,” Mason said. “That’s why the evidence in connection with these tides is so important.”
Judge Newark studied the photograph for a few moments, then said, “It’s approaching the hour of five o‘clock, and the Court is going to take its evening adjournment. Court will reconvene at ten o’clock tomorrow morning. And in the meantime, the Court suggests that the officers check their theory of the case with the evidence of this tilted candle and the evidence Mr. Mason has brought out concerning the time of the tides. It is a very important clue.
“Court is adjourned.”
Chapter 17
Back in Mason’s office, Paul Drake, speaking with his characteristic drawl, said, “I have to hand it to you, Perry. You certainly do pull rabbits out of the hat. You’ve got the D.A. running around in circles, and the newspapers will give your clients all the best of it when they report this afternoon’s session of Court.”
“I haven’t gotten any rabbits out of any hats yet,” Mason said, starting to pace the floor, his thumbs hooked in the armholes of his vest, his head slightly tilted forward so that his eyes seemed to be staring holes in the carpet. “Hang it, Paul. I’m almost in the clear, but I’m afraid I can’t go the rest of the way. — I’m glad Judge Newark got the point about the candle and the tides.”
“Strange that candle business had never occurred to me,” Drake said.
“The explanation’s simple,” Mason pointed out. “Nearly all murder cases are committed on land. Police detectives get accustomed to thinking in terms of cases on land, and they simply overlook the elemental factors that would automatically enter into the calculations of a yachtsman. Ask a yachtsman about any problem in connection with the ocean, or with navigation, and almost his first thought is about the tide. On the other hand, Lieutenant Tragg and the boys from Homicide probably never think about the tide — unless they happen to be fishermen.”
“But,” Della Street said, “I can’t understand how this candle can tie in with...”
“With what?” Mason asked.
“With that bloody footprint on the stair tread, or I guess they call it a companionway, using yachting terms, don’t they?”
“A companionway is right,” Mason said. “And that bloody footprint is the thing that bothers me.”
“Carol Burbank made it?”
“She must have. She says she did, and the blood was found on her shoe.”
“And there’s something wrong with it?” Drake asked.
“The thing that’s wrong with it,” Mason said, “is that if her story is correct she must have left that bloody footprint before the man was murdered.”
“But she couldn’t have done that, Perry.”
“Did you notice the position of that bloody footprint?”
Drake slid around in the big, overstuffed leather chair, said, “Let me take a look at that photograph again, Perry.”
Mason opened the drawer in his desk and handed Drake a photograph that showed the print of the bloody foot on the tread of the companionway.
“Well, what’s wrong with it?” Drake asked after he’d studied it for some time.
“It wasn’t made under the conditions mentioned.”
“Why?”
Mason said, “We’ll get back to the question of tides again. What’s the location of that footprint?”
“Right slap bang in the middle of the tread,” Drake said.
“Exactly. Now suppose that at the time she went out there the yacht was heeled way over. She’d have stepped in a pool of blood — then what would have happened? She’d have started up those stairs or, as they call it in yachting terms, companionway. What would have happened? Ever try to climb a slanting stairway?”
“No,” Drake said. “Why should I?”
Mason walked over to the closet, took out a stepladder, tilted it very carefully until he was holding it at a certain angle.
“All right,” he said, “this is just about the angle of the candle. Now suppose you were going to climb up there. What would you do, Paul?”
Drake said, “If I had to climb up that, I wouldn’t.”
“Yes you would,” Mason told him. “You’d climb up, but what would you do?”
Drake shook his head. “I don’t get you.”
Della Street walked over to the stepladder, raised her skirts slightly so the men could see the position of her feet clearly. “There’s only one way to do it, Paul. You wouldn’t put your feet in the center of the treads at all. You’d put them over in the corner, over against the edge of the ladder on the low side.”
“Exactly,” Mason said.
Drake whistled. “Then you don’t think...”
“I know,” Mason said, “that bloody footprint must have been made when the yacht was on a relatively even keel.”
“Well, that’s all right, Perry. She says she went out there as soon as she got the news. The location of that footprint corroborates her story. The yacht didn’t start tilting until around nine o’clock. And Cameron tells about the dinghy being taken out...”
“Okay,” Mason interrupted, “all that checks. The only trouble with it is that the man wasn’t dead then.”
“Sure he was. Reconstruct what happened and it all checks. Burbank went out to the yacht with Milfield, had a fight, knocked him over so that the guy’s head was cracked on the brass threshold and...”
“Or,” Mason interrupted, “hit him, knocked him over, cast his rowboat adrift and then came ashore. Someone else rowed out to the yacht, killed Milfield and left. That’s what I’ve got to establish if I’m going to get Burbank and Carol out of this mess. And it’s what must have happened.”
“Well,” Drake said dubiously, “it would be a swell out for you — if you could prove it, Perry. But how can you prove it? There would then have been just two men on the yacht, Milfield and the murderer. Milfield can’t talk, and the murderer won’t.”
Mason said, “Perhaps the murderer will talk. Perhaps he has. And the yacht will talk. All you need to do is to take into consideration the state of the tides, as any yachtsman would do, and you find the story of the prosecution and the story that has been told by the various people simply don’t check.”