Chapter 17 Chapter Seventeen
They went back to Mason's office.Derek said in his usual slow tone: "Perry, I really admire you. I have to admit that you have performed really well. You are like a magician doing a trick, playing tricks on the prosecutor. I think the press will give the client you represent the best opinion of this afternoon's pre-trial hearing."
"Actually, I, a magician, haven't performed my special skills yet." Mason said, and started to walk up and down again.His thumbs hooked into the armholes of his vest, his head tilted slightly forward, his eyes fixed on the carpet. "Damn it, Paul. I'm almost on the verge of figuring out the whole case, and now I'm afraid I won't be able to make it the rest of the way—but Judge Newark has at last caught the candle and the tide. I’m a bit relieved.”
"Strange, why didn't I think of clues about candles?" Derek said.
"The reason is simple," Mason pointed out. "Almost all murders occur on land, and police investigators are used to thinking in terms of cases on land, so it is easy for them to overlook certain basic elements that a yacht owner or manager would estimate. ...if we ask a yachtsman any question about the sea or sailing, his first reaction is almost immediately to think of the changing tides. However, on the contrary, Captain Trager and the homicide gang may not be at all Didn't think about the tides—unless they happen to be fishers for work."
"But," Della said. "I don't understand why this candle has anything to do with that..."
"And what?" Mason asked.
"And that bloody shoe print on the stair treads. In yachting parlance, that's called a 'ladder way,' isn't it?"
"That's right, it's the 'stairway' from the deck to the cabin." Mason said. "That bloody shoe print is what confuses me."
"Is that left by Carlo Burbank?"
"It must have been her. She said she had shoe prints and police found blood on her shoes."
"Is there something wrong with that?" Derek asked.
"That's what's wrong," Mason said. "If what she said is true, then she must have left that bloody shoeprint before Fred was murdered."
"But she can't, Paley."
"Have you noticed where the bloody shoe print is?"
Derek spun around on the leather chair and said, "Perry, let me take a look at that picture again." Mason opened the drawer in front of his desk, took out a photo, and handed it to Dre. gram.There is a bloodstained shoe print on the stairway in the photo.
"Hmm... anything weird?" Derek asked after looking at it for a while.
"That shoe print was not left under the circumstances they said."
"why?"
"Let's go back to the tide; where is that shoe print?" Mason asked.
"In the middle of the pedal," Derek said.
"That's right. Now, suppose when she got there, the yacht tipped over. She stepped on a pool of blood—and what would happen? Would she start climbing those steps? What would happen? Paul, you ever Try climbing a bank of stairs?"
"No," Derek said. "Why should I do that?"
Mason went to the cabinet, took out a four-legged ladder, and carefully tilted it to one side until it reached a certain angle before securing it with his hands.
"Okay," he said. "That's probably the angle at which the candle is leaning. Now, suppose you were to climb to the top of the stairs, what would you do, Paul."
Derek said, "If I'm going to climb it? I don't want to."
"Yes, you do," Mason told him. "If you want to climb up, what will you do?"
Derek shook his head and said, "I don't understand what you mean."
Della went to the front of the ladder and lifted her skirt a little so they could see where her feet were. "There's only one way, Paul, you don't put your foot on the center of the tread at all, you step on the corner—on the edge of the lower side of the stairs."
"Not bad," Mason said.
Derek whistled. "Then you think..."
"That bloody shoe print on the stair tread must have been stepped on before the yacht tipped over," Mason said.
"Well... Paley, she said she rushed to the scene as soon as she heard the horrific news, and the location of the shoe prints corroborated her statement; until the boat was driven out..."
"Okay," interrupted Mason. "These all fit. The only problem is that Fred Milfield wasn't dead."
"Of course he's dead, and if we reassemble the whole thing, it all fits pretty well; Burbank and Milfy went up on the yacht together and had a fight, and Burbank knocked him out so that His head hit the threshold of the copper enclosure and..."
"Or," Mason interrupted. "Burbank hit him, knocked him down, went to shore in his rowboat, landed and left. Later, another guy rowed aboard the yacht, killed Milfie, and left the scene. ...that is what I must try to prove if I am to acquit Burbank and Carlo; and I daresay it must be the truth."
"Hmm..." Derek said suspiciously. "Perry, if you can prove it, you can turn the whole situation around. But how do you prove it? There were only two people on the yacht at the time of the crime - Milfy and the murderer himself. Milfy is dead and there is no proof, And the murderer must have kept his mouth shut."
Mason said: "Maybe the murderer will confess his crime, maybe he has revealed something, and the yacht will tell some truth. You only have to think about the changing tides, and you will see -- what the prosecution said is not the same as Many people's testimonies simply don't match up."
"What fits?" Della asked.
Mason started pacing again, and then suddenly said, "This guy Powell seems like a naive boy in his first disgraceful love affair, but mind you—he's actually not as naive as he pretends to be." No evil. He said he would be here on Friday night, did he come? Do you remember? He said that she told him before Captain Trager told Delphine of her husband's death. Even before She knew it before I went to visit her. Don't you think that the mysterious man who is interested in the nocturnal habits of sharks is similar to this Powell guy?
"Let's assume this: If Roger Burbank attacked Fred, knocked him down, and left angrily, then when Carlo returned to the boat and saw Fred lying on the ground with his head on the threshold When she went to school, she would think that her father must have killed the man, and her father himself thought so. However, what if Roger Burbank did not actually kill him? Then we must use the yacht itself and some Indirect evidence to find out what the actual situation should be and who killed Fred. All we have to do is to try to make each event fit with each other. In fact, every link in this case is quite simple , even small children understand; but when you put them together, they contradict each other and contradict themselves. Let's look at it in this light! High tide at 5:41 p.m.— This is based on the testimony of the witness Cameron. Now, I will show you the process."
Mason picked up a large sheet of paper from the desk, took out a pencil, and made a list of a series of items and numbers.
Then he handed the flow sheet to Derek.Della also came over and stood beside Derek to watch.
The process is as follows:
After reading the flow chart, Derek nodded and said, "It seems very simple." "Okay," Mason said, picking up the large page again. "Here, I drew a rough sketch showing the interior of the cabin and the position of the body. I drew two positions, the first being where the body lay when its head hit the threshold; the second The second location is: the place where the body was lying when it was found. "Now pay attention to this, Paul. When the yacht tilts, the body rolls to the second position. However, when the second high tide begins, the body does not roll back to the first position. At the second high tide, the yacht will float smoothly; but, due to both the position of the anchor and the direction of the tide, the hull will list to the starboard, so that the starboard side will go down and the port side will go up. Therefore, if the body rolls to the second position, it will It'll just stay there—unless someone moves it." "Now, please look at this sketch, and you will see what I mean." Mason handed Derek the sketch. (See attached image.) "Um..." Derek said. "There doesn't seem to be anything controversial about that in my opinion, Paley." Mason said: "Okay, now we start to check some testimony and specific facts of this case according to this flow chart. The coroner said that there were no other bleeding wounds on the deceased, only the back of the head, which is the part where the skull was broken There was a deep wound, possibly fatal. There was blood on the threshold of the first mortuary - a lot of blood, here! I have drawn it on the diagram; in the second mortuary, the head There was also some blood near the crotch, leaving two pools of blood on the carpet with only a few sporadic drops in between, probably from the rolling of the body. This was to be expected, as the body would have been lying on the first floor. This position does not begin to move until the yacht is tilted. However, once the body starts to roll, the angle of the tilt will cause the body to roll all the way down and end up on the right side of the cabin. Now, we check from the markings on the sketch one time." Mason placed the drawing on the arm of the chair so that all three of them could see it clearly. Derek stared at the picture in silence for a few seconds before saying, "Well, Paley, is there something wrong with that? It's only natural for a corpse to move like this under the circumstances. .It would lie down in one place and the yacht would tilt and it would start to move and roll all the way down to the lower part of the hold - that's where the body was found." "Very well," Mason said. "Please note this - the yacht began to list at nine o'clock on Friday night, and did not fully list to one side at about ten-thirty. Now, the candle is leaning at an angle of almost seventeen degrees, which shows the fact that the candle is burning. At that time, the yacht was only about half-listed. Therefore, we can estimate an average based on some important factors that are not known at present. But I deduce that the time when the yacht listed to about seventeen degrees must be at nine o'clock in the evening. Not long after, it will be around 9:20, not more than 9:30; of course it is even less likely to be after 9:40." Mason continued: "Now, let's put the whole thing together. Remember that the coroner said that he didn't think the bleeding from the head would last more than half an hour. "The head of the body rests on the front cabin threshold, or an inch or two away from the threshold, which is what we see in the picture 'first mortuary position'; then, the body rolls to the 'second position' If the bleeding did not last more than half an hour, and we found pools of blood in both mortuaries, then we can probably draw the conclusion that the murder occurred at about 9:15 on Friday night, when the yacht started After tilting." Derek nodded and said, "The condition of that candle can confirm that." "Not bad," Mason said. "The condition of the candle indicates a burn time of about twenty minutes, between nine and nine forty in the evening. The candle was probably lit at about nine twenty and was not lit until about nine forty." off." "Before this time, it was pitch black," Derek said. "Now you've touched on some puzzling points of this case," Mason said. "Fred Milfield must have been sitting in the dark cabin at the time; or, there is another possibility - and this seems more probable than the former - that in the position where the candle was found, there would have been There was also a small remnant of the candle. Fred lit it when it was getting dark, and when the candle burned out, Fred shook the remaining wax loose from the board to which it was attached, and Throw it overboard. Then he lights another candle, and . . . " "Jesus," Derek said excitedly. "That's it! Now, Paley, the whole thing has a logical explanation, and every detail fits. When Fred had just relighted that candle, the murderer was on board—it must have been in his Within five or ten minutes of lighting the candle." "Indeed," said Mason. "We deduced the time of the crime in a precise way, right? Paul." Derek nodded. "But," Mason said. "Roger Burbank had quarreled with Fred about six o'clock in the afternoon; as soon as Carlo heard about it, he drove to the Yacht Club. She was after seven--not yet eight. — to the yacht. The yacht was still in a stable state, and she found the body lying in the first position—she said this to me very solemnly.” Derek said, "Yeah, Paley, you're absolutely right. Carol's girl is lying; she's just lying about the timing, and it's not like she's telling the truth." Like that." "Not bad," Mason said. "Everything fits, Carlo Burbank is lying. She must have boarded the yacht after nine o'clock. Please remember that either the murderer or she herself lit the candle. One possibility exists , the candle was lit after the murder and the murderer had left the scene." "Judging from the fact that the stump of the original candle has been removed, it is unlikely that what you describe is true," Derek said. "Not likely," Mason admitted. "However, the possibility still exists." Derek said, "Paley, you make me feel like I've been betrayed. Carlo Burbank has been lying!" "Wait a minute," Mason said. "Now, there is one thing that confirms Carlo's statement." "Which point?" "It's the blood-stained shoe print, in the middle of the step, which shows that the yacht was in a stable state when the shoe print was applied. How do you explain that, Mr. Detective?" Derek scratched his head and said, "Damn it! Paley, I can't explain it. That doesn't fit the whole thing." "You're right," Mason said. "That bloodstained shoe print showed that Carlo was telling the truth. On the other hand, the evidence from the candles showed that she was lying; the evidence from the blood stains also showed that she was lying. According to the inference of the tide, the murder is impossible. Happened before nine o'clock. "At the same time you have to remember that when you're dealing with a murder, you have to take into account that the murderer is bound to lie, and that some witnesses sometimes hide the truth. So you should take into account the Could be wrong, false." "Is it possible that this shoe print was deliberately arranged?" Della asked. Mason said: "Now, you just hit another thought in my mind. Assuming that Carlo knew the change of the tide, she was smart and thought in an emergency: For some reason, she wanted to make the outside world think that the murder happened. Earlier, when she boarded, the yacht was tipping; but she thought that if she had left a bloodstained shoe print in the middle of the stair tread, it would have hinted that the yacht was in a steady state." "Yeah!" Derek exclaimed in surprise. "Now you have a key. Carlo is a quick-thinking, clever and alert woman." Mason said thoughtfully: "I can't stand any mistakes. I have to let my only bullet hit the bull's-eye. The coroner said that the bleeding time may not exceed half an hour. There were only two pools of blood at the scene. In the first place of mortuary and another in the place where the body was found. This shows that the murder took place at about 9:20; the position of the candle also shows that the murder took place at 9:20 But what is puzzling is the blood-stained shoe print. Now, I must try to know: Why is there no reasonable explanation for that shoe print? When was it printed? How was it printed? Why? How about printing it?" Della asked, "Is it possible that it was printed the next morning after the yacht had stabilized?" "That's the plausible explanation I've been thinking about, and it seems to be the only scenario that explains everything we know so far," Mason said. "The question is, will the blood stay wet after all that time?" Derek asked. "I think so," Mason said. "Especially where the blood seeps into the carpet. The carpet on the floor in the cabin is very thick and it's always been fixed there and hasn't been moved. "By examining circumstantial evidence, we can obtain three points of reference in time by which we can deduce precisely when the murders occurred: the first - and most important - is the ebb and flow of the tides. The second is the Candle - about seventeen degrees off vertical, yet the wax glides smoothly around the candle; this shows that the candle remained almost upright when it burned." "What about the third one?" Derek asked. "The blood from the corpse may not last more than half an hour. That is to say, the third time reference point is when the blood on the carpet spreads into the last large area. Now, there is only one way for you to bring the three reference points together. At the same time, the time of the murder. But when you try to do that, the bloody shoe print becomes a puzzling suspect in the whole case." Derek said, "In that case...the shoe prints must be fake. When she took the gloves out of her purse, she dropped the parcel pick-up card—yes, Paley! That must be it. The whole thing was really A well-planned conspiracy, a framing ruse." "Frame who?" Mason asked. "Framed... Oh, I don't know, Paley. It seems that the murderer framed someone else, it seems to be us." Mason nodded with a slightly melancholy expression. "Paul, I've considered all other factors. The only thing that can't be explained is the bloody shoe print. It really doesn't fit the whole thing. Therefore, we must consider the possibility that the shoe print was Deliberately fabricated. As you pointed out, she deposited the shoe package and then dropped the pick-up card on the floor. This action may only be as natural and innocent as it seems on the surface, but on the other hand, It is more likely that this was part of a deliberate operation to get the shoes into the hands of the police under these circumstances, making the blood-stained shoes an even more suspicious piece of evidence." Mason took a tidal change timetable from his pocket and said, "Well, Paul, we're going to do an experiment tonight." "What are your plans?" Derek asked. "Tonight," Mason said. "The high tide is at 9:42 p.m., and the low tide will be 2:54 a.m. tomorrow. According to the timetable we have drawn up, the ship should run aground around 11 o'clock tonight, and at 12:00 a.m. It began to tilt, and went completely sideways before one-thirty. The period I am going to study was about half an hour after midnight, and from then until one-forty-five." "Where's the boat now?" Derek asked. "I'm now the owner's agent," Mason said. "The boat was supposed to be under the supervision of the police, but I have now won the opportunity to guard it. I instructed Cameron from the Yacht Club to drive the yacht to the place where the incident happened that night, and then anchor there. It is almost midnight. , we are going there to study the dynamics of the tides." Derek had a panicked look on his face. "What's the matter?" Mason asked. Derek said, "Why did you pick this evening? I'm dealing with my sore throat and I have sore joints." "Do you have a cold?" Mason asked. "I think I'm about to catch a cold," Derek said. "But I don't have a fever, I just don't feel well. I want to go to the Turkish bath, but if you..." "Forget it," Mason interrupted. "You're of no use anyway, I'm just trying to find out what happened on the yacht so I can present a theory in court tomorrow morning." "The judge must have been interested in that candle," Derek said. Mason nodded, and said, "If I can put together a valid argument, I can force the court to drop that indictment tomorrow morning; if I can't, I'll be defeated." Della said calmly: "Boss, I'll go with you." "Don't bullshit," interrupted Mason. "I'm just going there to see what's going on on the ship, you..." "I just want to go with you." She also interrupted. "Okay," Mason said, smiling. "Then let's go together!"
After reading the flow chart, Derek nodded and said, "It seems very simple." "Okay," Mason said, picking up the large page again. "Here, I drew a rough sketch showing the interior of the cabin and the position of the body. I drew two positions, the first being where the body lay when its head hit the threshold; the second The second location is: the place where the body was lying when it was found. "Now pay attention to this, Paul. When the yacht tilts, the body rolls to the second position. However, when the second high tide begins, the body does not roll back to the first position. At the second high tide, the yacht will float smoothly; but, due to both the position of the anchor and the direction of the tide, the hull will list to the starboard, so that the starboard side will go down and the port side will go up. Therefore, if the body rolls to the second position, it will It'll just stay there—unless someone moves it." "Now, please look at this sketch, and you will see what I mean." Mason handed Derek the sketch. (See attached image.) "Um..." Derek said. "There doesn't seem to be anything controversial about that in my opinion, Paley." Mason said: "Okay, now we start to check some testimony and specific facts of this case according to this flow chart. The coroner said that there were no other bleeding wounds on the deceased, only the back of the head, which is the part where the skull was broken There was a deep wound, possibly fatal. There was blood on the threshold of the first mortuary - a lot of blood, here! I have drawn it on the diagram; in the second mortuary, the head There was also some blood near the crotch, leaving two pools of blood on the carpet with only a few sporadic drops in between, probably from the rolling of the body. This was to be expected, as the body would have been lying on the first floor. This position does not begin to move until the yacht is tilted. However, once the body starts to roll, the angle of the tilt will cause the body to roll all the way down and end up on the right side of the cabin. Now, we check from the markings on the sketch one time." Mason placed the drawing on the arm of the chair so that all three of them could see it clearly. Derek stared at the picture in silence for a few seconds before saying, "Well, Paley, is there something wrong with that? It's only natural for a corpse to move like this under the circumstances. .It would lie down in one place and the yacht would tilt and it would start to move and roll all the way down to the lower part of the hold - that's where the body was found." "Very well," Mason said. "Please note this - the yacht began to list at nine o'clock on Friday night, and did not fully list to one side at about ten-thirty. Now, the candle is leaning at an angle of almost seventeen degrees, which shows the fact that the candle is burning. At that time, the yacht was only about half-listed. Therefore, we can estimate an average based on some important factors that are not known at present. But I deduce that the time when the yacht listed to about seventeen degrees must be at nine o'clock in the evening. Not long after, it will be around 9:20, not more than 9:30; of course it is even less likely to be after 9:40." Mason continued: "Now, let's put the whole thing together. Remember that the coroner said that he didn't think the bleeding from the head would last more than half an hour. "The head of the body rests on the front cabin threshold, or an inch or two away from the threshold, which is what we see in the picture 'first mortuary position'; then, the body rolls to the 'second position' If the bleeding did not last more than half an hour, and we found pools of blood in both mortuaries, then we can probably draw the conclusion that the murder occurred at about 9:15 on Friday night, when the yacht started After tilting." Derek nodded and said, "The condition of that candle can confirm that." "Not bad," Mason said. "The condition of the candle indicates a burn time of about twenty minutes, between nine and nine forty in the evening. The candle was probably lit at about nine twenty and was not lit until about nine forty." off." "Before this time, it was pitch black," Derek said. "Now you've touched on some puzzling points of this case," Mason said. "Fred Milfield must have been sitting in the dark cabin at the time; or, there is another possibility - and this seems more probable than the former - that in the position where the candle was found, there would have been There was also a small remnant of the candle. Fred lit it when it was getting dark, and when the candle burned out, Fred shook the remaining wax loose from the board to which it was attached, and Throw it overboard. Then he lights another candle, and . . . " "Jesus," Derek said excitedly. "That's it! Now, Paley, the whole thing has a logical explanation, and every detail fits. When Fred had just relighted that candle, the murderer was on board—it must have been in his Within five or ten minutes of lighting the candle." "Indeed," said Mason. "We deduced the time of the crime in a precise way, right? Paul." Derek nodded. "But," Mason said. "Roger Burbank had quarreled with Fred about six o'clock in the afternoon; as soon as Carlo heard about it, he drove to the Yacht Club. She was after seven--not yet eight. — to the yacht. The yacht was still in a stable state, and she found the body lying in the first position—she said this to me very solemnly.” Derek said, "Yeah, Paley, you're absolutely right. Carol's girl is lying; she's just lying about the timing, and it's not like she's telling the truth." Like that." "Not bad," Mason said. "Everything fits, Carlo Burbank is lying. She must have boarded the yacht after nine o'clock. Please remember that either the murderer or she herself lit the candle. One possibility exists , the candle was lit after the murder and the murderer had left the scene." "Judging from the fact that the stump of the original candle has been removed, it is unlikely that what you describe is true," Derek said. "Not likely," Mason admitted. "However, the possibility still exists." Derek said, "Paley, you make me feel like I've been betrayed. Carlo Burbank has been lying!" "Wait a minute," Mason said. "Now, there is one thing that confirms Carlo's statement." "Which point?" "It's the blood-stained shoe print, in the middle of the step, which shows that the yacht was in a stable state when the shoe print was applied. How do you explain that, Mr. Detective?" Derek scratched his head and said, "Damn it! Paley, I can't explain it. That doesn't fit the whole thing." "You're right," Mason said. "That bloodstained shoe print showed that Carlo was telling the truth. On the other hand, the evidence from the candles showed that she was lying; the evidence from the blood stains also showed that she was lying. According to the inference of the tide, the murder is impossible. Happened before nine o'clock. "At the same time you have to remember that when you're dealing with a murder, you have to take into account that the murderer is bound to lie, and that some witnesses sometimes hide the truth. So you should take into account the Could be wrong, false." "Is it possible that this shoe print was deliberately arranged?" Della asked. Mason said: "Now, you just hit another thought in my mind. Assuming that Carlo knew the change of the tide, she was smart and thought in an emergency: For some reason, she wanted to make the outside world think that the murder happened. Earlier, when she boarded, the yacht was tipping; but she thought that if she had left a bloodstained shoe print in the middle of the stair tread, it would have hinted that the yacht was in a steady state." "Yeah!" Derek exclaimed in surprise. "Now you have a key. Carlo is a quick-thinking, clever and alert woman." Mason said thoughtfully: "I can't stand any mistakes. I have to let my only bullet hit the bull's-eye. The coroner said that the bleeding time may not exceed half an hour. There were only two pools of blood at the scene. In the first place of mortuary and another in the place where the body was found. This shows that the murder took place at about 9:20; the position of the candle also shows that the murder took place at 9:20 But what is puzzling is the blood-stained shoe print. Now, I must try to know: Why is there no reasonable explanation for that shoe print? When was it printed? How was it printed? Why? How about printing it?" Della asked, "Is it possible that it was printed the next morning after the yacht had stabilized?" "That's the plausible explanation I've been thinking about, and it seems to be the only scenario that explains everything we know so far," Mason said. "The question is, will the blood stay wet after all that time?" Derek asked. "I think so," Mason said. "Especially where the blood seeps into the carpet. The carpet on the floor in the cabin is very thick and it's always been fixed there and hasn't been moved. "By examining circumstantial evidence, we can obtain three points of reference in time by which we can deduce precisely when the murders occurred: the first - and most important - is the ebb and flow of the tides. The second is the Candle - about seventeen degrees off vertical, yet the wax glides smoothly around the candle; this shows that the candle remained almost upright when it burned." "What about the third one?" Derek asked. "The blood from the corpse may not last more than half an hour. That is to say, the third time reference point is when the blood on the carpet spreads into the last large area. Now, there is only one way for you to bring the three reference points together. At the same time, the time of the murder. But when you try to do that, the bloody shoe print becomes a puzzling suspect in the whole case." Derek said, "In that case...the shoe prints must be fake. When she took the gloves out of her purse, she dropped the parcel pick-up card—yes, Paley! That must be it. The whole thing was really A well-planned conspiracy, a framing ruse." "Frame who?" Mason asked. "Framed... Oh, I don't know, Paley. It seems that the murderer framed someone else, it seems to be us." Mason nodded with a slightly melancholy expression. "Paul, I've considered all other factors. The only thing that can't be explained is the bloody shoe print. It really doesn't fit the whole thing. Therefore, we must consider the possibility that the shoe print was Deliberately fabricated. As you pointed out, she deposited the shoe package and then dropped the pick-up card on the floor. This action may only be as natural and innocent as it seems on the surface, but on the other hand, It is more likely that this was part of a deliberate operation to get the shoes into the hands of the police under these circumstances, making the blood-stained shoes an even more suspicious piece of evidence." Mason took a tidal change timetable from his pocket and said, "Well, Paul, we're going to do an experiment tonight." "What are your plans?" Derek asked. "Tonight," Mason said. "The high tide is at 9:42 p.m., and the low tide will be 2:54 a.m. tomorrow. According to the timetable we have drawn up, the ship should run aground around 11 o'clock tonight, and at 12:00 a.m. It began to tilt, and went completely sideways before one-thirty. The period I am going to study was about half an hour after midnight, and from then until one-forty-five." "Where's the boat now?" Derek asked. "I'm now the owner's agent," Mason said. "The boat was supposed to be under the supervision of the police, but I have now won the opportunity to guard it. I instructed Cameron from the Yacht Club to drive the yacht to the place where the incident happened that night, and then anchor there. It is almost midnight. , we are going there to study the dynamics of the tides." Derek had a panicked look on his face. "What's the matter?" Mason asked. Derek said, "Why did you pick this evening? I'm dealing with my sore throat and I have sore joints." "Do you have a cold?" Mason asked. "I think I'm about to catch a cold," Derek said. "But I don't have a fever, I just don't feel well. I want to go to the Turkish bath, but if you..." "Forget it," Mason interrupted. "You're of no use anyway, I'm just trying to find out what happened on the yacht so I can present a theory in court tomorrow morning." "The judge must have been interested in that candle," Derek said. Mason nodded, and said, "If I can put together a valid argument, I can force the court to drop that indictment tomorrow morning; if I can't, I'll be defeated." Della said calmly: "Boss, I'll go with you." "Don't bullshit," interrupted Mason. "I'm just going there to see what's going on on the ship, you..." "I just want to go with you." She also interrupted. "Okay," Mason said, smiling. "Then let's go together!"