Black Mask (Vol. 29, No. 3 — January 1947)

“Naturally,” Joe McGuffey stated.

It didn’t seem natural to O’Hanna. The house dick shook his head.

“I never even knew they belonged to anybody in particular.”

“They belong to whoever finds them first,” the lardy man explained. “As soon as you discover a new one, you notify an observatory. If you’re the first finder, they name the comet after you.”

“Yeah? And what do you do with one after it’s registered in your name?”

McGuffey peered at the house dick. “I’ll put it this way. What’s your name, sir?”

“O’Hanna.”

“O.K., O’Hanna. Now how many people do you suppose are going to remember your name a thousand years from now?”

The house dick sighed. “Come to think of it, I guess nobody. Come to think of it, I won’t be here to care.”

The fat man said: “A thousand years from now, they’ll remember me. Because astronomers will still be studying the heavens with their telescopes. They’ll see my comet, and they’ll say to themselves: ‘Hello, here’s McGuffey’s Comet, rising three degrees ahead of A Cygni, right where Joseph J. McGuffey first located it away back in 1946!’ ”

O’Hanna raised an eyebrow. “The thing becomes a kind of traveling tombstone in the sky with your name engraved on it?”

McGuffey saw no humor in the suggestion. He said solemly: “Yes. And that isn’t all. It’s a great feather in an amateur observer’s cap to have a comet named after him. Many a man has spent a lifetime without ever making such a discovery. I’ve been watching for twenty-five years myself. Charley Zane is a newcomer and a novice. He only took up this hobby in the last few years, and I’ll be damned if I’m going to let him steal this comet from me!”

The house dick nodded: “I see how you feel about it. By the way, how does a guy go about hijacking somebody else’s comet?”

The fat man tossed down the last swallow of his highball, slid his plump legs from the bar stool. He said grimly: “I don’t know how the damned crook is going to try it, but I’m sure as hell going to stop him.”

O’Hanna stepped into the manager’s teak-paneled office, picked out a World Almanac from a pile of books on Endicott’s desk.

The thin-faced, graying Endicott peered up, puzzled.

O’Hanna said: “Coincidences are beginning to pile on coincidences. I’ve been doing a little research in astronomy. It turns out that Spica is the name of a star three hundred light-years distant from us. Now, isn’t that fascinating?”

Endicott didn’t think so. He said: “Good Lord, Mike, that’s probably the most trivial detail you ever wasted my time telling me.”

O’Hanna protested: “Where’s your imagination, man? Just think of it. Three hundred light-years means a ray of light started on its way to us when the pilgrim fathers were still alive. It was still umpteen billions of miles away when Mr. McGuffey took up the hobby of star-gazing. It must have been just about that time that Spica Zane was born and named after the same star, because Spica is a name her parents couldn’t have picked out of religion, history, or thin air.”

Endicott blinked. He frowned. He said: “Well, what of it?”

“I’m asking myself.” O’Hanna frowned, too. “McGuffey says Charley Zane is a mere newcomer and a novice in the game. For my money, though, there’s a tie-up going back to the time that girl was born. I’d like to dig into the family history of the McGuffeys and the Zanes. I’m boiling over with questions to ask those guys.”

Endicott took alarm. He cried: “Mike, you mustn’t! I absolutely forbid it!”

“You don’t want me to unveil the family skeleton?”

Endicott said: “Certainly not. It’s preposterous. Our guests’ private affairs are none of our business. People come to San Alpa for pleasure. They won’t stand for embarrassing questions about their pasts, and I don’t blame them.”

O’Hanna’s Irish-gray eyes narrowed. “That’s how you talk now. You’ll talk different when hell boils over on the premises. You’ll say then it was my job to head off the trouble before it could happen.”

Endicott sat back, straightened his spare shoulders. “There isn’t going to be any trouble. From what you’ve told me, this is merely a case of a couple of old fools squabbling over a silly comet. You’re acting as if some horrible crime had been committed.”

The house dick said: “No. I’m acting as if some horrible crime was going to happen. I’ve got a black Irish hunch there’s more to this setup than comet, comet, who’s got the comet.”

The manager scoffed. “Ridiculous! You’re being as absurd as those two idiots themselves!”

“You won’t back me up, then, if I ask them some personal questions?”

Endicott said: “I certainly will not. I’ll discharge you if I hear of you carrying on in any such high-handed fashion. It’s my duty to the stockholders to draw patronage to this hotel, not to annoy folks so they leave.”

O’Hanna was used to it. He said: “O.K., I just wanted to get it in the record. You’re telling me to lay off. It’s in your hands, and if it blows up, it’s your fingers that get burned.”