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

Professor Martin nibbled her underlip. “I’ll try to make it simple for you. In order to place a location on earth, it’s customary to use latitude and longitude. Those are the lines you see crisscrossing a map. In the heavens, we use the corresponding lines of ascension and declination. I’d been invited to see that comet tonight, so earlier tonight I calculated its declination. Now, are you satisfied?”

The house dick shrugged. “Frankly, the answer is no! I don’t savvy this business of amateurs like Charley Zane and Joe McGuffey finding comets at all. I don’t see how they can compete with you professionals with your fifty and hundred inch telescopes.”

Inez Martin sat down again, crossed her shapely knees, tugged her skirt into place. She said: “Oh, dear, you really are an ignoramus. In the first place, it’d take the largest telescope in existence two hundred years to completely map the stellar universe on film. In that time, literally scores of comets could appear and disappear while the telescope was pointing somewhere else. In the second place, the large observatory telescopes are used for specialized scientific research. We concentrate on studies of the component stars, the hydrogen carbide theory, and so on. Actually, it’s the amateur astronomers with the low-powered glasses who make most of the comet discoveries.”

“Yeah?”

The lady astronomer said: “It’s like the difference between a famous banker and a sharp-eyed newsboy. The banker knows all about international finance, but the boy is more apt to find a dime on the sidewalk.”

“O.K., let’s suppose I found a comet myself. Would you name it after me? So a thousand years from now, my great-great-great-grand-childen could point up in the sky and say there’s the comet their great-great-great-granddaddy discovered?”

Inez Martin thought this was funny. She giggled. “I wouldn’t want to bet on it. Your comet probably wouldn’t be a periodic one.”

“A how-much?”

“Periodic comets, like the famous Halley and Donati, return at stated intervals. The others are mere wanderers which flash through our solar system once, and may never be seen again.”

O’Hanna asked: “What about this one out there tonight? Who were you going to name it after — Charley Zane or Joe McGuffey?”

The lady astronomer hesitated, smoothed her fingers over her auburn hair. “That’s the sixty-four dollar question. It’s the queerest mix-up! You see, those men are practically next door neighbors in Pasadena. Each has an observatory fitted up over the garage at the back of his property. Each insisted he saw the comet first. Each rushed off a telegram the same night, at almost the same moment, a week ago. Ever since, they’ve been bombarding the observatory with threats of lawsuits to establish their claims. Then Mr. Zane mailed a check for traveling expenses, inviting a representative of the observatory to come to Pasadena and settle the matter. I can’t imagine why, but the staff decided I was the one to go.”

“They probably figured you could soothe the situation with some sex appeal,” the house dick flattered. “So what did you find out in Pasadena?”

Inez Martin shook her head. “Oh, I never went there. Mr. Zane wired that his plans had changed, and I was to meet him at San Alpa, instead. I had a suspicion he didn’t want me to hear Mr. McGuffey’s side of the story, so I telegraphed Mr. McGuffey to meet me here, too.” She shook her head again. “I’m sorry I did. Mr. Zane turned out to be an entirely different sort of man than I’d expected. He proved to be deeply interested in pure science. He was making arrangements to bequeath a large sum of money to the advancement of scientific research.”

O’Hanna grinned. He braced back his shoulders, bent up his left arm, made cranking motions with his right hand.

Professor Inez Martin widened her greenish eyes at the Irishman. “What on earth is that supposed to mean?”

“It’s sign language. It means fish-hooked and being reeled in,” O’Hanna interpreted. “Charley Zane baited you with a hundred-grand hook so you wouldn’t offend him by naming the comet after Joe McGuffey.”

He crossed to the door. Behind him, the lady astronomer became haughty. She said: “I couldn’t be bribed like that. You forget I’m a scientist.”

Hand on the doorknob, O’Hanna said: “You’re a scientist interested in component stars and hydrogen carbide. As far as you’re concerned, comets are just amateur, dime-on-the-sidewalk stuff. To you, this particular fireball is a mere wandering pinpoint in the universe, and it wouldn’t make the slightest scientific difference whether you named it after Charley Zane, Joe McGuffey, or Joe Palooka. That’s how Zane figured. You wouldn’t kick away a hundred thousand dollar bequest by deciding the wrong way, especially when the evidence wasn’t conclusive for either man. It’s the answer to the question of how Zane could steal a comet.”

Inez Martin watched him open the door. She moistened her lips. “Wait a minute... Where do you think all this leads you?”