The Mammoth Book of Golden Age SF (32 page)

“No,” he then told himself, “I’ve never walked in my sleep before, and I didn’t then. I must simply have been careless when I undressed last night. I was thinking about the Deem case. I don’t actually remember hanging my clothes on that chair.”

So he donned his uniform quickly and hurried down to the office. In the light of morning it was easy to fill out those forms. In the “Cause of Death” blank he wrote, “Medical Examiner reports that shock from a blaster wound caused death.”

That let him out from under; he had not said that was the cause of death; merely that the medico said it was.

He rang for a messenger and gave him the reports with instructions to rush them to the mail ship that would be leaving shortly. Then he called Barr Maxon.

“Reporting on the Deem’s matter, Regent,” he said. “Sorry, but we just haven’t got anywhere on it yet. Nobody was seen leaving the shop. All the neighbors have been questioned. Today I’m going to talk to all his friends.”

Regent Maxon shook his head.

“Use all jets, Lieutenant,” he said. “The case must be cracked. A murder, in this day and age, is bad enough. But an unsolved one is unthinkable. It would encourage further crime.”

Lieutenant Caquer nodded gloomily. He had thought of that, too. There were the social implications of murder to be worried about – and there was his job as well. A Lieutenant of Police who let anyone get away with murder in his district was through for life.

After the Regent’s image had clicked off the visiphone screen, Caquer took the list of Deem’s friends from the drawer of his desk and began to study it, mainly with an eye to deciding the sequence of his calls.

He penciled a figure ‘1’ opposite the name of Perry Peters, for two reasons. Peters’ place was only a few doors away, for one thing, and for another he knew Perry better than anyone on the list, except possibly Professor Jan Gordon. And he would make that call last, because later there would be a better chance of finding the ailing professor awake – and a better chance of finding his daughter Jane at home.

Perry Peters was glad to see Caquer, and guessed immediately the purpose of the call.

“Hello, Shylock.”

“Huh?” said Rod.

“Shylock – the great detective. Confronted with a mystery for the first time in his career as a policeman. Or have you solved it, Rod?”

“You mean Sherlock, you dope – Sherlock Holmes. No, I haven’t solved it, if you want to know. Look, Perry, tell me you all you know about Deem. You knew him pretty well, didn’t you?”

Perry Peters rubbed his chin reflectively and sat down on the work bench. He was so tall and lanky that he could sit down on it instead of having to jump up.

“Willem was a funny little runt,” he said. “Most people didn’t like him because he was sarcastic, and he had crazy notions on politics. Me, I’m not sure whether he wasn’t half right half the time, and anyway he played a swell game of chess.”

“Was that his only hobby?”

“No. He liked to make things, gadgets mostly. Some of them were good, too, although he did it for fun and never tried to patent or capitalize anything.”

“You mean inventions, Perry? Your own line?”

“Well, not so much inventions as gadgets, Rod. Little things, most of them, and he was better on fine workmanship than on original ideas. And, as I said, it was just a hobby with him.”

“Ever help you with any of your own inventions?” asked Caquer.

“Sure, occasionally. Again, not so much on the idea of it as by helping me make difficult parts.” Perry Peters waved his hand in a gesture that included the shop around them. “My tools here are all for rough work, comparatively. Nothing under thousandths. But Willem has – had a little lathe that’s a honey. Cuts anything, and accurately to a fifty-thousandth.”

“What enemies did he have, Perry?”

“None that I know of. Honestly, Rod. Lot of people disliked him, but just an ordinary mild kind of dislike. You know what I mean, the kind of dislike that makes ’em trade at another book-and-reel shop, but not the kind that makes them want to kill anybody.”

“And who, as far as you know, might benefit by his death?”

“Um – nobody, to speak of,” said Peters, thoughtfully. “I think his heir is a nephew on Venus. I met him once, and he was a likable guy. But the estate won’t be anything to get excited about. A few thousand credits is all I’d guess it to be.”

“Here’s a list of his friends, Perry.” Caquer handed Peters a paper. “Look it over, will you, and see if you can make any additions to it. Or any suggestions.”

The lanky inventor studied the list, and then passed it back.

“That includes them all, I guess,” he told Caquer. “Couple on there I didn’t know he knew well enough to rate listing. And you have his best customers down, too; the ones that bought heavily from him.”

Lieutenant Caquer put the list back in his pocket.

“What are you working on now?” he asked Peters.

“Something I’m stuck on, I’m afraid,” the inventor said. “I needed Deem’s help – or at least the use of his lathe, to go ahead with this.” He picked up from the bench a pair of the most peculiar-looking goggles Rod Caquer had ever seen. The lenses were shaped like arcs of circles instead of full circles, and they fastened in a band of resilient plastic obviously designed to fit close to the face above and below the lenses. At the top center, where it would be against the forehead of the goggles’ wearer, was a small cylindrical box an inch and a half in dismeter.

“What on earth are they for?” Caquer asked.

“For use in radite mines. The emanations from that stuff, while it’s in the raw state, destroys immediately any tranparent substance yet made or discovered. Even quartz. And it isn’t good on naked eyes either. The miners have to work blindfolded, as it were, and by their sense of touch.”

Rod Caquer looked at the goggles curiously.

“But how is the funny shape of these lenses going to keep the emanations from hurting them, Perry?” he asked.

“That part up on top is a tiny motor. It operates a couple of specially-treated wipers across the lenses. For all the world like an old-fashioned windshield wiper, and that’s why the lenses are shaped like the wiper-arm arcs.”

“Oh,” said Caquer. “You mean the wipers are absorbent and hold some kind of liquid that protects the glass?”

“Yes, except that it’s quartz instead of glass. And it’s protected only a minute fraction of a second. Those wipers go like the devil – so fast you can’t see them when you’re wearing the goggles. The arms are half as big as the arcs, and the wearer can see out of only a fraction of the lens at a time. But he can see, dimly, and that’s a thousand percent improvement in radite mining.”

“Fine, Perry,” said Caquer. “And they can get around the dimness by having ultra-brilliant lighting. Have you tried these out?”

“Yes, and they work. Trouble’s in the rods; friction heats them and they expand and jam after it’s run a minute, or thereabouts. I have to turn them down on Deem’s lathe – or one like it. Think you could arrange for me to use it? Just for a day or so?”

“I don’t see why not,” Caquer told him. ‘I’ll talk to whomever the Regent appoints executor, and fix it up. And later you can probably buy the lathe from his heir. Or does the nephew go in for such things?”

Perry Peters shook his head. “Nope, he wouldn’t know a lathe from a drill-press. Be swell of you, Rod, if you can arrange for me to use it.”

Caquer had turned to go, when Perry Peters stopped him.

“Wait a minute,” Peters said and then paused and looked uncomfortable.

“I guess I was holding out on you, Rod,” the inventor said at last. “I do know one thing about Willem that might possibly have something to do with his death, although I don’t see how, myself. I wouldn’t tell it on him, except that he’s dead, and so it won’t get him in trouble.”

“What was it, Perry?”

“Illicit political books. He had a little business on the side selling them. Books on the index – you know just what I mean.”

Caquer whistled softly. “I didn’t know they were made any more. After the council put such a heavy penalty on them – whew!”

“People are still human, Rod. They still want to know the things they shouldn’t know – just to find out why they shouldn’t, if for no other reason.”

“Graydex or Blackdex books, Perry?”

Now the inventor looked puzzled.

“I don’t get it. What’s the difference?”

“Books on the official index,” Caquer explained, “are divided into two groups. There’s a severe penalty for owning one, and a death penalty for writing or printing one. The mildly dangerous ones are in the Graydex, as they call it.”

“I wouldn’t know which Willem peddled. Well, off the record, I read a couple Willem lent me once, and I thought they were pretty dull stuff. Unorthodox political theories.”

“That would be Graydex.” Lieutenant Caquer looked relieved. “Theoretical stuff is all Graydex. The Blackdex books are the ones with dangerous practical information.”

“Such as?” The inventor was staring intently at Caquer.

“Instructions how to make outlawed things,” explained Caquer. “Like Lethite, for instance. Lethite is a poison gas that’s tremendously dangerous. A few pounds of it could wipe out a city, so the council outlawed its manufacture, and any book telling people how to make it for themselves would go on the Blackdex. Some nitwit might get hold of a book like that and wipe out his whole home town.”

“But why would anyone?”

“He might be warped mentally, and have a grudge,” explained Caquer. “Or he might want to use it on a lesser scale for criminal reasons. Or – by Earth, he might be the head of a government with designs on neighbouring states. Knowledge of a thing like that might upset the peace of the Solar System.”

Perry Peters nodded thoughtfully. “I get your point,” he said. “Well, I still don’t see what it could have to do with the murder, but I thought I’d tell you about Willem’s sideline. You probably want to check over his stock before whoever takes over the shop reopens.”

“We shall,” said Caquer. “Thanks a lot, Perry. If you don’t mind, I’ll use your phone to get that search started right away. If there are any Blackdex books there, we’ll take care of them all right.”

When he got his secretary on the screen, she looked both frightened and relieved at seeing him.

“Mr. Caquer,” she said, “I’ve been trying to reach you. Something awful’s happened. Another death.”

“Murder again?” gasped Caquer.

“Nobody knows what it was,” said the secretary. “A dozen people saw him jump out of a window only twenty feet up. And in this gravity that couldn’t have killed him, but he was dead when they got there. And four of them that saw him knew him. It was—”

“Well, for Earth’s sake, who?”

“I don’t—Lieutenant Caquer, they said, all four of them, that it was Willem Deem!”

With a nightmarish feeling of unreality Lieutenant Rod Caquer peered down over the shoulder of the Medico-in-Chief at the body that already lay on the stretcher of the utility men, who stood by impatiently.

“You better hurry, Doc,” one of them said. “He won’t last much longer and it take us five minutes to get there.”

Dr. Skidder nodded impatiently without looking up, and went on with his examination. “Not a mark, Rod,” he said. “Not a sign of poison. Not a sign of anything. He’s just dead.”

“The fall couldn’t have caused it?” said Caquer.

“There isn’t even a bruise from the fall. Only verdict I can give is heart failure. Okay, boys, you take it away.”

“You through too, Lieutenant?”

“I’m through.” said Caquer. “Go ahead. Skidder, which of them was Willem Deem?”

The medico’s eyes followed the white-sheeted burden of the utility men as they carried it toward the truck, and he shrugged helplessly.

“Lieutenant, I guess that’s your pigeon,” he said. “All I can do is certify to cause of death.”

“It just doesn’t make sense,” Caquer wailed. “Sector Three City isn’t so big that he could have had a double living here without people knowing about it. But one of them had to be a double. Off the record, which looked to you like the original?”

Dr. Skidder shook his head grimly.

“Willem Deem had a peculiarly shaped wart on his nose,” he said.

“So did both of his corpses, Rod. And neither one was artificial, or make-up. I’ll stake my professional reputation on that. But come on back to the office with me, and I’ll tell you which one of them is the real Willem Deem.”

“Huh? How?”

“His thumbprint’s on file at the tax department, like everybody’s is. And it’s part of routine to fingerprint a corpse on Callisto, because it has to be destroyed so quickly.”

“You have thumbprints of both corpses?” inquired Caquer.

“Of course. Took them before you reached the scene, both times. I have the one for Willem – I mean the other corpse – back in my office. Tell you what – you pick up the print on file at the tax office and meet me there.”

Caquer sighed with relief as he agreed. At least one point in the case would be cleared up – which corpse was which.