Asimov's Future History Volume 4 (24 page)

She looked up, her face as pretty as ever, despite its obvious distress–perhaps because of it. She said, “Nothing.”

“No running footsteps? No other voice?”

She shook her head. “I didn’t hear anything.”

“When you found your husband, he was completely alone? You two were the only ones present?”

“Yes.”

“No signs of anyone else having been there?”

“None that I could see. I don’t see how anyone could have been there, anyway.”

“Why do you say that?”

For a moment she looked shocked. Then she said dispiritedly, “You’re from Earth. I keep forgetting. Well, it’s just that nobody could have been there. My husband never saw anybody except me; not since he was a boy. He certainly wasn’t the sort to see anybody. Not Rikaine. He was very strict; very custom-abiding.”

“It might not have been his choice. What if someone had just come to see him without an invitation, without your husband knowing anything about it? He couldn’t have helped seeing the intruder regardless of how custom-abiding he was.”

She said, “Maybe, but he would have called robots at once and had the man taken away. He would have! Besides no one would try to see my husband without being invited to. I couldn’t conceive of such a thing. And Rikaine certainly would never invite anyone to see him. It’s ridiculous to think so.”

Baley said softly, “Your husband was killed by being struck on the head, wasn’t he? You’ll admit that.”

“I suppose so. He was–all–”

“I’m not asking for the details at the moment. Was there any sign of some mechanical contrivance in the room that would have enabled someone to crush his skull by remote control.”

“Of course not. At least, I didn’t see any.”

“If anything like that had been there, I imagine you would have seen it. It follows then that a hand held something capable of crushing a man’s skull and that hand swung it. Some person had to be within four feet of your husband to do that. So someone did see him.”

“No one would,” she said earnestly. “A Solarian just wouldn’t see anyone.”

“A Solarian who would commit murder wouldn’t stick at a bit of seeing, would he?”

(To himself that statement sounded dubious. On Earth he had known the case of a perfectly conscienceless murderer who had been caught only because he could not bring himself to violate the custom of absolute silence in the community bathroom.)

Gladia shook her head. “You don’t understand about seeing. Earthmen just see anybody they want to all the time, so you don’t understand it....”

Curiosity seemed to be struggling within her. Her eyes lightened a bit. “Seeing does seem perfectly normal to you, doesn’t it?”

“I’ve always taken it for granted,” said Baley.

“It doesn’t trouble you?”

“Why should it?”

“Well, the films don’t say, and I’ve always wanted to know–Is it all right if I ask a question?”

“Go ahead,” said Baley stolidly.

“Do you have a wife assigned to you?”

“I’m married. I don’t know about the assignment part.”

“And I know you see your wife any time you want to and she sees you and neither of you thinks anything of it.”

Baley nodded.

“Well, when you see her, suppose you just want to–” She lifted her hands elbow-high, pausing as though searching for the proper phrase. She tried again, “Can you just–any time...” She let it dangle.

Baley didn’t try to help.

She said, “Well, never mind. I don’t know why I should bother you with that sort of thing now anyway. Are you through with me?” She looked as though she might cry again.

Baley said, “One more try, Gladia. Forget that no one would see your husband. Suppose someone did. Who might it have been?”

“It’s just useless to guess. It couldn’t be anyone.”

“It has to be someone. Agent Gruer says there is reason to suspect some one person. So you see there must be someone.”

A small, joyless smile flickered over the girl’s face. “I know who he thinks did it.”

“All right. Who?”

She put a small hand on her breast. “I.”

6: A Theory Is Refuted

“I
SHOULD
HAVE
said, Partner Elijah,” said Daneel, speaking suddenly, “that that is an obvious conclusion.”

Baley cast a surprised look at his robot partner. ‘Why obvious?” he asked.

“The lady herself,” said Daneel, “states that she was the only person who did or who would see her husband. The social situation on Solaria is such that even she cannot plausibly present anything else as the truth. Certainly Agent Gruer would find it reasonable, even obligatory, to believe that a Solarian husband would be seen only by his wife. Since only one person could be in seeing range, only one person could strike the blow and only one person could be the murderer. Or murderess, rather. Agent Gruer, you will remember, said that only one person could have done it. Anyone else he considered impossible. Well?”

“He also said,” said Baley, “that that one person couldn’t have done it, either.”

“By which he probably meant that there was no weapon found at the scene of the crime. Presumably Mrs. Delmarre could explain that anomaly.”

He gestured with cool robotic politeness toward where Gladia sat, still in viewing focus, her eyes cast down, her small mouth compressed.

Jehoshaphat, thought Baley, we’re forgetting the lady.

Perhaps it was annoyance that had caused him to forget. It was Daneel who annoyed him, he thought, with his unemotional approach to problems. Or perhaps it was himself, with his emotional approach. He did not stop to analyze the matter.

He said, “That will be all for now, Gladia. However one goes about it, break contact. Good-by.”

She said softly, “Sometimes one says, ‘Done viewing,’ but I like ‘Good-by’ better. You seem disturbed, Elijah. I’m sorry, because I’m used to having people think I did it, so you don’t need to feel disturbed.”

Daneel said, “
Did
you do it, Gladia?”

“No,” she said angrily.

“Good-by, then.”

With the anger not yet washed out of her face she was gone. For a moment, though, Baley could still feel the impact of those quite extraordinary gray eyes.

She might say she was used to having people think her a murderess, but that was very obviously a lie. Her anger spoke more truly than her words. Baley wondered of how many other lies she was capable.

And now Baley found himself alone with Daneel. He said, “All right, Daneel, I’m not altogether a fool.”

“I have never thought you were, Partner Elijah.”

“Then tell me what made you say there was no murder weapon found at the site of the crime? There was nothing in the evidence so far, nothing in anything I’ve heard that would lead us to that conclusion.”

“You are correct. I have additional information not yet available to you.”

“I was sure of that. What kind?”

“Agent Gruer said he would send a copy of the report of their own investigation. I have that copy. It arrived this morning.”

“Why haven’t you shown it to me?”

“I felt that it would perhaps be more fruitful for you to conduct your investigation, at least in the initial stages, according to your own ideas, without being prejudiced by the conclusions of other people who, self-admittedly, have reached no satisfactory conclusion. It was because I, myself, felt my logical processes might be influenced by those conclusions that I contributed nothing to the discussion.”

Logical processes! Unbidden, there leaped into Baley’s mind the fragment of a conversation he had once had with a roboticist. A robot, the man had said, is logical but not reasonable.

He said, “You entered the discussion at the end.”

“So I did, Partner Elijah, but only because by that time I had independent evidence bearing out Agent Gruer’s suspicions.”

“What kind of independent evidence?”

“That which could be deduced from Mrs. Delmarre’s own behavior.”

“Let’s be specific, Daneel.”

“Consider that if the lady were guilty and were attempting to prove herself innocent, it would be useful to her to have the detective in the case believe her innocent.”

“Well?”

“If she could warp his judgment by playing upon a weakness of his, she might do so, might she not?”

“Strictly hypothetical.”

“Not at all,” was the calm reply. “You will have noticed, I think, that she concentrated her attention entirely on you.”

“I was doing the talking,” said Baley.

“Her attention was on you from the start; even before she could guess that you would be doing the talking. In fact, one might have thought she would, logically, have expected that I, as an Auroran, would take the lead in the investigation. Yet she concentrated on you.”

“And what do you deduce from this?”

“That it was upon you, Partner Elijah, that she pinned her hopes. You were the Earthman.”

“What of that?”

“She had studied Earth. She implied that more than once. She knew what I was talking about when I asked her to blank out the outer daylight at the very start of the interview. She did not act surprised or uncomprehending, as she would most certainly have done had she not had actual knowledge of conditions on Earth.”

“Well?”

“Since she has studied Earth, it is quite reasonable to suppose that she discovered one weakness Earthmen possess. She must know of the nudity tabu, and of how such a display must impress an Earthman.”

“She–she explained about viewing–”

“So she did. Yet did it seem entirely convincing to you? Twice she allowed herself to be seen in what you would consider a state of improper clothing–”

“Your conclusion,” said Baley, “is that she was trying to seduce me. Is that it?”

“Seduce you away from your professional impersonality. So it would seem to me. And though I cannot share human reactions to stimuli, I would judge, from what has been imprinted on my instruction circuits, that the lady meets any reasonable standard of physical attractiveness. From your behavior, moreover, it seems to me that you were aware of that and that you approved her appearance. I would even judge that Mrs. Delmarre acted rightly in thinking her mode of behavior would predispose you in her favor.”

“Look,” said Baley uncomfortably, “regardless of what effect she might have had on me, I am still an officer of the law in full possession of my sense of professional ethics. Get that straight. Now let’s see the report.”

Baley read through the report in silence. He finished, turned back, and read it through a second time.

“This brings in a new item,” he said. “The robot.”

Daneel Olivaw nodded.

Baley said thoughtfully, “She didn’t mention it.”

Daneel said, “You asked the wrong question. You asked if he was alone when she found the body. You asked if anyone else had been present at the death scene. A robot isn’t ‘anybody else.”

Baley nodded. If he himself were a suspect and were asked who else had been at the scene of a crime, he would scarcely have replied: “No one but this table.”

He said, “I suppose I should have asked if any robots were present?” (Damn it, what questions does one ask anyway on a strange world?) He said, “How legal is robotic evidence, Daneel?”

“What do you mean?”

“Can a robot bear witness on Solaria? Can it give evidence?”

“Why should you doubt it?”

“A robot isn’t human, Daneel. On Earth, it cannot be a legal witness.”

“And yet a footprint can, Partner Elijah, although that is much less a human than a robot is. The position of your planet in this respect is illogical. On Solaria, robotic evidence, when competent, is admissible.”

Baley did not argue the point. He rested his chin on the knuckles of one hand and went over this matter of the robot in his mind.

In the extremity of terror Gladia Delmarre, standing over her husband’s body, had summoned robots. By the time they came she was unconscious.

The robots reported having found her there together with the dead body. And something else was present as well; a robot. That robot had not been summoned; it was already there. It was not one of the regular staff. No other robot had seen it before or knew its function or assignment.

Nor could anything be discovered from the robot in question. It was not in working order. When found, its motions were disorganized and so, apparently, was the functioning of its positronic brain. It could give none of the proper responses, either verbal or mechanical, and after exhaustive investigation by a robotics expert it was declared a total loss.

Its only activity that had any trace of organization was its constant repetition of “You’re going to kill me–you’re going to kill me–you’re going to kill me.”

No weapon that could possibly have been used to crush the dead man’s skull was located.

Baley said suddenly, “I’m going to eat, Daneel, and then we see Agent Gruer again–or view him, anyway.”

Hannis Gruer was still eating when contact was established. He ate slowly, choosing each mouthful carefully from a variety of dishes, peering at each anxiously as though searching for some hidden combination he would find most satisfactory.

Baley thought: He may be a couple of centuries old. Eating may be getting dull for him.

Gruer said, “I greet you, gentlemen. You received our report, I believe.” His bald head glistened, as he leaned across the table to reach a titbit.

“Yes. We have spent an interesting session with Mrs. Delmarre also,” said Baley.

“Good, good,” said Gruer. “And to what conclusion, if any, did you come?”

Baley said, “That she is innocent, sir.”

Gruer looked up sharply. “Really?”

Baley nodded.

Gruer said, “And yet she was the only one who could see him, the only one who could possibly be within reach....”

Baley said, “That’s been made clear to me, and no matter how firm social customs are on Solaria, the point is not conclusive. May I explain?”

Gruer had returned to his dinner. “Of course.”

“Murder rests on three legs,” said Baley, “each equally important. They are motive, means, and opportunity. For a good case against any suspect, each of the three must be satisfied. Now I grant you that Mrs. Delmarre had the opportunity. As for the motive, I’ve heard of none.”