by E. C. Tubb
“No, the dead man is not here, but in the adjoining lab, just at the opposite end of this room. I am sure you can help me. I wouldn’t have imposed on you, had it not been so urgent. I must find a solution to this case within three hours at the most.”
“And you need a planetologist?” Qeta looked puzzled. “I’m an expert on planets, not a detective. Are you sure I can help you? It is the first time you’ve called me for a murder case. Previously you called me to help you solve problems which were more on the scientific side than police matters.”
Sukyung guided the scientist to the end of the room and through a door to another room. This was more spacious and from the threshold Qeta could see a large table and rows of shelves overcrowded with jars and tubes.
“I’m afraid there is a dead man to complicate things now, and I thought that your sharp mind could be useful once more,” he replied. “The dead man, or rather the man who was killed, is Professor Helios Olmedo, the director of the Astronomy and Astrophysics Lab. I gather you knew him very well professionally.”
“Oh, yes,” said the planetologist.
“Well, I hope you can find some clue, which has so far evaded us. I confess that I am groping in the dark and time is short, very short indeed.”
Professor Olmedo was lying behind the counter, near the right wall. He was wearing a white coat and the terminal end of a ceramic dart was protruding from his neck. His face was contracted, showing his facial nerves had been subject to sudden paralysis.
“Was he poisoned?” asked Qeta as he saw the dart.
The Commissioner nodded. “Exactly. Do you see this dart? It is the kind of dart that is fired by a compressed air ceramic gun. It is used in the spaceships to sedate violent rioters. The only difference is that we use sleeping darts, while the dart which killed Professor Olmedo obviously contained a lethal toxin.”
Qeta went around the table to have a better look at the dead man. In spite of his hundred and twenty kilos he knelt with great agility, aided by the reduced gravity of the Moon. “Could you establish the time of the death?”
“A couple of hours ago, no more,” Sukyung said. “Time is of essence in this investigation. As you know, in order to move through the many levels of Luna City and open certain doors, you need to employ your own magnetic key, which, according to the security level of the owner, allows entry in certain parts and not in others. But all accesses are registered by the central computer and, at least in theory, we should be able to track every person’s movements rather precisely.”
Qeta finished examining the corpse, then got up. The commissioner was looking at him hopefully. “Something is wrong, isn’t it?”
Sukyung sighed. “Dead wrong. The lab door was opened by the murderer with a false skeleton key.”
“False?”
“As false as it can be. Its code number which was registered by the computer doesn’t match with any of the skeleton keys which are used by the personnel of Luna City.”
“That would suggest a professional agent, wouldn’t it?” asked Qeta, while his eyes searched the room. “A ceramic gun which can foil the metal detectors, a poisoned dart which is not in the trick bag of the lunar police, a false skeleton key.…”
“This is just what we thought,” Sukyung confirmed the hypothesis. “But we have a possible track to follow.”
“Interesting,” commented Qeta. Now he had lifted his eyes and he was examining the ceiling. “And what is this track?”
Sukyung said smugly: “We can reduce the number of the possible murderers to three. Thanks to the use of the magnetic keys we can track the movements of all people rather precisely. Actually there are only three of them who did not leave a traceable path in the last four hours and so we are a hundred percent sure that the murder must be one of them. They are—”
Qeta stopped him with a gesture and pointed instead at the ceiling. There was a tiny electronic eye focused on them at the moment. “That is a security camera, isn’t it? I trust you have already checked the tape?”
If Sukyung thought the question was slightly insulting, he did not show it. “Sure. That was the first thing we did, but the range of the camera doesn’t cover the room completely and the murderer placed himself in a blind spot. From there he fired the gun without being filmed. I have a copy of the tape on one of the lab monitors. Do you want to see it now?”
“Please.” Qeta looked around him. He saw a turned on monitor on the left side of the room and started to walk in this direction. Suddenly he turned as if an idea had occurred to him, and came back to examine the table behind which the professor’s corpse was lying.
“Found something?” Sukyung came alongside him.
Qeta pointed at the table. There were five numbered glass jars lined up on the top and the last one was not erect as the others, but lay on its side. “I think Professor Olmedo was working on these specimens when he was killed. Apparently he was keeping the last jar in his hand and it rolled out the moment he was hit.”
“Right,” stated Sukyung. “You can see the whole scene on the monitor.”
The two men approached the monitor and Sukyung pushed a few buttons. Immediately the screen showed a movie of the laboratory. Professor Olmedo was behind the table and all of a sudden he raised his head with a baffled look in his eyes. A second later his look changed, but Qeta could not understand whether he was actually worried. It was almost sure the killer had just come in. Professor Olmedo might have sensed something was wrong, but either he was not yet sure, or perhaps he did not want to show he had understood what was about to happen.
The professor turned casually and from the shelf behind him he took a few jars and began to display them on the table. He acted as if he was not worried by the presence of the unknown visitor. Had he not understood that the intruder had come to kill him? His gestures were quiet and systematic; he seemed to prepare the jars for some kind of experiment. Nothing in his movements revealed he was afraid of being killed by the visitor.
“A shame there is no sound track,” said Qeta. “If we could hear what they said, it would be easier for us.”
Now the professor had finished arranging the jars on the table.
“Coming up now is the moment when he was shot,” anticipated the commissioner.
A couple of seconds later the face of the professor contracted while a ceramic dart pierced his jugular. The nerves of his face froze instantly and he appeared to gasp for air, then he collapsed on the floor.
“Paralysis with asphyxia,” said Sukyung. “He died almost instantly.”
“Go back a little with the tape,” said Qeta. “I want to see the scene again.”
The commissioner gave him a perplexed look, but he did not say anything and ran the images again. Once more the professor was shown to handle his lunar specimens.
“Ah!” Uriel Qeta exclaimed. “Just as I thought. Did you notice it?
“Notice what?” asked Sukyung. “I see the professor being hit while he is arranging the jars on the table and then collapsing after being paralyzed. Or did I miss anything?”
Qeta looked at him thoughtfully as if he was following a train of thoughts of his own. “If you observe the tape more carefully, you’ll notice the professor was not hit while he was arranging the jars on the table, but after he had already done with it.”
“So what?” Sukyung looked dumbfounded. “During or immediately after, what does it matter? It was the moment he was killed anyway.”
“Look at the tape again,” Qeta prompted the commissioner.
Sukyung sighed, but he ran the tape for the third time, and again there was the professor handling his jars.
“Stop the image here,” Qeta ordered him suddenly. “Don’t you notice anything out of order?”
Sukyung examined the image then he winced and turned to look at Qeta. He looked amazed. “I got it! How could I have missed it?”
Qeta nodded and pointed his finger to the fixed image.
“You see, at this point the professor ha
s finished arranging the five jars on the table, but the last one did not roll out of his hand when he was hit. The fifth jar was purposely placed on its side by him! And then, only then, five or six seconds later, he was hit by the lethal dart.”
There was silence for a while in the room. Then Sukyung said slowly: “The professor understood his visitor had come to kill him and he left a message to us. To write it he used the only objects he had at hand at the moment, the jars with the lunar specimens.”
Qeta turned and went back to the table. “Let’s have a look at these jars. They are the key which might give us the answers we are looking for.”
The jars were the usual jars used to contain the lunar specimens: dust and chips of rocks. Every jar was labeled with a number that identified a file with all the data relating to the specimen in it: place, time, depth, finding team, and other data.
Qeta examined the labels. “The identification numbers are 4, 7, 10, 16 and 28,” he said. “We’ll need to examine the files relating to these specimens. We might find a clue in them, which could lead us to the murderer, but.…” He shook his head, unconvinced. “There is something which is out of place.”
Sukyung nodded. “The fifth jar, the one on his side, isn’t it? Why did he not place it upright as the other ones?”
“That’s the point.” Qeta put his hands on the table. “The lying jar must have a particular meaning, but for the moment it evades me. Nonetheless the professor must have thought it was an important clue, because he placed it differently from the others.”
Sukyung looked at his watch. “We only have two hours and a half yet, Doctor Qeta. Time is running short. We must examine these files.”
Uriel Qeta looked at him. “So you said earlier. Why is the time so urgent?”
“Because the three suspect will get on the ferry to Earth in two and a half hours’ time and once they are out of our jurisdiction it will be much more difficult to get at them, always provided the killer will not disappear altogether. After all, we don’t know why the professor was murdered and since we are ignorant of the motive, we can’t know what the killer will do afterwards.”
“You’re right,” Qeta assented. “But before reading the files about the jars, it might be useful to know something more on the three suspects. Do you have their files here?”
“Follow me.”
The commissioner led Uriel Qeta into the first room and invited him to sit down in front of a desk with three closed folders lying on it. “Here are the files of the suspects. You can read them whilst I give orders to my men.”
As the commissioner went away, Qeta opened the first folder.
Miguel Menem, Ph.D., 35, geologist. Brilliant scientist in an important university of Bogota. Specialist in Martian stones. Unmarried, no problem with the law.
The second folder was the file of Danielle Tietz, Ph.D., 29, biologist, working as a researcher at the Government Center of Exobiology of Dallas, virologist. Unmarried, no problem with the law.
The third folder was that of Roy Mobuto, Ph.D., 32, astronomer, radio-astronomy specialist at the Arecibo Observatory. Married with a fellow astronomer in Arecibo. No problem with the law.
Uriel Qeta sighed. The other data contained in the folders did not look at all promising for his investigation. Perhaps the computer files about the specimens could reveal something helpful. He was more convinced than ever that the key of the puzzle rested in those six jars numbered 4—7—10—16—28.
When the commissioner came back, the two men looked through the files of the specimens in the jars. But they were common specimens of lunar dust and rocks. Their mineral contents differed depending on the different sites where they had been picked up, but did not suggest anything unusual. As for the teams that had picked up the specimens, they were the usual teams that had operated in the past and among their members no one had a name that could be even remotely linked to one of the three suspects.
“Hell, we’re still at the starting point!” snorted Sukyung. “We have only one hour left before the ferry sails off and the murderer gets safely away with it. It’s infuriating!”
“4—7—10—16—28,” whispered Uriel Qeta, his brow deeply furrowed. “I remain absolutely convinced that these numbers hid the name of the killer.”
“Why don’t we try to replace the numbers with letters?” mused the commissioner. He caught a sheet of paper and a pencil and wrote down the alphabet letters and over them wrote the following numbers 1 for “a”, 2 for “b” and so on. The resulting word was “d g j p”. “Dammit, the alphabets letters are only twenty six. Number 28 has no corresponding letter.”
“And ‘dgjp’ doesn’t mean anything,” said Qeta. “The numbers might match some of the atomic numbers of the Mendeleyev’s table, but I can see without writing them down that there is no sense in it.”
Sukyung had a rabid look now on his face. “I can’t let that killer go free!” he exclaimed. “We must catch the bastard!”
“We don’t understand that message,” mused Uriel Qeta, “but it must be clear enough. Professor Olmedo apparently thought we could understand it easily. Five numbered jars, the last of them lying on it side. As if he wanted to signal a truncation…a full stop.…”
He suddenly brightened. “Of course, why didn’t I understand it earlier? The professor was an astronomer…and the lying jar means that these numbers are not only five, but the first five of a broken sequence!” The planetologist was beaming as he looked at the chief of the Lunar Police.
“I’ve got it! These numbers are part of a sequence that is well known to the astronomers. It is the Bode sequence: 4—7—10—16—28 which goes on with numbers 52—100—196—388. The professor has understood he did not have time enough to place all the needed jars on the table, but had he placed only five of them we wouldn’t have suspected they meant to be a sequence. While, placing one of them on its side he could make us understand it was a broken sequence. Yeah, that’s it, these numbers are just the numbers of the Bode Law. It gives us the distance of the planets from the Sun, counting as 10 the distance of the Earth from the Sun.”
Uriel Qeta jumped animatedly to his feet. “Let’s nab our killer before that ferry leaves!”
Commissioner Sukyung got to his feet, still looking perplexed. “Okay, if you feel so sure. But the Bode Law numbers don’t suggest anything to me, and the word Bode is also meaningless. Who are we arresting? The astronomer?”
The planetologist was already through the door. “Don’t think of it—just run! I’ll tell you everything while we get to the ferry. Ah, how brilliant of Professor Olmedo!”
* * * *
“Doctor Tietz?”
The beautiful redhead who was about to go through Gate 3 to the ferry berth for the Earth turned, showing a radiant smile. “Yes?”
Commissioner Sukyung’s voice was quiet but firm. “If you’ll be so kind as to follow me into my office.…”
The look on her face changed slightly, showing surprise and a bit of worry; just the right reaction which everybody would show while being stopped by the police just a few minutes before embarking on a space ferry.
“My ferry is about to take off,” she protested politely, with just a trace of nervousness in her voice.
“Please,” said Sukyung, showing her a side corridor. “There still is half an hour before the airlock closes. I’ll make this quick.”
“If you insist.” The tone of the woman sounded annoyed now. As if she was offended.
When she entered the office of the Lunar Police she remained standing, until invited to sit by a sharp gesture from Sukyung.
Uriel Qeta observed the scene intently from the corner where he was seated. Doctor Tietz did not show any trace of fear. She was self-assured, annoyed as much as might be expected from an innocent person, and no more worried than it was logical to be without arousing suspicion for being too sure of herself.
“May I know why I was compelled to follow you here? I have a ferry to catch.”
“
I’m afraid that will not be possible,” Commissioner Sukyung said sharply, opening a folder in front of him. “Doctor Tietz, you have been arrested because you are suspected of killing Professor Olmedo.” He spoke levelly, absolutely certain that he had found the killer.
Her green eyes flashed angrily. “Are you joking? I did not even know Professor Olmedo was dead.”
She was a tough one. A real pro. Her reactions were perfect. Calibrated. Normal.
“You have killed Professor Olmedo,” stated Sukyung. “As soon as the Professor realized he was going to be killed he left us a message. It is no use to try to deny it, you’d only waste your time and ours too.”
Uriel Qeta saw the biologist wince. For the first time he thought he detected a crack in her armor, but it was just for a fleeing moment.
“Nonsense! What would it be, this supposed message of yours? You can’t prove what you are saying.”
Sukyung did not reply. He was actually wondering if the evidence Uriel Qeta had provided him would be enough for the court. He was fully convinced of the meaning of the message but it was always possible a good lawyer could dismantle the accusations. What he still lacked was more direct evidence.
The biologist jumped to her feet. “I’m leaving!” She turned, but Sukyung’s voice stopped her short.
“Don’t try to get out of here. The door is blocked. Please, sit down.”
“But I’ll lose the ferry.…”
“I’m afraid you’ll lose something more than the ferry,” said Sukyung quietly and he began nonchalantly leafing through the folder in from of him.
“If you hope to unnerve me and cause me to confess what I haven’t done, you’re badly mistaken,” said Doctor Tietz. “Your abuse of power will cost you dearly.”
Sukyung didn’t even take the trouble to reply to her.
Uriel Qeta observed them without saying anything. He was amused. He knew why the Commissioner was dilly-dallying. At the moment the Forensic Team was searching the biologist’s luggage looking for some evidence that could nail her for the killing of the professor. Perhaps the actual weapon she had used, even if he doubted a professional killer would keep such an incriminating object. But even professionals make mistakes. Sometimes.