by Gene Wolfe
“In other words,” Smith said, “who was in front of the main air lock and might have remained behind.”
“Or returned to it. Precisely so. I was there myself. I saw you, Comrade Smith. Also Comrade Petrovsky and his wife, and of course our Captain. What of you, Comrade Koroviev?”
“I was not there. I am eliminated, but then sanity would have eliminated me long before.”
“It was you who managed the tour, and yet you did not attend the performance? Surely we may be forgiven for asking why.”
“Because I knew what the performance would be!” The round-faced man ran his fingers through his rather shaggy hair. “I had discussed it at length with Merry, as she will tell you. I knew she would be imprisoned in the box, and the box blown out of the air lock. I knew also, as any of you would who had given the matter a moment’s thought, that one cannot see through the hatch of an air lock. I waited by a viewport.”
“But you could have come to the main air lock while the others watched the tool chest.”
“My position was at the shoulder of Comrade Smith. He will vouch for me.”
“Yes,” Smith said. “He was there for some time before I went back to the main air lock and found the body. If things took place as you say, I’m afraid you’ll have to rule Koroviev out, Comrade Lieutenant Colonel.”
Koroviev asked, “It was you, then, who discovered her?”
Smith nodded. “I’ve already been questioned about that, believe me. But may I ask a question now myself, Comrade Lieutenant Colonel? Who was the last to see Cherry alive?”
“A certain female passenger and her husband. They had been at the air lock, and in their hurry to reach one of the viewports, she lost a valuable earring. They returned in the hope of finding it.”
“And did they?”
“Yes, against an air-return grill. Comrade Cherry helped them look for it, but she did not leave with them when it was found.”
Smith leaned forward. “Was anyone with her?”
“They noticed no one, no. You appear thoughtful, Comrade.”
“They couldn’t have been gone long,” Smith said. “I wasn’t gone very long myself—not more than five minutes, if that. I know I was just beginning to wonder where the Captain’s cosmonaut was. Where was he, by the way?”
The Captain cleared his throat. “He was just entering the air lock—one of our utility locks—when we received Comrade Merry’s report that she had returned to the spacecraft.”
“Anyhow,” Smith continued, “this couple couldn’t have been gone for more than two or three minutes when the woman noticed her earring was missing, but by the time they came back for it, it had been pulled up against an air return. Was it gold?”
The KGB officer cocked her head. “Yes. Does it matter?”
“I was just thinking. A gold earring would be pretty massive for its surface area—I would think it would move rather slowly. The drops of blood I saw around the dead woman would have been much lighter, but they hadn’t been pulled away yet.”
“Your logic is impeccable. Cherry must have been stabbed within half a minute of the time you discovered her—unless you stabbed her yourself. I had not thought of the earring, but this afternoon I scattered a little water in the air at the spot where the body was found. It is a pity, is it not, that Comrade Merry did not arrive sooner?”
The blond entertainer asked, “May I say something? Two somethings. No, I wasn’t in the ship when Cherry was found. Anyway, I came in through one of the utility airlocks, and I called Captain Bogdanoff on the intercom as soon as I got inside. The time is recorded in the log—I asked about it—and so is the time that Cherry’s body was discovered. You’ll find that the interval was three minutes and forty-three seconds. I can’t read Russian very well, but he translated it for me.
“Now the second thing. When I first came in here I told you Cherry had cost me over two hundred thousand, and then Comrade Oussenko here spouted all that stuff about my having a lover on the ship and Cherry knowing. And I just couldn’t think. It had never even occurred to me that I’d be suspected, since I was responsible for her life to begin with. But now that I’ve had time to think, I realize I can put an end to all this nonsense forever by doing the same thing I did with Cherry—I mean, telling all of you about it. My Soviet lover was, and I hope still is, Captain Bogdanoff.”
The Captain rose, swiftly and expertly propelled himself across the room, and kissed her.
“All right, still is, I guess. Before I’d even really met him, I could see he was attracted to me. And he—well, he’s strong and handsome, and God knows brave. Anyone who earns his living crossing and recrossing space is brave enough and smart enough to do anything. So last night, and the night before that, too, he came to my cabin for a while.”
The dark Russian woman coughed. “I see.”
“There now. It’s out. Did I act while I was telling you like I’d kill my two hundred thousand dollar clone to keep it a secret?”
“No,” Smith said gallantly. “You certainly didn’t. But after hearing—and seeing—all this, we’re surely entitled to ask a few questions concerning the Captain himself. Captain, will you tell us where you went when you left the air lock?”
“Certainly,” the Captain rumbled. “To my bridge, to watch Merry’s escape. Observation is better from there than from any of the viewports and galleries available to passengers. You will now begin to suspect me—isn’t that so?”
The KGB officer lit a cigarette. “I hope not.”
“Your hope is granted, Comrade Lieutenant Colonel. You will have observed that several members of my crew were with me at the air lock. Two of them accompanied me back to my bridge. I was in their company until after Cherry’s body was reported.”
Smith asked, “Captain, that lock you put on the tool chest—the coffin—was it yours? Where did you get it?”
“Merry gave it to me.”
The bureaucrat, who had been silent since denying any amorous relationship with Cherry, sputtered, “But then she could have opened it!”
“Of course she could, Comrade Petrovsky. It was a trick, a performance! You think I wished to see her killed? It was I who insisted that a safety line be used.”
The KGB officer smiled. “Comrade Petrovsky is not concerned about your honesty, Captain. Or hers. He now fears that Comrade Merry may be accused. She could have had a key to the lock, certainly. But such a key would not have released her while she was within the chest and floating in space. What good would it have been?”
“It seems to me,” Smith remarked, “that we’re in danger of passing over a very interesting point here. The Captain has just protested that he did not want Merry to die. But it would seem that somebody did. Somebody cut that lifeline he made her use.”
“Now it comes out,” the KGB officer said. “I feared it would.”
The round-faced Koroviev darted a look at her. “What do you mean?”
“Only the very obvious point that Comrade Smith has just made—the point that struck me from the time I first learned of the death of Comrade Cherry: that an attempt was made to kill both.”
“Then you can’t possibly suspect me!” the blonde cried.
“No. But I hoped that if it appeared I did, something would be said here that would indicate the identity of the person who attempted to kill you as well as your clone sister. Now that hope is gone, and we must proceed without it. I now ask you, Comrade Merry, for the sake of the investigation, to reveal fully how your trick this afternoon was performed. Explain it to us.”
“I won’t.”
“Are you serious?” The woman from the KGB leaned toward her. “I warn you, Comrade, this is not a joke.”
“I don’t reveal my methods. Ever.”
“In private, perhaps? To me only.”
“No! If—if I believed it had any bearing on poor Cherry’s murder, I would. It doesn’t. A few minutes ago, my friend Boris Koroviev spoke of our tour being ruined. This would really ruin it—for hi
m and for me. Cherry wouldn’t have wanted that.”
“All right.” The KGB officer took a last puff of her cigarette and flicked it toward an air return. “Perhaps later we must resort to more drastic measures, but for now I will explain instead of you. To tell the truth, though I admit that what you did was very dangerous, I do not believe it so difficult.”
The bureaucrat asked, “You think you know how it was done, Comrade Lieutenant Colonel?”
“It is rather obvious, surely. Let me recapitulate what we saw; then I will discuss what must have actually occurred. We saw a large sheet-metal box, which Captain Bogdanoff was pleased to call a ‘coffin,’ but which many of us—I certainly—recognized as a tool chest of the type used on board this spacecraft for large implements. It was opened for us, and one of the crew was so kind, I would suppose at a suggestion from the Captain, as to shine a light in it. Then Comrade Merry Houdini entered, the lid was shut upon her, and Captain Bogdanoff put a padlock on the hasp. We have seen already that this padlock had been supplied by her. Comrade Cherry tied one end of a coil of nylon rope to a cleat on the wall of the air lock and the other to a folding handle at the end of the tool chest. I do not recall seeing anyone except herself touch that rope. What of the rest of you? Do any of you recall another person touching it?”
No one spoke.
“The inner hatch of the air lock was then closed, and the switch thrown to open the outer hatch, thus projecting the tool chest into space, presumably still tethered by the rope to our spacecraft.”
The KGB officer paused and glanced at each of them in turn. “And now I shall outline to you what the killer wishes us to believe occurred.
“After all the rest had left, Cherry for some reason remained behind. When the couple I have mentioned departed for the second time, her murderer returned. He stabbed her, closed the outer hatch—Captain, would that hatch shut despite the rope?”
The Captain nodded. “Certainly.”
“I had assumed so. Then he opened the inner hatch and cut the rope. That accomplished, he closed the inner hatch again and opened the outer hatch once more, allowing the cut end of the rope to be drawn out of the air lock. You see the objections to all this?”
Smith stroked his jaw. “You said he cut the rope. With what?”
“Ah!” The KGB officer favored him with a half smile. “That is well thought of. Perhaps he had a pocketknife. Or perhaps he brought a razor blade for the purpose. But not with the knife with which he killed Cherry, since that remained in her poor breast. But we ask that he do two very unnatural things. The natural act would be for him to remove the knife and use it to sever the rope, not to produce a second blade. And the natural act would be for him to fly the scene of the murder, not to open and close the hatches, and dodge in and out of the air lock, while the corpse of his victim floated behind him. I submit to you that he did not do these things—that no one did them.”
Koroviev asked, “Are you saying, Comrade Lieutenant Colonel, that Cherry cut the rope herself? Let me propose another explanation, one that seems far more probable. You have told us of a certain couple who returned to search for an earring. You have refrained from identifying them, but I doubt if there is anyone here who has not already guessed their names, despite certain naive questions asked at the beginning of this meeting. Let me say only that the woman habitually wears her hair heaped upon her head, and that such a coiffure almost dictates the use of earrings, though she wears none now. Is it not possible that no earring was ever lost? Could not her husband—a powerful man—have held Cherry while his wife entered the air lock and cut the rope, then returned to stab Cherry? Is it not possible that they left her dead, not alive?”
“No, it is not. Consider—first the couple of whom we speak leave; they were seen by others to do so. Then they return; that too was seen. They seize Cherry, as you say, operate the controls, cut the rope, and operate the controls again so that the tool chest will drift away. In so much time, almost every passenger would have seen the tool chest tethered, then the wandering tool chest, like a strayed cow.
“But that was not what was seen. I have spoken to more than a dozen who watched, and without exception they report that the rope had been cut before they sighted the tool chest. Furthermore, those who report the departure of this couple to seek the lost earring also report that the tool chest, with its rope severed, was in view before they left.”
The biochemist said, “Then it must have been Cherry who cut the rope!”
“No, not at all.” The KGB officer smiled. “I will explain that in a moment. But meanwhile, what of Comrade Merry, who is drifting in space? How is it she is here with us now? I propose to you that a face mask and a small cylinder of oxygen were concealed somewhere in her ‘coffin.’ Do any of you wish to argue?”
“I do,” Smith said. “I saw the inside from close up—as you know, since you were beside me at the time—and there wasn’t room for anything like that.”
“Precisely so, Comrade. You saw the inside, and so did I. But there was a part of that chest we did not examine, and now will never examine, since it is wandering the void. I refer to the interior of the lid. When we see what appears to be a common object, such as that tool chest, we tend to assume that it has remained a common object. That is much to the advantage of the clever magicians, who have made it an uncommon one.
“With this mask and the oxygen, our friend Comrade Merry here could breathe for a time. We have already seen that the lock that held closed the chest was no obstacle—she had supplied it herself. I would propose that in place of the catch which normally retains the shackle, she had substituted a part made of some substance that would vaporize upon exposure to the vacuum of space—there are many such substances. Comrade Merry had only to wait a few moments for the lock to spring open.
“When she was no longer locked inside, she opened the lid a few centimeters. Several persons saw her hand at this point. She opened it, I believe, to orient herself, but most of all to determine the condition of the light. Her tool chest was circling our spacecraft, as she knew it would. The chest was small, the spacecraft very large. For most of the time, the chest would be exposed to full sunlight—much brighter than sunlight is ever seen on Earth. But for a part of each circuit, the spacecraft would be between the sun and the chest, and it would be in almost perfect darkness. When that moment came, she left the chest and returned to the spacecraft. I would assume that together with her mask and oxygen she had a small cylinder of air for propulsion, since the compressors we use on board would not operate in a vacuum.”
The biochemist exclaimed, “She’d be killed!”
“Not if she kept her head—as she obviously did—and everything went well. The human body can survive for some time in a vacuum provided it does not suffocate, and all this required no more than three or four minutes. Once she reached our spacecraft again, she had only to open one of the hatches and come in. The hatches are made so they can be opened easily from outside—a sensible precaution, since cosmonauts sometimes work there, and an emergency may occur.
“However, she would have run a considerable risk of being seen with her mask and other equipment if she had simply opened a hatch and ducked inside. How was she to know she would not be seen? Comrade Smith, you have been following all this with intelligence and imagination, I believe.”
“Thank you, Comrade Lieutenant Colonel,” Smith said, “but I have no idea.”
“Clearly she required a confederate inside the spacecraft who would give her a signal if the way was clear. How could such a signal be given from within the spacecraft? Quite easily—if no one were about, the confederate would open the outer hatch of the air lock, so that Comrade Merry had merely to enter and close it, thus automatically filling the lock with air. Now we have come to an understanding of one of the points that at first puzzled me about this case—why the unfortunate Comrade Cherry chose to remain at the air lock when all the rest left.”
The woman from the KGB gave them a humorl
ess grin of triumph and lit another cigarette. “When I realized this, I of course examined the main air lock. I found its outer hatch was closed, although it had been opened for the trick and—so far as the crewmen I questioned knew—left open. How did it come to be closed? I believe that we know now. The murderer closed it, and no doubt saw to it that it would remain closed, because he wished to prevent any sudden effort to rescue Comrade Merry.
“But what of Merry then? She was in space without a pressure suit and with only a very limited supply of oxygen. Surely, however, she must have considered the eventuality of the main air lock being closed to her. She had a second confederate waiting to welcome her at one of the utility locks. Who was that? It is obvious, surely—Comrade Koroviev, the manager of her tour, who was, as we have noted, not at the main air lock with the others.
“I have kept you a long time, but it will not be much longer now. Let me summarize. Comrade Cherry Houdini was stabbed with my steak knife, taken from our table last night. It could only have been taken by one of the people in this room, since no one else—not even the robot steward—approached the table at the time it disappeared. The rope that was to have secured Comrade Merry’s ‘coffin’ was cut, yet no one was seen near the rope except Comrade Cherry, who was herself a victim. At the time of the stabbing, everyone who was at the table was accounted for. I will begin at my right, as we sat that evening, and go around the table to show you. Comrade Koroviev was at the utility airlock, waiting to admit Comrade Merry. The woman to his right, the wife of Comrade Petrovsky, was with her husband and he with her; unless both committed the crime, neither did. To Comrade Petrovsky’s right was the unfortunate Comrade Cherry. To her right was Comrade Smith; he was at the gallery, beyond the viewpoint where the Petrovskys watched, until he left to discover the corpse; he was seen there by several passengers, including myself. To his right was Comrade Merry; she was in space, having not yet reentered the ship. To her right was the Captain, who was proceeding, in the company of two of his crew, from the main air lock to the bridge.”