The Cause of Death

by Roger MacBride Allen

  * * *

  The Thelm's Private Audience Chamber was a big room, taking up just about all of one floor of the Keep, and it was a burned-out wreck. The ancient stone walls, and the scarcely less ancient wood-plank floors and ceiling were badly scorched and damaged, but still appeared to be sound. It was mainly the room's appointments--the richly embroidered sitting cushions, the handsomely carved perching stools, the wall hangings and tapestries, the worktables--that had burned.

  But that was all incidental, the mere loss of property. What had brought them there was the dead Reqwar Pavlat--the dead Thelm--on the floor.

  "The Thelm is dead," said Hannah Wolfson, kneeling by the body, looking into the lifeless, staring eyes. "Long live the Thelm."

  But that was the question, of course, Jamie thought. With Lantrall dead, and the planet teetering on the brink of disaster, who was the Thelm?

  Jamie, Hannah, and Darsteel focused on the victim, but Brox seemed happy to let the others study the corpse. He looked the body over for a few moments, then began studying the room itself.

  The corpse lay on its back, on an elaborately embroidered carpet, almost in the center of the room. The body was barely burned at all, though its clothing was blackened and charred on the chest. Blobs of fire retardant that had yet to disintegrate were splashed about on the carpet and the corpse. It looked as if the fire had been closing in on the center of the room. If the fire had gone on much longer, it would have incinerated the corpse, destroying whatever information might be derived from the condition of the body. The investigators had been lucky on that score.

  The corpse had not been lucky at all. Its limbs were splayed out, its arms and legs thrown wide. The face was contorted into an expression that seemed to speak of shock, anger, fear--but that expression might be some side effect of the Pavlat equivalent of rigor mortis.

  The carpet that the body lay on had burned along one edge, and in a few patches here and there, but the rest of it had not sustained much damage. There was a scorched but mainly intact table next to the carpet on which the body lay. It had been pushed over on its side somehow, and the bottles it had held had all been knocked over and emptied. Their contents had soaked into the carpet, in and around several of the most intense scorch marks.

  It was instantly obvious that it was not the fire that had killed the Thelm. There was a gaping wound in the center of the corpse's chest, the flesh around it burned and scorched. Near the wound, the clothing was burned and blackened, and there were twists and bits of metal visible in the chest cavity. It looked very much like a fairly slow-moving projectile had struck the victim in the chest and exploded.

  There was a weapon in the two-thumbed, four-fingered left hand of the victim; it was an elaborately carved and decorated pistol of some sort, almost certainly handmade, and the corpse was holding it as one would to fire it. One finger was on the trigger, and by the looks of things, the corpse had a firm enough grip on the pistol that it would possibly require postmortem surgery to remove it. The pistol was badly damaged, though not, it would seem, by the fire. The barrel of the weapon had burst. The breech end of the firing tube was threaded, so that an endcap could be screwed into place--but the threading had been sheared off, and there was no endcap to be seen.

  Jamie knelt there in his rustling bright yellow iso-suit and stared at the lifeless face. The Thelm is dead. It was impossible to take it in. The Thelm had been alive and vigorous, full of schemes and plans, with a kind word for everyone, and perhaps a knife in the back for some, just a few hours before.

  Unitmaster Darsteel knelt next to Jamie and stared solemnly down at his Thelm for a long time. "I had seen him, many times," he said. "I had always hoped to speak more than a word or two of greeting with him, to offer myself for his service at any time or place. Now it is too late."

  "Then do him the last service of helping to find his murderer," said Jamie.

  "Murder!" Darsteel said in shock. "But it is suicide! He was distraught over the loss of his birth-sons and the crisis of his adoptive son. The gun is in his hand! He fired at himself."

  "Quite right," Brox said, sarcasm dripping from his voice. The Kendari was standing by the wall at the far side of the room, examining something there. "Hours after being seen in very good spirits, enthused over some new scheme, he comes up here, shoots himself in the chest, then knocks over the furniture, empties all the bottles in his drinks cabinet onto the floor, sets fire to the room in several places, then collapses on the floor and dies of the wound that should have killed him instantaneously."

  "How can you tell he shot himself--or was shot--before the fire started?" Darsteel asked.

  "Two things," said Brox. He extracted a handlight from his shoulder tool harness and directed it to a ragged pattern of irregularly shaped and sized pits and holes in the wall. "One glance at the wound makes it clear that the projectile that hit him shattered. It might even have had an explosive charge. Unless I am very much mistaken, these holes are the impact points for fragments of the projectile that hit the Thelm, passed through his body, and lodged here in the wall. If you come here and look carefully at the holes, you will see that bits of cloth--and what might be small portions of the Thelm's skin--were torn loose from the Thelm's body and have lodged with the fragments."

  Darsteel moved carefully over to the spot in the wall and studied the area Brox indicated. "I see," he said. "But how do fragments in the wall prove the fire happened after the shot was fired?"

  "They don't--but the cloth and skin fragments do. The wall is badly burned. The bits of cloth that protrude from the holes have been thoroughly charred. But the bits lodged in the wall by the projectile fragments have not been burned at all. Conclusion: They were lodged in the wall before the fire started. Furthermore, the wall itself has been badly damaged and weakened by the fire, practically reduced to charcoal--yet the holes produced by the fragments are sharp and angular, and the fragments have not penetrated far. The impact points would not look like that if the fragments had struck a wall that had been weakened by fire."

  Darsteel studied the section of wall carefully. "I follow your argument, and grant your logic. But it might be that the materials used here are outside your experience and are misleading you."

  "Possible, but unlikely," said Brox. "And in any event, my second proof is clear enough that I can see it from across the room and saw it with one glance at the Thelm. If you examine the carpet under the Thelm, you will see it is blackened and discolored everywhere but under him. I expect that when the body is removed, we will find an area of more or less undamaged carpet forming a perfect outline of his body. Also, there is fire debris--ash and soot and bits of the ceiling that fell and so on--scattered about on the carpet, and on top of the Thelm's body--but there does not appear to be any under his body. The obvious conclusion is that he fell to the floor, and was lying motionless in that position, when the fire started."

  Darsteel returned to the side of the body, and studied what he could see of the area under the Thelm. "You're quite right," he said. "It's very clear, now that you point it out."

  "There's more," said Jamie. "Look at the weapon again. It's badly damaged. It malfunctioned, drastically, somehow. The breech, the end of the gun closest to the shooter, is destroyed. You can see that the breech end is threaded on the outside. If you look at the Thelm's chest wound, you can see shattered fragments with about the right curvature, and they have what looks to be the corresponding threading on the inside. Those have got to be bits of the endcap from his pistol."

  "And look how he's holding that pistol," said Hannah. "Straight out, away from his body. With a barrel that long, he couldn't possibly have held the gun in that way and pointed the weapon at himself. If he had wanted to shoot himself with that gun, he would have held it in both hands, in the center of his chest, with the barrel pointed at him. He fired the weapon, yes--but he did not intend to shoot himself. He fired it--but instead of the round flying out of the weapon away from him, it shot backwards, shearing o
ff the endcap and smashing the round and the endcap into his chest."

  "But who or what was he shooting at?"

  "I haven't the faintest idea," Hannah said. "But unless I'm judging things wrong, and Pavlat are stronger than I think, and their arms and wrists and fingers bend in ways I don't know about, he died trying to shoot at someone else."

  "No," said Darsteel. "Looking at it all more carefully, I believe you have it right. But--"

  "But what?"

  "Well, with the weapon in his hand and all that--are we meant to think it was a suicide? The things you point out show that it was not. But perhaps this is a botched attempt to fake a suicide?"

  "It could be," Jamie said doubtfully. He studied the pistol that Lantrall held in his hand for a moment. It had an oddly long gun barrel for a hand gun, more than thirty centimeters. The gun barrel started flaring out from about the halfway point, widening out toward the muzzle, so that the gun barrel resembled an elongated funnel. There was also what looked like the guard of a sword just forward of the breech end of the barrel. "What can you tell me about that weapon? It looks more elaborate and decorative than just a regular target pistol or something. And the firing mechanism is strange."

  "It is one of a pair," said Darsteel. "Dueling pistols. Rocket-gun single-shot dueling pistols."

  "Rocket-gun dueling pistols?" Jamie asked in surprise.

  "It's a fairly common way to make such guns," said Darsteel. "It fires a small projectile powered by a miniature solid rocket motor."

  "It seems like a strange way to build a practical weapon," Jamie objected. At least it explained the flared funnel-shaped barrel, and the guard around the barrel's breech ends. They were both there to protect the shooter from the rocket's exhaust jet.

  "They aren't meant to be practical," said Brox. "Rocket guns have to be fairly big. They have a distinct shape. They are meant for a particular upper-class ritual, the duel. They make a lot of noise and smoke. They're used to settle affairs of honor at a moment's notice. They're meant to be grand and dramatic." He shook his head. "A lot of nonsense, if you ask me."

  "That might be," Jamie said with a faint smile. "But I take your point. He turned back to Darsteel and pointed at the gun in the Thelm's hand. "Any idea where that came from?"

  "As I said, it was one of a pair. I was part of the team that inventoried the valuables in this room a few years ago. As I remember, they were displayed in a case over there on that show table."

  Jamie glanced over at the table. Several large chunks of collapsed ceiling and other debris had landed on top of it, collapsing its legs and burying whatever was on top of it. He wouldn't be getting a look at whatever was left of the case and its contents for a while yet. Not until they started cleaning the place up. "Would loaded weapons have been left on display in the Thelm's office?" Jamie asked. "Prepped, loaded, ready to fire?"

  Darsteel hesitated, and then nodded. "Yes," he conceded. "Loaded weapons. As Inquirist Brox noted, with some sarcasm, one must be ready to settle affairs of honor at a moment's notice. There are various safety mechanisms, of course. But they are easy to switch off."

  "I'd like to see a duplicate of the weapon, or as close to it as you can come," said Jamie. "Plus a sample of the ammunition it fired, and maybe some kind of quick briefing on how the weapon works."

  "Certainly," said Darsteel.

  "And if I am reading this right, we'll need to confirm that what we're seeing in the wound are fragments of the endcap. And we'll have to examine the projectile as well, of course. Forgive me if I offend, but I do not know your laws. Will there be a postmortem examination of the Thelm? Some cultures would prohibit it."

  "I am certain that there will be such an examination," said Darsteel. "And I will see to it that it is done properly, with no attempts to shade or 'correct' the evidence. Shall I see to it that you get the report as soon as it is complete?"

  "That's what I was about to ask for," Jamie said.

  "Wait a moment," said Hannah. "I want to get this straight. The gun--two guns, probably--were in the room, loaded and accessible?"

  "Yes."

  "So anyone who got into this room could have picked up one of those pistols and taken a potshot at the Thelm at any time?"

  "We've just got through proving he must have fired the gun himself, presumably unaware that it would blow up, or fire backwards, or whatever it did," Brox protested.

  "Hannah's not saying that someone else did shoot at him," said Jamie. "She's just asking if it would have been possible." He turned to Darsteel. "So--were there two guns there?"

  "Yes," Darsteel admitted reluctantly. "Obviously that was most unwise," he went on stiffly, making a remarkable understatement, "but that was how it was."

  "Maybe that was how it was," Hannah suggested. "Maybe he didn't shoot himself. Maybe someone who knew the gun would malfunction held the gun backwards, shot him with it that way, and then put the gun in his hand."

  "That sounds about as probable as my theory that he shot himself, then started the fires," Brox said acidly.

  "It would be impossible," Darsteel said flatly. "His hand is in the clasp reflex position. It's a common Pavlat reaction to shock and surprise. The hand can't possibly be forced into that position after death."

  "Clasp reflex?" Jamie asked. "What's that?"

  "The Pavlat hand," said Brox. "It is formed in ways useful to the arboreal ways of the species from which the Pavlat evolved. When closed around something--a tree limb, a gun butt, whatever--it has a relaxed-lock reflex, so that it holds on effortlessly, and it requires a deliberate effort to make it let go. Many arboreal species on Kendari have it, and on Earth too, I expect. It allows a creature to lock its claws closed when holding on to a branch, and, for example, to sleep without danger of falling. And, of course, danger stimulates the reflex so that surprise or shock would cause one to hold on all the harder."

  "Yes," Hannah said. "Lots of birds on Earth do something like that when they roost for the night." She leaned over the dead hand and the weapon it held, shining a bright handlight on them, studying them as closely as she could. "So what you're telling me is that he has that gun in a death grip. He had to be alive for the reflex to kick in--and no one could possibly open his hand after death."

  "That is correct," Darsteel said.

  "Well, I'm no expert on what postmortem injuries look like on a Pavlat--but it sure looks to me as if someone tried to open his hand. You can see the scorch marks from the rocket projectile's exhaust on his wrist--more proof he fired it himself--but there's something else. Scratches and discolorations. They're faint, but they are there."

  "What?" Darsteel cried out, the shock plain in his voice. He leaned in next to Hannah and studied the hand of his Thelm. "You're right," he said. "But why? For what purpose?"

  Hannah made no reply. Jamie had his own ideas, but kept his mouth shut.

  Brox had been quietly continuing his search of the room, moving his body gracefully through the tight spaces of the chamber. "I have found something of interest," he announced in a voice of studied neutrality. "It is a tight fit back here," he said. "Let me back out. I would suggest that you come in one by one. And I need not repeat the vitally important point that nothing be touched."

  A large decorative plant had been toppled over, just in front of a service door opening onto a corridor that allowed the servants and serving robots to come and go without using the main hallways and stairs. It would be just barely possible to use the door with the plant blocking it, but the plant had fallen in such a way as to create a tight spot between it and the wall with the door. Darsteel went to look first, let out a muttered oath, and backed out quickly--and for some reason he was instantly interested in Hannah's feet, and Jamie's as well. Hannah went next, and came out looking at the two nonhumans with wry amusement. "Agent Mendez and I are in the clear on this one," he said. "Definitely not my style. And not Agent Mendez's size."

  Jamie went in after her, and instantly understood. It was a shoe print--but a print
made by a human-style shoe, and a largish one at that, far larger than Jamie's size. No nonhuman could have been expected to be able to read the print beyond spotting it as human-style. But Jamie could, and did. It was unquestionably a human shoe, a man's shoe, for the right foot.

  And, to the best of his knowledge, aside from himself, there was exactly one male human being on the planet.

  All of a sudden, it would seem that Georg Hertzmann had some explaining to do.

  TWENTY-ONELOCK-DOWN

  They took detailed pictures of the Thelm's body, of the weapon, of the scratches on the Thelm's hand, of the shoe print, and of the impact damage caused by projectile fragments, along with a whole series of general views of the room. They hunted and they studied, but if the Thelm's audience chamber held any more surprises, none of their party spotted them.

  All of them were exhausted, physically, mentally, emotionally. Dawn was not far off, but the endless night wasn't over for them. Not yet. There was some talking to do, some decisions to make. The four of them stripped off their iso-suits, and, at Darsteel's suggestion, they went to the BSI agents' apartments to talk around the big round table in the common room.

  Brox started things off. "This is a disaster," he said flatly as he sat down on his haunches on the floor and folded his arms on the table. "I tell you plainly that I have not the slightest idea who will succeed Thelm Lantrall under these circumstances--the High Thelek, or Georg Hertzmann, or perhaps even some distant alternate heir. The laws of succession are extremely complex. But if this case is left unsolved, in the grand old Reqwar Pavlat tradition, whoever does succeed will not have sufficient support from enough quarters to be able to rule this planet. The present hostilities and suspicions will seem like an era of peace and mutual trust."

  Hannah had barely heard the last part of what Brox had said. Georg Hertzmann, Thelm of all Reqwar? She had been viewing that as an interesting oddball theoretical possibility that might be politically useful as part of some plot or conspiracy. Could it really happen? Was it about to happen? But this wasn't the time to bring up that sort of question. "All right," she said. "Then we, those of us here, have to solve this murder, and do it fast."