"Which room?" Hirschel asked.
"The kitchen, I believe. It doesn't have any windows."
Still somewhat angry at St. Cyr's put-down, Jubal said, "No windows? What does that matter?"
"I'm sure the killer is one of us," St. Cyr said. "But I'm still not ruling out other possibilities. Besides looking out for each of you, I don't want to have to guard the windows."
"Very good," Hirschel said, nodding his approval of the tactic.
St. Cyr had drawn his own pistol and was pointing it in their general direction. "Let's go."
Jubal said, "Is the gun really necessary?"
St. Cyr looked hard at the old man and, this time, did not attempt to conceal the pain that worried his shoulder like sharp teeth. Evenly, he repeated: "Let's go."
This time no one questioned his authority. They went up to the second level, where — if they survived — they would spend the remainder of the night.
TWELVE: A Murderer Revealed
A cyberdetective rarely removes his bio-computer shell during an investigation, for he knows that many cases are solved by taking notice of the smallest developments. Often, some mundane action is the trigger that fires the memory and shoots down the veil of confusion shielding the true nature of events. In the case of the Alderban murders, for Baker St. Cyr, understanding was triggered by an ordinary back-scratcher…
When they reached the kitchen, St. Cyr dispatched Teddy to patrol the main corridor on the second level and to keep a special watch on the elevator light-boards in the event that someone had illegally entered the mansion. Next, he carefully marked off limits in the huge kitchen, making it clear that no one was to move out of the large, open center of the floor, and certainly not toward one of the many utilities drawers that might contain a knife or other weapon. This done, the others sitting either on the floor or in the few chairs that were in the room, he perched on the block table to the right of the open area, keeping all of them in sight.
They talked among themselves and occasionally asked him questions. What were they waiting for? He didn't know — perhaps for the killer to make a move of some sort or to give himself away through a bad case of nerves. Preferably, they were just waiting for morning. What would happen in the morning? The delivery boy from Worldwide Communications would copter in with St. Cyr's light-telegram. He would probably be riding a one-man machine, but he could send help when he returned to the port.
When they had been in the kitchen more than an hour, everyone was quiet, wrestling with his own fears and working out his own suspicions. By morning, St. Cyr thought, they would all be just as cynical as he was. Even Jubal would no longer find it impossible to accept the notion that the killer was one of them. Already he was looking oddly at Hirschel.
Tina, who had been sitting on the floor with her pretty legs tucked under her, rose and stretched, walked slowly toward St. Cyr. She stood to his side so that she would not interfere with his view of the family. She said, "How's the shoulder?"
"I'll live."
"You should have had another dose of morphine by now."
He used his good hand to scratch his back and said, "I'm getting used to the pain, but I'll soon be nuts if it doesn't stop itching."
"Want a back-scratcher?" she asked.
"You have one?"
"In that drawer over there," she said. "It's full of odds and ends."
"Knives?"
She did not smile. "No knives."
"Get it for me, would you?"
She crossed the room, opened the drawer and rummaged through it while everyone else in the room watched her closely. She turned a moment later and came back with a stainless steel back-scratcher. It was formed like a human hand, with five blunt fingers.
"Turn around and I'll get it for you."
He smiled and took the tool out of her hand. "I'll do it myself."
"Of course," she said, "I forgot. I might try to beat you with it, knock you out or something like that."
"Something like that," he agreed.
She was angry, but she did not go away. She folded her arms under her full breasts, making them fuller, and leaned against the edge of the table. Even now, during this penultimate moment, he could not help but want her.
Re-direct your attention.
St. Cyr reached over his shoulder with the silvery tool and began clawing at his back below the bandages. He shivered as relief flooded over the affected area. And that abruptly, he knew who the killer was.
Impossible suspect.
He held the back-scratcher up before his face and looked at the tiny hand with the hooked fingers. He had no doubt at all that he was right, though it would be necessary to do a little breaking and entering to find the evidence he needed.
There will be no evidence. You suspect the wrong person.
No.
Let me feed you the data that cancels out your newest supposition. And, without his permission, it did just that, ran tapes that refuted the possibility of his suspicions in the minutest of detail.
Still, St. Cyr thought, hesitating now…
You are wrong.
He put the back-scratcher down. I guess I am, he thought.
He could not possibly be a killer.
For a few minutes the detective sat on the edge of the table, completely detached from everything except his new theory. The bio-computer had effectively disproved the possibility that he was still toying with, and yet…
Impossible.
Despite the wealth of data that the other half of the symbiote had fed him to the contrary, St. Cyr slowly became certain, once again, that he was right and the bio-computer was wrong. He was elated, felt light as air, energetic as he only was when he knew that he was on top of a solution.
To progress on feeling alone is illogical.
He stood and said, "I'm leaving the room for a few minutes."
"To go where?" Jubal asked.
"I want to look around a bit, collect a few pieces of evidence thai I'm fairly sure I'm going to find." He looked at each of them, slowly, one-by-one, giving the bio-computer a chance to supply him with some suspect different than the one that he was now so certain of. Jubal… Alicia, looking more frightened than anyone else… Dane staring with disbelief, still clinging to the batch of superstitions he thought was the only answer to the affair… Hirschel, watchful but not unsettled, almost smiling… Tina standing beside him, so innocent and attractive… But the bio-computer could not produce any viable alternative. St. Cyr told them: "I believe I know who killed the others."
Jubal was on his feet an instant later. "Good God, man, tell us who it was!"
"Not yet. I want to be sure of everything before I make any accusations. Give me twenty minutes or half an hour to look around."
"You don't mean that you're leaving us here alone, without any weapons?" Jubal asked, incredulous.
"That's best."
The old man was in a cantankerous mood again. Sitting there with nothing to do but brood for almost an hour, something he had probably never done before, he had put himself quite on edge. "I won't permit—"
"You haven't any choice," the cyberdetective said. He quickly crossed the room, opened the door, stepped into the corridor, and let the door shut behind him before anyone else could object — including the bio-computer, which had almost gotten to him once before.
"Mr. St, Cyr?" Teddy asked, looming suddenly out of the dark hall. His sight receptors glowed like cat's eyes. "Is something wrong?"
"Nothing's wrong," St. Cyr said. "In fact, I think I know which one of them did it."
Nothing could shock the master unit; he had no capacity for genuine surprise or outrage. He said, "Do you require any assistance in the apprehension, Mr. St. Cyr?"