"Why, thank you, my dear!" A friend who offers help without asking for explanations is a treasure beyond price. "Whether I accept or not, I am in your debt. Mmm, Gwen, I too am unsure what happened. The total stranger who gets himself killed while he's trying to tell you something- A clich6, a tired cliche. If I plotted a story that way today, my guild would disown me." I smiled at her. "In its classic form you would turn out to be the killer... a fact that would develop slowly while you pretended to help me search. The sophisticated reader would know from chapter one that you did it, but I, as the detective, would never guess what was as plain as the nose on your face. Correction: on my face."
"Oh, my nose is plain enough; it's my mouth that men remember. Richard, I am not going to help you hang this on me; I simply offered you a hideout. Was he really killed? I couldn't be sure."
"Eh?" I was saved from answering too quickly by Morris's arrival with our liqueurs. When he left, I answered, "I had not thought about any other possibility. Gwen, he was not wounded. Either he was killed almost instantly... or it was faked. Could it be faked? Certainly. If shown on holo, it could be done in real time with only minor props." I mulled it over. Why had the restaurant staff been so quick, so precise, in covering it up? Why had I not felt that tap on the shoulder? "Gwen, I'll take you up on that offer. If the proctors want me, they'll find me. But I would like to discuss this with you in greater detail than we can manage here, no matter how carefully we keep our voices down."
"Good." She stood up. "I won't be long, dear." She headed for the lounges.
As I stood up Morris handed me my stick and I leaned on it as I followed her toward the lounges. I don't actually have to use a cane-I can even dance, as you know-but using a cane keeps my bad leg from getting too tired.
When I came out of the gentlemen's lounge, I placed myself in the foyer, and waited.
And waited.
Having waited long past what is reasonable I sought out the maitre d'h6tel. 'Tony, could you please have some female member of your staff check the ladies' lounge for Mistress Novak? I think that it is possible that she may have become ill, or be in some difficulty."
"Your guest. Dr. Ames?"
"Yes."
"But she left twenty minutes ago. I ushered her out myself."
"So? I must have misunderstood her. Thank you, and good night."
"Good night. Doctor. We look forward to serving you again."
I left Rainbow's End, stood for a moment in the public corridor outside it-ring thirty, half-gravity level, just clockwise from radius two-seventy at Petticoat Lane, a busy neighborhood even at one in the morning. I checked for proctors waiting for me, halfway expecting to find Gwen already in custody.
Nothing of the son. A steady flow of people, mostly groundhogs on holiday by their dress and behavior, plus pullers for grimp shops, guides and ganders, pickpockets and priests. Golden Rule habitat is known systemwide as the place where anything is for sale and Petticoat Lane helps to support that reputation insofar as fleshpots are concerned. For more sober enterprises you need only go clockwise ninety degrees to Threadneedle Street.
No sign of proctors, no sign of Gwen.
She had promised to meet me at the exit. Or had she? No, not quite. Her exact words were, "I won't be long, dear." I had inferred that she expected to find me at the restaurant's exit to the street.
I've heard all the old chestnuts about women and weather, La donna e mobile, and so forth-I believe none of them. Gwen had not suddenly changed her mind. For some reason- some good reason-she had gone on without me and now would expect me to join her at her home.
Or so I told myself.
If she had taken a scooter, she was there already; if she had walked, she would be there soon-Tony had said, 'Twenty minutes ago." There is a scooter booth at the intersection of ring thirty and Petticoat Lane. I found an empty, punched in ring one-oh-five, radius one-thirty-five, six-tenths gravity, which would take me as close as one can get by public scooter to Gwen's compartment.
Gwen lives in Gretna Green, just off Appian Way where it crosses the Yellow Brick Road-which means nothing to anyone who has never visited Golden Rule habitat. Some public relations "expert" had decided that habitants would feel more at home if surrounded by place names familiar from dirtside. There is even (don't retch) a "House at Pooh Comer." What I punched in were coordinates of the main cylinder: 105, 135, 0.6.
The scooter's brain, off somewhere near ring ten, accepted those coordinates and waited; I punched in my credit code and took position, crouched against acceleration pads.
That idiot brain took an insultingly long time to decide that my credit was good-then placed a web around me, tightened it, closed the capsule and whuff'! bing! barn! we were on our way... then a fast float for three kilometers from ring thirty to ring one-oh-five, then barn! bing! whuff! I was in Gretna Green. The scooter opened.
For me such service is well worth the fare. But the Manager had been warning us the past two years that the system does not pay its way; either use it more or pay more per trip, or the hardware will be salvaged and the space rented out. I hope they work out a solution; some people need this service. (Yes, I know; Laffer theory will always give two solutions to such a problem, a high and a low-except where the theory states that both solutions are the same... and imaginary. Which might apply here. It may be that a scooter system is too expensive for a space habitat at the present state of engineering art.)
It was an easy walk to Gwen's compartment: downstairs to seven-tenths gravity, fifty meters "forward" to her number-I rang.
Her door answered, "This is the recorded voice of Gwen Novak. I've gone to bed and am, I hope, happily asleep. If your visit is truly an emergency, deposit one hundred crowns via your credit code. If I agree that waking me is justified, I will return your money. If I disagree-laugh, chortle, chuckle!- I'll spend it on gin and keep you out anyhow. If your call is not an emergency, please record a message at the sound of my scream."
This was followed by a high scream which ended abruptly as if a hapless wench had been choked to death.
Was this an emergency? Was it a hundred-crown emergency? I decided that it was not any sort of emergency, so I recorded:
"Dear Gwen, this is your fairly-faithful swain Richard speaking. Somehow we got our wires crossed. But we can straighten it out in the morning. Will you call me at my digs when you wake up? Love and kisses, Richard the Lion-Hearted."
I tried to keep my not-inconsiderable irk out of my voice. I felt badly used but underlying it was a conviction that Gwen would not intentionally mistreat me; it had to be an honest mixup even though I did not now understand it.
Then I went home whuff! bing! barn!... barn! bing! whuff!
I have a deluxe compartment with bedroom separate from the living room. I let myself in, checked for messages in the terminal-none-set it for sleep conditions both for door and terminal, hung up my cane, and went into the bedroom.
Gwen was asleep in my bed.
She looked sweetly peaceful. I backed out quietly, moved noiselessly in undressing, went into the 'fresher, closed the door-soundproof; I said it was a deluxe setup. Nevertheless I made as little noise as possible in refreshing myself for bed, as "soundproof" is a hope rather than a certainty. When I was as sanitary and odorless as a male hairless ape can manage short of surgery, I went quietly back into my bedroom and got most cautiously into bed. Gwen stirred, did not wake.
At some hour when I was awake in the night, I switched off the alarm. But I woke up about my usual time, as my bladder can't be switched off. So I got up, took care of it, refreshed for the day, decided that I wanted to live, slid into a coverall, went silently into the living room, and opened the buttery, considered my larder. A special guest called for a special breakfast.