“All right, so we scratch that idea,” I muttered testily. “Maybe we are barking up the wrong drainpipe. The bank robber might be just a very strong man—and not a robot at all. After all, the robber did threaten the teller’s life—a violation of the First Law of Robotics. A robot may not injure a human being, or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.”
She shook her head firmly. “There were no threats involved. As I recall it the thief just stated facts like, this is a hand grenade, I have pulled and discarded the pin. No threats or danger implied. Try again.”
“I will,” I said through tight-clamped teeth. Like her namesake aunt she was a giant of logical thought processes. “The Second Law then. A robot must obey the orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law. “
“No orders were given that I recall. It all went smoothly and quickly—so quickly that the teller had no time to speak. And I think that you will agree that the Third Law is not relevant, either. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law. I think it might be said that we are back at square A. Any more suggestions?”
She asked this ever so sweetly but there was a steel gauntlet in her voice inside the velvet glove.
“I’ll think of something,” I muttered, although my brain was as empty of ideas as a vacuum flask.
“Might I make a suggestion?”
“Of course!”
“Let us turn this problem on its head. Let us stop asking ourselves if this was a robot and how or why the crime was done. Let us assume there is a criminal robot at large. If this is true we must find it. We cannot take our problem to the police, for the moment, for the reasons Just discussed. Therefore we must take this to a specialist—”
She frowned demurely as the desk annunciator buzzed, stabbed down the button angrily. “Yes?”
There is a gentleman here who says you are expecting him. He says that he is a specialist in clandestine investigations.
My own jaw echoed the gasping drop in hers. “Send him in,” she murmured weakly.
He was tall, well-built, his handsome face tanned to a teak finish. “Jim diGriz is the name,” he said. “I am here to help you people with your problem.”
“What makes you think that we have a problem?” I asked weakly.
“Logic. Before going into investigation work I had rather a personal interest in banks, robberies, that sort of thing. When I caught the report on the recent robbery I mosied down to the bank in question, just for old times’ sake. As soon as I saw that one of the revolving doors was missing I knew that a robot had pulled the heist.”
“But how?” Dr. Calvin gasped.
“That door would be of no importance if a human had committed the robbery. Who cares how fast or slow or in what manner a robber exits? A human thief. But if a male robber speaking with a woman’s voice exited in an unusual manner—there can be only one logical answer. A robot did it.”
“So you came here at once,” I said quickly before he could speak again. “Figuring that if a robot was involved, it would be of concern to us.”
“Bang on, baby. I also figured that you would want a discreet inquiry without police involvement that would be publicized and would have—how shall I phrase it?—a deleterious effect on your stock prices. I’ll find your robot for you. My fee is a quarter of a million dollars, half payable now.”
“Preposterous! An insult!” I huffed.
“Shut up,” Dr. Calvin suggested, scribbling her signature on a check and pushing it over to diGriz. “I have a special emergency account just for this sort of thing. You have twenty-four hours to find that robot. If you should fail to discover the robot in this period of time, you will be arrested on a charge of extortion. “
“I like your style, Dr. Calvin.” He grinned, folding the check and popping it into his vest pocket. “You will have the robot—or the cash back.”
“Agreed. Dr. Donovan will accompany you at all times.”
“I’m used to working alone,” he said, grimacing.
“You have a new partner. You find the robot. At that point he will take over. Twenty-four hours;”
“You drive a mean bargain, Doc. Twenty-four hours. Come on, pard.”
He raised a quizzical eyebrow at me as we left and went down the hall. “Since we are in this together,” he observed, “we might as well be friends. My first name is James.”
“My first name is Doctor.”
“Aren’t we being a little stuffy, Doc?”
“Perhaps,” I relented. “You can call me Mike.”
“Great, Mike. You can call me Jim. Or Slippery Jim as I am sometimes called. “
“Why?”
“A long story that I may tell you sometime. Meanwhile let’s find that robot. Cab!”
I jumped at his shout, but he was not shouting at me but hailing a passing cab. It braked to a stop and we climbed in.
“Take us to the corner of Aardvark and Sylvester.”
“No way, buddy,” the porcine cabby insisted. “The bums there will rip off my hubcaps if I even slow down. I ain’t going no closer than the corner of Dupont.”
“Is this wise?” I queried. “That’s a pretty rough neighborhood. “
“With me there you’ll be as safe as if you were in church. Safer—since there are no fundamentalists down there.”
Despite his reassurances I was most reluctant to get out of the cab and follow him down Sylvester Street. Every city has a neighborhood like this. Where everything is for sale, pushers lurk on street corners, and violence hangs in the miasmic atmosphere.
“I like it here,” Jim said, sniffing the air with flared nostrils. “My kind of place.”
With a snarl of unrepressed rage a man hurled himself from a doorway, knife raised—striking down!
I don’t know what Jim did—but I do know that it was very fast. There was a thud of fist on flesh, a yike of pain. And the attacker fell unconscious to the filthy sidewalk. Jim held the knife now as he walked on. And he had not even broken his pace as he had disposed of the attacker!
“Cheap and dull,” he said, glowering at the knife. He snapped the blade with his fingers and dropped the pieces into the noisome rubble of the gutter. “But at least we know we are in the right neighborhood. What we need now is an informant—and I think that I see just the man.”
The individual in question was standing next to the entrance to a low bar. He was burly and heavily bearded, dressed in a plain purple suit with puce stripes. He glowered at us as we approached and pulled at the gold earring pendant from one filthy and hairy ear.
“Buying or selling?” he grunted.
“Buying,” Jim said grimly.
“Girls, dope, boys, hot money, parrots, or little woolly dogs?”
“Information.”
“A hundred smackers in front.”
“Here.” The bills changed hands quickly. “I’m looking for a robot. “
“We don’t allow no robots down here. “
“Give me my hundred bucks back. “
“No way, buster. Get lost.”
There was a sudden crunching sound followed by a moan of pain as our informant found his arm behind his back and his face pressed to the filthy bricks of the wall.
“Speak!” Jim ordered.
“Never...even if you break my arm I ain’t singing! Dirty Dan McGrew ain’t a squealer. “
“That is what you think,” my companion said. Something metallic glinted in his hand, was pressed to the criminal’s side. I saw the hypodermic being withdrawn as the man slumped. “Speak!” Jim ordered.