Read Manly Wade Wellman - Chapbook 02 for Free Online

his prisoner. “Gold cloth. Big,
swell-looking fellow. Rich. Popular. You’ll be
missed up in that high-tower set. They’ve got away with many a rough and silly
thing, those idle-richers, but the murder of an important man like Malbrook is
where simple law officers like me step in. You’ll be made an example.”
                 “While
you take out your spite against the rich crowd by insulting me,” said Stover
acidly. “The real killer’s getting far away.”
                 “Hard
to crack, this Stover,” said Congreve to the man with the dictagraph. “Lock him
up and let him think it over.”
                 Again
Stover was marched away, down a long corridor of gray metal to a row of doors
at the end. One of these doors swung open. Stover stepped in.
                 The
cell was metal-lined, about five feet broad by seven long, and barely high
enough to clear Stover’s blond curls. It had no window, only a ventilator, and
the dimmest of blue lights. The sole furniture was a metal cot against the rear
wall.
                 Congreve
had followed Stover. “I’ll put my cards on the table,” he said, “because
they’re good enough cards to show. I know these things:
                 “You
and Malbrook quarreled and were going to shoot it out. You came to his place,
on your own confession, to have a showdown. He was shut in a special apartment
built to defend him from any attack. The only way in was via the door, if it
could be forced.
                 “A
witness died saying that you were the guilty one. Nobody lies on his deathbed,
Stover. Then there’s Fielding’s story, the report of a robot you pushed away to
get in, and an air-taximan who says you told him you were going to kill
Malbrook.
                “Our tests show that the weapon was
simple old-fashioned nitroglycerin. You’re down on Martian registers as a
research scientist from Earth. You could have brought or made such stuff
easily. You’ve been ugly and threatening to numerous persons and defiant to me.
All you can say now is, ‘I didn’t do it.’ ”
                 “And
I didn’t,” flung out Stover once more.
                 “I
think you did. I think you smashed that guard-robot at the front door, knocked
down Fielding, and jimmied Malbrook’s door some way. He shot at you, but that
wouldn’t make your plea of self-defense any good. You were invading his
premises. You blew him up. Only the last words of Prrala kept you from covering
yourself somehow. That’s what I’m going to prove against you in a court of law.
You’ll pay for the crime with your own life. Good-night,
Stover.”
                 The
door clanked shut. Stover, alone in his blue-dim cell, sat on the edge of the
cot.
                 “They
can’t do this to me,” he said aloud. “I’m innocent. Innocent men aren’t found
guilty—or are they? In Pulambar anything can happen.”
                SUDDENLY
the light turned green, then yellow, then orange, then red.
                 Stover
gazed up at it.
                 “Joy-lamp!”
he muttered. “Not that I’m very joyous, though. What’s the idea?”
                 The
answer came to him. For ages, Martians had used these ever-changing rays as a
pleasant stimulant.
                People of Earth, not conditioned as
a race to such things, were frequently intoxicated, sometimes drugged — even
driven mad—when they got too much joy-lamp. The police, apparently, had another
use for the device. A man’s wits, befuddled, would present less of an obstacle
to questioning.
                 “Congreve
will quiz me again,” decided Stover. “Expect to find me off balance and unable
to lie. What won’t they think of next?”
                 But
he had already told the truth, and it had not convinced. Checking back, he
could see why not.