once.
It died away lingeringly and both men were silent for a full minute.
Dr. Urth said, 'Not bad, eh?' and with a flick of his hand set the Bell to swinging on its wire.
Davenport stirred restlessly. 'Careful! Don't break it.' The fragility of a good Singing Bell was proverbial.
Dr. Urth said, 'Geologists say the Bells are only pressure-hardened pumice, enclosing a vacuum in which small beads of rock rattle freely. That's what they say. But if that's all it is, why can't we reproduce one? Now a flawless Bell would make this one sound like a child's harmonica.'
'Exactly,' said Davenport, 'and there aren't a dozen people on Earth who own a flawless one, and there are a hundred people and institutions who would buy one at any price, no questions asked. A supply of Bells would be worth murder.'
The extraterrologist turned to Davenport and pushed his spectacles back on his inconsequential nose with a stubby forefinger. 'I haven't forgotten your murder case. Please go on.' That can be done in a sentence. I know the identity of the murderer.'
They had returned to the chairs in the library and Dr. Urth clasped his hands over his ample abdomen.
'Indeed? Then surely you have no problem. Inspector.'
'Knowing and proving are not the same, Dr. Urth. Unfortunately he has no alibi.'
'You mean, unfortunately he has, don't you?'
'I mean what I say. If he had an alibi, I could crack it somehow, because it would be a false one. If there were witnesses who claimed they had seen him on Earth at the time of the murder, their stories could be broken down. If he had documentary proof, it could be exposed as a forgery.-, or some sort of trickery. Unfortunately he has none of it.'
'What does he have?'
Carefully Inspector Davenport described the Peyton estate in Colorado. He concluded, 'He has spent every August there in the strictest isolation. Even the T.B.I, would have to testify to that. Any jury would have to presume that he was on his estate this August as well, unless we could present definite proof that he was on the Moon.'
'What makes you think he was on the Moon? Perhaps he is innocent.'
'No!' Davenport was almost violent. 'For fifteen years I've been trying to collect sufficient evidence against him and I've never succeeded. But I can smell a Peyton crime now. I tell you that no one but
Peyton, no one on Earth, would have the impudence or, for that matter, the practical business contacts to attempt disposal of smuggled Singing Bells. He is known to be an expert space pilot. He is known to have had contact with the murdered man, though admittedly not for some months. Unfortunately none of that is proof.'
Dr. Urth said, 'Wouldn't it be simple to use the psycho-probe, now that its use has been legalized?' Davenport scowled, and the scar on his cheek turned livid. 'Have you read the Konski-Hiakawa law. Dr.
Urth?'
'No.'
'I think no one has. The right to mental privacy, the government says, is fundamental. All right, but what follows? The man who is pyschoprobed and proves innocent of the crime for which he was psychoprobed is entitled to as much compensation as he can persuade the courts to give him. In a recent case a bank cashier was awarded twenty-five thousand dollars for having been psychoprobed on inaccurate suspicion of theft. It seems that the circumstantial evidence which seemed to point to theft actually pointed to a small spot of adultery. His claim that he lost his job, was threatened by the husband in question and put in bodily fear, and finally was held up to ridicule and contumely because a news-strip man had learned the results of the probe held good in court.'
'I can see the man's point.'
'So can we all. That's the trouble. One more item to remember: Any man who has been psychoprobed once for any reason can never be psychoprobed again for any reason. No one man, the law says, shall be placed in mental jeopardy twice in his lifetime.'
'Inconvenient.'
'Exactly. In the two years since the psychoprobe has been legitimized, I couldn't count the number of crooks and chiselers who've tried to get themselves psychoprobed for purse-snatching so that they could play the rackets safely afterward. So you see the Department will not allow Peyton to be psychoprobed until they have firm evidence of his guilt. Not legal evidence, maybe, but evidence that is strong enough to convince my boss. The worst of it, Dr. Urth, is that if we