Harding's eye. To his alarm, there was an immediate response; Harding nodded slightly and rose slowly to his feet. No! said Pat - but only to himself. I don't mean that; leave the poor lunatic alone; what sort of man are you, anyway?
Then he relaxed, very slightly. Harding was not attempting to move from his seat, four places from Radley. He was merely standing there, looking at the New Zealander with an unfathomable expression. It might even have been pity, but in this dim lighting Pat could not be sure.
"I think it's time to make my contribution," Harding said. "At least one of the things our friend was telling you is perfectly true. He has been followed - but not by saucemites. By me.
"For an amateur, Wilfred George Radley, I'd like to congratulate you. It's been a fine chase - from Christchurch to Astrograd to Clavius to Tycho to Ptolemy to Plato to Port Roris - and to here, which I guess is the end of the trail, in more ways than one."
Radley did not seem in the least perturbed. He merely inclined his head in an almost regal gesture of acknowledgment, as if he recognized Harding's existence, but did not wish to pursue his acquaintance.
"As you may have guessed," continued Harding, "I'm a detective. Most of the time I specialize in fraud. Quite interesting work, though I seldom have a chance of talking about it. I'm quite grateful for this opportunity.
"I've no interest - well, no professional interest - in Mister Radley's peculiar beliefs. Whether they're true or not doesn't affect the fact that he's a very smart accountant, earning a good salary back in N. Z. Though not one good enough to pay for a month on the Moon.
"But that was no problem - because, you see, Mister Radley was senior accountant at the Christchurch branch of Universal Travel Cards, Incorporated. The system is supposed to be foolproof and double checked, but somehow he managed to issue himself a card - Q Category - good for unlimited travel anywhere in the solar system, for hotel and restaurant billings, for cashing checks up to five hundred stoilars on demand. There aren't many Q cards around, and they're handled as if they're made of plutonium.
"Of course, people have tried to get away with this sort of thing before; clients are always losing their cards, and enterprising characters have a fine time with them for a few days before they're caught. But only a few days. The UTC central billing system is very efficient - it has to be. There are several safeguards against unauthorized use, and until now, the longest run anyone's had was a week."
"Nine days," Radley unexpectedly interjected.
"Sorry - you should know. Nine days, then. But Radley had been on the move for almost three weeks before we spotted him. He'd taken his annual leave, and told the office he'd be vacationing quietly on the North Island. Instead, he went to Astrograd and then on to the Moon, making history in the process. For he's the first man - and we hope the last one - to leave Earth entirely on credit.
"We still want to know exactly how he did it. How did he bypass the automatic checking circuits? Did lie have an accomplice in the computer programing section? And similar questions of absorbing interest to UTC, Inc. I hope, Radley, you'll let down your hair with me, just to satisfy my curiosity. I think it's the least you can do in the circumstances.
"Still, we know why you did it - why you threw up a good job to go on a spree that was bound to land you in jail. We guessed the reason, of course, as soon as we found you were on the Moon. UTC knew all about your hobby, but it didn't affect your efficiency. They took a gamble, and it's been an expensive one."
"I'm very sorry," Radley replied, not without dignity. "The firm's always treated me well, and it did seem a shame. But it was in a good cause, and if I could have found my evidence-"
But at that point everyone, except Detective Inspector Harding, lost interest in Radley and his saucers. The sound that they had all been anxiously waiting for had come at last.
Lawrence's probe was scratching against the roof.
Chapter 28
I seem to have been here for half a lifetime, thought Maurice Spenser, yet the sun is still low in the west, where it rises on this weird world, and