“You mean Sherlock, you dope—Sherlock Holmes. No I haven’t solved it, if you want to know. Look, Perry, tell me all you know about Deem. You knew him pretty well, didn’t you?”
Perry Peters rubbed his chin reflectively and sat down on the work bench. He was so tall and lanky that he could sit down on it instead of having to jump up.
“Willem was a funny little runt,” he said. “Most people didn’t like him because he was sarcastic, and he had crazy notions on politics. Me, I’m not sure whether he wasn’t half right half the time, and anyway he played a swell game of chess.”
“Was that his only hobby?”
“No. He liked to make things, gadgets mostly. Some of them were good, too, although he did it for fun and never tried to patent or capitalize anything.”
“You mean inventions, Perry? Your own line?”
“Well, not so much inventions as gadgets, Rod. Little things, most of them, and he was better on fine workmanship than on original ideas. And, as I said, it was just a hobby with him.”
“Ever help you with any of your own inventions?” asked Caquer.
“Sure, occasionally. Again, not so much on the idea end of it as by helping me make difficult parts.” Perry Peters waved his hand in a gesture that included the shop around them. “My tools here are all for rough work, comparatively. Nothing under thousandths. But Willem has—had a little lathe that’s a honey. Cuts anything, and accurate to a fifty-thousandth.”
“What enemies did he have, Perry?”
“None that I know of. Honestly, Rod. Lot of people disliked him, but just an ordinary mild kind of dislike. You know what I mean, the kind of dislike that makes ’em trade at another book-and-reel shop, but not the kind that makes them want to kill anybody.”
“And who, as far as you know, might benefit by his death?”
“Um—nobody, to speak of,” said Peters, thoughtfully. “I think his heir is a nephew on Venus. I met him once, and he was a likable guy. But the estate won’t be anything to get excited about. A few thousand credits is all I’d guess it to be.”
“Here’s a list of his friends, Perry.” Caquer handed Peters a paper. “Look it over, will you, and see if you can make any additions to it. Or any suggestions.” The lanky inventor studied the list, and then passed it back.
“That includes them all, I guess,” he told Caquer. “Couple on there I didn’t know he knew well enough to rate listing. And you have his best customers down, too; the ones that bought heavily from him.”
Lieutenant Caquer put the list back in his pocket.
“What are you working on now?” he asked Peters.
“Something I’m stuck on, I’m afraid,” the inventor said. “I needed Deems help —or at least the use of his lathe, to go ahead with this.” He picked up from the bench a pair of the most peculiar-looking goggles Rod Caquer had ever seen. The lenses were shaped like arcs of circles instead of full circles, and they fastened in a band of resilient plastic obviously designed to fit close to the face above and below the lenses. At the top center, where it would be against the forehead of the goggles’ wearer, was a small cylindrical box an inch and a half in diameter.
“What on Earth are they for?” Caquer asked.
“For use in radite mines. The emanations from that stuff, while it’s in the raw state, destroy immediately any transparent substance yet made or discovered. Even quartz. And it isn’t good on naked eyes either. The miners have to work blindfolded, as it were, and by their sense of touch.”
Rod Caquer looked at the goggles curiously.
“But how is the funny shape of these lenses going to keep the emanations from hurting them, Perry?” he asked.
“That part up on top is a tiny motor. It operates a couple of specially-treated wipers across the lenses. For all the world like an old-fashioned windshield wiper, and that’s why the lenses are shaped like the wiper-arm arcs.”
“Oh,” said Caquer. “You mean the wipers are absorbent and hold some kind of liquid that protects the glass?”
“Yes, except that it’s quartz instead of glass. And it’s protected only a minute fraction of a second. Those wipers go like the devil—so fast you can’t see them when you’re wearing the goggles. The arms are half as big as the arcs and the wearer can see out of only a fraction of the lens at a time. But he can see, dimly, and that’s a thousand per cent improvement in radite mining.”
“Fine, Perry,” said Caquer. “And they can get around the dimness by having ultra-brilliant lighting. Have you tried these out?”
“Yes, and they work. Trouble’s in the rods; friction heats them and they expand and jam after it’s run a minute, or thereabouts. I have to turn them down on Deems lathe—or one like it. Think you could arrange for me to use it? Just for a day or so?”
“I don’t see why not,” Caquer told him. “I’ll talk to whomever the Regent appoints executor, and fix it up. And later you can probably buy the lathe from his heirs. Or does the nephew go in for such things?”
Perry Peters shook his head. “Nope, he wouldn’t know a lathe from a drill-press. Be swell of you, Rod, if you can arrange for me to use it.”
Caquer had turned to go, but Perry Peters stopped him.
“Wait a minute,” Peters said and then paused and looked uncomfortable. “I guess I was holding out on you, Rod,” the inventor said at last. “I do know one thing about Willem that might possibly have something to do with his death, although I don’t see how, myself. I wouldn’t tell it on him, except that he’s dead, and so it won’t get him in trouble.”
“What was it, Perry?”
“Illicit political books. He had a little business on the side selling them. Books on the index—you know just what I mean.”
Caquer whistled softly. “I didn’t know they were made any more. After the council put such a heavy penalty on them—whew!”
“People are still human, Rod. They still want to know the things they shouldn’t know—just to find out why they shouldn’t, if for no other reason.”
“Graydex or Blackdex books, Perry?”
Now the inventor looked puzzled.
“I don’t get it. What’s the difference?”
“Books on the official index,” Caquer explained, “are divided into two groups. The really dangerous ones are in the Blackdex. There’s a severe penalty for owning one, and a death penalty for writing or printing one. The mildly dangerous ones are in the Graydex, as they call it.”
“I wouldn’t know which Willem peddled. Well, off the record, I read a couple Willem lent me once, and I thought they were pretty dull stuff. Unorthodox political theories.”
“That would be Graydex.” Lieutenant Caquer looked relieved. “Theoretical stuff is all Graydex. The Blackdex books are the ones with dangerous practical information.”
“Such as?” The inventor was staring intently at Caquer.
“Instructions how to make outlawed things,” explained Caquer. “Like Lethite, for instance. Lethite is a poison gas that’s tremendously dangerous. A few pounds of it could wipe out a city, so the council outlawed its manufacture, and any book telling people how to make it for themselves would go on the Blackdex. Some nitwit might get hold of a book like that and wipe out his whole home town.”
“But why would anyone?”
“He might be warped mentally, and have a grudge,” explained Caquer. “Or he might want to use it on a lesser scale for criminal reason. Or—by Earth, he might be the head of a government with designs on neighboring states. Knowledge of a thing like that might upset the peace of the Solar System.” Perry Peters nodded thoughtfully. “I get your point,” he said. “Well, I still don’t see what it could have to do with the murder, but I thought I’d tell you about Willem’s sideline. You’ll probably want to check over his stock before whoever takes over the shop reopens.”