William Bankier - Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 103, No. 3 & 4. Whole No. 625 & 626, March 1994

Another snort. “Is that a serious question? Longstride was a goldmine, Arbiter. I didn’t want any rumors circulating until I was sure beyond all doubt that he’d sired his last foal. And I was still a long way from being sure.”

“Who do you think killed Longstride?”

“It had to be Anita Verdoris. Her prints were on the pick.”

“Couldn’t the pick have been stolen by someone in her employ?”

“Only if she was careless enough to leave it lying around. And Verdoris is not careless.”

Duncan spoke up. “Do you mean to say no one could steal one of your electronic picks if he set his mind to it?”

“Not very likely.”

“But possible.”

Kordan glowered. “Yes.”

“And where were you when Longstride was killed?”

“At Exercise Yard B — there’s a filly I wanted to watch work out. Other people saw me there, plenty of them.”

Same as with Verdoris, then; Kordan could have sent someone else to do the killing while establishing an alibi for himself elsewhere. Duncan let the irate owner go and called the head of the Research Institute.

She had little to tell them. Kordan had asked the institute for a complete work-up of Longstride’s DNA. They’d barely prepared the first batch of cultures when Verdoris’s man cut the power and ruined all their samples. The experiments proper hadn’t even been started.

Duncan dismissed her and sat staring glumly at Copely in her corner; the council woman’s face was impassive. They had no grounds for eliminating either Kordan or Verdoris as a suspect. Nor did they have grounds for convicting either of them. No wonder the Pirmachan High Council had asked for help.

Hartley said, “We’ll have to use B-Aminosine. That’s the only way we’re going to find out who’s telling the truth.”

“We can’t use it,” Britt objected. “It’s too dangerous.”

“It’s the only hypnotic drug that’s one hundred percent reliable.”

“That doesn’t matter, Hartley. B-Aminosine-induced testimony has been ruled inadmissible. We can’t use it.”

“Wait a minute,” Duncan said. “I’m not sure we’ve got a ruling from Central on that yet. Mother — check on the status of the hypnotics exclusion law, please. See if it’s still in Current Dockets.” Silence. “Mother? Respond, please.”

Her voice, when she spoke, seemed to have lost its usual gentleness. “Are you sure I won’t be butting in?”

Duncan ignored the sarcasm and repeated his request. Mother, still miffed, reported that a ruling excluding the use of B-Aminosine was expected but was not yet on the books.

“Then we can get in under the wire,” Hartley said. “Britt?” She nodded. “Duncan?”

“Let’s do it,” Duncan said. “And this time not by remote. Copely,” he called, “I want Anita Verdoris and Roj Kordan right here in this chamber.”

Anyone injected with B-Aminosine could count on being sick as a dog for anywhere from three days to two weeks: nausea, dizziness, headaches, cold sweats, blurred vision, loss of motor functions. Several cases of partial paralysis of the central nervous system had been reported, and at least one death had been directly attributed to the administration of B-Aminosine. Only an arbiter could order the use of the drug.

The arbiters’ decision to subject the two prime suspects to the possibly detrimental effects of B-Aminosine was met with more relief than apprehension by the Pirmachans who heard about it. Suffering a little temporary illness, no matter how unpleasant, was a small price to pay to get at the truth — especially since it was someone else who’d be doing the suffering. The doctor called in to administer the drug had insisted an adjoining chamber be turned into a recovery room before he would proceed; finally he and his team were ready.

Roj Kordan was first. As soon as he went under, the doctor stepped back to allow the arbiters to question him.

Duncan wasted no time. “Kordan, can you hear me?”

“Yes.”

“Did you kill Longstride?”

“No.”

“Did you arrange to have him killed?”

“No.”

“Do you know who did kill him?”

“No.”

Duncan nodded. “That’s all we need to know,” he said to the doctor. “Bring him out of it.”

Kordan came back to consciousness retching and shaking. Unable to walk, he was carried by the doctor’s assistants to the recovery room.

The arbiters tried not to give anything away through their facial expressions as their one remaining suspect was brought in. But Anita Verdoris glanced at Copely and read the truth there. “He passed the test, didn’t he?” she asked.

Copely looked away.

Whatever hope the arbiters entertained that they had identified Longstride’s killer was quickly quashed. Verdoris’s B-Aminosine session went exactly the way Kordan’s had gone. Did you kill, did you arrange, do you know. No. No. No. The three arbiters looked at one another despairingly as Verdoris was carried out.

Mother broke her long silence. “Now what are you going to do, Mr. Know-It-All?”

What they did was take a break.

Copely led them to private lodgings, saw they were served a meal, and left them alone. By mutual unspoken agreement, no one mentioned the case they were to decide until they’d finished eating and were indulging in an after-dinner drink.

Duncan took the lead. “It hasn’t all been wasted effort,” he said. “We did succeed in establishing the innocence of both Verdoris and Kordan. Now we know to look elsewhere.”

“Where do we start?” Britt asked.

Hartley scowled. “Did somebody say we ought to wrap this one up fast? Hah. We’re going to have to start over, right from the beginning. Anyone on this horsey planet could have done it.”

“Anyone except Verdoris and Kordan,” Britt said absently.

“We could be here for months! And all because some ex-stud of a racehorse was made into a symbol of the power struggle going on between those two.” Hartley’s voice was rising. “So what do we do, question the entire population?”

“Take it easy, Hartley,” Duncan said. “We won’t have to go that far.”

“Why not?” Hartley asked loudly. “Line ’em up, shoot ’em full of B-Aminosine, and ask ’em one question. Did you do it? Sooner or later somebody will say yes.”

Duncan laughed uncomfortably. “And leave behind us an entire planet full of people too sick to take care of themselves?”

Hartley got up from the table and crossed over to look out a window. “Serve them right,” he muttered. “This is a ridiculous situation they’ve put us in.”

Britt sat motionless, watching the two men.

Duncan rose slowly. “Hartley? You’re not serious?”

“I’m not?” the other man answered enigmatically.

“You can’t be! The entire population... For one thing, the local supply of B-Aminosine—”

“—will be adequate for our purposes,” Hartley finished for him. “You know damned well the guilty person is someone close to either Kordan or Verdoris. We start with them.”

Duncan stared at him, unbelieving. Then he appealed to Britt. “Britt, help me out here!”

She licked her lips, taking her time. “You know, Duncan... he may be right.”

“Britt!”

“All we’d have to do is announce we’re testing everybody,” she said carefully. “And then start testing, to prove it. Whoever’s guilty will most likely come forward and admit it. He’ll know he’s going to be caught anyway — why put himself through the agony of a B-Aminosine illness?”

“And if he doesn’t come forward?”

“Then we do test everybody,” Hartley said harshly. “We requisition more of the drug from Central if we have to.”