Isaac Asimov: The Dying Night

Talliaferro thought: He wants to make sure about the mass-transference. He’s hoping it is only a madman’s nightmare so he can sleep tonight.

But he was curious himself, so he made no objection, and even Ryger shrugged with ill grace and said, “Hell, why not?”

It was a little before eleven then.

Talliaferro was awakened by the insistent ringing of his door signal. He hitched himself to one elbow in the darkness and felt distinctly outraged. The soft glow of the ceiling indicator showed it to be not quite four in the morning.

He cried out, “Who is it?” The ringing continued in short, insistent spurts. Growling, Talliaferro slipped into his bathrobe. He opened the door and blinked in the corridor light. He recognized the man who faced him from the trimensionals he had seen often enough.

Nevertheless, the man said in an abrupt whisper, “My name is Hubert Mandel.”

“Yes, sir,” said Talliaferro. Mandel was one of the Names in astronomy, prominent enough to have an important executive position with the World Astronomical Bureau, active enough to be Chairman of the Astronautics section here at the Convention.

It suddenly struck Talliaferro that it was Mandel for whom Villiers claimed to have demonstrated mass-transference. The thought of Villiers was somehow a sobering one.

Mandel said, “You are Dr. Edward Talliaferro?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Then dress and come with me. It is very important. It concerns a mutual acquaintance.”

“Dr. Villiers?”

Mandel’s eyes flickered a bit. His brows and lashes were so fair as to give those eyes a naked, unfringed appearance. His hair was silky-thin, his age about fifty. He said, “Why Villiers?”

“He mentioned you last evening. I don’t know any other mutual acquaintance.”

Mandel nodded, waited for Talliaferro to finish slipping into his clothes, then turned and led the way. Ryger and Kaunas were waiting in a room one floor above Talliaferro’s. Kaunas’s eyes were red and troubled. Ryger was smoking a cigarette with impatient puffs.

Talliaferro said, “We’re all here. Another reunion.” It fell flat.

He took a seat and the three stared at one another. Ryger shrugged.

Mandel paced the floor, hands keep in his pockets. He said, “I apologize for any inconvenience, gentlemen, and I thank you for your co-operation. I would like more of it. Our friend, Romero Villiers, is dead. About an hour ago, his body was removed from the hotel. The medical judgment is heart failure.”

There was a stunned silence. Ryger’s cigarette hovered halfway to his lips, then sank slowly without completing its journey.

“Poor devil,” said Talliaferro.

“Horrible,” whispered Kaunas hoarsely. “He was—”

His voice played out.

Ryger shook himself. “Well, he had a bad heart. There’s nothing to be done.”

“One little thing,” corrected Mandel quietly. “Recovery.”

“What does that mean?” asked Ryger sharply.

Mandel said, “When did you three see him last?”

Talliaferro spoke. “Last evening. It turned out to be a reunion. We all met for the first time in ten years. It wasn’t a pleasant meeting, I’m sorry to say. Villiers felt he had cause for anger with us, and he was angry.”

“That was—when?”

“About nine, the first time.”

“The first time?”

“We saw him again later in the evening.”

Kaunas looked troubled. “He had left angrily. We couldn’t leave it at that. We had to try. It wasn’t as if we hadn’t all been friends at one time. So we went to his room and—”

Mandel pounced on that. “You were all in his room?”

“Yes,” said Kaunas, surprised.

“About when?”

“Eleven, I think.” He looked at the others. Talliaferro nodded.

“And how long did you stay?”

“Two minutes,” put in Ryger. “He ordered us out as though we were after his paper.” He paused as though expecting Mandel to ask what paper, but Mandel said nothing. He went on. “I think he kept it under his pillow. At least he lay across the pillow as he yelled at us to leave.”

“He may have been dying then,” said Kaunas, in a sick whisper.

“Not then,” said Mandel shortly. “So you probably all left fingerprints.”

“Probably,” said Talliaferro. He was losing some of his automatic respect for Mandel and a sense of impatience was returning. It was four in the morning, Mandel or no. He said, “Now what’s all this about?”

“Well, gentlemen,” said Mandel, “there’s more to Villiers’ death than the fact of death. Villiers’ paper, the only copy of it as far as I know, was stuffed into the cigarette flash-disposal unit and only scraps of it were left. I’ve never seen or read the paper, but I knew enough about the matter to be willing to swear in court if necessary that the remnants of unflashed paper in the disposal unit were of the paper he was planning to give at this Convention.—You seem doubtful, Dr. Ryger.”

Ryger smiled sourly. “Doubtful that he was going to give it. If you want my opinion, sir, he was mad. For ten years he was a prisoner of Earth and he fantasied mass-transference as escape. It was all that kept him alive probably. He rigged up some sort of fraudulent demonstration. I don’t say it was deliberate fraud. He was probably madly sincere, and sincerely mad. Last evening was the climax. He came to our rooms—he hated us for having escaped Earth—and triumphed over us. It was what he had lived for for ten years. It may have shocked him back to some form of sanity. He knew he couldn’t actually give the paper; there was nothing to give. So he burnt it and his heart gave out. It is too bad.”

Mandel listened to the Cerian astronomer, wearing a look of sharp disapproval. He said, “Very glib, Dr. Ryger, but quite wrong. I am not as easily fooled by fraudulent demonstrations as you may believe. Now according to the registration data, which I have been forced to check rather hastily, you three were his classmates at college. Is that right?”

They nodded.

“Are there any other classmates of yours present at the Convention?”

“No,” said Kaunas. “We were the only four qualifying for a doctorate in astronomy that year. At least he would have qualified except—”

“Yes, I understand,” said Mandel. “Well, then, in that case one of you three visited Villiers in his room one last time at midnight.”

There was a short silence. Then Ryger said coldly, “Not I.” Kaunas, eyes wide, shook his head.

Talliaferro said, “What are you implying?”

“One of you came to him at midnight and insisted on seeing his paper. I don’t know the motive. Conceivably, it was with the deliberate intention of forcing him into heart failure. When Villiers collapsed, the criminal, if I may call him so, was ready. He snatched the paper which, I might add, probably was kept under his pillow, and scanned it. Then he destroyed the paper itself in the flash-disposal, but he was in a hurry and destruction wasn’t complete.”

Ryger interrupted. “How do you know all this? Were you a witness?”

“Almost,” said Mandel. “Villiers was not quite dead at the moment of his first collapse. When the criminal left, he managed to reach the phone and call my room. He choked out a few phrases, enough to outline what had occurred. Unfortunately I was not in my room; a late conference kept me away. However, my recording attachment taped it. I always play the recording tape back whenever I return to my room or office. Bureaucratic habit. I called back. He was dead.”

“Well, then,” said Ryger, “who did he say did it?”

“He didn’t. Or if he did, it was unintelligible. But one word rang out clearly. It was ‘classmate.’ ”