Isaac Asimov: The Caves of Steel

“That is scarcely murder motive,” said R Daneel.

“No,” agreed Baley, with decision.

“It isn’t murder,” said the Commissioner. “It’s property damage. Let’s keep our legal terms straight. It’s just that it was done inside the Department. Anywhere else it would be nothing. Nothing. Now it could be a first-class scandal. Lije!”

“Yes?”

“When did you last see R. Sammy?”

Baley said, “R. Daneel spoke to R. Sammy after lunch. I should judge it was about 13:30. He arranged to have us use your office, Commissioner.”

“My office? What for?”

“I wanted to talk over the case with R. Daneel in moderate privacy. You weren’t in, so your office was an obvious place.”

“I see.” The Commissioner looked dubious, but let the matter ride. “You didn’t see him yourself?”

“No, but I heard his voice perhaps an hour afterward.”

“Are you sure it was he?”

“Perfectly.”

“That would be about 14:30?”

“Or a little sooner.”

The Commissioner bit his pudgy lower lip thoughtfully. “Well, that settles one thing.”

“It does?”

“Yes. The boy, Vincent Barrett, was here today. Did you know that?”

“Yes. But, Commissioner, he wouldn’t do anything like this.”

The Commissioner lifted his eyes to Baley’s face. “Why not? R. Sammy took his job away. I can understand how he feels. There would be a tremendous sense of injustice. He would want a certain revenge. Wouldn’t you? But the fact is that he left the building at 14:00 and you heard R. Sammy alive at 14:30. Of course, he might have given the alpha-sprayer to R. Sammy before he left with instructions not to use it for an hour, but then where could he have gotten an alpha-sprayer? It doesn’t bear thinking of. Let’s get back to R. Sammy. When you spoke to him at 14:30, what did he say?”

Baley hesitated a perceptible moment, then said carefully, “I don’t remember. We left shortly afterward.”

“Where did you go?”

“Yeast-town, eventually. I want to talk about that, by the way.”

“Later. Later.” The Commissioner rubbed his chin. “Jessie was in today, I noticed. I mean, we were checking on all visitors today and I just happened to see her name.”

“She was here,” said Baley, coldly.

“What for?”

“Personal family matters.”

“She’ll have to be questioned as a pure formality.”

“I understand police routine, Commissioner. Incidentally, what about the alpha-sprayer itself? Has it been traced?”

“Oh, yes. It came from one of the power plants.”

“How do they account for having lost it?”

“They don’t. They have no idea. But look, Lije, except for routine statements, this has nothing to do with you. You stick to your case. It’s just that… Well, you stick to the Spacetown investigation.”

Baley said, “May I give my routine statements later, Commissioner? The fact is, I haven’t eaten yet.”

Commissioner Enderby’s glassed-eyes turned full on Baley. “By all means get something to eat. But stay inside the Department, will you? Your partner’s right, though, Lije”—he seemed to avoid addressing R. Daneel or using his name—“it’s the motive we need. The motive.”

Baley felt suddenly frozen.

Something outside himself, something completely alien, took up the events of this day and the day before and the day before and juggled them. Once again pieces began to dovetail; a pattern began to form.

He said, “Which power plant did the alpha-sprayer come from, Commissioner?”

“The Williamsburg plant. Why?”

“Nothing. Nothing.”

The last word Baley heard the Commissioner mutter as he strode out of the office, with R. Daneel immediately behind him, was, “Motive. Motive.”

Baley ate a sparse meal in the small and infrequently used Department lunchroom. He devoured the stuffed tomato on lettuce without being entirely aware of its nature and for a second or so after he had gulped down the last mouthful his fork still slithered aimlessly over the slick cardboard of his plate, searching automatically for something that was no longer there.

He became aware of that and put down his fork with a muffled, “Jehoshaphat!”

He said, “Daneel!”

R. Daneel had been sitting at another table, as though he wished to leave the obviously preoccupied Baley in peace, or as though he required privacy himself. Baley was past caring which.

Daneel stood up, moved to Baley’s table, and sat down again. “Yes, partner Elijah?”

Baley did not look at him. “Daneel, I’ll need your co-operation.”

“In what way?”

“They will question Jessie and myself. That is certain. Let me answer the questions in my own way. Do you understand?”

“I understand what you say, of course. Nevertheless, if I am asked a direct question, how is it possible for me to say anything but what is so?”

“If you are asked a direct question, that’s another matter. I ask only that you don’t volunteer information. You can do that, can’t you?”

“I believe so, Elijah, provided it does not appear that I am hurting a human being by remaining silent.”

Baley said, grimly, “You will hurt me if you don’t. I assure you of that.”

“I do not quite understand your point of view, partner Elijah. Surely the matter of R. Sammy cannot concern you.”

“No? It all centers about motive, doesn’t it? You’ve questioned the motive. The Commissioner questioned it. I do, for that matter. Why should anyone want to kill R. Sammy? Mind you, it’s not just a question of who would want to smash up robots in general. Any Earthman, practically, would want to do that. The question is, who would want to single out R. Sammy. Vincent Barrett might, but the Commissioner said he couldn’t get hold of an alpha-sprayer, and he’s right. We have to look somewhere else, and it so happens that one other person has a motive. It glares out. It yells. It stinks to top level.”

“Who is the person, Elijah?”

And Baley said, softly, “I am, Daneel.”

R. Daneel’s expressionless face did not change under the impact of the statement. He merely shook his head.

Baley said, “You don’t agree. My wife came to the office today. They know that already. The Commissioner is even curious. If I weren’t a personal friend, he wouldn’t have stopped his questioning so soon. Now they’ll find out why. That’s certain. She was part of a conspiracy; a foolish and harmless one, but a conspiracy just the same. And a policeman can’t afford to have his wife mixed up with anything like that. It would be to my obvious interest to see that the matter was hushed up.

“Well, who knew about it? You and I, of course, and Jessie—and R. Sammy. He saw her in a state of panic. When he told her that we had left orders not to be disturbed, she must have lost control. You saw the way she was when she first came in.”

R. Daneel said, “It is unlikely that she said anything incriminating to him.”

“That may be so. But I’m reconstructing the case the way they will. They’ll say she did. There’s my motive. I killed him to keep him quiet.”

“They will not think so.”

“They will think so. The murder was arranged deliberately in order to throw suspicion on me. Why use an alpha-sprayer? It’s a rather risky way. It’s hard to get and it can be traced. I think that those were the very reasons it was used. The murderer even ordered R. Sammy to go into the photographic supply room and kill himself there. It seems obvious to me that the reason for that was to have the method of murder unmistakable. Even if everyone was so infantile as not to recognize the alpha-sprayer immediately, someone would be bound to notice fogged photographic film in fairly short order.”