Chapter VII

They were all in the lab when Auckland arrived: Amelia, Shirley, Burleigh, James, Edholm, and Ekem-ve. The latter stood apart gravely, while the rest were gathered around the body which was sprawled on the floor by the table. Glamis was dressed as Auckland had last seen him in the recreation room the night before, although stains indicated that he had been outside in various postures of ease. Edholm was down on one knee, examining the deceased.

He looked up as Auckland joined the group. "Hello, Roy," he said. "Things seem to have taken a different turn than we expected. It's ironic that for all his care in wearing a protective suit outside, Ken still had to be stung by an insect and that finished him."

"Are you sure about that?" Auckland asked, looking down at the body.

Edholm stooped and, lifting Glamis's right hand, rolled his short sleeves back. "Puncture in index finger," he said. "Black indicating poison. Entire hand and arm swollen. Very much like snake bite, you see. Ekem-ve tells me that little animals stung by the wild bees look a lot like this when you find them afterward. There's a dead bee on the table," he nodded to his left, "and it's pretty clear that it stung Ken, and Ken swatted it before he succumbed. It hit him fast; he didn't have time to call for help or get to an antidote himself, if that would have done any good."

"But--but how did the bee get in here?" Amelia asked. She was shaken by the event, but there was no sign of grief about her. He glanced at Shirley, whose face was white--no sorrow there, either. James had an abstract, somewhat puzzled air about him, as if he was not quite sure whether he was dreaming this or not. Only Burleigh seemed to be affected with anything like regret.

"A native box was brought in here and it is on the table now." He pointed to the open artifact. "Ken was photographing it, as you see from the pictures there, and he must have opened it. And the natives make pets of the bees and often carry them around with them." He turned to Ekem-ve and said softly, "Why was a bee left in this box, Ekem-ve? And I thought you said they wouldn't sting us."

"Wild bees told not to sting excellent Earthmen," Ekem-ve replied. "No Vaec tell wild bee to sting for mirth. Bad joke, not mirthful. Pet bees not able to sting. May examine remains of unfortunate insect, excellent Calvin?"

Edholm and Burleigh nodded, and the Carolinian came forward and picked up the dead insect gently. He held the small body in his fingers and pressed the abdomen.

"This is pet bee," he said. "Unfortunate insect cannot sting because Vaec give pets gentle operation for own protection. When wild bee sting, stinger remain in wound of victim and insect soon die from loss of stinger. Is stinger in wound, excellent Walter?"

Edholm took a magnifying glass from the drawer and bent over Glamis's body again. The breath whistled through his teeth as he said, "No. I should have noticed that before. There's no stinger."

"If you will please observe stinger of unfortunate insect under magnifying glass, while this one press abdomen."

Edholm held the glass on the dead bee as Ekem-ve repeated the operation. Auckland peered over the captain's shoulder and it was evident enough. The stinger was ridiculously short and blunted. It could not have penetrated Glamis's skin.

"Then," began Amelia, her eyes wide, "it wasn't an accident."

"Very unlikely." There was a pencil-light on the table. Auckland picked it up and played it around the inside of the Vaec box. "Dr. Glamis pricked his finger on something sharp, something pointed, something coated with an alkaloid poison, very possibly. He was examining a box which ordinarily you would have been examining. It's empty now. You two saw him working on it?"

"Yes," said James. "I opened the shutters to see if he was in the lab. I was going over to ask him something--can't recall what it was now. He was photographing an object on the table, and I couldn't be sure what it was since I didn't have my glasses on. I asked Amelia to look."

"What did you see?" Auckland asked.

"This box," she answered.

"I mean, what did it look like from your window?"

"Oh." Amelia blinked and thought a moment. "The light was clear and I could see a cubical object with designs in black around the outside on a pale blue background. The designs looked like the designs I'm looking at right now, although I could not see them all as clearly."

"And Dr. Glamis waved to you, and you waved back?"

"Yes," said James. "I was a little miffed, I'll admit, as I wanted to examine the box, then I realized I was being silly. There was no reason why he should not take photographs of it. He'd finished one roll--just torn off the last one--and was about to put another roll of film into the camera when he looked up and saw me. He waved, and I waved back just to show there were no hard feelings. Then I closed the shutters and went to bed."

Auckland picked up the camera and examined it. "There's a fresh roll in here," he said. "So we know it happened before he could take any more photos. Was the box closed when you saw it?"

Amelia nodded.

"There are a lot of questions, then. I take it the box was open when you found him?"

"Yes, it was open," James said. "I came in here and saw the box open, the first thing. Thought that he'd gone to bed--he didn't always put things in order, you know." Auckland nodded. "Then I saw him lying on the floor and I called everyone."

"Did you see the bee then?"

"No," James replied. "I didn't see it at all until Edholm examined the body. He called our attention to it. It was on the floor just a little under the table. He picked it up and put it where you saw it when you came in."

Auckland nodded. "You can see this much clearly: someone did not know about the Vaec pet bees--the only person I can now be sure did not know is Roy Auckland--and this party thought that if Ken were found thus, we would assume that he had been stung. We all knew that he was very allergic to insect stings. The indications were all there."

He turned to Burleigh. "I remember you said something about being stung by the wild ones and it not being very serious."

Calvin Burleigh shook his head. "Not the large bees. No one here has been stung by them."

"Then that kills one theory," said Auckland. "I was about to say this indicated that Glamis was not an accidental victim of murder aimed at someone else. If it hasn't been established whether the bee stings might be fatal to anyone...."

"A couple of Leitfred's men were stung by bees," said Edholm. "One died. The other didn't."

A stricken look crossed Burleigh's face. "I didn't know that," he said to Auckland. "And I misinformed you, quite unintentionally, when I told you that a couple of us had been stung, but that it wasn't at all bad. It wasn't the bees like this one," he nodded toward the table, "but the smaller type, and we'd bothered them. I assumed that this kind wouldn't be much worse, except to Ken of course."

"What about this, Ekem-ve?" asked Auckland. "Why should any bee sting one of us unless we were trying to harm it? I thought you had control over them."

The Carolinian blinked rapidly, the Vaec manner of shaking one's head or nodding. One had to guess which, in each instance. "Unfortunate insects not large in intelligence, excellent Roy. Cannot be told not to sting, can only be told to keep away from excellent Earthmen. Very easily frightened. If wild bee put in box then released with suddenness to see stranger bending over, unfortunate insect follow instinct; perhaps fly away, perhaps sting."

"That makes a difference," said Shirley. "Why, I might have tried to capture or pick up one of the bees, particularly one that came out of a box and I thought was tame."

Ekem-ve's single hair straightened, then drooped slightly. "This thoughtless person overcome by remorse at stupidity. Did not think of such contingency."

Amelia asked in a low voice, "Are you going to leave him there?"

"He was the doctor," said Auckland. "More irony. Ken himself is the only one who could have established the approximate time of death, which may be important, or performed an autopsy." He looked at Edholm. "Space officers have to have some medical training. Can you give us any idea how long he was dead when you examined him?"

Edholm shook his head. "We don't have that much training, Roy. The body was cold, and _rigor mortis_ had pretty well set in. Obviously, he'd been dead for some time when Doc found him."

"Just a few more questions, then we'll lay him out. What is the rule, by the way? Can he be buried here, or must the body be returned to Earth?"

"The men who died on the first expedition were brought back home," Edholm said, "but such matters lie in my discretion. Has anyone any idea of what his preference might be in this matter?"

"I think he would prefer to stay here," Shirley said. "And I think he would appreciate a funeral service."

"That is always done unless the deceased expressly abjures it," Edholm said, "Can you finish the questioning now, Auckland?"

Auckland picked up the pile of photographs on the table and glanced through them. "Anyone examine these?"

Apparently no one had, outside of Burleigh's cursory glance. He nodded and put them in his pocket. "I'm holding them for the time being. What was the time when you saw him working here last night?"

"About midnight, wouldn't you say, Amelia?"

The woman nodded. "It was before midnight, but not very much before."

"And no one else came into the lab, or saw him, from midnight until Dr. James found him this morning?"

The question was rhetorical, Auckland knew. No one would admit either seeing Glamis or entering the lab between midnight and the time he was found. He said to Edholm, "I'll be back in a few moments," and nodded to Ekem-ve.

* * * * *

The box rested on the table in the recreation room, and the others sat around in various postures and attitudes of unease. None of them had liked Kenneth Glamis, and all but one feared unjust accusation, however they assured themselves that their innocence left them nothing to fear.

"There have been times," Howard James said, "when I could have killed him with the greatest of pleasure." He did not look at Amelia, who was chain-smoking.

"I think," said Edholm, "that the first question we have to resolve is whether Dr. Glamis was really the victim intended. I admit, sir," he nodded at Auckland, "that I was dubious about the previous alleged attempts on Dr. James's life, but now it seems to me that they make more sense. I think they were deliberately botched, so as to give the impression of ineptness. I think that a competent person was posing as incompetent because that person had tipped his hand earlier, or thought he had, and wanted to misdirect his victim."

Howard James frowned. "You mean that if it had not been for the _dodlig_ in the soup or the bomb in the cellar, I might have been careless about opening a Vaec box?"

"Regardless of whether Dr. Glamis was the intended victim, we are still faced with a murder to solve," Auckland broke in. He switched on the lights. "I would like you two to look at this box again and tell me which side was facing you when you saw it in the lab last night." He got up and started to turn the box slowly. He hadn't gotten far before a scream came from Amelia.

"She's fainted!" snapped Edholm, but James was already by his wife's side, "What's the meaning of this, Auckland?"

"Something very simple," said Auckland. "So simple that no one noticed it, even if anyone did examine the photographs on the table." He took the color pictures out of his pocket and spread them out. "You will observe that the pictures show a box with black designs and orange shadings, on a pale blue background; and Amelia said she saw a box with black designs and orange shadings on a pale blue background."

"But it _is_ a blue--" began Burleigh then stopped and stared. "Good heavens, it isn't. It's white.... But I could have sworn."

Auckland glanced at Shirley who was visibly pale now. "You were right, Cal. The box actually _is_ pale blue. But as Shirley and I discovered yesterday, the Vaec blue tends to wash out under fluorescent lights."

A slight moan came from Amelia, then she sat up again. "I'm all right," she said faintly. "It was just the shock of realizing...."

"Yes," said Auckland. "You see there are two possible explanations. One is that you actually saw Glamis working there by daylight, without lights on--which would make the time you saw him this morning, rather than last night--or that the box you saw him working on was not the box before us now."

"But why should we lie to you, Roy?" asked James.

"Fortunately, we don't have to bother about that, Doc. Ekem-ve, did Hcent find what she was looking for?"

"Yes, excellent Roy," replied the Carolinian. "Is it your wish that she bring it in now?"

Auckland nodded, and Ekem-ve wiggled his finger in the parting gesture as he left the room. "As soon as I heard Amelia describe a pale blue box, I thought of a substitution, so I asked Ekem-ve to see if he or one of the others could find something that looked like a Vaec box anywhere around."

Ekem-ve entered carrying a box the same size and shape as the one on the table. At a gesture from Auckland, he put it beside the white one.

"I'll be damned," said Edholm. The box Ekem-ve had just brought in had black designs with orange shadings, not unlike the other, but its background was clearly a pale blue. Auckland switched off the lights, and both boxes showed a pale blue background. Set side by side, the difference in tone was just barely noticeable.

"So you see," Auckland said, "the second explanation of the discrepancy is the simpler one. Where did Hcent find this box, Ekem-ve?"

"She says box concealed in shrubbery outside shower rooms."

Auckland glanced around. "So now we begin to see the mechanism of murder. Dr. James asked for a Vaec box to examine--" he switched on the fluorescents again "--and Ekem-ve brought this box which now appears white into the lab. Presumably, no one here had examined these boxes closely before, but this presumption must be discarded.

"Dr. James intended to examine the box last night, but the unexpected discovery of the book made him put it off. Dr. Glamis went to the lab, as he often did, and after puttering around with whatever he went there to do, decided to examine the box himself. But someone had substituted what you can see is a very clever imitation."

"But, I don't understand," James interrupted. "What was the danger in the imitation?"

"Glamis pricked his finger on something sharp. Do you know how to open the Vaec boxes, Doctor?"

"Of course." James arose and went to the table, and picked up the box with the blue background.

"Not that one," said Auckland.

"Oh. Heavens, it is easy to forget the difference, isn't it." He put the imitation down and said, "You'll see that there are large solid black squares on opposite sides. You just press them." He squeezed and the lid flew open.

"Exactly," agreed Auckland. He opened a drawer and took out a small cutting tool with a cord, which he plugged into a socket on the desk. "I'm sorry to damage a work of art, but this is necessary."

A moment later he had the top off the imitation. "Now, if you will all look inside." They gathered around the little box, and gazed in fascination at the slender object projecting from one of the sides.

"This needle," Auckland said, "was set so that the person pressing the solid black squares to open the box would prick his finger."

Shirley Mason was gripping the edge of the table, her knuckles white. "But I didn't ... I didn't ..." she whispered.

"When did you make the imitation, Shirl?" Auckland asked.

"I ... it was a month or so ago. Then I put it away. I haven't seen it for a couple of weeks. I didn't think about it. You've got to believe me, Roy. I didn't make it for a death trap."