PRIVATE EYE
     by “Lewis Padgett” (Henry Kuttner, 1914-1958 and
     C.L. Moore, 1911- ; this story is generally believed to
     have been written by Kuttner)
           Astounding Science Fiction, January


      The Kuttners were so prolific that they made extensive use of pen
names—in addition to Kuttner and Moore, singly and listed together, they
wrote as “Lewis Padgett” and as “Lawrence O’Donnell,” producing
important stories under both of these pseudonyms. The present
selection is the first of three in this book—the late 1940s were
tremendously produc-tive for this wonderful writing team.

      As Isaac points out, “Private Eye” is a classic blend of mystery and
science fiction and fully deserves the title of “classic.” It is not now
unusual for such combinations to see print; indeed, in the last twenty
years dozens of stories in-corporating a murder mystery with sf have
appeared, and many have been collected in such anthologies as Miriam
Allen deFord’s Space, Time & Crime (1964), Barry N. Malzberg and Bill
Pronzini’s wonderful Dark Sins, Dark Crimes (1978), and our own (along
with Charles G. Waugh) The 13 Crimes of Science Fiction
(1979).—M.H.G.

      (John Campbell, the greatest of all science fiction editors, was one
of the most prescient people I have ever met—and yet he was given to
peculiar blind spots. For instance, during the 1940’s he frequently
maintained that science fiction mysteries were impossible, because it
was so easy to use futuristic gimmicks to help the detective crack his
case.

      I eventually showed, in 1953, that a classic mystery could be
combined with science fiction if one simply set up the boundary
conditions at the start and stuck to them. I reso-lutely allowed no
futuristic gimmicks to appear suddenly and give the detective an unfair
advantage.

     In “Private Eye” however, Henry Kuttner [preceding me by four
years] took the harder task of allowing a futuristic gimmick—one that
would seem to make it impossible to get away with murder—and then
labored to produce an honest murder mystery anyway. The result was an
undoubted classic—I.A.)

                                     ****

The forensic sociologist looked closely at the image on the wall screen.
Two figures were frozen there, one in the act of stabbing the other through
the heart with an antique letter cutter, once used at Johns Hopkins for
surgery. That was before the ultra-microtome, of course.

     “As tricky a case as I’ve ever seen,” the sociologist remarked. “If we
can make a homicide charge stick on Sam Clay, I’ll be a little surprised.”

      The tracer engineer twirled a dial and watched the figures on the
screen repeat their actions. One—Sam Clay—snatched the letter cutter
from a desk and plunged it into the other man’s heart. The victim fell down
dead. Clay started back in apparent horror. Then he dropped to his knees
beside the twitching body and said wildly that he didn’t mean it. The body
drummed its heels upon the rug and was still.

      “That last touch was nice,” the engineer said.

     “Well, I’ve got to make the preliminary survey,” the sociolo-gist
sighed, settling in his dictachair and placing his fingers on the keyboard. “I
doubt if I’ll find any evidence. However, the analysis can come later.
Where’s Clay now?”

      “His mouthpiece put in a habeas mens.”

       “I didn’t think we’d be able to hold him. But it was worth trying.
Imagine, just one shot of scop and he’d have told the truth. Ah, well. We’ll
do it the hard way, as usual. Start the tracer, will you? It won’t make sense
till we run it chronologically, but one must start somewhere. Good old
Blackstone,” the sociolo-gist said, as, on the screen, Clay stood up,
watching the corpse revive and arise, and then pulled the miraculously
clean paper cutter out of its heart, all in reverse.

      “Good old Blackstone,” he repeated. “On the other hand, sometimes
I wish I’d lived in Jeffreys’ time. In those days, homicide was homicide.”

                                     ****

Telepathy never came to much. Perhaps the developing faculty went
underground in response to a familiar natural law after the new science
appeared omniscience. It wasn’t really that, of course. It was a device for
looking into the past. And it was limited to a fifty-year span; no chance of
seeing the arrows at Agincourt or the homunculi of Bacon. It was sensitive
enough to pick up the “fingerprints” of light and sound waves imprinted on
matter, descramble and screen them, and reproduce the image of what had
happened. After all, a man’s shadow can be photo-graphed on concrete, if
he’s unlucky enough to be caught in an atomic blast. Which is something.
The shadow’s about all here is left.

       However, opening the past like a book didn’t solve all problems. It
took generations for the maze of complexities to iron itself out, though
finally a tentative check-and-balance was reached. The right to kill has been
sturdily defended by mankind since Cain rose up against Abel. A good
many idealists quoted, “The voice of thy brother’s blood crieth unto me
from the ground,” but that didn’t stop the lobbyists and the pressure groups.
Magna Carta was quoted in reply. The right to privacy was defended
desperately.

       And the curious upshot of this imbalance came when the act of
homicide was declared nonpunishable, unless intent and fore-thought could
be proved. Of course, it was considered at least naughty to fly in a rage and
murder someone on impulse, and there was a nominal
punishment—imprisonment, for example— but in practice this never
worked, because so many defenses were possible. Temporary insanity.
Undue provocation. Self-defense. Manslaughter, second-degree homicide,
third degree, fourth degree—it went on like that. It was up to the State to
prove that the killer had planned his killing in advance; only then would a jury
convict. And the jury, of course, had to waive immunity and take a scop test,
to prove the box hadn’t been packed. But no defendant ever waived
immunity.

       A man’s home wasn’t his castle—not with the Eye able to enter it at
will and scan his past. The device couldn’t interpret, and it couldn’t read his
mind; it could only see and listen. Consequently the sole remaining fortress
of privacy was de-fended to the last ditch. No truth-serum, no
hypnoanalysis, no third-degree, no leading questions.

      If, by viewing the prisoner’s past actions, the prosecution could prove
forethought and intent, O.K.

      Otherwise, Sam Clay would go scot-free. Superficially, it appeared as
though Andrew Vanderman had, during a quarrel, struck Clay across the
face with a stingaree whip. Anyone who has been stung by a Portuguese
man-of-war can understand that, at this point, Clay could plead temporary
insanity and self-defense, as well as undue provocation and possible
justification.

       Only the curious cult of the Alaskan Flagellantes, who make the
stingaree whips for their ceremonials, know how to endure the pain. The
Flagellantes even like it, the pre-ritual drug they swallow transmutes pain
into pleasure. Not having swallowed this drug, Sam Clay very naturally took
steps to protect himself— irrational steps, perhaps, but quite logical and
defensible ones.

     Nobody but Clay knew that he had intended to kill Vanderman all
along. That was the trouble. Clay couldn’t understand why he felt so let
down.

      The screen flickered. It went dark. The engineer chuckled.

     “My, my. Locked up in a dark closet at the age of four. What one of
those old-time psychiatrists would have made of that. Or do I mean
obimen? Shamans? I forget. They interpreted dreams, anyway.”

      “You’re confused. It—”

      “Astrologers! No, it wasn’t either. The ones I mean went in for
symbolism. They used to spin prayer wheels and say ‘A rose is a rose is a
rose,’ didn’t they? To free the unconscious mind?”

      “You’ve got the typical layman’s attitude toward antique psychiatric
treatments.”

       “Well, maybe they had something, at that. Look at quinine and
digitalis. The United Amazon natives used those long before science
discovered them. But why use eye of newt and toe of frog? To impress the
patient?”

      “No, to convince themselves,” the Sociologist said. “In those days the
study of mental aberrations drew potential psychotics, so naturally there
was unnecessary mumbo-jumbo. Those medi-cos were trying to fix their
own mental imbalance while they treated their patients. But it’s a science
today, not a religion. We’ve found out how to allow for individual psychotic
deviation in the psychiatrist himself, so we’ve got a better chance of finding
true north. However, let’s get on with this. Try ultraviolet. Oh, never mind.
Somebody’s letting him out of that closet. The devil with it. I think we’ve cut
back far enough. Even if he was frightened by a thunderstorm at the age of
three months, that can be filed under Gestalt and ignored. Let’s run through
this chronologically. Give it the screening for…let’s see. Incidents involving
these persons: Vanderman, Mrs. Vanderman, Josephine Wells—and these
places: the office, Vanderman’s apartment. Clay’s place—”

      “Got it.”

      “Later we can recheck for complicating factors. Right now we’ll run
the superficial survey. Verdict first, evidence later,” he added, with a grin.
“All we need is a motive—”

      “What about this?”

                                     ****

A girl was talking to Sam Clay. The background was an apartment, grade
B-2.

      “I’m sorry, Sam. It’s just that…well, these things happen.”

      “Yeah. Vanderman’s got something I haven’t got, apparently.”

      “I’m in love with him.”

      “Funny. I thought all along you were in love with me.”

      “So did I ... for a while.”

     “Well, forget it. No, I’m not angry, Bea. I’ll even wish you luck. But you
must have been pretty certain how I’d react to this.”

      “I’m sorry—”

      “Come to think of it, I’ve always let you call the shots. Always.”

      Secretly—and this the screen could not show—he thought: Let her? I
wanted it that way. It was so much easier to leave the decisions up to her.
Sure, she’s dominant, but I guess I’m just the opposite. And now it’s
happened again.

       It always happens. I was loaded with weight-cloths from the start. And
I always felt I had to toe the line, or else. Vanderman— that cocky, arrogant
air of his. Reminds me of somebody. I was locked up in a dark place, I
couldn’t breathe. I forget. What…who ... my father. No, I don’t remember.
But my life’s been like that. He always watched me, and I always thought
some day I’d do what I wanted!—but I never did. Too late now. He’s been
dead quite a while.

    He was always so sure I’d knuckle under. If I’d only defied him
once—

      Somebody’s always pushing me in and closing the door. So I can’t
use my abilities. I can’t prove I’m competent. Prove it to myself, to my
father, to Bea, to the whole world. If only I could—I’d like to push
Vanderman into a dark place and lock the door. A dark place, like a coffin. It
would be satisfying to surprise him that way. It would be fine if I killed
Andrew Vanderman.

                                      ****

“Well, that’s the beginning of a motive,” the sociologist said. “Still, lots of
people get jilted and don’t turn homicidal. Carry on.”

      “In my opinion, Bea attracted him because he wanted to be bossed,”
the engineer remarked. “He’d given up.”

      “Protective passivity.”

    The wire taps spun through the screening apparatus. A new scene
showed on the oblong panel. It was the Paradise Bar.

                                      ****

Anywhere you sat in the Paradise Bar, a competent robot analyzer instantly
studied your complexion and facial angles, and switched on lights, in
varying tints and intensities, that showed you off to best advantage. The
joint was popular for business deals. A swindler could look like an honest
man there. It was also popular with women and slightly passé teleo talent.
Sam Clay looked rather like an ascetic young saint. Andrew Vanderman
looked noble, in a grim way, like Richard Coeur-de-Lion offer-ing Saladin
his freedom, though he knew it wasn’t really a bright thing to do. Noblesse
oblige, his firm jaw seemed to say, as he picked up the silver decanter and
poured. In ordinary light, Vanderman looked slightly more like a handsome
bulldog. Also, away from the Paradise Bar, he was redder around the
chops, a choleric man.

      “As to that deal we were discussing,” Clay said, “you can go to—”

      The censoring juke box blared out a covering bar or two.
       Vanderman’s reply was unheard as the music got briefly louder, and
the lights shifted rapidly to keep pace with his sudden flush.

       “It’s perfectly easy to outwit these censors,” Clay said. “They’re
keyed to familiar terms of profane abuse, not to circumlocutions. If I said
that the arrangement of your chromosomes would have surprised your
father…you see?” He was right. The music stayed soft.

      Vanderman swallowed nothing. “Take it easy,” he said. “I can see why
you’re upset. Let me say first of all—”

      “Hijo—”

     But the censor was proficient in Spanish dialects. Vanderman was
spared hearing another insult.

      “—that I offered you a job because I think you’re a very capable man.
You have potentialities. It’s not a bribe. Our personal affairs should be kept
out of this.”

      “All the same, Bea was engaged to me.”

      “Clay, are you drunk?”

     “Yes,” Clay said, and threw his drink into Vanderman’s face. The
music began to play Wagner very, very loudly. A few minutes later, when
the waiters interfered. Clay was supine and bloody, with a mashed nose
and a bruised check. Vanderman had skinned his knuckles.

                                    ****

      “That’s a motive,” the engineer said.

       “Yes, it is, isn’t it? But why did Clay wait a year and a half? And
remember what happened later. I wonder if the murder itself was just a
symbol? If Vanderman represented, say, what Clay considered the
tyrannical and oppressive force of society in general—synthesized in the
representative image…oh, nonsense. Obviously Clay was trying to prove
something to himself though. Suppose you cut forward now. I want to see
this in normal chronology, not backwards. What’s the next selection?”

     “Very suspicious. Clay got his nose fixed up and then went to a
murder trial.”
       He thought: I can’t breathe. Too crowded in here. Shut up in a box, a
closet, a coffin, ignored by the spectators and the vested authority on the
bench. What would I do if I were in the dock, like that chap? Suppose they
convicted? That would spoil it all. Another dark place— If I’d inherited the
right genes, I’d have been strong enough to beat up Vanderman. But I’ve
been pushed around too long.

      I keep remembering that song.

Stray in the herd and the boss said kill it,
So I shot him in the rump with the handle of a skillet.

       A deadly weapon that’s in normal usage wouldn’t appear dangerous.
But if it could be used homicidally—No, the Eye could check on that. All you
can conceal these days is motive. But couldn’t the trick be reversed.
Suppose I got Vanderman to attack me with what he thought was the
handle of a skillet, but which I knew was a deadly weapon—

                                    ****

The trial Sam Clay was watching was fairly routine. One man had killed
another. Counsel for the defense contended that the homicide had been a
matter of impulse, and that, as a matter of fact, only assault and battery plus
culpable negligence, at worst, could be proved, and the latter was canceled
by an Act of God. The fact that the defendant inherited the decedent’s
fortune, in Martial oil, made no difference. Temporary insanity was the plea.

      The prosecuting attorney showed films of what had happened before
the fact. True, the victim hadn’t been killed by the blow, merely stunned. But
the affair had occurred on an isolated beach, and when the tide came in—

      Act of God, the defense repeated hastily.

      The screen showed the defendant, some days before his crime,
looking up the tide-table in a news tape. He also, it appeared, visited the
site and asked a passing stranger if the beach was often crowded. “Nope,”
the stranger said, “it ain’t crowded after sundown. Gits too cold. Won’t do
you no good, though. Too cold to swim then.”

      One side matched Actus non facit reum, nisi mens sit rea— “The
act does not make a man guilty, unless the mind be also guilty”—against
Acta exteriora indicant interiora secreta—”By the outward acts we are to
judge of the inward thoughts.” Latin legal basics were still valid, up to a
point. A man’s past remained sacrosanct, provided—and here was the
joker—that he possessed the right of citizenship. And anyone accused of a
capital crime was automatically suspended from citizenship until his
innocence had been established.

       Also, no past-tracing evidence could be introduced into a trial unless
it could be proved that it had direct connection with the crime. The average
citizen did have a right of privacy against tracing. Only if accused of a
serious crime was that forfeit, and even then evidence uncovered could be
used only in correlation with the immediate charge. There were various
loopholes, of course, but theoretically a man was safe from espionage as
long as he stayed within the law.

      Now a defendant stood in the dock, his past opened. The prosecution
showed recordings of a ginger blonde blackmailing him, and that clinched
the motive and the verdict—guilty. The condemned man was led off in
tears. Clay got up and walked out of the court. From his appearance, he
seemed to be thinking.

                                     ****

He was. He had decided that there was only one possible way in which he
could kill Vanderman and get away with it. He couldn’t conceal the deed
itself, nor the actions leading up to it, nor any written or spoken word. All he
could hide were his own thoughts. And, without otherwise betraying himself,
he’d have to kill Vanderman so that his act would appear justified. Which
meant covering his tracks for yesterday as well as for tomorrow and
tomorrow.

      Now, thought Clay, this much can be assumed; If I stand to lose by
Vanderman’s death instead of gaining, that will help considerably. I must
juggle that somehow. But I mustn’t forget that at present I have an obvious
motive. First, he stole Bea. Second, he beat me up.

      So I must make it seem as though he’s done me a favor—somehow.

       I must have an opportunity to study Vanderman carefully, and it must
be a normal, logical, waterproof opportunity. Private secretary. Something
like that. The Eye’s in the future now, after the fact, but it’s watching me—

      I must remember that. It’s watching me now!

      All right. Normally, I’d have thought of murder, at this point. That can’t
and shouldn’t be disguised. I must work out of the mood gradually, but
meanwhile—

      He smiled.

       Going off to buy a gun, he felt uncomfortable, as though that
prescient Eye, years in the future, could with a wink summon the police. But
it was separated from him by a barrier of time that only the natural
processes could shorten. And, in fact, it had been watching him since his
birth. You could look at it that way—

      He could defy it. The Eye couldn’t read thoughts.

       He bought the gun and lay in wait for Vanderman in a dark alley. But
first he got thoroughly drunk. Drunk enough to satisfy the Eye.

      After that—

                                      ****

“Feel better now?” Vanderman asked, pouring another coffee.

      Clay buried his face in his hands.

      “I was crazy,” he said, his voice muffled. “I must have been. You’d
better t-turn me over to the police.”

     “We can forget about that end of it, Clay. You were drunk, that’s all.
And I…well, I—”

      “I pull a gun on you ... try to kill you…and you bring me up to your
place and—”

      “You didn’t use that gun, Clay. Remember that. You’re no killer. All this
has been my fault. I needn’t have been so blasted tough with you,”
Vanderman said, looking like Coeur-de-Lion in spite of uncalculated amber
fluorescence.

      “I’m no good. I’m a failure. Every time I try to do something, a man
like you comes along and does it better. I’m a second-rater.”

     “Clay, stop talking like that. You’re just upset, that’s all. Listen to me.
You’re going to straighten up. I’m going to see that you do. Starting
tomorrow, we’ll work something out. Now drink your coffee.”
      “You know,” Clay said, “you’re quite a guy.”

                                     ****

So the magnanimous idiot’s fallen for it, Clay thought, as he was drifting
happily off to sleep. Fine. That begins to take care of the Eye. Moreover, it
starts the ball rolling with Vanderman. Let a man do you a favor and he’s
your pal. Well, Vanderman’s going to do me a lot more favors. In fact,
before I’m through, I’ll have every motive for wanting to keep him alive.

      Every motive visible to the naked Eye.

                                     ****

Probably Clay had not heretofore applied his talents in the right direction,
for there was nothing second-rate about the way he executed his homicide
plan. In that, he proved very capable. He needed a suitable channel for his
ability, and perhaps he needed a patron. Vanderman fulfilled that function;
probably it salved his conscience for stealing Bea. Being the man he was,
Vanderman needed to avoid even the appearance of ignobility. Naturally
strong and ruthless, he told himself he was sentimental. His sentimentality
never reached the point of actually incon-veniencing him, and Clay knew
enough to stay within the limits.

       Nevertheless it is nerve-racking to know you’re living under the
scrutiny of an extratemporal Eye. As he walked into the lobby of the V
Building a month later, Clay realized that light-vibrations reflected from his
own body were driving irretrievably into the polished onyx walls and floor,
photographing themselves there, waiting for a machine to unlock them,
some day, some time, for some man perhaps in this very city, who as yet
didn’t know even the name of Sam Clay. Then, sitting in his relaxer in the
spiral lift moving swiftly up inside the walls, he knew that those walls were
capturing his image, stealing it, like some superstition he
remembered…ah?

      Vanderman’s private secretary greeted him. Clay let his gaze wander
freely across that young person’s neatly dressed figure and mildly attractive
face. She said that Mr. Vanderman was out, and the appointment was for
three, not two, wasn’t it? Clay referred to a notebook. He snapped his
fingers.

     “Three—you’re right, Miss Wells. I was so sure it was two I didn’t
even bother to check up. Do you think he might be back sooner? I mean, is
he out, or in conference?”

     “He’s out, all right, Mr. Clay,” Miss Wells said. “I don’t think he’ll be
back much sooner than three. I’m sorry.”

      “Well, may I wait in here?”

    She smiled at him efficiently. “Of course. There’s a stereo and the
magazine spools are in that case.”

       She went back to her work, and Clay skimmed through an article
about the care and handling of lunar filchards. It gave him an opportunity to
start a conversation by asking Miss Wells if she liked filchards. It turned out
that she had no opinion whatso-ever of filchards but the ice had been
broken.

      This is the cocktail acquaintance, Clay thought. I may have a broken
heart, but, naturally, I’m lonesome.

      The trick wasn’t to get engaged to Miss Wells so much as to fall in
love with her convincingly. The Eye never slept. Clay was beginning to wake
at night with a nervous start, and lie there looking up at the ceiling. But
darkness was no shield.

                                      ****

“The question is,” said the sociologist at this point, “whether or not Clay was
acting for an audience.”

      “You mean us?”

      “Exactly. It just occurred to me. Do you think he’s been behaving
perfectly naturally?”

      The engineer pondered.

      “I’d say yes. A man doesn’t marry a girl only to carry out some other
plan, does he? After all, he’d get himself involved in a whole new batch of
responsibilities.”

     “Clay hasn’t married Josephine Wells yet, however,” the sociologist
countered. “Besides, that responsibility angle might have applied a few
hundred years ago, but not now.” He went off at random. “Imagine a society
where, after divorce, a man was forced to support a perfectly healthy,
competent woman! It was vestigial, I know—a throwback to the days when
only males could earn a living—but imagine the sort of women who were
willing to accept such support. That was reversion to infancy if I ever—”

      The engineer coughed.

     “Oh,” the sociologist said. “Oh…yes. The question is, would Clay
have got himself engaged to a woman unless he really—’’

      “Engagements can be broken.”

      “This one hasn’t been broken yet, as far as we know. And we know.”

     “A normal man wouldn’t plan on marrying a girl he didn’t care anything
about, unless he had some stronger motive—I’ll go along that far.”

       “But how normal is Clay?” the sociologist wondered. “Did he know in
advance we’d check back on his past? Did you notice that he cheated at
solitaire?”

      “Proving?”

      “There are all kinds of trivial things you don’t do if you think people are
looking. Picking up a penny in the street, drinking soup out of the bowl,
posing before a mirror—the sort of foolish or petty things everyone does
when alone. Either Clay’s innocent, or he’s a very clever man—”

                                      ****

He was a very clever man. He never intended the engagement to get as far
as marriage, though he knew that in one respect marriage would be a
precaution. If a man talks in his sleep, his wife will certainly mention the fact.
Clay considered gagging himself at night if the necessity should arise.
Then he realized that if he talked in his sleep at all, there was no insurance
against talking too much the very first time he had an auditor. He couldn’t
risk such a break. But there was no necessity, after all. Clay’s problem,
when he thought it over, was simply: How can I be sure I don’t talk in my
sleep?

      He solved that easily enough by renting a narcohypnotic
sup-plementary course in common trade dialects. This involved study-ing
while awake and getting the information repeated in his ear during slumber.
As a necessary preparation for the course, he was instructed to set up a
recorder and chart the depth of his sleep, so the narcohypnosis could be
keyed to his individual rhythms. He did this several times, rechecked once a
month thereafter, and was satisfied. There was no need to gag himself at
night.

      He was glad to sleep provided he didn’t dream. He had to take
sedatives after a while. At night, there was relief from the knowledge that an
Eye watched him always, an Eye that could bring him to justice, an Eye
whose omnipotence he could not challenge in the open. But he dreamed
about the Eye.

      Vanderman had given him a job in the organization, which was
enormous. Clay was merely a cog, which suited him well enough, for the
moment. He didn’t want any more favors yet. Not till he had found out the
extent of Miss Wells’ duties— Josephine, her Christian name was. That
took several months, but by that time friendship was ripening into affection.
So Clay asked Vanderman for another job. He specified. It wasn’t obvious,
but he was asking for work that would, presently, fit him for Miss Wells’
duties.

      Vanderman probably still felt guilty about Bea; he’d married her and
she was in Antarctica now, at the Casino. Vanderman was due to join her,
so he scribbled a memorandum, wished Clay good luck, and went to
Antarctica, bothered by no stray pangs of conscience. Clay improved the
hour by courting Jose-phine ardently.

      From what he had heard about the new Mrs. Vanderman, he felt
secretly relieved. Not long ago, when he had been content to remain
passive, the increasing dominance of Bea would have satisfied him, but no
more. He was learning self reliance, and liked it. These days, Bea was
behaving rather badly. Given all the money and freedom she could use, she
had too much time on her hands. Once in a while Clay heard rumors that
made him smile secretly. Vanderman wasn’t having an easy time of it. A
dominant character, Bea—but Vanderman was no weakling himself.

     After a while Clay told his employer he wanted to marry Josephine
Wells. “I guess that makes us square,” he said. “You took Bea away from
me and I’m taking Josie away from you.”

      “Now wait a minute,” Vanderman said. “I hope you don’t—”

      “My fiancée, your secretary. That’s all. The thing is, Josie and I are in
love.” He poured it on, but carefully. It was easier to deceive Vanderman
than the Eye, with its trained technicians and forensic sociologists looking
through it. He thought, sometime, of those medieval pictures of an
immense eye, and that reminded him of something vague and distressing,
though he couldn’t isolate the memory.

       After all, what could Vanderman do? He arranged to have Clay given
a raise. Josphine, always conscientious, offered to keep on working for a
while, till office routine was straightened out, but it never did get
straightened out, somehow. Clay deftly saw to that by keeping Josephine
busy. She didn’t have to bring work home to her apartment, but she brought
it, and Clay gradually began to help her when he dropped by. His job, plus
the narcohypnotic courses, had already trained him for this sort of tricky
organizational work. Vanderman’s business was highly
specialized—planet-wide exports and imports, and what with keeping track
of specific groups, seasonal trends, sectarian holidays, and so forth,
Josephine, as a sort of animated memorandum book for Vanderman, had a
more than full-time job.

       She and Clay postponed marriage for a time. Clay—naturally
enough—began to appear mildly jealous of Josephine’s work, and she said
she’d quit soon. But one night she stayed on at the office, and he went out
in a pet and got drunk. It just happened to be raining that night, Clay got
tight enough to walk unpro-tected through the drizzle, and to fall asleep at
home in his wet clothes. He came down with influenza. As he was
recovering, Josephine got it.

     Under the circumstances, Clay stepped in—purely a temporary
job—and took over his fiancée’s duties. Office routine was extremely
complicated that week, and only Clay knew the ins and outs of it. The
arrangement saved Vanderman a certain amount of inconvenience, and,
when the situation resolved itself, Josephine had a subsidiary job and Clay
was Vanderman’s private secretary.

      “I’d better know more about him,” Clay said to Josephine. “After all,
there must be a lot of habits and foibles he’s got that need to be catered to.
If he wants lunch ordered up, I don’t want to get smoked tongue and find
out he’s allergic to it. What about his hobbies?”

     But he was careful not to pump Josephine too hard, because of the
Eye. He still needed sedatives to sleep.

                                    ****

The sociologist rubbed his forehead.

     “Let’s take a break,” he suggested. “Why does a guy want to commit
murder anyway?”

     “For profit, one sort or another.”

      “Only partly, I’d say. The other part is an unconscious desire to be
punished—usually for something else. That’s why you get accident prones.
Ever think about what happens to murderers who feel guilty and yet who
aren’t punished by the Law? They must live a rotten sort of life—always
stepping in front of speedsters, cutting themselves with an
ax—accidentally; acciden-tally touching wires full of juice—“

     “Conscience, eh?”

      “A long time ago, people thought God sat in the sky with a telescope
and watched everything they did. They really lived pretty carefully, in the
Middle Ages—the first Middle Ages, I mean. Then there was the era of
disbelief, where people had nothing to believe in very strongly—and finally
we get this.” He nodded toward the screen. “A universal memory. By
extension, it’s a universal social conscience, an externalized one. It’s
ex-actly the same as the medieval concept of God—omniscience.”

     “But not omnipotence.”

     “Mm.”

                                    ****

All in all, Clay kept the Eye in mind for a year and a half. Before he said or
did anything whatsoever, he reminded himself of the Eye, and made certain
that he wasn’t revealing his motive to the judging future. Of course, there
was—would be—an Ear, too, but that was a little too absurd. One couldn’t
visualize a large, disembodied Ear decorating the wall like a plate in a plate
holder. All the same, whatever he said would be as important
evidence—some time—as what he did. So Sam Clay was very careful
indeed, and behaved like Caesar’s wife. He wasn’t ex-actly defying
authority, but he was certainly circumventing it.

       Superficially Vanderman was more like Caesar, and his wife was not
above reproach, these days. She had too much money to play with. And
she was finding her husband too stony willed a person to be completely
satisfactory. There was enough of the matriarch in Bea to make her feel
rebellion against Andrew Vanderman, and there was a certain lack of
romance. Vanderman had little time for her. He was busy these days,
involved with a whole string of deals which demanded much of his time.
Clay, of course, had something to do with that. His interest in his new work
was most laudable. He stayed up nights plotting and plan-ning as though
expecting Vanderman to make him a full partner. In fact, he even
suggested this possibility to Josephine. He wanted it on the record. The
marriage date had been set, and Clay wanted to move before then; he had
no intention of being drawn into a marriage of convenience after the
necessity had been removed.

       One thing he did, which had to be handled carefully, was to get the
whip. Now Vanderman was a fingerer. He liked to have something in his
hands while he talked. Usually it was a crystal-line paper weight, with a
miniature thunderstorm in it, complete with lightning, when it was shaken.
Clay put this where Vanderman would be sure to knock it off and break it.
Meanwhile, he had plugged one deal with Callisto Ranches for the sole
purpose of getting a whip for Vanderman’s desk. The natives were proud of
their leatherwork and their silversmithing, and a nominal make-weight always
went with every deal they closed. Thus, presently, a handsome miniature
whip, with Vanderman’s initials on it, lay on the desk, coiled into a loop,
acting as a paperweight except when he picked it up and played with it while
he talked.

       The other weapon Clay wanted was already there—an antique paper
knife, once called a surgical scalpel. He never let his gaze rest on it too
long, because of the Eye.

      The other whip came. He absentmindedly put it in his desk and
pretended to forget it. It was a sample of the whips made by the Alaskan
Flagellantes for use in their ceremonies, and was wanted because of some
research being made into the pain-neutralizing drugs the Flagellantes used.
Clay, of course, had engi-neered this deal, too. There was nothing
suspicious about that; the firm stood to make a sound profit. In fact,
Vanderman had promised him a percentage bonus at the end of the year
on every deal he triggered. It would be quite a lot. It was December, a year
and a half had passed since Clay first recognized that the Eye would seek
him out.

      He felt fine. He was careful about the sedatives, and his nerves,
though jangled, were nowhere near the snapping point. It had been a strain,
but he had trained himself so that he would make no slips. He visualized the
Eye in the walls, in the ceiling, in the sky, everywhere he went. It was the
only way to play completely safe. And very soon now it would pay off. But
he would have to do it soon; such a nervous strain could not be continued
indefinitely.
      A few details remained. He carefully arranged matters—under the
Eye’s very nose, so to speak—so that he was offered a well-paying
position with another firm. He turned it down.

      And one night an emergency happened to arise so that Clay, very
logically, had to go to Vanderman’s apartment.

      Vanderman wasn’t there; Bea was. She had quarreled vio-lently with
her husband. Moreover, she had been drinking. (This, too, he had
expected.) If the situation had not worked out exactly as he wanted, he
would have tried again—and again— but there was no need.

      Clay was a little politer than necessary. Perhaps too polite, certainly
Bea, that incipient matriarch, was led down the garden path, a direction she
was not unwilling to take. After all, she had married Vanderman for his
money, found him as dominant as herself, and now saw Clay as an
exaggerated symbol of both romance and masculine submissiveness.

      The camera eye hidden in the wall, in a decorative bas-relief, was
grinding away busily, spooling up its wiretape in a way that indicated
Vanderman was a suspicious as well as a jealous husband. But Clay knew
about this gadget, too. At the suitable moment he stumbled against the wall
in such a fashion that the device broke. Then, with only that other eye
spying on him, he suddenly became so virtuous that it was a pity
Vanderman couldn’t witness his volte face.

      “Listen, Bea,” he said, “I’m sorry, but I didn’t understand. It’s no good.
I’m not in love with you anymore. I was once, sure, but that was quite a while
ago. There’s somebody else, and you ought to know it by now.”

      “You still love me,” Bea said with intoxicated firmness. “We belong
together.”

      “Bea. Please. I hate to have to say this, but I’m grateful to Andrew
Vanderman for marrying you, I…well, you got what you wanted, and I’m
getting what I want. Let’s leave it at that.”

       “I’m used to getting what I want, Sam. Opposition is some-thing I
don’t like. Especially when I know you really—”

      She said a good deal more, and so did Clay—he was perhaps
unnecessarily harsh. But he had to make the point, for the Eye, that he was
no longer jealous of Vanderman.
     He made the point.

                                    ****

The next morning he got to the office before Vanderman, cleaned up his
desk, and discovered the stingaree whip still in its box. “Oops,” he said,
snapping his fingers—the Eye watched, and this was the crucial period.
Perhaps it would all be over within the hour. Every move from now on would
have to be specially calculated in advance, and there could be no slightest
deviation. The Eye was everywhere—literally everywhere.

      He opened the box, took out the whip, and went into the inner
sanctum. He tossed the whip on Vanderman’s desk, sp carelessly that a
stylus rack toppled. Clay rearranged everything, leaving the stingaree whip
near the edge of the desk, and placing the Callistan silver-leather whip at
the back, half concealed behind the interoffice visor-box. He didn’t allow
himself more than a casual sweeping glance to make sure the paper knife
was still there.

     Then he went out for coffee.

                                    ****

Half an hour later he got back, picked up a few letters for signature from the
rack, and walked into Vanderman’s office. Vanderman looked up from
behind his desk. He had changed a little in a year and a half; he was looking
older, less noble, more like an aging bulldog. Once, Clay thought coldly,
this man stole my fiancée and beat me up.

     Careful. Remember the Eye.

      There was no need to do anything but follow the plan and let events
take their course. Vanderman had seen the spy films, all right, up to the
point where they had gone blank, when Clay fell against the wall. Obviously
he hadn’t really expected Clay to show up this morning. But to see the
louse grinning hello, walking across the room, putting some letters down on
his desk—

      Clay was counting on Vanderman’s short temper, which had not
improved over the months. Obviously the man had been simply sitting
there, thinking unpleasant thoughts, and just as Clay had known would
happen, he’d picked up the whip and begun to finger it. But it was the
stingaree whip this time.
      “Morning,” Clay said cheerfully to his stunned employer. His smile
became one-sided. “I’ve been waiting for you to check this letter to the
Kirghiz kovar-breeders. Can we find a market for two thousand of those
ornamental horns?”

      It was at this point that Vanderman, bellowing, jumped to his feet,
swung the whip, and sloshed Clay across the face. There is probably
nothing more painful than the bite of a stingaree whip.

      Clay staggered back. He had not known it would hurt so much. For an
instant the shock of the blow knocked every other consideration out of his
head, and blind anger was all that remained.

     Remember the Eye!

      He remembered it. There were dozens of trained men watch-ing
everything he did just now. Literally he stood on an open stage surrounded
by intent observers who made notes on every expression of his face, every
muscular flection, every breath he drew.

      In a moment Vanderman would be dead—but Sam Clay would not be
alone. An invisible audience from the future was fixing him with cold,
calculating eyes. He had one more thing to do and the job would be over.
Do it—carefully, carefully!—while they watched.

     Time stopped for him. The job would be over.

      It was very curious. He had rehearsed this series of actions so often
in the privacy of his mind that his body was going through with it now,
without further instructions. His body staggered back from the blow,
recovered balance, glared at Vanderman in shocked fury, poised for a dive
at that paper knife in plain sight on the desk.

      That was what the outward and visible Sam Clay was doing. But the
inward and spiritual Sam Clay went through quite a different series of
actions.

     The job would be over.

     And what was he going to do after that?

      The inward and spiritual murderer stood fixed with dismay and
surprise, staring at a perfectly empty future. He had never looked beyond
this moment. He had made no plans for his life beyond the death of
Vanderman. But now—he had no enemy but Vanderman. When
Vanderman was dead, what would he fix upon to orient his life? What would
he work at then? His job would be gone, too. And he liked his job.

        Suddenly he knew how much he liked it. He was good at it. For the
first time in his life, he had found a job he could do really well.

      You can’t live a year and a half in a new environment without acquiring
new goals. The change had come imperceptibly. He was a good operator;
he’d discovered that he could be successful. He didn’t have to kill
Vanderman to prove that to himself. He’d proved it already without
committing murder.

     In that time-stasis which had brought everything to a full stop he
looked lit Vanderman’s red face and he thought of Bea, and of Vanderman
as he had come to know him—and he didn’t want to be a murderer.

      He didn’t want Vanderman dead. He didn’t want Bea. The thought of
her made him feel a little sick. Perhaps that was because he himself had
changed from passive to active. He no longer wanted or needed a
dominant woman. He could make his own decisions. If he were choosing
now, it would be someone more like Josephine—

      Josephine. That image before his mind’s stilled eye was sud-denly
very pleasant. Josephine with her mild, calm prettiness, her admiration for
Sam Clay the successful businessman, the rising young importer in
Vanderman, Inc. Josephine whom he was going to marry—Of course he
was going to marry her. He loved Josephine. He loved his job. All he
wanted was the status quo, exactly as he had achieved it. Everything was
perfect right now—as of maybe thirty seconds ago.

      But that was a long time ago—thirty seconds. A lot can happen in a
half a minute. A lot had happened. Vanderman was coming at him again,
the whip raised. Clay’s nerves crawled at the anticipation’ of its burning
impact across his face a second time. If he could get hold of Vanderman’s
wrist before he struck again—if he could talk fast enough—

       The crooked smile was still on his face. It was part of the pattern, in
some dim way he did not quite understand. He was acting in response to
conditioned reflexes set up over a period of many months of rigid
self-training. His body was already in action. All that had taken place in his
mind had happened so fast there was no physical hiatus at all. His body
knew its job and it was doing the job. It was lunging forward toward the desk
and the knife, and he could not stop it.
        All this had happened before. It had happened in his mind, the only
place where Sam Clay had known real freedom in the past year and a half.
In all that time he had forced himself to realize that the Eye was watching
every outward move he made. He had planned each action in advance and
schooled himself to carry it through. Scarcely once had he let himself act
purely on impulse. Only in following the plan exactly was there safety. He
had indoctrinated himself too successfully.

      Something was wrong. This wasn’t what he’d wanted. He was still
afraid, weak, failing—

       He lurched against the desk, clawed at the paper knife, and, knowing
failure, drove it into Vanderman’s heart.

                                       ****

“It’s a tricky case,” the forensic sociologist said to the engineer. “Very
tricky.”

         “Want me to run it again?”

      “No, not right now. I’d like to think it over. Clay…that firm that offered
him another job. The offer’s withdrawn now, isn’t it? Yes, I
remember—they’re fussy about the morals of their employees. It’s
insurance or something, I don’t know. Motive. Motive, now.”

         The sociologist looked at the engineer.

      The engineer said: “A year and a half ago he had a motive. But a
week ago he had everything to lose and nothing to gain. He’s lost his job
and that bonus, he doesn’t want Mrs. Vanderman anymore, and as for that
beating Vanderman once gave him…ah?”

      “Well, he did try to shoot Vanderman once, and he couldn’t,
remember? Even though he was full of Dutch courage. But— something’s
wrong. Clay’s been avoiding even the appearance of evil a little too
carefully. Only I can’t put my finger on anything, blast it.”

         “What about tracing back his life further? We only got to his fourth
year.”

      “There couldn’t be anything useful that long ago. It’s obvious he was
afraid of his father and hated him, too. Typical stuff, basic psych. The father
symbolizes judgment to him. I’m very much afraid Sam Clay is going to get
off scot-free.”

      “But if you think there’s something haywire—”

      “The burden of proof is up to us,” the sociologist said.

      The visor sang. A voice spoke softly.

      “No, I haven’t got the answer yet. Now? All right. I’ll drop over.”

      He stood up.

      “The D.A. wants a consultation. I’m not hopeful, though. I’m afraid the
State’s going to lose this case. That’s the trouble with the externalized
conscience—”

      He didn’t amplify. He went out, shaking his head, leaving the engineer
staring speculatively at the screen. But within five minutes he was assigned
to another job—the bureau was understaffed—and he didn’t have a chance
to investigate on his own until a week later. Then it didn’t matter anymore.

                                     ****

For, a week later, Sam Clay was walking out of the court an acquitted man.
Bea Vanderman was waiting for him at the foot of the ramp. She wore
black, but obviously her heart wasn’t in it.

      “Sam,” she said.

      He looked at her.

       He felt a little dazed. It was all over. Everything had worked out exactly
according to plan. And nobody was watching him now. The Eye had closed.
The invisible audience had put on its hats and coats and left the theater of
Sam Clay’s private life. From now on he could do and say precisely what he
liked, with no censoring watcher’s omnipresence to check him. He could act
on impulse again.

        He had outwitted society. He had outwitted the Eye and all its minions
in all their technological glory. He, Sam Clay, private citizen. It was a
wonderful thing, and he could not understand why it left him feeling so flat.

      That had been a nonsensical moment, just before the murder. The
moment of relenting. They say you get the same instant’s frantic rejection
on the verge of a good many important decisions— just before you marry,
for instance. Or—what was it? Some other common instance he’d often
heard of. For a second it eluded him. Then he had it. The hour before
marriage—and the instant after suicide. After you’ve pulled the trigger, or
jumped off the bridge. The instant of wild revulsion when you’d give
anything to undo the irrevocable. Only, you can’t. It’s too late. The thing is
done.

       Well, he’d been a fool. Luckily, it had been too late. His body took
over and forced him to success he’d trained it for. About the job—it didn’t
matter. He’d get another. He’d proved himself capable. If he could outwit
the Eye itself, what job existed he couldn’t lick if he tried? Except—nobody
knew exactly how good he was. How could he prove his capabilities? It was
infuriating to achieve such phenomenal success after a lifetime of failures,
and never to get the credit for it. How many men must have tried and failed
where he had tried and succeeded? Rich men, successful men, brilliant
men who had yet failed in the final test of all—the contest with the Eye, their
own lives at stake. Only Sam Clay had passed that most important test in
the world—and he could never claim credit for it.

      “... knew they wouldn’t convict,” Bea’s complacent voice was saying.

      Clay blinked at her. “What?”

        “I said I’m so glad you’re free, darling. I knew they wouldn’t convict
you. I knew that from the very beginning.” She smiled at him, and for the
first time it occurred to him that Bea looked a little like a bulldog. It was
something about her lower jaw. He thought that when her teeth were closed
together the lower set probably rested just outside the upper. He had an
instant’s impulse to ask her about it. Then he decided he had better not.

      “You knew, did you?” he said.

      She squeezed his arm. What an ugly lower jaw that was. How odd
he’d never noticed it before. And behind the heavy lashes, how small her
eyes were. How mean.

     “Let’s go where we can be alone,” Bea said, clinging to him. “There’s
such a lot to talk about.”

     “We are alone,” Clay said, diverted for an instant to his original
thoughts. “Nobody’s watching,” He glanced up at the sky and down at the
mosaic pavement. He drew a long breath and let it out slowly. “Nobody,” he
said.

        “My speeder’s parked right over here. We can—”

        “Sorry, Bea.”

        “What do you mean?”

        “I’ve got business to attend to.”

        “Forget business. Don’t you understand that we’re free now, both of
us?”

        He had a horrible feeling he knew what she meant.

      “Wait a minute,” he said, because this seemed the quickest way to
end it. “I killed your husband, Bea. Don’t forget that.”

        “You were acquitted. It was self-defense. The court said so.”

      “It—” He paused, glanced up quickly at the high wall of the Justice
Building, and began a one-sided, mirthless smile. It was all right; there was
no Eye now. There never would be, again. He was unwatched.

     “You mustn’t feel guilty, even within yourself,” Bea said firmly. “It
wasn’t your fault. It simply wasn’t. You’ve got to remember that. You
couldn’t have killed Andrew except by accident, Sam, so—”

        “What? What do you mean by that?”

      “Well, after all. I know the prosecution kept trying to prove you’d
planned to kill Andrew all along, but you mustn’t let what they said put any
ideas in your head. I know you, Sam. I knew Andrew. You couldn’t have
planned a thing like that, and even if you had, it wouldn’t have worked.”

        The half-smile died.

        “It wouldn’t?”

        She looked at him steadily.

      “Why, you couldn’t have managed it,” she said. “Andrew was the
better man, and we both know it. He’d have been too clever to fall for
anything—”
       “Anything a second rater like me could dream up?” Clay swallowed.
His lips tightened. “Even you. What’s the idea? What’s your angle
now—that we second-raters ought to get together?”

      “Come on,” she said, and slipped her arm through his. Clay hung
back for a second. Then he scowled, looked back at the Justice Building,
and followed Bea toward her speeder.

                                     ****

The engineer had a free period. He was finally able to investi-gate Sam
Clay’s early childhood. It was purely academic now, but he liked to indulge
his curiosity. He traced Clay back to the dark closet, when the boy was four,
and used ultraviolet. Sam was huddled in a corner, crying silently, staring up
with fright-ened eyes at a top shelf.

      What was on that shelf the engineer could not see.

      He kept the beam focused on the closet and cast back rapidly
through time. The closet often opened and closed, and some-times Sam
Clay was locked in it as punishment, but the upper shelf held its mystery
until—

      It was in reverse. A woman reached to that shelf, took down an
object, walked backward out of the closet to Sam Clay’s bedroom, and
went to the wall by the door. This was unusual, for generally it was Sam’s
father who was warden of the closet.

     She hung up a framed picture of a single huge staring eye floating in
space. There was a legend under it. The letters spelled out: THOU GOD
SEEST ME.

      The engineer kept on tracing. After a while it was night. The child was
in bed, sitting up wide-eyed, afraid. A man’s footsteps sounded on the stair.
The scanner told all secrets but those of the inner mind. The man was
Sam’s father, coming up to punish him for some childish crime committed
earlier. Moonlight fell upon the wall beyond which the footsteps approached
showing how the wall quivered a little to the vibrations of the feet, and the
Eye in its frame quivered, too. The boy seemed to brace himself. A defiant
half-smile showed on his mouth, crooked, unsteady.

     This time he’d keep that smile, no matter what happened. When it
was over he’d still have it, so his father could see it, and the Eye could see
it and they’d know he hadn’t given in. He hadn’t…he—

      The door opened.

      He couldn’t help it. The smile faded and was gone.

                                     ****

“Well, what was eating him?” the engineer demanded.

       The sociologist shrugged. “You could say he never did really grow
up. It’s axiomatic that boys go through a phase of rivalry with their fathers.
Usually that’s sublimated; the child grows up and wins, in one way or
another. But Sam Clay didn’t. I suspect he developed an externalized
conscience very early. Symbolizing partly his father, partly God, an Eye and
society—which fulfills the role of protective, punishing parent, you know.”

      “It still isn’t evidence.”

       “We aren’t going to get any evidence on Sam Clay. But that doesn’t
mean he’s got away with anything, you know. He’s always been afraid to
assume the responsibilities of maturity. He never took on an optimum
challenge. He was afraid to succeed at anything because that symbolic Eye
of his might smack him down. When he was a kid, he might have solved his
entire problem by kicking his old man in the shins. Sure, he’d have got a
harder whaling, but he’d have made some move to assert his individuality.
As it is, he waited too long. And then he defied the wrong thing, and it
wasn’t really defiance, basically. Too late now. His formative years are past.
The thing that might really solve Clay’s problem would be his conviction for
murder— but he’s been acquitted. If he’d been convicted, then he could
prove to the world that he’d hit back. He’d kicked his father in the shins, kept
that defiant smile on his face, killed Andrew Vanderman. I think that’s what
he actually has wanted all along—recognition. Proof of his own ability to
assert himself. He had to work hard to cover his tracks—if he made
any—but that was part of the game. By winning it he’s lost. The normal ways
of escape are closed to him. He always had an Eye looking down at him.”

      “Then the acquittal stands?”

      “There’s still no evidence. The State’s lost its case. But I…I don’t
think Sam Clay has won his. Something will happen.” He sighed. “It’s
inevitable, I’m afraid. Sentence first, you see. Verdict afterward. The
sentence was passed on Clay a long time ago.”
       Sitting across from him in the Paradise Bar, behind a silver decanter
of brandy in the center of the table, Bea looked lovely and hateful. It was
the lights that made her lovely. They even managed to cast their shadows
over that bulldog chin, and under her thick lashes the small, mean eyes
acquired an illusion of beauty. But she still looked hateful. The lights could
do nothing about that. They couldn’t cast shadows into Sam Clay’s private
mind or distort the images there.

       He thought of Josephine. He hadn’t made up his mind fully yet about
that. But if he didn’t quite know what he wanted, there was no shadow of
doubt about what he didn’t want no possible doubt whatever.

      “You need me, Sam,” Bea told him over her brimming glass.

      “I can stand on my own feet. I don’t need anybody.”

     It was the indulgent way she looked at him. It was the smile that
showed her teeth. He could see as clearly as if he had X-ray vision how the
upper teeth would close down inside the lower when she shut her mouth.
There would be a lot of strength in a jaw like that. He looked at her neck and
saw the thickness of it, and thought how firmly she was getting her grip
upon him, how she maneuvered for position and waited to lock her bulldog
clamp deep into the fabric of his life again.

      “I’m going to marry Josephine, you know,” he said.

      “No, you’re not. You aren’t the man for Josephine. I know that girl,
Sam. For a while you may have had her convinced you were a go-getter.
But she’s bound to find out the truth. You’d be miserable together. You
need me, Sam darling. You don’t know what you want. Look at the mess
you got into when you tried to act on your own. Oh, Sam, why don’t you stop
pretending? You know you never were a planner. You…what’s the matter,
Sam?”

     His sudden burst of laughter had startled both of them. He tried to
answer her, but the laughter wouldn’t let him. He lay back in his chair and
shook with it until he almost strangled. He had come so close, so
desperately close to bursting out with a boast that would have been
confession. Just to convince the woman. Just to shut her up. He must care
more about her good opinion than he had realized until now. But that last
absurdity was too much. It was only ridiculous now. Sam Clay, not a
planner.

                                     ****
How good it was to let himself laugh, now. To let himself go, without having
to think ahead. Acting on impulse again, after those long months of rigid
repression. No audience from the future was clustering around this table,
analyzing the quality of his laughter, observing that it verged on hysteria.
Who cared? He deserved a little blow-off like this, after all he’d been
through. He’d risked so much, and achieved so much—and in the end
gained nothing, not even glory except in his own mind. He’d gained nothing,
really, except the freedom to be hysterical if he felt like it. He laughed and
laughed and laughed, hearing the shrill note of lost control in his own voice
and not caring.

      People were turning to stare. The bartender looked over at him
uneasily, getting ready to move if this went on. Bea stood up, leaned across
the table, shook him by the shoulder.

     “Sam, what’s the matter? Sam, do get hold of yourself! You’re making
a spectacle of me, Sam! What are you laughing at?”

       With a tremendous effort he forced the laughter back in his throat. His
breath still came heavily and little bursts of merri-ment kept bubbling up so
that he could hardly speak, but he got the words out somehow. They were
probably the first words he had spoken without rigid censorship since he
first put his plan into operation. And the words were these.

       “I’m laughing at the way I fooled you. I fooled everybody! You think I
didn’t know what I was doing every minute of the time? You think I wasn’t
planning, every step of the way? It took me eighteen months to do it, but I
killed Andrew Vanderman with malice aforethought, and nobody can ever
prove I did it.” He giggled foolishly. “I just wanted you to know,” he added in
a mild voice.

      And it wasn’t until he got his breath back and began to experience that
feeling of incredible, delightful, incomparable relief that he knew what he
had done.

       She was looking at him without a flicker of expression on her face.
Total blank was all that showed. There was a dead silence for a quarter of a
minute. Clay had the feeling that his words must have rung from the roof,
that in a moment the police would come in to hale him away. But the words
had been quietly spoken. No one had heard but Bea.

     And now, at last, Bea moved. She answered him, but not in words.
The bulldog face convulsed suddenly and overflowed with laughter.
     As he listened, Clay felt all that flood of glorious relief ebbing away.
For he saw that she did not believe him. And there was no way he could
prove the truth.

      “Oh, you silly little man,” Bea gasped when words came back to her.
“You had me almost convinced for a minute. I almost believed you. I—”
Laughter silenced her again, con-sciously silvery laughter that made heads
turn. That conscious note in it warned him that she was up to something.
Bea had had an idea. His own thoughts outran hers and he knew in an
instant before she spoke exactly what the idea was and how she would
apply it. He said: “I am going to marry Josephine,” in the very instant that
Bea spoke,

     “You’re going to marry me,” she said flatly. “You’ve got to. You don’t
know your own mind, Sam. I know what’s best for you and I’ll see you do it.
Do you understand me, Sam?”

     “The police won’t realize that was only a silly boast,” she told him.
“They’ll believe you. You wouldn’t want me to tell them what you just said,
would you, Sam?”

      He looked at her in silence, seeing no way out. This dilemma had
sharper horns than anything he could have imagined. For Bea did not and
would not believe him, no matter how he yearned to convince her, while the
police undoubtedly would believe him, to the undoing of his whole
investment in time, effort, and murder. He had said it. It was engraved upon
the walls and in the echoing air, waiting for that invisible audience in the
future to observe. No one was listening now, but a word from Bea could
make them reopen the case.

      A word from Bea.

     He looked at her, still in silence, but with a certain cool calculation
beginning to dawn in the back of his mind.

      For a moment Sam Clay felt very tired indeed. In that moment he
encompassed a good deal of tentative future time. In his mind he said yes
to Bea, married her, lived an indefinite period as her husband. And he saw
what that life would be like. He saw the mean small eyes watching him, the
relentlessly gripping jaw set, the tyranny that would emerge slowly or not
slowly, depending on the degree of his subservience, until he was utterly at
the mercy of the woman who had been Andrew Vanderman’s widow.
      Sooner or later, he thought clearly to himself, I’d kill her.

      He’d have to kill. That sort of life, with that sort of woman, wasn’t a life
Sam Clay could live, indefinitely. And he’d proved his ability to kill and go
free.

      But what about Andrew Vanderman’s death?

      Because they’d have another case against him then. This time it had
been qualitative; the next time, the balance would shift toward quantitative. If
Sam Clay’s wife died, Sam Clay would be investigated no matter how she
died. Once a suspect, always a suspect in the eyes of the law. The Eye of
the law. They’d check back. They’d return to this moment, while he sat here
revolving thoughts of death in his mind. And they’d return to five minutes
ago, and listen to him boast that he had killed Vanderman.

      A good lawyer might get him off. He could claim it wasn’t the truth. He
could say he had been goaded to an idle boast by the things Bea said. He
might get away with that, and he might not. Scop would be the only proof,
and he couldn’t be compelled to take scop.

       But—no. That wasn’t the answer. That wasn’t the way out. He could
tell by the sick, sinking feeling inside him. There had been just one glorious
moment of release, after he’d made his confession to Bea, and from then
on everything seemed to run downhill again.

      But that moment had been the goal he’d worked toward all this time.
He didn’t know what it was, or why he wanted it. But he recognized the
feeling when it came. He wanted it back.

     This helpless feeling, this impotence—was this the total sum of what
he had achieved? Then he’d failed, after all. Somehow, in some strange
way he could only partly understand, he had failed; killing Vanderman hadn’t
been the answer at all. He wasn’t a success. He was a second-rater, a
passive, helpless worm whom Bea would manage and control and drive,
eventually, to—

      “What’s the matter, Sam?” Bea asked solicitously.

      “You think I’m a second-rater, don’t you?” he said. “You’ll never
believe I’m not. You think I couldn’t have killed Vanderman except by
accident. You’ll never believe I could possibly have defied—”

      “What?” she asked, when he did not go on.
     There was a new note of surprise in his voice.

     “But it wasn’t defiance,” he said slowly. “I just hid and dodged.
Circumvented. I hung dark glasses on an Eye, because I was afraid of it.
But—that wasn’t defiance. So—what I really was trying to prove—”

     She gave him a startled, incredulous stare as he stood up.

     “Sam! What are you doing?” Her voice cracked a little.

     “Proving something,” Clay said, smiling crookedly, and glanc-ing up
from Bea to the ceiling. “Take a good look,” he said to the Eye as he
smashed her skull with the decanter.

                                   ****