Phil Riggs broke the silence following our inspection of Lomax's cabin. "That damned Bullard! I'll get him, I'll get him as sure as he got Hal!" There was a rustle among the others, and a suddenly crystallized hate on their faces. But Muller's hoarse shout cut through the babble that began, and rose over even the anguished shrieking of the cook. "Shut up, the lot of you! Bullard couldn't have committed the other crimes. Any one of you is a better suspect. Stop snivelling, Bullard, this isn't a lynching mob, and it isn't going to be one!" "What about Grundy?" Walt Harris yelled. Wilcox pushed forward. "Grundy couldn't have done it. He's the logical suspect, but he was playing rummy with my men." The two engine men nodded agreement, and we began filing back to the mess hall, with the exception of Bullard, who shoved back into a niche, trying to avoid us. Then, when we were almost out of his sight, he let out a shriek and came blubbering after us. I watched them put Hal Lomax's body through the 'tween-hulls lock, and turned toward the engine room; I could use some of that wine, just as the ship could have used a trained detective. But the idea of watching helplessly while the engines purred along to remind me I was just a handyman for the rest of my life got mixed up with the difficulty of breathing the stale air, and I started to turn back. My head was throbbing, and for two cents I'd have gone out between the hulls beside Lomax and the others and let the foul air spread out there and freeze.... The idea was slow coming. Then I was running back toward the engines. I caught up with Wilcox just before he went into his own quarters. "Wilcox!" He swung around casually, saw it was me, and motioned inside. "How about some Bartok, Paul? Or would you rather soothe your nerves with some first-rate Buxtehude organ...." "Damn the music," I told him. "I've got a wild idea to get rid of this carbon dioxide, and I want to know if we can get it working with what we've got." He snapped to attention at that. Half-way through my account, he fished around and found a bottle of Armagnac. "I get it. If we pipe our air through the passages between the hulls on the shadow side, it will lose its heat in a hurry. And we can regulate its final temperature by how fast we pipe it through--just keep it moving enough to reach the level where carbon dioxide freezes out, but the oxygen stays a gas. Then pass it around the engines--we'll have to cut out the normal cooling set-up, but that's okay--warm it up.... Sure, I've got equipment enough for that. We can set it up in a day. Of course, it won't give us any more oxygen, but we'll be able to breathe what we have. To success, Paul!" I guess it was good brandy, but I swallowed mine while calling Muller down, and never got to taste it.