Everywhere was negative evidence. Rated "Inconclusive" by all men who studied evidence as a means of extracting fact. Ex-Lieutenant Jeffries was no scientist: he was a policeman. He worked with hard facts always, and every case had its hidden clues of concrete fact. They all pointed out who the criminal was; seldom did they point conclusively to all possible suspects and point out who the criminal was not, save one. Therefore Jeffries was not experienced in coping with reams of negative evidence. But he knew that he had nothing but negative evidence upon which to work. So, blunderingly, he went to work on the long, arduous process of elimination. He wrote down his facts: Black Morgan's ship was capable of exceeding the speed of light according to data. This was claimed impossible by all who knew about it and studied it. Black Morgan, unerringly, was able to intercept a spacecraft traveling at twenty-five hundred miles per second. Black Morgan was capable of coming up at a speed exceeding light, and decelerating to match the velocity of the ship in a matter of milliseconds. This would produce untold decelerative gravities in the ship--no man could hope to live and it was doubtful that any machine could withstand that treatment. At least, any machine of the size of a spaceship. Black Morgan owned a large spacecraft of marked design. No spacecraft construction company had made it, and the construction of spacecraft is not a small project. This eliminates the possibility of small-yard construction and definitely removes the possibility of self-construction. Men have made boats in their basements, and automobiles in their attics, but no man has ever built a battleship or a spacecraft without owning a huge construction company. The construction companies had all been investigated thoroughly. Black Morgan was not operating one on the side. He had no connection large enough to get a craft built and forgotten about. Besides, there was a fantastic reward for information of that nature, enough that any workman would be a fool to ignore it, and deliberately forget that he had once driven a rivet into the spacecraft now known as the _Black Morgan_. Then Jeffries reread his statements. They added up to one thing: Black Morgan did not exist! Black Morgan was the Impossible Pirate. _So_, he thought, _if Morgan does not exist, then he is a fantasy, a myth. The only evidence that is not strictly negative is the fact that an armed man enters the spacecraft in a standard spacesuit and holds up the passengers._ _Instruments do not lie, but it is possible to fudge up a detector. Either from the inside or externally. As for items A, B, C, and the rest, well--_ _Maybe Black Morgan didn't exist!_ _And if Black Morgan did not exist, ex-Lieutenant Jeffries knew how to catch him!_ * * * * *