"Only this. Assuming the killer was a person Carmack had reason to mistrust--or to fear--he had to solve the neuro-vibe in order to gain access. Not many persons could have done that, Losch. But _you_ could have done it." Losch came up out of his chair with a heavy, angry look. "Now see here, you--" "Which pretty well establishes motive, means and method. You were in Washington the day of the murder! And you left for Bermuda the day following! Is that substantially correct?" "_Totally_ correct!" said Losch savagely. "Now may I ask what the hell you're going to do about it?" * * * * * Beardsley observed him for a prolonged second. "Remember it," he answered softly. Losch opened his mouth to say more, but Beardsley lifted a palm at the screen and smiled benignly. "Well, sir, I think that about covers it. I want to thank you very much for the record, and--ah--have a nice vacation! Goodbye." With that he clicked off abruptly. * * * * * He turned to face Mandleco, who was struggling between anger and distress as he paced away from the screen and back. He confronted Beardsley with a sad and accusing look. "Now see here, Beardsley! If I'd known your methods were ... don't you think that was all a bit high-handed?" "What? No, not in the least. Didn't you notice?" "Notice what?" "Losch was an angry man, yes, indeed." "Angry," snapped Mandleco. "Good reason!" "No," Beardsley mused. "The _wrong_ reason. Murder--at least the type we're concerned with--is a form of release, you know. A killer may commit his deed in anger, but once the thing is accomplished he never retains that anger long." Beardsley gazed contemplatively at the screen. "You know, I admire that man. I really do. He had the convictions at least, if not the courage." Mandleco pounced on that. "Then you think Losch is innocent?" "I didn't say that!" Beardsley paused in a strange hesitation; his eyes had gone remote beneath the very thick glasses, and his words came slow and isolated. "But he's part of the record. Yes, it should be quite a record. In fact, I have a feeling--you know?--that this case is going to stand as a _monument_ in the annals of crime...." Mandleco stared at him, searched for the meaning there and then gave it up. _Why had he ever committed himself to this situation anyway? Did this little man really know as much as he pretended, or was he merely fumbling around in the dregs of a forgotten past?_ To be sure, Beardsley was a pathetic enough figure; but the man had once been great in his field, and there was something about him even now.... There was the sudden way Beardsley had of losing his abstracted look, the eyes beneath those ridiculous lenses coming to a sharp bright focus with tiny livening flecks in the gray of the iris; and the way the change lifted his features from mediocrity to the alertness of a terrier. It was absurd, it was farcical ... and it was all very disturbing.