Part 2

Zitts looked at the woman with pity in his brown eyes. "Woman, you evidently do not understand the psychology of murder. One always leads to another. It's always been that way. Look at the murder stories of even the blind age of the twentieth century! Thirteen murders, ordinarily, on the first page. Seven on the second, and the balance strung out through the book. It is the aspiration of every collector to find a book with only one murder in it. Personally, for such a work I would offer seventy-five interstellar giant transports each loaded to bursting with ton upon ton of diamonds, emeralds, pearls, sapphires, oyster shells, and even those rare gems called kidney stones that come from the galaxies of innerspace--and, yes, even those magnificent broke-stones found only in a single planetary system in a galaxy on the very rim of outer space. These latter are practically untouchable, and the more you try to touch them the more broke-stone they become."

Zitts drew a deep breath and went on: "If a solitary genius of the latter half of the twentieth century had had the godlike stature to create a work with only one murder in it, instead of dozens, he would be immortal and today worshipped by the protagonists of moderation and hated by the antagonists who maintain, and not without reason, that all of the characters in such stories, and especially the detective, should come to a violent and horrible end on page three."

The blonde woman wiped her eyes, glanced into a small mirror and tried to compose herself. "Very well," she murmured half to herself. "I shall prepare myself to endure whatever I must and view as many murders as necessary."

"It won't be bad at all," Zitts assured her with feeling. "May even be boring, with so few murders. Personally, I rarely take a case which doesn't offer the prospect of at least a hundred. They generally murder my suspects one after another, and for that reason I try to suspect as many as possible to keep the case interesting.

"Now, if you are prepared--"

The woman, fearful but dry-eyed, nodded in response.

"Pupsie! On your mark! Zoo! Switch on the machine."

In fear and wonderment the woman watched Pupsie don the longsnozzle which appeared to be a mechanical nose two-feet in length with its other measurements in proportion. This extra nose did not appear heavy or to handicap Pupsie in any way. Its nostrils flared and the Venusian girl produced some six square yards of white linen, held it significantly at the proper place, and the beast blew its extra nose, making a honking sound which made the windows rattle.

"That clears the way for smelling action," Zoo said in explanation.

* * * * *

Just then the view lit up and the bristles along Pupsie's back suddenly stood on end. The scene in the viewplate was familiar. Six ratcatchers were lined up, one behind another, with the foremost pointing the Colt at his own midriff. Through the adjoining wall, which was transparent on the viewplate, a man in the uniform of the chief rat of the ratcatchers, was visible holding his fingers in his ears and with a terrified and painful expression on his face.

The blonde woman jumped when the bang sounded and the six ratcatchers reeled and then collapsed. The chief beyond the wall looked a trifle relieved to find himself still alive, but Zitts snorted with audible disgust.

"Bunglers!" Zitts growled, then looked at Pupsie. "That weapon, Pupsie," he said. "Get a good whiff of it."

The huge nostrils flared and sniffed in a way that stirred a strong breeze in the room and sent prickles along the blonde woman's spine. Then Pupsie looked up and winked.

"Now trace it to the murderer," Zitts ordered.

Pupsie gathered himself for a leap at the chief rat, but Zoo sprang between him and the viewplate and shut off the machine.

"No, no," Zitts cautioned. "His smell is on the weapon, of course. But he merely examined it. Use your head now and tune in the machine yourself and find the murderer."

Nodding, Pupsie moved close to the machine, switched it on and began tuning radarlike by sniffing and twisting the dials. Almost at once his eyes lighted and his tongue lolled out and his muscles stiffened for action. The blonde woman held her breath, expecting to view the murderer.

The view lit up faintly, became brighter, became a dark alley with a cat inspecting a garbage pail.

"No, no!" Zitts cautioned. "This is no time for sport. Get down to business."

Pupsie continued tuning and suddenly began panting and gasping and twitching in every muscle.

Recognizing the emergency, Zitts thundered "The treadmill, Zoo!"

* * * * *

Zoo stamped on the floor and started an endless carpet moving under Pupsie's feet. It was just in time, for Pupsie was running like the very devil in order to remain in the same place. He was in pursuit of a female dog which appeared on the viewplate.

Features darkening and eyes blazing, Zitts waited for Zoo to turn off the machine. Then in a thunderously quiet voice he called Pupsie to book.

"I warned you this is no time for sport!" Zitts glanced at Zoo who produced a dogcatcher's net and held it threateningly above Pupsie. The poor dog shuddered. "For the last time," Zitts said ominously, "I'm warning you."

The blonde woman felt so sorry for the creature she turned tearful eyes to Zitts in mute appeal. Zitts appeared to relent.

"When you find that murderer," he said, temporizing, "I shall order you a special nine-foot bone from one of those Martian tyrannasauraplexus creatures. Now, keep your mind on your work!"

At the mention of a tyrannasauraplexus bone Pupsie's jaws slavered and a look of rapture came over his ungainly features. Clearly he had been reformed.

Setting to work immediately, Pupsie sniffed and tuned by twisting the dials, and suddenly the blonde woman gasped and almost fainted.

"That's my lover's apartment," she said in horror. "I recognize the bed. Surely he can't be the murderer."

"Your ex-lover," Zitts pointed out. "That's a corpse in the bed."

The blonde woman fainted, for it was true. The man was dead, or should have been, for he neither breathed nor gave any sign of heartbeat.

"Examine that room," Zitts ordered Pupsie, "until you get a whiff of the second murderer."

Soon Pupsie was off again, sniffing and tuning, and just as another scene came in the blonde woman opened her eyes, gasped, "Another of my lovers," and fainted again.

"Ex-lover," Zitts corrected and directed Pupsie to pursue this murderer also.

They ran through three more murders before the woman recovered, and Zitts deducted, which subsequently proved correct, that these were also ex-lovers. Then, as the woman recovered and was composing herself and straightening her mouth and re-making her face, they came upon a scene with a live person in it.

"No, no! No!" the blonde cried. "He's my next to the best lover. He wouldn't murder anybody."

* * * * *

The man, about ninety years old, gray and stooped, sat placidly on what appeared to be the railing of a balcony and contemplated the rolling countryside a hundred stories below. At a signal from Zitts, Zoo switched the machine to two-directional view.

"All right, murderer," Zitts snarled. "Confess!"

The man looked up, started, then almost fell over the rail as he caught sight of Mrs. Brown and Smith.

"No, no! I don't want him brought to justice," the blonde woman cried. "If he loved me enough to commit all those murders I want to marry him."

Zitts pondered this briefly, then said, "That ought to be punishment enough. What have you got to say, murderer?"

The man cowered back, trembled. "I'll confess," he said quaveringly. "But I ask for a reasonably humane punishment like being boiled in oil. Marrying that woman would be more than I can bear."

Zitts nodded understandingly. After all, he was humane even with criminals. And although he was not a man to compromise with crime he could not bear the light of horror in the man's eyes. "I'll take the matter under consideration," he said. "But I promise nothing. If you confess promptly and clear up the mystery, your chance of being boiled in oil will be somewhat improved. I'm waiting."

"It's like this," the man began, wiping perspiration from his brow. "On my ninetieth birth anniversary I decided to have one more fling and retire until I had reached my second youth-hood at the age of a hundred. I visited seventeen of my best sweethearts that day and night, and twelve of my wives. It was rather exhausting."

"I can imagine," Zitts said encouragingly. "Go on."

"Mrs. Brown and Smith was among those I visited," the man went on tiredly. "She was the most exhausting of all, actually insisting that I kiss her hand before I left. It took a lot out of me."

"Go on," Zitts urged impatiently.

"I swore off then and there," said the nonagenarian with a sigh, "and that left Mrs. Brown and Smith with only five lovers and two husbands. That increased the load on these remaining seven and they began to urge me to come back and do my duty. I refused.

"That," the man went on, "brought things to a crisis. In desperation Smith made another appeal to me. Again I refused, but I gave him some sound advice, to wit: that he should make the other lovers carry a little more of the burden. This he tried without success, and again I advised him, this time arming him with an ancient weapon. In turn he went to each of the other lovers and offered them their choice, and each chose suicide in preference to fulfilling more than their normal obligations. When he realized what he had done, and what a tremendous burden would now fall on him, he turned the weapon on himself."

* * * * *

The man paused, wiped away the tears and added, "I am guilty of six murders," he said dolefully. "And Brown, who is being held by the ratcatchers, will naturally make a false confession and ask to be put to death at once--when he realizes that his wife has neither lovers nor another husband. It is sad, and if you'll just boil me in oil as quickly as possible--"

"No, no!" the blonde woman screamed. "I want to marry you."

Startled, the man whipped out a strange, unearthly weapon, on which was inscribed, it was learned on later investigation, this legend: _S&W_. He placed the weapon against his temple and a bang resulted. Then he toppled over the rail and disappeared.

"Which end of that weapon did he place nearest him?" Zitts demanded as Zoo switched off the machine and the view faded.

"The tube end," Zoo replied.

"I knew I was right," Zitts exulted. "Get in touch with the chief rat and tell him the case is solved, wrapped up. He can release Brown and forget it. Also tell him I have learned the secret of that weapon. I was right all along. Tell him personally to place the muzzle of it against his temple and finger that little lever underneath. I am sure that is the way it is done. Tell him to try it at once and let me know the results."

Zitts sighed in satisfaction, glanced once more at the lovely curves of the blonde woman, and pressed the button which set in motion the machinery to ease the lounging chair beneath the desk and shape it into a couch.

"Ssh--h!" The Venusian girl signaled silence. "After he's been in action for a few seconds," she whispered, "he always rests for a week or so."

The blonde woman rose quietly and marched wavily to the door, opened it. Then, with tears of thankfulness in her limpid blue eyes, and a last worshipping glance at the place where Zitts had disappeared, she stepped into the corridor and went in search of replacements for her used up husbands and lovers.

Pupsie waddled over to a corner and curled up to dream of a tyrannasauraplexus bone.