Formula For Murder
By LEE GREGOR
It's easy to get away with murder: just prove insanity.
But make sure you hide the method in your madness!
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Infinity November 1957.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
CHAPTER I
The figure of Professor Glover slipped from the surface of the spacestation and twinkled away among the stars. Jim Britten stared at itas though he could call it back by the ferocity of his gaze. He stoodparalyzed by helplessness while the spacesuited body plummeted offinto the void, until he could no longer follow its motion towardsthe dazzling sun. Seized by an uncontrollable shaking, he dropped theradiophone antenna which he had ripped from Glover's back and flunghimself down flat upon the surface of the station, where he clung whilecatching his breath.
A vast doughnut, twenty-five miles in diameter, the space stationstood with no apparent motion a thousand miles above the surface ofthe earth. It floated in a sea of scintillating stars like diamondsscattered upon the blackest velvet.
"Jim, what's the matter?" John Callahan's voice grated in Britten'sheadpiece.
"Glover's line broke loose," Britten gasped. "He's gone."
"What!"
"I'm coming back in. Give me a hand."
Britten began the long crawl back to the entrance port, his nerves tooshattered to attempt it standing up. He was several yards away whenanother spacesuited figure emerged from the port and helped him staggerthe rest of the way. Inside the airlock he collapsed.
In a small room within a large hospital the two men sat talking. It wasa featureless room with pale green walls, containing a desk, two softchairs, and a leather couch. The doctor, middle-aged, inconspicuous,wearing glasses, a small moustache, and a gray suit, sat in one chair.Facing him in the other chair, Jim Britten, young, lean, and visiblydepressed, wore pajamas and a hospital robe.
"You've been a sick boy," Morris Wolf told Jim Britten in aconversational tone.
"I guess so." Britten scratched at the arm of his chair and fingeredthe sleeve of his gown.
"You're coming along, though. When you arrived at the hospital a weekago, you had to be wheeled in and fed like a baby. Now you've pulledout of the hole and we're ready to do some real talking."
"But, doc, I don't know what happened. Honestly. One minute Glover wasstarting to climb down into the ion-source chamber and the next minutehis magnet line came loose, and when I grabbed after him I caught hisphone antenna and ripped it off. Then I got the shakes and the nextthing I knew I was back on Earth in the hospital."
The psychiatrist reached for his pipe and began to fill it from a largecan on the desk.
"It's a great shock to have the person next to you snuffed out likethat," he said. "Some people can take it standing up. When you fallapart like that we want to know the reason, so that it won't happenagain."
Britten shrugged. "What's the difference? I'll never work in alaboratory again, let alone the Lunatron. I'll never finish my researchand I'll never get my degree."
His voice trailed off in a discouraged whisper.
Wolf watched him for a moment.
"That kind of talk is the reason you are still here. You'll work in alabora