The Cause of Death

by Roger MacBride Allen

  "Tell us what you remember," said Wolfson, her voice a study in neutrality.

  "Well, you seem to know about the dueling pistol and the head shot," he said.

  "There's some guesswork," Wolfson said. "The, ah, corpse was in very bad shape after the fire. We still haven't located the weapon in the debris. But the wound pattern was clear enough to Darsteel and the locals. They'd seen it before. In fact, the corpse was burned and crushed enough that it was easier for them to identify the wound as what a dueling pistol would do than it was to say where, exactly, on his body the round had struck him."

  "The head," Georg told her. "Very definitely the head. He turned his back on me. That was his mistake. I went to the table where the guns were on display. He sat back down at his desk to work at his papers again. And I stood a few feet away and fired." He paused. "Fire. Smoke. Dust. It wasn't pretty. I was in shock for a moment or two. When I came back to myself a few seconds later, sparks from the gunshot had already started the fires going. I decided to help them along a little. I fed papers to them, then more papers, then some of the furniture."

  "Why?" Brox demanded. "A fire after a murder is almost always used to conceal and destroy the evidence. It was in your best interests to admit to the killing, once you had committed it. It would ensure your ascension to the throne."

  "Panic," said Georg. "Shock. Shame. A gut feeling that I had to hide what I had done. I wasn't entirely rational--not by a long shot. Maybe it was just that I wanted to hide what I had done from my Pax Humana oath. I can't really say." He shrugged. "The fire started to get pretty big. It was time to go."

  "What about the business with the shoes?" Darsteel asked.

  Georg looked at him and frowned. "What shoes?"

  "Not important," said Darsteel. "Please go on."

  "There is not much more to tell," said Georg. "I came back to our apartments just in time. I sat up and waited for the alarm to be sounded, then I gathered up Marta and Moira and took them downstairs."

  "You set a fire in the upper floor of a building, then went downstairs, to where your wife and child were sleeping, in apartments directly below the fire, and sat and waited for the fire alarm to sound?" asked Brox. "Why? Why didn't you rouse them at once and get them out of there, out of danger?"

  "All I can say was that I was not entirely rational," Georg said again. He looked straight ahead, at no one, at nothing.

  "And so the good Pavlats of Reqwar can look forward to life under a Thelm who becomes irrational in moments of danger and crisis?" Brox asked.

  But before Georg could protest, a new and completely unexpected attack came from another side. "Thank you, sir," said Agent Wolfson. "That was an excellent summing-up. I think it will suit our needs admirably. But there is one other item." She gestured to the other agent, Mendez. He stepped forward. "Agent Mendez is our resident expert on weaponry," Wolfson said.

  Georg's eyes flitted to the table off to one side with the cloth concealing whatever was on it "Weaponry?" he echoed.

  Mendez crossed to the table and stripped off the cloth to reveal a scorched and damaged, but still largely intact, dueling-pistol display case. One of the pistols was gone. The other was blackened by smoke, its ornate decoration masked by soot and ash, but otherwise quite undamaged. Mendez moved to the center of the room and removed the cloth from the large and ungainly shape it concealed. Underneath it was a tailor's dummy with bendable arms and legs, borrowed from somewhere in the Keep. It was balanced, rather unsteadily, on a perching stool, with its back to Georg.

  "This is our best guess as to how the Thelm was sitting when he was shot," said Agent Mendez. "It sounds like it more or less matches up with what you just described." He nodded toward the display case and the remaining gun. "Both case and weapon are just as they were when we found them in the audience chamber," he said. "You can use the duplicate gun."

  "What--what are you asking of me?" Georg demanded.

  "The devil is in the details," said Mendez. "You have given a quick and sketchy account of what you did, and how, and why. That's all very well for things like what books you consulted, or how you left the scene. But the shooting itself is the center of it all." Mendez gestured at Wolfson and himself. "We two humans are mainly interested in confirming the mechanics of the shot. The angle, the distance, the direction, that sort of thing. The Reqwar Pavlat authorities have another emphasis."

  Darsteel spoke. "The people and nobles of Reqwar want their Thelm to be strong, resolute, ready to act. They will want to know what your actions say about your character. And there is no recording, no imagery, of how the Thelm died. We Pavlat need to see that you could have done it, that you did do it. That you can handle the weapon, aim it, operate it, understand it. That you can aim it and fire it at another living being."

  Georg pointed at the tailor's dummy. "That is no living being."

  "No, sir. Of course not. But it would be a very rare being indeed who could aim the same kind of gun he used a few hours ago and point it at something representing the victim, and not have a very strong emotional reaction. We will see it. We will believe. And then it will be all over."

  Georg stood there, staring at the gun, then at the dummy, for a long time. "The gun," he said. "It has live ammunition in it?"

  "We haven't done anything to change it in any way, sir," Mendez replied. "It is just as it was when we recovered it from the wreckage, less than an hour ago."

  "And 'one must be ready to resolve a question of honor at once.' The Thelm kept the damned things loaded. But what if the gun was damaged in some way by the fire?"

  "I have examined it carefully sir. There was some ash that was blown into the barrel. I cleared that out. Other than that, it does not appear to be damaged in any way. And it is an extremely simple mechanism. Either it will work perfectly, or it won't work at all. Please, sir. Take up the gun. Position yourself by the dummy as you did by the Thelm. Aim. Fire. And we will be done. It will satisfy us, and buttress your claim to the Thelmship."

  Georg hesitated one last time, then walked toward the table that held the ruined display case.

  "Georg!" It was Marta, calling out to him. He did not answer, did not look behind him. He stretched out his hand and picked up the pistol. A little loose ash and dust fell off it as he did so, and sprinkles of soot hung in the air for a moment. The grip, designed for the Pavlat hand with two thumbs and four fingers, was awkward for a human hand, but he did not have any great difficulty.

  "Georg! Please! Please don't!"

  He did not respond. He turned and walked the few steps back to stand facing the back of the dummy's head. He moved as if he were underwater, in slow motion, through some medium that offered firm resistance but gave way under steady pressure. He raised the weapon--then lowered it again and released the safety mechanism's twist-and-slide switch. He lifted the gun and aimed it straight at the back of the dummy's head. The sweat was streaming down his face, his back, his arms.

  He hesitated and eased off his aim. He seemed to come back to himself after a few seconds. He took a deep breath and resettled himself. He sighted along the aiming guides set into the top of the barrel.

  "Georg!" Marta said again.

  "I'm doing this for us, Marta," he said without looking behind. "For all of us. To make us safe at last." He leveled the gun. He sighted in on his target again, from a range of less than two meters. He put his finger around the trigger. He pulled it back--

  And Marta leapt forward, her arm slamming into the top of the gun barrel, shoving it down, hard, just as the trigger engaged and the rocket projectile fired. With a roar and whoosh, the projectile blasted not through the head of the dummy, but through its midsection, slicing it clean in two, dropping the two halves to the floor, already ablaze.

  The projectile crashed into the floor and stuck there, engine spent, spewing smoke, for a count of one, two, three--then it went off with a flash and a pop that threw the projectile up hard enough to bounce against the ceiling before dropping back to the floo
r.

  Smoke and dusk and the smell of burned propellant and spent explosive and burned wood, shouts and cries and yelling, filled the room. The dust and sound and flash of light seemed to have stunned everyone.

  Or almost everyone. Agent Hannah Wolfson made a flying tackle to bring Marta down just a step or two shy of the door. Wolfson coolly and professionally restrained Marta, held her down, and produced a pair of restraint cords from somewhere, wrapping one cord around Marta's wrists and another around her ankles.

  Marta spat and cursed and hissed at her captor, struggling long after struggle was pointless. "You! You switched the ammo after all, you nasty little--"

  But Wolfson taped Marta's mouth shut, before Marta could say any more. "No," said Wolfson, with an expression of intense and feral satisfaction. "I didn't do that. I told your husband--Agent Mendez is our weapons expert." She grinned, and a bright spark of blood dribbled down from her lower lip, split open at some point in the scuffle. "But I'll take all the credit I can get for that takedown," she said. "You definitely weren't that easy to catch."

  Georg dropped the gun, and it hit the floor with an empty and meaningless clatter.

  TWENTY-EIGHTCONVICTIONS

  A few hours in an improvised cell served to calm Marta Hertzmann down a bit before questioning, but did nothing to improve her disposition.

  "Where did the suicide rounds come from?" Jamie asked for the dozenth time.

  "You've got all the proof you need," Marta Hertzmann snapped--which was actually more of an answer than she had given up to that point. "Why in the devil do we need to go through with this?"

  "For more or less the same reasons we gave to your husband," Darsteel said, lounging back on his perching stool. The more tense and angry Marta got, the calmer and more relaxed Darsteel became. "To make sure that rumors cannot grow, to see to it that the facts are planted close together and make each other strong. You know you're going to tell us what we want, sooner or later--and I think we both know the process will be a lot gentler with your fellow humans present. Let's get it over with before I tell them to leave. Answer the questions."

  Judging by her expression, the not-very-well-veiled threat made an impression.

  "The suicide rounds," Jamie said once again. "Where did you get them? Where did you buy them?"

  Marta snorted disdainfully--but this time, she actually answered. "Buy them? I made them. I'm an engineer, when I don't have to waste my time playing adoring wife to my brave and noble husband. Twenty minutes' work for each of them--and that was only because I was working carefully. Get a standard round, cut here, glue there, reroute some wires. Simple."

  "When did you make them?" Hannah asked. "And why? And when did you load them into the Thelm's dueling pistols?"

  "Or to put it a trifle less delicately, whom were you planning to annihilate?" Brox asked.

  "Just after Georg was recaptured and handed back, things got very, very ugly between our own great and noble Thelm and that fiend incarnate, the High Thelek," said Marta, sarcasm dripping from her voice. "For a few days there, it looked like they actually might fight a duel and try to kill each other. That seemed like a good idea to me. The Thelek would be no loss. Most people would tell you that, though they thought the Thelm was some kind of saint. But he was ready to sell Georg out the first moment that the price was right. You helped prove that, when you told him about Penitence.

  "I decided to make the duel as lethal as possible. But once I had swapped the rounds, I wanted to get as far away from Thelm's Keep as I could. If there were a duel, and the suicide rounds were found, there would be an investigation--and I didn't want to be in the neighborhood for that. I decided it would be a good idea to stay safely on the other side of the planet for a while. Once I heard you were coming, I figured I had to be close to the scene."

  "I do not understand the point of booby-trapping the pistols before the duel," Darsteel said. "Why would it matter? One or the other would die, and that was what you wanted."

  "Not quite. She wanted them both dead," said Hannah. "If both guns shoot backwards, straight at the shooter, the odds are much better that someone is going to die--probably two someones. If you don't want either side to win, why not get rid of both? Furthermore, if either duelist did survive, he'd be the obvious suspect for rigging the guns. His reputation would be destroyed because he had acted dishonorably. If it was the Thelm, he'd be removed from office--if the Thelek, removed from the line of succession. If both the Thelm and the Thelek were out of the way--who did that leave to inherit the power? Georg."

  "That's all about right," Marta said.

  "But it would also mean that Georg's adoring wife Marta would have inherited the Thelm's wealth, his property, his land--and the income that property produced," said Brox.

  Marta's eyes gleamed with enthusiasm. "The income flow generated from the Thelm's wife's share is amazing. Even getting a small percentage of the gross planetary product for a poor, backward planet means a truly astounding amount of cash," she said wistfully. "I could have done some grand things for Reqwar with that money." She glared at Darsteel and the BSI agents. "Now, thanks to you, none of that can happen."

  Hannah snorted. "Right. It's our fault."

  Darsteel stared at Marta. "You humans look enough like us, and act enough like us, that, sometimes, I can forget how alien you are. How could you blame us?"

  Marta tossed her head back, glared at him through half-closed eyes, but did not answer.

  "I might be able to give a hint on that point," said Jamie. "Your husband is a true believer. He believes that his oath requires him to do what's right. You're an absolutist, and your oath merely confirms what you already know--that you can do no wrong. He feels obliged to do certain things--and you feel entitled to certain rewards."

  "Very cute phrasing," Marta said. "But meaningless."

  "Is it?" Jamie asked. He gestured to Hannah. "It puts me in mind of a talk we had about the ends justifying the means. Rob a bank to feed the poor, and if the bank guards get killed trying to stop you, it's their own fault for interfering with your act of benevolence. Your cause is good, and therefore you can do no wrong." Jamie looked at Marta. "You were going to spend the money you got from killing the Thelm and Thelek--or at least most of it--on doing nice things for the planet, and so it was all right to kill them, and besides they weren't nice men anyway. And you worked so hard to do good that you deserved to be rich anyway. Is that about it?"

  Marta shifted her poisonous stare to Jamie. "Go to the devil."

  Jamie chuckled. "Let the record show that wasn't a denial."

  "But what about that Pax Humana oath of yours?" Darsteel insisted.

  "'I will die most willingly to stop evil, but I will not kill, even in the name of good.' " said Jamie. "Simple. Marta didn't kill anyone. Did you, Marta?"

  "No, I didn't, as a matter of fact."

  "Of course not. How could she, when she is sworn to Pax Humana? Instead she found a way to get her victim to kill himself. When the Thelm died, it was because he was willing to kill Marta, and it was his own finger on the trigger that killed him. What would you call a plea based on that theory, Marta? Premeditated self-defense?"

  Marta said nothing. Hannah decided to do some talking. "Stop me if I go wrong, Marta. I want to see if I have this put together right. Weeks ago, when you thought the Thelm and Thelek might have a duel together, you bought or borrowed a couple of standard dueling rounds from somewhere, modified them into suicide rounds, then took advantage of your position as a trusted member of the household to sneak into his audience chamber and swap the standard rounds for the suicide rounds. If they had had a duel, and had used the Thelm's weapons, then both of them would die, or at the very least one would die and the other be badly discredited."

  "It would have been the Thelm's weapons," said Darsteel. "The Thelm may not issue a challenge, but only accept one. And the challenger is always required to accept the challenged party's weapons."

  "Except the duel never cam
e off--and you either never saw a reason to swap the rounds back, or else you never got the chance. Maybe you just liked having a weapon like that handy, right where it might do some good. Maybe you even amused yourself, a little harmless fantasizing, working out ways you might use it.

  "Then, suddenly, last night, you had to act at once, before the machinery for deporting you to Penitence could be started up and put in motion. Maybe the Thelm would have decided today to take no chances and lock you and Georg and Moira up someplace safe to prevent your causing trouble."

  "He should have done it last night," said Darsteel, unhappily.

  "True enough," said Brox.

  Hannah went on. "You got Georg to come to the Keep, on a perfectly legitimate errand that would also give him the same motives for killing the Thelm that you had. You convinced him to spend the night, so he could take the blame, or credit. And of course, you needed his shoe, in order to do some evidence planting. You figured--rightly, as it turned out--that he would figure out you were guilty, without being told, and that he would act to shield you--or at least shield your child."

  Hannah had received the distinct impression that Marta did not hold her husband in the highest possible regard, though she didn't really have a good sense of the depth of feeling that Georg had for Marta. Did he love her--or had he merely accepted that he was stuck with her, and that his daughter needed a mother? She hoped for his sake that it was the latter.

  But best not to be sidetracked too far. "The rest was pretty straightforward. You simply had to go the Thelm's chamber--easily done, for you, a trusted member of the household--and goad him into firing at you. But he would only die if he tried to kill you. Attempted murder would be punished, instantly, by a death sentence. You were setting yourself up as judge and jury, but making the Thelm his own executioner. How, exactly, you got him to fire I don't know. At a guess, you tried--or pretended to try--to blackmail him, threatening him in a way that so enraged his sense of honor that he would have no choice but to kill you."