"Don't bother. I know the rest. I can add only one item that you may not
know. Rampaugh was a paid hotboy, suspected of playing with Scarmann's
mob."
"I've had no dealings with Scarmann, Lieutenant."
The Lieutenant nodded absently. It seemed to be a habit with him, probably
to cover up his thinking-time. Finally he said, "Hammond, you're clean. As
soon as I identified you I took a dig of your folder at headquarters.
You're a bit rough and fast on that prehistoric cannon of yours, but----"
"You mean you can dig a folder at central files all the way from here?"
"I did."
Here was a _real_ esper for you. I've got a range of about two blocks for
good, solid, permanent things like buildings and street-car tracks, but
unfamiliar things get foggy at about a half a block. I can dig lethal
machinery coming in my direction for about a block and a half because I'm
a bit sensitive about such things. I looked at Lieutenant Williamson and
said, "With a range like yours, how come there's any crime in this town at
all?"
He shook his head slowly. "Crime doesn't out until it's committed," he
said. "You'll remember how fast we got here after you pulled the trigger.
But you're clean, Hammond. Just come to the inquest and tell all."
"I can go?"
"You can go. But just to keep you out of any more trouble, I'll have one
of the jetcopters drop you off at home. Mind?"
"Nope. But isn't that more than the police are used to doing?"
He eyed me amusedly. "If I were a mental," he said, "I could read your
mind and know that you were forming the notion of calling on Scarmann and
asking him what-for. But since I'm only a mind-blank esper, all I can do
is to fall back on experience and guesswork. Do I make myself clear?"
Lieutenant Williamson's guess-work and experience were us good as mental
sensitivity, but I didn't think it wise to admit that I had been
considering just exactly how to get to Scarmann. I was quickly and firmly
convoyed home in a jetcopter but once I saw them take off I walked out of
the apartment again.
I had more or less tacitly agreed not to go looking for Scarmann, but I
had not mentioned taking a dig at the apartment of the dear departed,
Peter Rambaugh.
Rambaugh's place was uptown and the front door was protected by an eight
tumbler cylinder job that would have taxed the best of esper lockpicks.
But there was a service entrance in back that was not locked and I took
it. The elevator was a self-service job, and Rambaugh's back door was
locked on a snaplatch that a playful kitten could have opened. I dug the
place for a few minutes and found it clean, so I went in and took a more
careful look.
The desk was not particularly interesting. Just papers and letters and
unpaid bills. The dresser in the bedroom was the same, excepting for the
bottom drawer. That was filled with a fine collection of needle-rays and
stunguns and one big force blaster that could blow a hole in a brick wall.
None of them had their serial numbers intact.
But behind a reproduction of a Gainsborough painting was a wall safe that
must have been built before Rhine Institute discovered the key to man's
latent abilities. Inside of this tin can was a collection of photographs
that must have brought Rambaugh a nice sum in the months when the murder
business went slack. I couldn't quite dig them clear because I didn't know
any of the people involved, and I didn't try too hard because there were
some letters and notes that might lead me into the answer to why Rambaugh
was hotburning for me.
I fiddled with the dial for about fifteen minutes, watching the tumblers
and the little wheels go around. Then it went click and I turned the
handle and opened the door. I was standing there with both hands deep in
Rambaugh's safe when I heard a noise behind me.
I whirled and slid aside all in one motion and my hand streaked for my
armpit and came out with the forty five. It was a woman and she was
carrying nothing more lethal than the fountain pen in her purse. She
blanched when she saw my forty-five swinging towards her middle, but she
took a deep breath when I halted it in midair.
"I didn't mean to startle you," she apologized.
"Startle, hell!" I blurted. "You scared me out of my shoes."
I dug her purse. Beside the usual female junk she had a wallet containing
a couple of charge-account plates, a driver's license, and a hospital
card, all made out to Miss Martha Franklin. Miss Franklin was about
twenty-four, and she was a strawberry blonde with the pale skin and blue
eyes that goes with the hair. I gathered that she didn't belong there any
more than I did.
"I don't, Mr. Hammond," she said.
So Martha Franklin was a mental sensitive.
"I am," she told me. "That's how I came to be here."
"I'm esper. You'll have to explain in words of one syllable because I
can't read you."
"I was not far away when you cut loose with that field-piece of yours,"
she said flatly. "So I read your intention to come here. I've been
following you at mental range ever since."
"Why?"
"Because there is something in that safe I want very much."
I looked at her again. She did not look the type to get into awkward
situations. She colored slightly and said, "One indiscretion doesn't make
a tramp, Mr. Hammond."