Duckworth chuckled and raised a hand to interrupt Rawlings. "Just a
moment, Jason; let him logic it out to us."
"First take these straps off," said Turnbull. "I'm stiff enough as it
is, after being out cold for three days."
Rawlings touched a button on the wall, and the restraining straps
vanished. Turnbull sat up creakily, rubbing his arms.
"Well?" said Duckworth.
Turnbull looked up at the older man. "It was those first two letters of
yours that started me off."
"I was afraid of that," Duckworth said wryly. "I ... ah ... tried to get
them back before I left Earth, but, failing that, I sent you a letter to
try to throw you off the track."
"Did you think it would?" Turnbull asked.
"I wasn't sure," Duckworth admitted. "I decided that if you had what it
takes to see through it, you'd deserve to know the truth."
"I think I know it already."
"I dare say you do," Duckworth admitted. "But tell us first why you
jumped to the wrong conclusion."
Turnbull nodded. "As I said, your letters got me worrying. I knew you
must be on to something or you wouldn't have been so positive. So I
started checking on all the data about the City--especially that which
had come in just previous to the time you sent the letters.
"I found that several new artifacts had been discovered in Sector Nine
of the City--in the part they call the Bank Buildings. That struck a
chord in my memory, so I looked back over the previous records. That
Sector was supposed to have been cleaned out nearly ninety years ago.
"The error I made was in thinking that you had been forcibly abducted
somehow--that you had been forced to write that third letter. It
certainly looked like it, since I couldn't see any reason for you to
hide anything from me.
"I didn't think you'd be in on anything as underhanded as this looked,
so I assumed that you were acting against your will."
Scholar Rawlings smiled. "But you thought I was capable of underhanded
tactics? That's not very flattering, young man."
Turnbull grinned. "I thought you were capable of kidnaping a man. Was I
wrong?"