"Good! Let me fix you a drink, and you can tell me all about it."
Smith sat down on a couch. She prepared the drinks and brought his
over. They sat together and sipped the liquor.
"Science is wonderful," she said.
"Yeah, it sure is," said Smith. "They spend millions figuring out fancy
ways to catch crooks, and then some dumb professor invents a way so I
can kill people and never be caught."
"I wonder what the cops a hundred years in the future will think when
bodies start popping up all over the place?" she observed.
"Who cares?" said Smith. "I'm making my dough, even if I will have to
wait seven years for the heirs to collect."
"It won't be too hard to wait," she said, "since we know for certain
we'll get it."
"Let's drink to our success," Smith said.
"Let's," she smiled.
"Here's to a fine old professor, who invented a time machine and
kindly let me kill him and take it away. Here's to a policeman's
nightmare--the perfect murder."
They drank.
Smith got to his feet then and put the glass down. "Well, I've got to
go now, I--"
He saw the blank look of astonishment on her face. Her mouth had
dropped open and her eyes were wide, staring. But they weren't looking
at him--they were looking _behind_ him.
And then he heard the polite cough.
Smith spun around. He stared in amazement at the figure of a man
standing there. A man clad in a strange shimmering metallic uniform.
The man held an odd-looking weapon in his hand. He was smiling.
"Mr. Smith, I believe?"