Part 2 (1/2)

In a moment, when they all had drinks and were comfortably fitted by their chairs, St. Cyr broached the subject. ”Business,” he said.

Alicia, Jubal's wife, sighed. She was a pretty woman, pet.i.te and dark, possessed of that noticeable glow of health that indicated the use of rejuvenation drugs of some sort. ”I suppose you'll want the whole thing, step by step.” Her tone was practiced weariness on the surface, something much more personal and sad beneath.

”Step by step,” St. Cyr affirmed.

Alicia paled, blinked at him stupidly for a moment, licked her lips and attempted to regain her composure. She had clearly expected him to say that, but she had been hoping against the necessity of a retelling.

”I'm sorry,” St. Cyr told her. ”But all that I've heard thus far is what Mr. Alderban posted in the light-telegram, and what Teddy told me.”

”You questioned Teddy?” Dane asked incredulously. He was a tall, lean boy with a dark complexion, black eyes, and thin, pale lips. When he spoke he kept his head tilted downwards, looking up over the shelf of his brow at the detective.

”Of course I questioned him. He's unemotional, scientifically logical, a good source for first impressions.”

”No, a bad source,” Dane said, sure of himself. He laced his long, bony fingers around the tiny gla.s.s of liqueur. ”This is an emotional subject, after all, not a dry one. The du-aga-klava du-aga-klava is is real real.”

”You think so?” St. Cyr asked.

He wished that Dane would raise his head. As long as he sat in that position, on the edge of the couch, his shoulders hunched forward, it was difficult to tell anything of what he was thinking by examining his face and eyes.

”It's real enough,” Dane said.

”Bulls.h.i.+t,” Tina Alderban said, ignoring the angry look her brother directed at her.

St. Cyr turned toward the girl, waiting for something more. She sat in an overstuffed fur chair, made more pet.i.te by the size of it. She was dark like Dane, though more olive than brown, and her face was more open, her eyes more wide-set than his, her lips sensuous and heavy, whereas Dane's lips were thin and serious. Her black hair dropped straight over her shoulders, curled around the tips of her small b.r.e.a.s.t.s, as if accentuating them. At eighteen, she was one of the most interesting women that St. Cyr had ever seen. He wondered if he would have an opportunity to seduce her before the case was finished...

Negative, the bio-computer informed him.

Still and all, she was a charming creature, with- Negative. Too many familial complications would result from such a rash act, obstructing your conduct of the case.

”I'll tell him the whole thing,” Jubal said, sliding forward on his chair. The seat and arms of the chair rippled, gauged his new position, firmed up around his b.u.t.tocks and thighs.

”No, Jubal,” Hirschel interposed.

He had only spoken once before that evening, and then only to offer St. Cyr an obligatory welcome. He was quite like Jubal, heavy in the chest and shoulders, over six feet tall, leonine with a mane of hair and muttonchop sideburns. The chief difference was in the lines of his face. Where Jubal was soft, his cheeks smooth and the angles of his face pleasantly rounded, Hirschel was hard, cut deep by character lines, his skin tanned and leathery. Also, while Jubal was white-haired yet somehow young, Hirschel was black-haired and old, infinitely old despite his young man's const.i.tution. Perhaps, actually, Hirschel was only a couple of years Jubal's senior, and certainly no more than a decade older; in experience, however, in knowledge and cunning, he was Jubal's great-great grandfather.

The simple statement of the negative had drawn everyone's attention to the older man. He said, ”I'll tell it, because I don't have nearly the degree of emotional involvement that you do, Jubal.”

Jubal nodded. ”Go ahead.”

Hirschel turned to St. Cyr, smiled slightly, looking quite unlike the rider in the storm, the man with the pig heads slapping bloodily at his hip. Succinctly, he related much the same story that St. Cyr had gotten from Teddy, though with no extrapolation whatsoever.

”You were living here at the times of both murders?”

”Yes,” Hirschel said. ”I arrived a month before Leon's death; needless to say, a good part of this visit has not been a happy time for me.” However, if he actually did agonize over the deaths of his niece and nephew, he did not indicate his inner turmoil in any way beyond this brief statement. He appeared healthy and happy, without the dark lines of anxiety around the eyes and mouth that characterized both Jubal and Alicia Alderban.

Correctly projecting the line of thought St. Cyr was then pursuing, Hirschel said, ”And, also needless to say, that puts me on your list of suspects.”

”How absurd! ”Jubal said.

”Really, Hirschel,” Alicia said, ”I doubt that Mr. St. Cyr-”

”But he does suspect me,” Hirschel said. ”And he should. Just as he suspects all the rest of you.”

Jubal seemed twice as outraged at this. He turned to St. Cyr, his thick white brows drawn together over his eyes in one snowy bar. ”Is this true? Do you think we'd murder our own children-brothers and sisters?”

”Hirschel is correct,” St. Cyr affirmed. ”I suspect everyone until I have the data to logically eliminate suspects.”

”I won't have it that way,” Jubal said, putting down his cordial.

”Of course you will,” Hirschel said quickly, before St. Cyr could speak. ”You wanted a cyberdetective because you wanted a complete investigation, a thorough investigation. Now, you're going to have to take the sour with the sweet.”

”Hirschel, after all-” Jubal began.

Then something he saw in the older man's expression cut him short. His voice died in volume and conviction until he only sighed, shrugged his shoulders and picked up the tiny gla.s.s of liqueur again.

St. Cyr wondered what had pa.s.sed between the two men. Clearly, Hirschel exercised some power over Jubal, though he was not a tenth as wealthy as the younger man and hardly old enough to pull a routine about being older-and-wiser-than-thou. Was it only his personality, so much more dominant than Jubal's, that had quieted the family head, or was there something else here? File it for consideration.

Turning from the hunter, St. Cyr addressed the entire family. ”Whose room is nearest the one Leon had?”

”Mine,” Betty said.

She was demure, not quite as stunningly attractive as her sister but lovely in her own right. Her hair was yellow, her eyes blue, her features Roman in the traditional ”cla.s.sic” beauty that made good marble statues. When she spoke, her voice was so soft that St. Cyr found himself leaning forward in his chair to hear what she said.

”You sleep in the room next to the one in which Leon was killed?”

”That's right.”

”You were in your room that night?”

”Yes.”

”Did you hear anything?”

”No.” She looked down at her hands, tried to hide them in each other, fingers kicking like spider legs. ”We have such excellent soundproofing here.”

Half an hour later, St. Cyr had asked fifty questions and listened to fifty variations of Betty's excuse: ”The walls are thick here”; ”Sound doesn't travel well from one level of the house to another”; ”After all, Mr. St. Cyr, the gardens are huge huge, and even if I happened to be out for a stroll at the same time poor Dorothea was murdered, I could hardly be expected to see or hear...” The bio-computer stored the answers, replayed them to itself, juxtaposed them, searched for a slip-up in someone's story, an odd clash of details. It found nothing out of the ordinary. St. Cyr, absorbing the family's rich emotional impressions, achieved no more than his mechanical comrade. The fifty questions might just as well never have been asked, the answers never given.

”I believe,” the cyberdetective said, ”that will be all for the night. In the morning I'll want to see the dead boy's room, the place in the garden where Dorothea died, other things.” He turned to Hirschel as the others stood to go, and he said, ”If I might have a word or two with you, I would appreciate it.”

”Certainly,” Hirschel said, sitting down again.

Jubal sat down too.

St. Cyr looked at the white-haired patriarch, then at Hirschel. ”I wanted to speak with you alone.”

”Come along to my quarters,” Hirschel said, rising, unfolding like a paper toy until he towered a few inches above St. Cyr.

They had reached the door to the drawing room when Jubal spoke to their backs. ”You're wrong.”