A Werewolf Among Us

'We've already investigated the possibility,' Rainy said, hair-wiping. 'Each member of the family has a vocally-coded lock to insure his privacy and, as Jubal said after one of the earlier murders, 'to increase his sense of creative solitude.' '

'Teddy can open those doors,' St. Cyr pointed out.

'Oh?'

'You didn't know?'

'No.'

'He uses a high-pitched sonic override to operate the mechanism.'

'You think his tone could be duplicated?'

'All that anyone would need to do,' St. Cyr observed, 'is hang around with a tape recorder and wait for Teddy to serve someone breakfast in bed, record the tone for later use.'

Rainy thrust both hands in his pockets with such measured violence that it was only good fortune that kept him from ripping his fists through the lining. He seemed to be making a conscious effort not to smooth down his hair. 'You talk as if our man must be a member of the family.'

'That seems most likely.'

'Yes, it does. But what in the world would any of them have to gain by it?'

'Hirschel, for instance, has the entire fortune to gain — if he comes out of this as the sole survivor.'

Rainy shook his head and said, 'No. He is not so naive as to think that he can kill all of them without arousing suspicion, then walk away with the cash. He appears to me to be a very clever, able man, not a bungler.'

'I'd guess not. Still, it's something to keep in mind.'

Rainy looked toward the Alderban family, removed one hand from his pocket and wiped his hair, caught himself halfway through the nervous habit, shrugged and finished wiping. He called to Teddy, where the master unit waited with the mourners.

'Yes, sir?' Teddy asked, gliding swiftly forward on gravplates, his long rod arms hanging straight at his sides.

Rainy said, as if blocking it all out for his own benefit, 'Each bedroom door — except for the guest bedrooms — is responsive to the voice of its occupant. Also, you can open all of these doors with a sonic override. Otherwise, is there any way that someone might gain entrance quickly and without making much noise?'

'Yes,' Teddy said, surprising both of them. 'There is an emergency master key for manual cycling of the doors, in the event of power failure.'

'Who keeps the emergency key?' Rainy asked.

'I do,' Teddy said.

St. Cyr: 'On your person?' It sounded like a strange object for the preposition in this case, but the only one that came to mind.

Teddy said, 'No, sir. I keep it in the basement workshop, in my tool cabinet, racked with other keys that I sometimes require.'

'The cabinet — is it locked?' Rainy asked.

'Yes, sir.'

'And where is that key?' St. Cyr asked.

Teddy slid open a small storage slot high on his right side, a tiny niche that had been invisible only a moment earlier. Twisting his shiny, double-elbowed, ball-jointed arm into a fantastic, tortured shape, he extracted the key from this slot and held it up for their inspection.

Rainy sighed rather loudly and put both hands in his pockets again. 'Could anyone have made a duplicate?'

Teddy said, 'Not without my knowledge. It is always kept in the recess that you have just seen.'

'You've never lost it, misplaced it?'

Teddy looked the same, for his metal features were immutable, but he sounded hurt. 'Never.'

'And it has been with you since the house was built?'

'No, sir,' Teddy said. 'I have only been with the Alderban family for eight months.'

'But it was with the master unit who was here before you?'

'No, sir. The Alderban family had a large number of limited-response mechanicals prior to the acquisition of a master unit. I am their first master unit.'

'Well,' St. Cyr said, 'that means that everyone in the household could have copied the key previously, when it was in the hands of one of the limited response domos. The lesser mechanicals would have given it to any human on demand and taken it back again, once a copy had been made, without retaining a memory-bit on the incident.'

Teddy said nothing.

Rainy said, 'We'll progress, for the time being anyway, on the notion that no one had a copy made at that time. If someone had been intent on killing some or all of the Alderban family eight months ago, he would not have waited this long to begin, do you think?'

'Not unless he happens to be a psychotic,' St. Cyr said. 'If he is completely irrational, there isn't any way of saying, for certain, just what he could be expected to do.'

'True. But a psychotic ought to reveal himself, in everyday life, in some bit of eccentricity. For now, let's say the killer has concrete reasons, sound — in his mind— motivations.'

St. Cyr nodded agreement, relieved that the federal policeman had not mentioned the du-aga- klava.

Rainy said, 'Teddy, can we have a look at this cabinet where you keep the emergency key to the bedroom doors?'

'Yes, sir. If you will follow me, please.'

He floated into the main corridor and toward the elevator, his long arms hanging loosely at his sides again.

The two detectives followed.

In the elevator, going down, no one said anything. The only sound was the faint hiss of the lift's complex mechanism as they shifted from vertical to horizontal travel and then back again — and the rustle, once, of Rainy removing a hand from a coat pocket in order to brush at his thick hair.

The elevator opened onto the garage, where a number of vehicles were parked in waist-high stalls. Teddy led them across the tile floor and through an irising door into the workshop where he crafted silverware.

'The cabinet is over there,' the master unit said, pointing.

The white metal storage box measured approximately three feet high by four feet long, perhaps twelve inches deep. It was bolted to the stone wall, and it appeared to be more than averagely secure.

Rainy crossed the room and climbed onto the work table below the cabinet, stood up, brushed his hands off and carefully examined the seams for chipped paint or the traces of a recent touch-up job. Satisfied that no one had forced the cabinet open, he said, 'Okay, Teddy. Would you unlock it now, please.'

The master unit glided forth, levitated higher on his gravplates and unlocked the storage unit Rainy swung the door open and looked inside. Two dozen keys were pegged there, all made from the same blank but with differently serrated edges.

'Which key?' Rainy asked.

Teddy pointed to the right top corner peg.

Rainy did not touch it. He said, 'I'll send a man down to take prints from it later. But I don't really think we're going to have much luck with it.'

St. Cyr asked, 'How does the emergency key cycle the door open in the absence of electrical power?'

Teddy swiveled toward the cyberdetective and said, 'It disconnects the automatic locking mechanism and reveals a wheel fronting a hydraulic jack that pumps up the door. One has only to turn the wheel half a dozen times to raise the door.'

'Perhaps that would be long enough to be discovered, enough time for the intended victim to sound an alarm,' St. Cyr observed.

'No, sir,' Teddy said. 'The hydraulic jack is essentially silent. And the intended — the intended victim might not be facing the door — or, for that matter, might not even be in the sitting room at all.'

Rainy climbed down from the work bench, dusted himself off and looked around the shop at the kilns, lathes,