A Werewolf Among Us

vices, drills, and benches with permanently fixed engraving tools. He looked at Teddy and said, 'What's all this for?'

Teddy explained the silver crafts that he and Jubal 'collaborated' on, and he offered an example, a goblet that was only half-engraved. It was tall and slim and thus far decorated with a naked girl riding a tiger the whole way around the cup so that the tiger ended with his own tail draped through his mouth.

St. Cyr said, 'Do you have the tools here to make duplicates of these keys?'

'Of course.'

'You make them yourself?'

'Yes. It is highly unlikely that a key could be lost, and—'

St. Cyr interrupted him. 'When was the last time you had to machine a duplicate key?'

'I've never needed to,' Teddy said. 'A master unit is quite efficient. It doesn't lose things.'

St. Cyr looked at the federal policeman quizzically and said, 'Well?'

'Nothing more for us to do here,' Rainy said. 'I'll send a man down to take prints from that key, but later. Let's get back upstairs and see if anything else has been turned up.'

* * *

Nothing else was, of course, turned up.

The key in the workshop cabinet was as bare of fingerprints as every surface in Betty's room had been.

Finally the police machines were moved out of the house and loaded aboard the helicopter again, along with the uniformed technicians who guided most of them. The corpse was removed too, to be taken back to police headquarters where a more thorough autopsy could be performed, after which it would be cremated according to the Alderban family's wishes. The ashes would be returned in an urn, but no religious ceremony would be held; the Alderbans were non-believers.

Inspector Chief Rainy was the last of his crew to leave, and he asked for a moment of St. Cyr's time before he went. The family still lingered in the corridor outside of Betty's room. Rainy and St, Cyr moved a dozen steps away from them, where they could speak privately.

'I'm not going to leave one of my men behind,' Rainy said.

St. Cyr only nodded.

'I planted a man here after Dorothea's death, and absolutely nothing happened for so long that we pulled him off. Apparently his presence gave the killer a bad case of nerves.'

'And just as apparently, my presence here doesn't bother him in the least.'

'Anyway, you don't deter him.'

St. Cyr said, 'You want me to report to you?'

'That's it.'

'I will, if I find anything interesting. I would have anyway, without the request.' He listened to Rainy thank him, then said, 'What do you know about Hirschel?'

Rainy didn't look at all surprised by the question. 'Rambler, gamesman. He's been just about anywhere that the hunt is good and done just about everything to lay his life on the line.'

'Except murder?'

'You think he'd consider it the ultimate thrill? I doubt that he could be that jaded,' Rainy said.

'You've no reason to suspect him?'

'No more than the others, I guess.'

Then Rainy was gone, and St. Cyr realized that the responsibility for the family's safety had devolved, suddenly, to him. He looked at them, realized that everyone but Hirschel would be an easy mark when the time came for the killer to strike again — if, indeed, he intended to commit a fourth murder.

Strong possibility.

'Are there any weapons in the house?' St. Cyr asked Jubal.

'I won't permit my children to have them,' he said. He was as aggressive as ever, surprisingly contained in the face of Betty's death. Even Alicia had stopped crying, though her eyes were swollen and red.

'I have a number of weapons, of course,' Hirschel said. 'It is my hobby.'

'No,' Jubal said. 'I will not allow everyone to go around armed with deadly weapons. As likely as not, inexperienced as we all are in such things, we'd end up accidentally killing each other or ourselves.'

'I have narcotic-dart pistols,' Hirschel said. 'They produce an hour of sound sleep, nothing worse.'

'How many do you have?' St. Cyr asked.

'Three different types, all workable in this situation. They all fire clusters of darts, so you don't even have to aim well, just point and pull the trigger.' The big, dark man seemed to be enjoying the tension.

'How about that?' St. Cyr asked Jubal.

The patriarch's white hair was in complete disarray. He tried to comb it in place with his fingers, frowned, and said, 'I guess that would be all right.'

'Get the guns,' St. Cyr told Hirschel.

The hunter was back in five minutes and explained the operation of each piece. St. Cyr left one with Jubal and Alicia, warning them to stay close together whenever possible and never to leave each other for even a moment during the night hours. Two of the three murders had taken place late at night. The second he gave to Dane, who seemed eager to understand its workings and willing to use it.

'I doubt it's going to work, though,' he said.

'Why is that?' St. Cyr asked.

'I think the du-aga-klava is only susceptible to certain substances. Drugs most likely have no effect on it.'

St. Cyr looked at Hirschel to see what his reaction was to what Dane had said; he felt more comradeship with the violent man than with any of the others, even though he also had greater suspicions about him. But the hunter seemed unmoved, either way, by the theory of supernatural intervention.

The third handgun went to Tina, who quickly caught on to the proper way to hold it and take aim. Hirschel said that she would make a fine marksman. Jubal looked unhappy at that.

'I'd like to make a suggestion,' Tina said when Hirschel had finished explaining the narcotic-dart pistol to her.

She had been so taciturn before that St. Cyr was surprised by this sudden turnabout. In fact, he thought it was the longest statement he had ever heard her make. 'What is that?' he asked.

'That someone run a check on Walter Dannery.'

Puzzled, St. Cyr said, 'Who is he?'

'A man my father fired from the family business about a year and a half ago.'

St. Cyr turned to Jubal. 'Is he a possible enemy?'

Jubal waved the suggestion away as if it were a bothersome insect flitting about his face. 'The man was a weakling, an embezzler. He would not have the nerve for something like this.'

'Just the same,' St. Cyr said, 'I'd like to hear about him.'

'My accountants came to me with proof that he'd embezzled nearly two hundred and eighty thousand credit units over a period of nine months. They had already let him go, but he seemed to blame the whole thing on me. Offered a sob story about dependent children, a sick wife, all very melodramatic. But he's been gone from Darma for quite a long time, well over a year.'

'Have you told Inspector Rainy about him?'

'Yes, first thing.'

'He checked Dannery out?'

'Yes. He's gone to Ionus, taken an administrative position in one of the heavy industries there. Whoever hired him is a fool, but at least he's no longer my consideration.'

St. Cyr turned to Tina and said, 'You think that more ought to be done about this man?'

'Yes,' she said. 'He was terribly bitter about losing his job, blamed it on everyone but himself — and he broke things the one time he came here.'

'Broke things?'

'He smashed a vase,' Jubal said, trying to minimize it 'He was emotionally unstable, a weakling, as I told you. I threw him out of here myself.'