A Werewolf Among Us

shivered as relief flooded over the affected area. And that abruptly, he knew who the killer was.

Impossible suspect.

He held the back-scratcher up before his face and looked at the tiny hand with the hooked fingers. He had no doubt at all that he was right, though it would be necessary to do a little breaking and entering to find the evidence he needed.

There will be no evidence. You suspect the wrong person.

No.

Let me feed you the data that cancels out your newest supposition. And, without his permission, it did just that, ran tapes that refuted the possibility of his suspicions in the minutest of detail.

Still, St. Cyr thought, hesitating now…

You are wrong.

He put the back-scratcher down. I guess I am, he thought.

He could not possibly be a killer.

For a few minutes the detective sat on the edge of the table, completely detached from everything except his new theory. The bio-computer had effectively disproved the possibility that he was still toying with, and yet…

Impossible.

Despite the wealth of data that the other half of the symbiote had fed him to the contrary, St. Cyr slowly became certain, once again, that he was right and the bio-computer was wrong. He was elated, felt light as air, energetic as he only was when he knew that he was on top of a solution.

To progress on feeling alone is illogical.

He stood and said, 'I'm leaving the room for a few minutes.'

'To go where?' Jubal asked.

'I want to look around a bit, collect a few pieces of evidence thai I'm fairly sure I'm going to find.' He looked at each of them, slowly, one-by-one, giving the bio-computer a chance to supply him with some suspect different than the one that he was now so certain of. Jubal… Alicia, looking more frightened than anyone else… Dane staring with disbelief, still clinging to the batch of superstitions he thought was the only answer to the affair… Hirschel, watchful but not unsettled, almost smiling… Tina standing beside him, so innocent and attractive… But the bio- computer could not produce any viable alternative. St. Cyr told them: 'I believe I know who killed the others.'

Jubal was on his feet an instant later. 'Good God, man, tell us who it was!'

'Not yet. I want to be sure of everything before I make any accusations. Give me twenty minutes or half an hour to look around.'

'You don't mean that you're leaving us here alone, without any weapons?' Jubal asked, incredulous.

'That's best.'

The old man was in a cantankerous mood again. Sitting there with nothing to do but brood for almost an hour, something he had probably never done before, he had put himself quite on edge. 'I won't permit—'

'You haven't any choice,' the cyberdetective said. He quickly crossed the room, opened the door, stepped into the corridor, and let the door shut behind him before anyone else could object — including the bio-computer, which had almost gotten to him once before.

'Mr. St, Cyr?' Teddy asked, looming suddenly out of the dark hall. His sight receptors glowed like cat's eyes. 'Is something wrong?'

'Nothing's wrong,' St. Cyr said. 'In fact, I think I know which one of them did it.'

Nothing could shock the master unit; he had no capacity for genuine surprise or outrage. He said, 'Do you require any assistance in the apprehension, Mr. St. Cyr?'

'Thank you, Teddy, but not just yet. I have some prowling to do first, to be sure my suspicions are right.'

'I'll help with that, if you want.'

'You can help most by standing guard right here and making certain that none of them leave that room.'

'I'll do that, sir.' Efficient. Polite. Obedient. And just about as human as anyone in this strangely cool Alderban family.

'Excellent I'm going up to the fourth level, and I'll be back in about half an hour.'

'Good luck, sir,' the master unit said.

* * *

In the basement workshop some minutes later, Baker St. Cyr located a prybar in an open-front tool rack and used it to break into the cabinet in which Teddy kept the keys that he had shown Inspector Rainy and the cyberdetective only a few days before. The cabinet door was strong, and it screeched loudly as the lock tore loose and it grated open over the jagged ruin. St. Cyr hesitated when he had it open, listening for some sound that would indicate the break-in had been heard. He did not know if the house computer monitored things like that. When two minutes had passed in agonizing silence, he decided that he was unobserved, and he began to read the tags on the keys, looking for those that he might be able to use.

He found them and placed them on the counter below the cabinet, then forced the violated door shut again.

This is all a useless endeavor.

He looked at his watch and saw that he had fifteen minutes of his half hour left. He did not want to keep them waiting beyond that time, for he did not want anyone to go onto the fourth level to look for him.

Five minutes later, he was done. He left the workshop carrying a paper sack full of interesting discoveries, crossed the garage, and stepped into the elevator shaft through the doors that he had forced open from the inside a short while ago. The shaft was lighted only by the glow that spilled through the open doors. The floor was only three feet below those lift doors on this last level, and he was able to use that minimal illumination to find the pair of parallel tracks on the righthand wall. It was on these that the lift rode; because the system was designed for horizontal as well as vertical movement, there were no cables to contend with. Standing on the thick lower rail, holding the sack in his left hand, he grasped the notched upper rail in his good right hand and began to laboriously work his way upwards.

Teddy was waiting outside the door to the kitchen, where St. Cyr had left him. 'Nobody tried to leave?'

'No, Mr. St, Cyr.' Teddy did not show any interest in the paper sack or its contents. 'Do you want support in there, sir?'

'Not yet. If you'd continue to guard the door, I'd feel as if my back was well covered.'

'Yes, sir.'

St. Cyr vocal-coded the door and went inside, made certain it shut completely behind him, and walked to the table, where he put down the sackful of evidence.

Tina was sitting on the floor with the others again, her black hair fallen across her face like a mourning cloth. He supposed that if anyone here had it in him to mourn, it was Alicia. Still, the girl held that same mournful image in his mind. Dane also sat on the floor, Hirschel on a stool, Jubal and Alicia on matching white chairs. They almost looked, St. Cyr thought, like some medieval court — the king and queen above everyone else, the nobleman on the stool, the distant and unimportant cousins on the lowest level. They all watched him cross the room, put the sack down and seat himself on the table. Then, suddenly, as if realizing that he was not the one most to be feared, they looked furtively at one another, wondering… Only Tina made no attempt to read something sinister in the others' eyes; she stared at her hands, which were folded in her lap.

'The proof?' Jubal asked.

'Yes.'

'Who?' He sounded very old, and not at all cantankerous. He sounded as if he would rather not know who, would rather St. Cyr took the evidence away and never came back again.

'I'll come to that in a moment,' the cyberdetective said. 'First, I want to tell you who I've suspected over the last several days and my reasons for not trusting each. That way, when I come to whom I now know committed those four murders, you'll understand that I've not made a rash decision.'

No one said anything.

Sr. Cyr said, 'I first suspected Hirschel.'

The hunter smiled. He looked like a wolf.

Succinctly, the detective explained the circumstances under which he had first seen their uncle: the storm,