He watched Gladia as she ate. She was neat and precisely delicate in her movements and her appetite seemed normal. (His own fowl was delightful. In one respect, anyway-food-he could easily be spoiled by these Outer Worlds.)

He said, “What is your opinion of the poisoning, Gladia?”

She looked up. “I’m trying not to think of it. There are so many horrors lately. Maybe it wasn’t poisoning.”

“It was.”

“But there wasn’t anyone around?”

“How do you know?”

“There couldn’t have been. He has no wife, these days, since he’s all through with his quota of ch—you know what. So there was no one to put the poison in anything, so how could he be poisoned?”

“But he was poisoned. That’s a fact and must be accepted.”

Her eyes clouded over. “Do you suppose,” she said, “he did it himself?”

“I doubt it. Why should he? And so publicly?”

“Then it couldn’t be done, Elijah. It just couldn’t.”

Baley said, “On the contrary, Gladia. It could be done very easily. And I’m sure I know exactly how.”

Gladia seemed to be holding her breath for a moment. It came out through puckered lips in what was almost a whistle. She said, “I’m sure I don’t see how. Do you know who did it?”

Baley nodded. “The same one who killed your husband.”

“Are you sure?”

“Aren’t you? Your husband’s murder was the first in the history of Solaria. A month later there is another murder. Could that be a coincidence? Two separate murderers striking within a month of each other on a crime-free world? Consider, too, that the second victim was investigating the first crime and therefore represented a violent danger to the original murderer.”

“Well!” Gladia applied herself to her dessert and said between mouthfuls, “If you put it that way, I’m innocent.”

“How so, Gladia?”

“Why, Elijah. I’ve never been near the Gruer estate, never in my whole life. So I certainly couldn’t have poisoned Agent Gruer. And if I haven’t—why, neither did I kill my husband.”

Then, as Baley maintained a stern silence, her spirit seemed to fade and the corners of her small mouth drooped. “Don’t you think so, Elijah?”

“I can’t be sure,” said Baley. “I’ve told you I know the method used to poison Gruer. It’s an ingenious one and anyone on Solaria could have used it, whether they were on the Gruer estate or not; whether they were ever on the Gruer estate or not.”

Gladia clenched her hands into fists. “Are you saying I did it?”

“I’m not saying that.”

“You’re implying it.” Her lips were thin with fury and her high cheekbones were splotchy. “Is that all your interest in viewing me? To ask me sly questions? To trap me?”

“Now wait—”

“You seemed so sympathetic. So understanding. You—you Earthman!”

Her contralto had become a tortured rasp with the last word.

Daneel’s perfect face leaned toward Gladia and he said, “If you will pardon me, Mrs. Delmarre, you are holding a knife rather tightly and may cut yourself. Please be careful.”

Gladia stared wildly at the short, blunt, and undoubtedly quite harmless knife she held in her hand. With a spasmodic movement she raised it high.

Baley said, “You couldn’t reach me, Gladia.”

She gasped. “Who’d want to reach you? Ugh!” She shuddered in exaggerated disgust and called out, “Break contact at once!”

The last must have been to a robot out of the line of sight, and Gladia and her end of the room were gone and the original wall sprang back.

Daneel said, “Am I correct in believing you now consider this woman guilty?”

“No,” said Baley flatly. “Whoever did this needed a great deal more of certain characteristics than this poor girl has.”

“She has a temper.”

“What of that? Most people do. Remember, too, that she has been under a considerable strain for a considerable time. If I had been under a similar strain and someone had turned on me as she imagined I had turned on her, I might have done a great deal more than wave a foolish little knife.”

Daneel said, “I have not been able to deduce the technique of poisoning at a distance, as you say you have.”

Baley found it pleasant to be able to say, “I know you haven’t. You lack the capacity to decipher this particular puzzle.”

He said it with finality and Daneel accepted the statement as calmly and as gravely as ever.

Baley said, “I have two jobs for you, Daneel.”

“And what are they, Partner Elijah?”

“First, get in touch with this Dr. Thool and find out Mrs. Delmarre’s condition at the time of the murder of her husband. How long she required treatment and so on.”

“Do you want to determine something in particular?”

“No. I’m just trying to accumulate data. It isn’t easy on this world. Secondly, find out who will be taking Gruer’s place as head of security and arrange a viewing session for me first thing in the morning. As for me,” he said without pleasure in his mind, and with none in his voice, “I’m going to bed and eventually, I hope, I’ll sleep.” Then, almost petulantly, “Do you suppose I could get a decent bookfilm in this place?”

Daneel said, “I would suggest that you summon the robot in charge of the library.”

Baley felt only irritation at having to deal with the robot. He would much rather have browsed at will.

“No,” he said, “not a classic; just an ordinary piece of fiction dealing with everyday life on contemporary Solaria. About half a dozen of them.”

The robot submitted (it would have to) but even as it manipulated the proper controls that plucked the requisite bookfilms out of their niches and transferred them first to an exit slot and then to Baley’s hand, it rattled on in respectful tones about all the other categories in the library.

The master might like an adventure romance of the days of exploration, it suggested, or an excellent view of chemistry, perhaps, with animated atom models, or a fantasy, or a Galactography. The list was endless.

Baley waited grimly for his half dozen, said, “These will do,” reached with his own hands (his own hands) for a scanner and walked away.

When the robot followed and said, “Will you require help with the adjustment, master?” Baley turned and snapped, “No. Stay where you are.”

The robot bowed and stayed.

Lying in bed, with the headboard aglow, Baley almost regretted his decision. The scanner was like no model he had ever used and he began with no idea at all as to the method for threading the film. But he worked at it obstinately, and, eventually, by taking it apart and working it out bit by bit, he managed something.

At least he could view the film and, if the focus left a bit to be desired, it was small payment for a moment’s independence from the robots.

In the next hour and a half he had skipped and switched through four of the six films and was disappointed.

He had had a theory. There was no better way, he had thought, to get an insight into Solarian ways of life and thought than to read their novels. He needed that insight if he were to conduct the investigation sensibly.

But now he had to abandon his theories. He had viewed novels and had succeeded only in learning of people with ridiculous problems who behaved foolishly and reacted mysteriously. Why should a woman abandon her job on discovering her child had entered the same profession and refuse to explain her reasons until unbearable and ridiculous complications had resulted? Why should a doctor and an artist be humiliated at being assigned to one another and what was so noble about the doctor’s insistence on entering robotic research?

He threaded the fifth novel into the scanner and adjusted it to his eyes. He was bone weary.

So weary, in fact, that he never afterward recalled anything of the fifth novel (which he believed to be a suspense story) except for the opening in which a new estate owner entered his mansion and looked through the past account films presented him by a respectful robot.