“I remarked upon it, Partner Elijah, and considered it an assumed interest designed to influence your opinions.”

“Suppose it were a real interest, even a fascination. Suppose there were something about Earth’s crowds that excited her. Suppose she were attracted against her will by something she had been taught to consider filthy. There was possible abnormality. I had to test it by seeing Solarians and noticing how they reacted to it, and seeing her and noticing how she reacted to it. It was why I had to get away from you, Daneel, at any cost. It was why I had to abandon viewing as a method for carrying on the investigation.”

“You did not explain this, Partner Elijah.”

“Would the explanation have helped against what you conceived your duty under First Law to be?”

Daneel was silent.

Baley said, “The experiment worked. I saw or tried to see several people. An old sociologist tried to see me and had to give up midway. A roboticist refused to see me at all even under terrific force, The bare possibility sent him into an almost infantile frenzy. He sucked his finger and wept. Dr. Delmarre’s assistant was used to personal presence in the way of her profession and so she tolerated me, but at twenty feet only. Gladia, on the other hand—”

“Yes, Partner Elijah?”

“Gladia consented to see me without more than a slight hesitation. She tolerated my presence easily and actually showed signs of decreasing strain as time went on. It all fits into a pattern of psychosis. She didn’t mind seeing me; she was interested in Earth; she might have felt an abnormal interest in her husband. All of it could be explained by a strong and, for this world, psychotic interest in the

personal presence of members of the opposite sex. Dr. Delmarre, himself, was not the type to encourage such a feeling or co-operate with it. It must have been very frustrating for her.”

Daneel nodded. “Frustrating enough for murder in a moment of passion.”

“In spite of everything, I don’t think so, Daneel.”

“Are you perhaps being influenced by extraneous motives of your own, Partner Elijah? Mrs. Delmarre is an attractive woman and you are an Earthman in whom a preference for the personal presence of an attractive woman is not psychotic.”

“I have better reasons,” said Baley uneasily. (Daneel’s cool glance was too penetrating and soul-dissecting by half. Jehoshaphat! The thing was only a machine.) He said, “If she were the murderess of her husband, she would also have to be the attempted murderess of Gruer.” He had almost the impulse to explain the way murder could be manipulated through robots, but held back. He was not sure how Daneel would react to a theory that made unwitting murderers of robots.

Daneel said, “And the attempted murderess of yourself as well.” Baley frowned. He had had no intention of telling Daneel of the poisoned arrow that had missed; no intention of strengthening the other’s already too strong protective complex vis-a-vis himself.

He said angrily, “What did Klorissa tell you?” He ought to have warned her to keep quiet, but then, how was he to know that Daneel would be about, asking questions?

Daneel said calmly, “Mrs. Cantoro had nothing to do with the matter. I witnessed the murder attempt myself.”

Baley was thoroughly confused. “You were nowhere about.”

Daneel said, “I caught you myself and brought you here an hour ago.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Do you not remember, Partner Elijah? It was almost a perfect murder. Did not Mrs. Delmarre suggest that you go into the open? I was not a witness to that, but I feel certain she did.”

“She did suggest it. Yes.”

“She may even have enticed you to leave the house.”

Baley thought of the “portrait” of himself, of the enclosing gray walls. Could it have been clever psychology? Could a Solarian have

that much intuitive understanding of the psychology of an Earthman?

“No,” he said.Daneel said, “Was it she who suggested you go down to the ornamental pond and sit on the bench?”

“Well, yes.”

“Does it occur to you that she might have been watching you, noticing your gathering dizziness?”

“She asked once or twice if I wanted to go back.”

“She might not have meant it seriously. She might have been watching you turn sicker on that bench. She might even have pushed you, or perhaps a push wasn’t necessary. At the moment I reached you and caught you in my arms, you were in the process of falling backward off the stone bench and into three feet of water, in which you would surely have drowned.”

For the first time Baley recalled those last fugitive sensations. “Jehoshaphat!”

“Moreover,” said Daneel with calm relentlessness, “Mrs. Delmarre sat beside you, watching you fall, without a move to stop you. Nor would she have attempted to pull you out of the water. She would have let you drown. She might have called a robot, but the robot would surely have arrived too late. And afterward, she would explain merely that, of course, it was impossible for her to touch you even to save your life.”

True enough, thought Baley. No one would question her inability to touch a human being. The surprise, if any, would come at her ability to be as close to one as she was.

Daneel said, “You see, then, Partner Elijah, that her guilt can scarcely be in question. You stated that she would have to be the attempted murderess of Agent Gruer as though this were an argument against her guilt. You see now that she must have been. Her only motive to murder you was the same as her motive for trying to murder Gruer; the necessity of getting rid of an embarrassingly persistent investigator of the first murder.”

Baley said, “The whole sequence might have been an innocent one. She might never have realized how the outdoors would affect

“She studied Earth. She knew the peculiarities of Earthmen.”

“I assured her I had been outdoors today and that I was growing used to it.”

“She may have known better.”

Baley pounded fist against palm. “You’re making her too clever. It doesn’t fit and I don’t believe it. In any case, no murder accusation can stick unless and until the absence of the murder weapon can be accounted for.”

Daneel looked steadily at the Earthman, “I can do that, too, Partner Elijah.”

Baley looked at his robot partner with a stunned expression. “How?”

“Your reasoning, you will remember, Partner Elijah, was this. Were Mrs. Delmarre the murderess, then the weapon, whatever it was, must have remained at the scene of the murder. The robots, appearing almost at once, saw no sign of such a weapon, hence it must have been removed from the scene, hence the murderer must have removed it, hence the murderer could not be Mrs. Delmarre. Is all that correct?”

“Correct.”

“Yet,” continued the robot, “there is one place where the robots did not look for the weapon.”

“Where?”

“Under Mrs. Delmarre. She was lying in a faint, brought on by the excitement and passion of the moment, whether murderess or not, and the weapon, whatever it was, lay under her and out of sight.”

Baley said, “Then the weapon would have been discovered as soon as she was moved.”

“Exactly,” said Daneel, “but she was not moved by the robots. She herself told us yesterday at dinner that Dr. Thool ordered the robots to put a pillow under her head and leave her. She was first moved by Dr. Altim Thool, himself, when he arrived to examine her.”

“So?”

“It follows, therefore, Partner Elijah, that a new possibility arises. Mrs. Delmarre was the murderess, the weapon was at the scene of the crime, but Dr. Thool carried it off and disposed of it to protect Mrs. Delmarre.”

Baley felt contemptuous. He had almost been seduced into expecting something reasonable. He said, “Completely motiveless. Why should Dr. Thool do such a thing?”

“For a very good reason. You remember Mrs. Delmarre’s remarks concerning him: ‘He always treated me since I was a child and was always so friendly and kind.’ I wondered if he might have some motive for being particularly concerned about her. It was for that reason that I visited the baby farm and inspected the records. What I had merely guessed at as a possibility turned out to be the truth.”