"Support her?" Surprise jumped into my voice.
"What I said. She's my wife, you know. Back on Earth, I mean. I skipped out on her a few years back, but yesterday I was on my way to looking her up when you—"
"She didn't recognize the name Harry Smythe," I said coldly. "I'm afraid you'll have to think a little faster."
"Of course she didn't! How could she? That ain't my name. What made you think it was?"
Bright beads of sweat sparkled on his forehead, and his lips had that frantic looseness of lips not entirely under control.
"You left her," I grunted. "But you followed her across space anyway. Just to tell her you were sorry and you wanted to come back. Is that it?"
"Well—" His eyes were calculating. "Not the God's honest, mate, no. I didn't know she was here. Not at first. But there was this Spider, see? This Martian. His name was Tahily and he used to hang around the saloons and he talked a lot, see? Then's when I knew...."
"So it was you who killed him," I said. "One murder wasn't enough back on Earth; you had to pile them up on the planets." I could feel something begin to churn inside of me.
"Wait! Sure, I knocked off the Martian. But a fair fight, see? That Spider jumped my claim. A fair fight it was, and anybody'd done the same. But even without that, he had it coming anyway, wouldn't you say? Bigamist and all that, you know? I mean marrying a woman already married."
His lips were beginning to slobber. I watched them with revulsion in my stomach.