WITNESS
BY GEORGE H. SMITH
Edith was just a computer, but a
very good one and a very observing one.
So it was quite natural that she be
consulted about the doctor's murder....
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Worlds of If Science Fiction, May 1955.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
Ballard was quite dead. There could be no doubt of it. He lay sprawled in front of Edith, with his head very messily bashed in and with one hand still extended toward her. A long shimmering stream of blood ran half-way across the large room. Dr. Dudley Ballard had been as inconsiderate in his dying as he had been in his living.
Art MacKinney and I stood in the doorway and stared. We were shocked not so much by the fact that Ballard was dead as by the fact that he lay in this most secret room, this holy of holies. Ours was the most security conscious project in the whole country; and this was where he had picked to get himself killed.
"God! There'll really be a stink about this," MacKinney breathed.
"Well, I can't think of anyone who had it coming more than he did," I said. I hated Ballard's guts and everyone knew it, so there was no point in being hypocritical now.