"But they can't ask questions like that of Edith," I protested. "She's—she's too important to the national defense to have some country coroner asking her silly questions about the murder of a man who deserved to die anyway." I had to prevent this. I had to get around this eye witness business.
Thompson looked at me levelly. "MacKinney may be right, Green. The coroner may very well want to talk to Edith and there's no reason we should object if Security gives him clearance."
"But Mr. Thompson, our work—it'll be interrupted."
"We'll have to take that chance. And I think Washington will agree."
"But—" Couldn't they see that there wasn't any question of spying here. Couldn't they understand that Ballard had just gotten what he had coming. I couldn't let them question Edith. At least not until I had a chance to talk to her alone.
"And Green—because of your rather strange behaviour, I'm afraid I'll have to ask you to stay in your quarters until the inquest. MacKinney will handle your work with Edith until then."
I was shocked and really frightened now. I wouldn't get to talk to her, wouldn't get a chance to tell her what to say. I protested, but Thompson was firm, so firm that he placed a guard outside my door to make sure I didn't leave.
Washington rushed through clearance for the local officers and the inquest was held three days later. The coroner proved to be a shrewd country doctor, who had the inquest adjourned to the computer room as soon as he heard MacKinney's ideas about Edith.
The security guards on duty the night of the murder testified that only MacKinney, Thompson, Ballard and I had had access to the computer room; and it had already been established that it would have been impossible for a spy or foreign agent to have slipped into the heavily guarded room. It was clearly an inside job.
With all of us at the scene of the crime, the coroner summed it up for us. "—and since it could not have been the work of an outsider, it must have been a crime of a private nature." He looked closely at Thompson, MacKinney and me. "A crime of a private nature with the motive either revenge, jealousy or ambition. We know that the victim was an over-bearing man with a good many unpleasant traits. We know he was a man who forced his attentions on women, who was ill-tempered and abusive to those who worked with him. A man who had many enemies—but there were only three people who had the chance to attack him on this particular night.