Black Morgan owned a large spacecraft of marked design. No spacecraft construction company had made it, and the construction of spacecraft is not a small project. This eliminates the possibility of small-yard construction and definitely removes the possibility of self-construction. Men have made boats in their basements, and automobiles in their attics, but no man has ever built a battleship or a spacecraft without owning a huge construction company.
The construction companies had all been investigated thoroughly. Black Morgan was not operating one on the side. He had no connection large enough to get a craft built and forgotten about. Besides, there was a fantastic reward for information of that nature, enough that any workman would be a fool to ignore it, and deliberately forget that he had once driven a rivet into the spacecraft now known as the Black Morgan.
Then Jeffries reread his statements. They added up to one thing: Black Morgan did not exist! Black Morgan was the Impossible Pirate.
So, he thought, if Morgan does not exist, then he is a fantasy, a myth. The only evidence that is not strictly negative is the fact that an armed man enters the spacecraft in a standard spacesuit and holds up the passengers.
Instruments do not lie, but it is possible to fudge up a detector. Either from the inside or externally. As for items A, B, C, and the rest, well—
Maybe Black Morgan didn't exist!
And if Black Morgan did not exist, ex-Lieutenant Jeffries knew how to catch him!
Black Morgan felt good. He permitted a single pang of sorrow for the hapless Lieutenant Jeffries, and then discarded the unlucky man. He looked to his gear, checked his instruments, and then inspected the big ship on the spaceport outside. Take-off was about ready, he knew, and they were carrying plenty. Life was less easy since Jeffries had gone; while the lieutenant was there, he was a fair weathervane, save for twice. But Jeffries as an indirect source of information was not destined to last forever, and now Black Morgan was reduced to bribing lower employees, watching the markets, and tapping the communications' beams.
He watched, making certain of his plans, until the ship's ports closed. Then he poised and made ready himself. Then from the ship's drivers came that giveaway glare of violet-actinic light that seared the eyeballs of he who looked. The ship trembled slightly, and lifted at 3-Gs—its acceleration with respect to Mars was three Terran G minus the surface gravity of the Red Planet. It went up, gaining speed. The actinic glow increased as the distance from ground increased, and it cast its glare over the entire spaceport.