Zitts arched a chestnut brown eyebrow, significantly glanced at the desk and the mechanical equipment, and said, "Don't be alarmed. Just a few little inventions of my own. Desks were originally intended as a resting place for the feet. I've merely modernized the idea. Slip under the desk to relax. People can't spill drinks and ashes down your collar while you sleep."
The woman nodded, smiled, revealing even teeth and a wide mouth with upturned corners. "I suppose you want me to tell you why I came?"
Zitts shook his head almost imperceptibly. "I know why you came," he said. "You want to offer me a ton of gold to investigate your husband's death. Sorry! Afraid we can't do business."
"B-but—but—how did you know?" The woman leaned forward and lifted a slender hand and looked at it as though to test her eyes.
Zitts eyed the round arm with interest. "Elementary," he said. "People are always wanting me to investigate something, and they always try to palm off that trash called gold. They never offer anything worthwhile, such as a dozen genuine bacteria for my collection, or a scuttle of coal—that almost priceless black stuff from which so many things are made. Ever seen any coal?"
The woman shook her head, swinging the shoulder-length blonde hair from side to side, and her deep blue eyes opened wide in wonder. "Heard of it. Glossy ebon substance of which ornaments are made. A princess on Mars is said to own a chunk of it as big as my thumb, set in a pendant. It was captured in the Martian war with Saturn."
"It's probably a phony," Zitts pointed out. "The Martians are too smart to let a woman wear that precious stuff. A piece that big could be made into the nucleus of a webbing which would trap enough sunlight and moisture from the orbit of Mars to turn every sandy plain on that planet into fertile land."
The subject seemed beyond the grasp of the woman. "But you haven't told me," she said softly, "how you knew it was my husband's death, not something else."
Zitts turned slightly in his chair. The turning itself seemed to serve as a signal. The door on his right opened noiselessly and a dusky Venusian female glided into the room, came and sat down on a seat which was remarkably like a man's knee.