"This man was poisoned with a super-powerful radium salt," Rab Crane declared to the horrified officers. "He died instantly in awful agony and his whole body is charged with radioactive force now and will have to be handled with lead gloves. Someone substituted the radium salt for the ordinary salt in this salt shaker."
* * *
Lalla Dee looked up at Crane with wide, terrified dark eyes.
"Then maybe it was someone trying to kill you," she said. "The poison couldn't have been intended for any of the rest of us."
Crane knew what she meant. Only Earthmen, out of all the Solar System's peoples, were habitual users of salt. He knew well that the poison had been intended for him — and that someone at this table had made the substitution!
Yet he said, shaking his head, "There's no reason why anyone would want to kill me. I'm just an ordinary importer. No, this young fellow must have had some enemy who took this means to kill him."
"I'll swear that I filled that cellar with ordinary salt today!" said the table-steward hoarsely.
"The whole affair will have to be investigated by the captain," the third mate of the Vulcan said crisply, "meanwhile send for a hospital detail to remove this man's body."
As the body was carried out by leadgloved attendants, Kark Al said sickly:
"I–I guess I'm not hungry after all. I'm going to my cabin."