"I don't want to eat now either," the white-faced Lalla Dee told Rab Crane. "That awful scream-"
In fact, they had all risen from the table except Jurk Usk, the Jovian, who kept his seat and was awaiting his dinner with the surly immobility of his race.
Rab Crane, as he followed the girl toward the door of the noticed that Kin Nilga was already disappearing ahead of them. The Saturnian seemed in a hurry.
Crane's mind was working 'swiftly. Someone at their table had Doctor Alph's brain. And that someone had tried twice, now, to kill him. Of those two things he was certain. But which one? He thought of those snapped necks — the huge physical strength of the Jovian and Saturnian.
He lingered behind Lalla Dee.
"Can you tell me which person at our table came into the dining saloon first tonight?" he asked the shaken table-steward.
"Kin Nilga, the Saturnian gentleman, sir. He was first at the table."
"I want to ask him if he noticed anyone lurking by the table when he entered," Crane said, and went on after the Venusian girl.
But as he moved along the dark promenade deck with Lalla Dee, Crane's excitement was mounting. Kin Nilga, then, had had the best chance of any of them to plant that deadly poison. And Kin Nilga also had the great physical strength that killer must have had.
Was the solemn-faced Saturnian the diabolical agent who had stolen the brain of Doctor Alph? Crane resolved to find out this very night!