Kark Al, the withered little Martian, nodded corroboration, snapping, "It's stupid to accuse Mr. Idwall of these killings."
"That will be for the captain to decide," the officer said inflexibly. "You'll have to come to his office at once," he told Crane. "The rest of you people return to your cabins."
As Rab Crane was forced by the officer's gun through the crowd of curious, horrified passengers, he managed to smile reassuringly at the pale, distressed Lalla Dee.
The TSS man's eyes were searching the crowd for Jurk Usk, the Jovian who had sat beside Kin Nilga at the dinner table. The Jovian, then, and not the Saturnian, must be, the killer. No one else on the ship, now, but the Jovian had such strength. And he could not see Jurk Usk anywhere.
* * *
Half an hour later, in the captain's office, the veteran, space-tanned Venusian who was master of the Vulcan faced Rab Crane.
"Mr. Idwall, all the evidence points to you as the murderer of Kin Nilga and of the Earthman," he said. "A search of Kin Nilga's effects has revealed that he was a member of the Saturnian Secret Service. It is obvious that you are a criminal he was pursuing, and that you tried to kill him in the dining saloon tonight, failed and succeeded later in killing him in his cabin. A table steward has said you questioned him about Kin Nilga's movements."
"But how could I have broken his neck like that?" Crane protested desperately. "No Earthman has such strength."
"I do not know just what means you used to murder him," the captain told him unrelentingly, "but our course is obvious. You will be the ship's brig until we where you will be turned over to the space-court for trial."
Crane was led away, down to the lowest deck of the great liner, and thrust into a narrow metal cell on a little corridor off the rocket rooms. He sat down heavily on the bunk.