"That's about it, I guess," he said. "Nobody here can do you any good. But you look into this guy Forsch. He may be your boy."
Monk smiled tightly.
"Pay him," he said to Garcia.
When the detectives handed Fletcher Monk the completed report on the activities of Diana Christy, he read it through thoroughly, savoring each juicy word between puffs of his cigar. The report was excellently constructed. It was painstaking in its detail. It named names, places, times, events, and even recorded certain revealing conversations. It gave the background of each of Mrs. Christy's lovers, even down to their income and place of birth.
It was a marvelous document, in Monk's estimation, and not the first of its kind he had had prepared. A powerful piece of persuasion.
With great satisfaction, he replaced the volume in an envelope and buzzed for Garcia. His instructions to the assistant were crisp and definite. The assignment was the kind that Garcia both understood and relished. He took the report from Monk's hands and went on his way to call on the lady in question.
Bill Christy, recently returned from a Mars flight, was both amazed and disturbed by the strange request his beautiful young wife made of him. It was awful—illegal—even criminal! To arrange for the certification of a man with a weak heart; to virtually counterfeit the medical records of the Spacelane Company!
But he was her uncle, Diana Christy pleaded. The only relative she had in the world; the only one she loved outside of Christy himself. He must help her; he must give her poor sick uncle a chance to make a new life for himself in the Mars Colony.
He wouldn't do it; he couldn't! But she cried, with great wet tears streaming down the smooth planes of her face. Didn't he love her? Wasn't this one little favor worth doing for the sake of her happiness? No one would be hurt by it. The motives were altruistic, after all.