He didn't care. He knew what the verdict ought to be. He knew also that juries had occasionally been swayed by histrionics on the part of the defense counsel, and had been persuaded to free guilty men. He knew, too, that prosecutors had railroaded innocent men. But such things as that didn't happen often in the Belt. A man doesn't live too long in the Belt unless he's capable of recognizing Truth when he sees it.
But even if the wrong verdict had been brought in, there would have been nothing he could do about it now. He had done his part. He had done everything he could. He had brought them in. He had testified. All the rest of it was up to the Jury and the Court—those two enigmatic halves of Justice and Judgment.
The point was that this was the perfect time to leave the courtroom. When he reached his office, he could, if he wanted—and, he thought ruefully, he probably would want to, in spite of his pretended indifference—call up to find out what the verdict had been. But, during these few moments, all eyes were on the jury box. No one was watching who left quietly by the side door of the big courtroom.
He moved silently and with assurance in the fractional-gee field of the planetoid. One of the uniformed guards looked at him and smiled, throwing him an informal salute.
The detective returned both. "If any of those news reporters ask which way I went," he said amiably, "tell 'em I went thataway." He gestured over his shoulder with a thumb.
"I ain't even seen you, Mr. Martin," said the guard.
The detective waved his thanks and kept going. It wasn't that he disliked newsmen. Most of them were fairly intelligent, pleasant people. But he didn't want to be asked any questions right now. He had given them interviews aplenty during the trial, and they could use those, now that the end of the trial had lifted the news ban. They had plenty of quotations from Stan Martin without asking him what he thought of the verdict itself.
Ten minutes later, he was in his own office in the Lloyd's Area. Helen, his secretary, was just cutting off the phone as he walked into the outer office. She flashed him a big smile.
"They just gave the verdict, Mr. Martin! Guilty all the way down the line—conspiracy, extortion, kidnapping, and all the others. The only 'not guilty' verdict was a minor one. They decided that Hedgepeth wasn't involved in the actual kidnapping itself, and therefore wasn't guilty of the physical assault of the guard."
"They're probably right," the detective said, "but, as you said, it's a minor point. It doesn't much matter whether he was physically present at the time the boy was taken or not; he was certainly in on the plot." He paused, frowning. "That's over and done with, except for a possible appeal. And it's unlikely that that would involve us, anyway. Get Mr. Pelham on the phone, will you? I'll take it in my office."