"I hate to be referred to as 'material', good or bad. Do you have any idea how Baedecker or Thurston might be going to pull the grand-stand play?"
"Not a one, so far. How about that robotics team, or the engineers who are working on the ship? Think any of them could be in the pay of a rival?"
"It's possible," I said, "but I don't know which one or ones it might be. I've been watching them for three days, and they all seem on the up-and-up to me. And that worries me."
"How so?"
"You'd think that at least one of them would behave suspiciously by accident once in a while. You know—nerves or jumpiness from purely personal reasons. Hang-over, maybe, or woman trouble. But, no."
"The clue of the dog in the night, huh? Does that mean you suspect all of them?" he asked dryly.
"Sure. Isn't that what a good detective is supposed to do?"
"I wouldn't know; I'm just an information post. I will say this, though: If any of that bunch is connected with either Baedecker or Thurston, he isn't a professional. He's someone who's been contacted secretly and offered a heavy bribe. We're checking back on all of them now, to see if there's anything in their pasts which might indicate that their ethics are not what they should be. Or any unusual circumstance that might indicate blackmail or financial pressure."
"Nothing so far, though?"