“Sure, sure,” Jeffers said slowly. “I reckon I’d’ve done the same thing if he’d started to fall out toward me. I wasn’t even lookin’ when the locker was opened. I didn’t turn around until that stun gun went off—then I saw Mellon falling.”
“Exactly. No matter how it may have looked, Vaneski couldn’t have killed him with the stun gun, because he was already either dead or so close to death as makes no difference.”
Ensign Vaneski rather timidly raised his hand. “Excuse me, sir, but you said this killer was waiting for you outside your room when the lights went out. You said you knew it wasn’t Snookums because Snookums smells of hot machine oil, and you didn’t smell any. Isn’t it possible that an air current or something blew the smell away? Or—”
Mike shook his head. “Impossible, Mister Vaneski. I woke up when the door slid open. I heard the last dying whisper of the air conditioners when the power was cut. Now, we know that Snookums tore out those switches. He’s admitted it. And the evidence shows that a pair of waldo hands smashed those switches. Now—how could Snookums have been at my door within two seconds after tearing out those switches?
“He couldn’t have. It wasn’t Snookums at my door—it was someone else.”
Again they were all silent, but the question was on their faces: Who?
“Now we come to the question of motive,” Mike continued. “Who among you would have any reason to kill me?
“Of the whole group here, I had known only Captain Quill and Commander Jeffers before landing in Antarctica. I couldn’t think of any reason for either of them to want to murder me. On the other hand, I couldn’t think of anything I had done since I had met the rest of you that would make me a target for death.” He paused. “Except for one thing.” He looked at Jakob von Liegnitz.
“How about it, Jake?” he said. “Would you kill a man for jealousy?”
“Possibly,” said von Liegnitz coldly. “I might find it in my heart to feel very unkindly toward a man who made advances toward my wife. But I have no wife, nor any desire for one. Miss Crannon”—he glanced at Leda—“is a very beautiful woman—but I am not in love with her. I am afraid I cannot oblige you with a motive, Commander—either for killing Lieutenant Mellon or yourself.”