“Thereby relieving the gentleman of the bother of killing her.”
“That seems clear enough,” agreed Vance. “But the reason for the murderer’s visit here is not so lucid. Can you suggest an explanation?”
Arnesson puffed thoughtfully on his pipe.
“Incomprehensible,” he muttered at length. “Drukker had no valuables, or no compromising documents. Straightforward sort of cuss—not the kind to mix in any dirty business. . . . No possible reason for any one prowling about his room.”
Vance lay back and appeared to relax.
“What was this quantum theory Drukker was working on?”
“Ha! Big thing!” Arnesson became animated. “He was on the path of reconciling the Einstein-Bohr theory of radiation with the facts of interference, and of overcoming the inconsistencies inherent in Einstein’s hypothesis. His research had already led him to an abandonment of causal space-time co-ordination of atomic phenomena, and to its replacement by a statistical description.[27] . . . Would have revolutionized physics—made him famous. Shame he was told off before he’d put his data in shape.”
“Do you happen to know where Drukker kept the records of these computations?”
“In a loose-leaf note-book—all tabulated and indexed. Methodical and neat about everything. Even his chirography was like copperplate.”
“You know, then, what the note-book looked like?”