Chain Lucas was General Wheelwright, Inspector-General of the Planet Patrol.
"How did you know?" The outlaw's voice was flat, expressionless.
"Your voice. Your evident contempt."
"Well?"
"Why should I have suspected Iris Chanler? Did I know she was in your pay, sponsored as she was? Your tone implied me a fool to have succumbed to her charms, to have let myself be lulled into this fool's trap. But it was I who was to have led her into the trap of Banya Tor, and if I failed in that, who knew I had attempted it save you and Bannerman? And your walk and voice are not Bannerman's."
"You guessed."
"I knew. Why I had been taken into the Patrol with my drunken antecedents all against me, why sent on this fool's errand? And who alone had authority to arrange for all that has befallen?"
Wheelwright nodded, his face impassive. "I see. It was I. All the way." He kicked idly at the dead foot of Dallis. "These poor fools never knew. They hired me as Chain Lucas to play the hero and be their shield in trouble, and I used them in their turn. I gave them information and the hidden routes of ships. I postured when I attacked, scattering my loot openhandedly, for the loot they stole was far surpassing mine and I knew the cave on Luna in which they keep it. I'll leave it there, I suppose."
He leaned back, a faint smile twisting the hard mouth. "It looked big once, Thorne. Big enough to kill for. Now ..." he shrugged expressively. The golden chains winked brightly across his chest.
"Now it's a drop in a very big bucket," Thorne concluded. "What happens if I fill it for you?"