“Just try and stop me,” Dalla told him.  “Any interviews you have with that little item, I want to sit in on.”

* * * * *

The Proletarian girl, still guarded by a detective, had already been placed in the interview room.  The detective nodded to Vall, tried to suppress a grin when he saw Dalla behind him, and went out.  Vall saw his wife and the prisoner seated, and produced his cigarette case, handing it around.

“You’re Zinganna; you’re of the household of Councilman Salgath Trod, aren’t you?” he asked.

“Housekeeper and hostess,” the girl replied.  “I am also his mistress.”

Vall nodded, smiling.  “Which confirms my long-standing respect for Councilman Salgath’s exquisite taste.”

“Why, thank you,” she said.  “But I doubt if I was brought here to receive compliments.  Or was I?”

“No, I’m afraid not.  Have you heard the newscasts of the past few hours concerning Councilman Salgath?”

She straightened in her seat, looking at him seriously.

“No.  I and Nindrandigro and Calilla spent the evening on ServSec One-Six-Five.  Councilman Salgath told me that he had some business and wanted them out of the apartment, and wanted me to keep an eye on them.  We didn’t hear any news at all.”  She hesitated.  “Has anything ... serious ... happened?”

Vall studied her for a moment, then glanced at Dalla.  There existed between himself and his wife a sort of vague, semitelepathic, rapport; they had never been able to transmit definite and exact thoughts, but they could clearly prehend one another’s feelings and emotions.  He was conscious, now, of Dalla’s sympathy for the Proletarian girl.

“Zinganna, I’m going to tell you something that is being kept from the public,” he said.  “By doing so, I will make it necessary for us to detain you, at least for a few days.  I hope you will forgive me, but I think you would forgive me less if I didn’t tell you.”

“Something’s happened to him,” she said, her eyes widening and her body tensing.

“Yes, Zinganna.  At about 2010, this evening,” he said, “Councilman Salgath was murdered.”

“Oh!” She leaned back in the chair, closing her eyes.  “He’s dead?” Then, again, statement instead of question:  “He’s dead!”

For a long moment, she lay back in the chair, as though trying to reorient her mind to the fact of Salgath Trod’s death, while Vall and Dalla sat watching her.  Then she stirred, opened her eyes, looked at the cigarette in her fingers as though she had never seen it before, and leaned forward to stuff it into an ash receiver.

“Who did it?” she asked, the Stone Age savage who had been her ancestor not ten generations ago peeping out of her eyes.

“The men who actually used the needlers are dead,” Vall told her.  “I killed a couple of them myself.  We still have to find the men who planned it.  I’d hoped you’d want to help us do that, Zinganna.”