go of her suddenly, and his slap exploded against the side of
her face. Reetal cried out, dropping her head between her hands.
Immediately he had her wrists again, and her fingers were jerked away
from the jeweled ornament in her hair.

"So that's where it is!" Fluel said. "Thought it might be. Don't get
funny again now, sweetheart. Just stay quiet."

She stayed quiet, wincing a little as he plucked the glittering little
device out of her hair. He turned it around in his fingers, examining
it, smiled and slid it into an inside pocket, and took her arm again.
"Let's go to the front room, Reetal," he said almost pleasantly.
"We've got a few things to do."

* * * * *

A minute later, she was seated sideways on a lounger, her wrists
fastened right and left to its armrests. The Duke placed a pocket
recorder on the floor beside her. "This is a crowded evening,
sweetheart," he remarked, "which is lucky for you in a way. We'll have
to rush things along a little. I'll snap the recorder on in a minute
so you can answer questions--No, keep quiet. Just listen very closely
now, so you'll know what the right answers are. If you get rattled and
gum things up, the Duke's going to get annoyed with you."

He sat down a few feet away from her, hitched his shoulders to
straighten out the silver jacket, and lit a cigarette. "A little while
after Bad News Quillan turned up just now," he went on, "a few things
occurred to me. One of them was that a couple of years ago you and he
were operating around Beldon at about the same time. I thought, well,
maybe you knew each other; maybe not. And then--"

"Duke," Reetal said uncertainly, "just what are you talking about? I
don't know--"

"Shut up." He reached over, tapped her knee lightly with his
fingertips. "Of course, if you want to get slapped around, all right.
Otherwise, don't interrupt again. Like I said, you're in luck; I don't
have much time to spend here. You're getting off very easy. Now just
listen.

"Bad News knew a lot about our operation and had a story to explain
that. If the story was straight, we couldn't touch him. But I was
wondering about the two of you happening to be here on the Star again
at the same time. A team maybe, eh? But he didn't mention you as being
in on the deal. So what was the idea?

"And then, sweetheart, I remembered something else--and that tied it
in. Know that little jolt people sometimes get when they're dropping
of