tory like a little man up there in the witness-box. Never looked
scared, never got mixed up. But Shmuela's testimony was your testimony
too, Mr. Martin. If it hadn't been for you, he wouldn't be here to
testify, for which I'm grateful to God." Then he leaned back and spread
his hands apart in a gesture of dismissal.

"But that's all over and done with," he said. "I came about a different
matter." Again he paused, as if picking his words carefully. "Do you
know a man named Barnabas Nguma?"

"Nguma? Yes; I met him once. Why?"

"He was in the courtroom today. He came to see me just before court
convened."

"Oh?" the detective said noncommittally.

"Yes. He claims to represent an organization on Earth which has been
trying to hire you for a job there. Is that right?"

"That's right," the detective said warily. "What did he want with you?"

"Now, that's a funny thing," BenChaim said. "It seems that he's under
the impression that you turned down his job to take on this kidnapping.
Is that right?"

"Not exactly," the detective said tightly. "I was working on your son's
case before he and a couple of other men came out here to talk to me.
But they'd written to me long before that." He wondered what BenChaim
was getting at. He didn't owe any explanations to the industrialist,
but, on the other hand, he couldn't be impolite to him.

"I see," BenChaim said, nodding his head slowly. "Like most Earthies,
Mr. Nguma is suffering under a misapprehension. He seems to think that I
have some sort of hold over you, that I was the one who made you turn
down his job, so that you'd take _my_ case."

"Oh? Was he angry because you'd put your own selfish interests ahead of
his unselfish ones?" the detective asked with a trace of hard sarcasm in
his voice.

"Oh, no," said BenChaim. "Oh, no. Not at all. He said he understood
perfectly. But he wondered if, now that my boy had been returned safely,
I might not put a little pressure on you to get you to take his case."

"And what did you say?"

Moishe BenChaim scowled. "I told him exactly where he could head in. I
told him that I had no power over you whatever, that I hadn't hired you
at all, that I didn't even know that you were working on the case until
after you rescued Shmuel. I told him that even if I held the power of
life and death over you I would never lift so much as a finger against
you. I told him that it was just the other way around, in fact. I told
him that you have suc