Dead Giveaway

The apartment door sighed a little as Dave Turnbull broke the electronic seal with the double key. Half the key had been in his possession for a year, jealousy guarded against loss during all the time he had been on Lobon; the other half had been kept by the manager of the Excelsior Apartments.

As the door opened, Turnbull noticed the faint musty odor that told of long-unused and poorly circulated air. The conditioners had been turned down to low power for a year now.

He went inside and allowed the door to close silently behind him. The apartment was just the same--the broad expanse of pale blue rug, the matching furniture, including the long, comfortable couch and the fat overstuffed chair--all just as he'd left them.

He ran a finger experimentally over the top of the table near the door. There was a faint patina of dust covering the glossy surface, but it was very faint, indeed. He grinned to himself. In spite of the excitement of the explorations on Lobon, it was great to be home again.

He went into the small kitchen, slid open the wall panel that concealed the apartment's power controls, and flipped the switch from "maintenance" to "normal." The lights came on, and there was a faint sigh from the air conditioners as they began to move the air at a more normal rate through the rooms.

Then he walked over to the liquor cabinet, opened it, and surveyed the contents. There, in all their glory, sat the half dozen bottles of English sherry that he'd been dreaming about for twelve solid months. He took one out and broke the seal almost reverently.

Not that there had been nothing to drink for the men on Lobon: the University had not been so blue-nosed as all that. But the choice had been limited to bourbon and Scotch. Turnbull, who was not a whisky drinker by choice, had longed for the mellow smoothness of Bristol Cream Sherry instead of the smokiness of Scotch or the heavy-bodied strength of the bourbon.

He was just pouring his first glass when the announcer chimed. Frowning, Turnbull walked over to the viewscreen that was connected to the little eye in the door. It showed the face of--what was his name? Samson? Sanders. That was it, Sanders, the building superintendent.

Turnbull punched the opener and said: "Come in. I'll be right with you, Mr. Sanders."

Sanders was a round, pleasant-faced, soft-voiced man, a good ten years older than Turnbull himself. He was standing just inside the door as Turnbull entered the living room; there was a small brief case in his hand. He extended the other hand as Turnbull approached.

"Welcome home again, Dr. Turnbull," he said warmly. "We've missed you here at the Excelsior."

Turnbull took the hand and smiled as he shook it. "Glad to be back, Mr. Sanders; the place looks good after a year of roughing it."

The superintendent lifted the brief case. "I brought up the mail that accumulated while you were gone. There's not much, since we sent cards to each return address, notifying them that you were not available and that your mail was being held until your return."

He opened the brief case and took out seven standard pneumatic mailing tubes and handed them to Turnbull.

Turnbull glanced at them. Three of them were from various friends of his scattered over Earth; one was from Standard Recording Company; the remaining three carried the return address of James M. Duckworth, Ph. Sch., U.C.L.A., Great Los Angeles, California.

"Thanks, Mr. Sanders," said Turnbull. He was wondering why the man had brought them up so promptly after his own arrival. Surely, having waited a year, they would have waited until they were called for.

Sanders blinked apologetically. "Uh ... Dr. Turnbull, I wonder if ... if any of those contain money ... checks, cash, anything like that?"

"I don't know. Why?" Turnbull asked in surprise.

Sanders looked even more apologetic. "Well, there was an attempted robbery here about six months ago. Someone broke into your mailbox downstairs. There was nothing in it, of course; we've been putting everything into the vault as it came in. But the police thought it might be someone who knew you were getting money by mail. None of the other boxes were opened, you see, and--" He let his voice trail off as Turnbull began opening the tubes.

None of them contained anything but correspondence. There was no sign of anything valuable.

"Maybe they picked my box at random," Turnbull said. "They may have been frightened off after opening the one box."

"That's very likely it," said Sanders. "The police said it seemed to be a rather amateurish job, although whoever did it certainly succeeded in neutralizing the alarms."

Satisfied, the building superintendent exchanged a few more pleasantries with Turnbull and departed. Turnbull headed back toward the kitchen, picked up his glass of sherry, and sat down in the breakfast nook to read the letters.

The one from Standard Recording had come just a few days after he'd left, thanking him for notifying them that he wanted to suspend his membership for a year. The three letters from Cairo, London, and Luna City were simply chatty little social notes, nothing more.

The three from Scholar Duckworth were from a different breed of cat.

The first was postmarked 21 August 2187, three months after Turnbull had left for Lobon. It was neatly addressed to Dave F. Turnbull, Ph.D.

Dear Dave (it read):

I know I haven't been as consistent in keeping up with my old pupils as I ought to have been. For this, I can only beat my breast violently and mutter mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa. I can't even plead that I was so immersed in my own work that I hadn't the time to write, because I'm busier right now than I've been for years, and I've had to make time for this letter.

Of course, in another way, this is strictly a business letter, and it does pertain to my work, so the time isn't as hard to find as it might be.