"I'm all right." I told them what had happened.
Captain Carter said, "Yes, we know that. And it was Miko also who killed Anita Prince. She told us before she died."
"Died!..." I leaped to my feet. "She ... died...."
"Yes, Gregg. An hour ago. Miko got into her stateroom and tried to force his love upon her. She repulsed him. He killed her...."
It struck me blank. And then with a rush came the thought, "He says Miko killed her"....
I heard myself stammering, "Why--why we must get him!" I gathered my wits; a surge of hate swept me; a wild desire for vengeance.
"Why, by God, where is he? Why don't you go get him? I'll get him--I'll kill him!"
The Captain said gently. "We know how you feel, Gregg. She told us before she died."
"I'll bring him in here to you! But I'll kill him, I tell you!"
"No you won't, lad. We don't want him killed, not attacked, even. Not yet. We'll explain later."
Anita dead. The door of the shining garden was closed. A brief glimpse given to me and to her of what might have been. And now she was dead....
I had not been able at first to understand why Captain Carter wanted Miko left at liberty. Within me there was that cry of vengeance, as though to strike Miko down would somehow lessen my own grief. Whatever Carter's purpose, Snap had not known it. But Balch and Dr. Frank were in the Captain's confidence--all three of them working on some plan of action.
It was obvious that at least two of our passengers were plotting with Miko and George Prince; trying on this voyage to learn what they could about Grantline's activities on the Moon--scheming doubtless to seize the treasure when the _Planetara_ stopped at the Moon on the return voyage. I thought I could name those masquerading passengers. Ob Hahn, supposedly a Venus mystic. And Rance Rankin, who called himself an American magician. Those two, Snap and I agreed, seemed most suspicious. And there was the purser.
I sat for a time on the deck outside the chart room with Snap. Then Carter summoned us back, and we sat listening while he, Balch and Dr. Frank went on with their conference. Listening to them, I could not but agree that our best plan was to secure evidence which would incriminate all who were concerned in the plot. Miko, we were convinced, had been the Martian who followed Snap and me from Halsey's office in Greater New York. George Prince had doubtless been the invisible eavesdropper outside the radio room. He knew, and had told the others that Grantline had found that priceless metal on the Moon and that the _Planetara_ would stop there on the way home.