Formula For Murder

By LEE GREGOR

It's easy to get away with murder: just prove insanity. But make sure you hide the method in your madness!

[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Infinity November 1957. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]

CHAPTER I

The figure of Professor Glover slipped from the surface of the space station and twinkled away among the stars. Jim Britten stared at it as though he could call it back by the ferocity of his gaze. He stood paralyzed by helplessness while the spacesuited body plummeted off into the void, until he could no longer follow its motion towards the dazzling sun. Seized by an uncontrollable shaking, he dropped the radiophone antenna which he had ripped from Glover's back and flung himself down flat upon the surface of the station, where he clung while catching his breath.

A vast doughnut, twenty-five miles in diameter, the space station stood with no apparent motion a thousand miles above the surface of the earth. It floated in a sea of scintillating stars like diamonds scattered upon the blackest velvet.

"Jim, what's the matter?" John Callahan's voice grated in Britten's headpiece.

"Glover's line broke loose," Britten gasped. "He's gone."

"What!"

"I'm coming back in. Give me a hand."

Britten began the long crawl back to the entrance port, his nerves too shattered to attempt it standing up. He was several yards away when another spacesuited figure emerged from the port and helped him stagger the rest of the way. Inside the airlock he collapsed.

In a small room within a large hospital the two men sat talking. It was a featureless room with pale green walls, containing a desk, two soft chairs, and a leather couch. The doctor, middle-aged, inconspicuous, wearing glasses, a small moustache, and a gray suit, sat in one chair. Facing him in the other chair, Jim Britten, young, lean, and visibly depressed, wore pajamas and a 

  P 1/22 next