“No, hardly. The can is too small, and I assume he was searched thoroughly.” Syaloch stopped and bowed. “You have been very kind and patient. Mr. Ramanowitz. I am finished now, and can find the Inspector myself.”

“What for?”

“To tell him he can lift the embargo, of course.” Syaloch made a harsh sibilance. “And then I must get the next boat to Mars. If I hurry, I can attend the concert in Sabaeus tonight.” His voice grew dreamy. “They will be premiering Hanyech’s Variations on a Theme by Mendelssohn, transcribed to the Royal Chlannach scale. It should be most unusual.”

* * *

It was three days afterward that the letter came. Syaloch excused himself and kept an illustrious client squatting while he read it. Then he nodded to the other Martian. “You will be interested to know, sir, that the Estimable Diadems have arrived at Phobos and are being returned at this moment.”

The client, a Cabinet Minister from the House of Actives, blinked. “Pardon, Freehatched Syaloch, but what have you to do with that?”

“Oh…I am a friend of the Featherless police chief. He thought I might like to know.”

“Hraa. Were you not on Phobos recently?”

“A minor case.” The detective folded the letter carefully, sprinkled it with salt, and ate it. Martians are fond of paper, especially official Earth stationery with high rag content. “Now, sir, you were saying—?”

The parliamentarian responded absently. He would not dream of violating privacy—no, never—but if he had X-ray vision he would have read:

Dear Syaloch,

You were absolutely right. Your locked room problem is solved. We’ve got the jewels back, everything is in fine shape, and the same boat which brings you this letter will deliver them to the vaults. It’s too bad the public can never know the facts—two planets ought to be grateful to you—but I’ll supply that much thanks all by myself, and insist that any bill you care to send be paid in full. Even if the Assembly had to make a special appropriation, which I’m afraid it will.

“I admit your idea of lifting the embargo at once looked pretty wild to me, but it worked. I had our boys out, of course, scouring Phobos with Geigers, but Hollyday found the box before we did. Which saved us a lot of trouble, to be sure. I arrested him as he came back into the settlement, and he had the box among his ore samples. He has confessed, and you were right all along the line.

“What was that thing you quoted at me, the saying of that Earthman you admire so much? ‘When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be true.’ Something like that. It certainly applies to this case.

“As you decided, the box must have been taken to the ship at Earth Station and left there—no other possibility existed. Carter figured it out in half a minute when he was ordered to take the thing out and put it aboard the Jane. He went inside, all right, but still had the box when he emerged. In that uncertain light nobody saw him put it ‘down’ between four girders right next to the hatch. Or as you remarked, if the jewels are not in the ship, and yet not away from the ship, they must be on the ship. Gravitation would hold them in place. When the Jane blasted off, acceleration pressure slid the box back, but of course the waffle-iron pattern kept it from being lost; it fetched up against the after rib and stayed there. All the way to Mars! But the ship’s gravity held it securely enough even in free fall, since both were on the same orbit.