Free Three to Conquer by Eric Frank Russell Page B

slapped in the face by a sample of the supernormal.
     
                  One thing surprised the observing Harper — namely, that much of the other's confusion stemmed from the fact that he lacked certain information he could reasonably be expected to possess. High up in the bureaucratic hierarchy Jameson might be; but evidently he was not high enough. All the same, he had enough pull to take the matter further and get some action.
     
                  Harper said, "You've got the bald account from police sources. It isn't enough. I'd like to give you my side of the story."
     
                  "Go ahead," invited Jameson, glad to concentrate on something that might clear up the muddle.
     
                  Commencing with his pick-up of the dying Alderson's broadcast, Harper took it through to the end.
     
                  Then he said, "No ordinary human being is ever aware of his mind being read. He gains no sense of physical contact that might serve to warn him; he remains completely unconscious of being pried into. I have been absorbing your thoughts the entire time we've been here together; your senses have not registered the probe in any way whatever, have they?"
     
                  "No," Jameson admitted.
     
                  "And if I had not told you that I'm a telepath, and satisfied you as to the truth of it, you'd have found no cause to suspect that your mind is wide open to me, would you?"
     
                  "No."
     
                  "Well," went on Harper reminiscently, "the instant I touched the mind inside Jocelyn Whittingham, it felt the contact; that mind knew whence it came, took wild alarm, and hated me with a most appalling ferocity. In the same instant I detected all its reactions and recognized it as non-human. The contact did not last a fiftieth of a second, but it was enough. I knew it as nothing bo rn of woman, as surely as your own eyes can tell you that a rattlesnake is not a mewling babe."
     
                  "If it wasn't human," inquired Jameson, with much skepticism, "what was it?"
     
                  "That I don't know."
     
                  "Of what shape or form?"
     
                  "The shape and form of the Whittingham girl. It had to be that; it was using her body."
     
                  Disbelief suddenly swamped Jameson's brain. "I will concede that you are either a genuine telepath, or the practitioner of some new and superb trick that makes you look like one. But that doesn't mean I have to swallow this murder story. What your defense boils down to is that you shot a corpse animated by God knows what. No jury on earth will give such an incredible-plea a moment's consideration."
     
                  "I'll never face a jury," Harper told him.
     
                  "I think you will—unless you drop dead beforehand. The law must take its course."
     
                  "For the first time in my naughty life I'm above the law," said Harper, impressively confident. "What's more, the law itself is going to say so."
     
                  "How do you reach that remarkable conclusion?"
     
                  "The law isn't interested only in the death of Jocelyn Whittingham. It is even more concerned about the slaying of Trooper Alderson, he having been a police officer. And you can't pin that one on me, because I didn't do it."
     
                  "Then who did?" Jameson challenged.
     
                  "A-a-ah!" Harper eyed him meaningfully. "Now you're getting right down to the heart of the matter. Who killed Aider-son—and why? "
     
                  " Well?"
     
                  "Three men in a Thunderbug. Three men who, in all probability, resented Alderson's intrusion at a critical moment, when the Whittingham girl was being taken