Stop Look and Dig | Page 3

the bedroom was the same, excepting for
the bottom drawer. That was filled with a fine collection of needle-rays
and stunguns and one big force blaster that could blow a hole in a brick
wall. None of them had their serial numbers intact.
But behind a reproduction of a Gainsborough painting was a wall safe
that must have been built before Rhine Institute discovered the key to
man's latent abilities. Inside of this tin can was a collection of
photographs that must have brought Rambaugh a nice sum in the
months when the murder business went slack. I couldn't quite dig them
clear because I didn't know any of the people involved, and I didn't try

too hard because there were some letters and notes that might lead me
into the answer to why Rambaugh was hotburning for me.
I fiddled with the dial for about fifteen minutes, watching the tumblers
and the little wheels go around. Then it went click and I turned the
handle and opened the door. I was standing there with both hands deep
in Rambaugh's safe when I heard a noise behind me.

I whirled and slid aside all in one motion and my hand streaked for my
armpit and came out with the forty five. It was a woman and she was
carrying nothing more lethal than the fountain pen in her purse. She
blanched when she saw my forty-five swinging towards her middle, but
she took a deep breath when I halted it in midair.
"I didn't mean to startle you," she apologized.
"Startle, hell!" I blurted. "You scared me out of my shoes."
I dug her purse. Beside the usual female junk she had a wallet
containing a couple of charge-account plates, a driver's license, and a
hospital card, all made out to Miss Martha Franklin. Miss Franklin was
about twenty-four, and she was a strawberry blonde with the pale skin
and blue eyes that goes with the hair. I gathered that she didn't belong
there any more than I did.
"I don't, Mr. Hammond," she said.
So Martha Franklin was a mental sensitive.
"I am," she told me. "That's how I came to be here."
"I'm esper. You'll have to explain in words of one syllable because I
can't read you."
"I was not far away when you cut loose with that field-piece of yours,"
she said flatly. "So I read your intention to come here. I've been
following you at mental range ever since."

"Why?"
"Because there is something in that safe I want very much."
I looked at her again. She did not look the type to get into awkward
situations. She colored slightly and said, "One indiscretion doesn't
make a tramp, Mr. Hammond."
I nodded. "Want it intact or burned?" I asked.
"Burned, please," she said, smiling weakly at me for my intention. I
smiled back.
On my way to Rambaugh's bedroom I dug the rest of the thug's safe but
there wasn't anything there that would give me an inkling of why he
was gunning for me. I came back with one of his needle-rays and
burned the contents of the safe to a black char. I stirred up the ashes
with the nose of the needier and then left it in the safe after wiping it
clean on my handkerchief.
"Thank you, Mr. Hammond," she said quietly. "Maybe I can answer
your question. Rambaugh was probably after you because of me."
"Huh?"
"I've been paying Rambaugh blackmail for about four years. This
morning I decided to stop it, and looked your name up in the telephone
book. Rambaugh must have read me do it."
"Ever think of the police?" I suggested.
"Of course. But that is just as bad as not paying off. You end up all
over the front pages anyway. You know that."
"There's a lot of argument on both sides," I supposed. "But let's finish
this one over a bar. We're crowding our luck here. In the eyes of the
law we're just a couple of nasty break-ins."
"Yes," she said simply.

We left Rambaugh's apartment together and I handed Martha into my
car and took off.
It struck me as we were driving that mental sensitivity was a good thing
in spite of its limitations. A woman without mental training might have
every right to object to visiting a bachelor apartment at two o'clock in
the morning. But I had no firm plans for playing up to Martha Franklin;
I really wanted to talk this mess out and get it squared away. This she
could read, so I was saved the almost-impossible task of trying to
convince an attractive woman that I really had no designs upon her
beautiful white body. I was not at all cold to the idea, but Martha did
not