The Potter of Firsk and Other Stories by Jack Vance

there notified the T.C.I.
    Magnus Ridolph finished his coffee, sat back in his chair with a cigar. Now as he glanced to the side he met eyes which furtively shifted, at a table where three men sat quietly over thimblefuls of
sang de Dieu
.
    Letting his guileless blue gaze wander past the three, Magnus Ridolph settled more comfortably in his chair. Calmly he sat while the orange sun drifted, feather-silent, below the horizon. Dusk came quickly, and the balcony became a place of warm shadow, lighted here and there by the plangent tongues of candles.
    Magnus Ridolph speculatively eyed the balcony rail. It was waist-high, smooth native hardwood. Two hundred feet below spread concrete pavement. Three men sat behind him, watching his movements. One of these wore a cloth hood under which Magnus Ridolph had glimpsed seal-smooth blond hair, long animal eyes.
    Magnus Ridolph meditated. They would wait till he approached the rail; then would come a quick shove, and a fast departure. In the excitement no one would remember exactly what had occurred. Witnesses’ stories would conflict on every important point. Such a murder could be done with safety.
    If he departed quietly, he still must walk a hundred yards of esplanade to Kealihanu Avenue.
    The head-waiter appeared, conducting a young couple to a table by the rail where they could look out into the vast dreaming twilight.
    Magnus Ridolph arose. From the corner of his eye he noted the tensing of the three men. Taking his half-full cup in one hand, a glass of water in the other, he stepped forward, flicked his wrists, doused the three thugs with coffee and water. He seized an edge to the table, pulled up, turned it over on the roaring men.
    Quickly the anguished head-waiter was running forward, waving his arms. “What’s all this? Are you insane?” He seized Magnus Ridolph by the shoulder, but not before the white-bearded old man tossed a flaming candle upon a sprawled blond figure.
    “Antone—Arthur—Paul!” bellowed the head-waiter, and three waiters hurried forward. “Lay hold of this mad-man, take him to the corridor while I call the police. Great heavens, what is to be next?” He righted the table, assisted the three gangsters to their seats.
    “My apologies, sirs, I assure you that things like this are infrequent at the Cafe Ventique. Permit me to order you more liqueur.”
    Magnus Ridolph was hustled away, and presently a brace of police officers took him into custody. The head-waiter volubly explained the offense, and demanded the severest of penalties. Magnus Ridolph leaned in unruffled dignity against the cashier’s desk, watched the three men march past with set faces.
    At police headquarters Magnus Ridolph called the T.C.I. station, asked for Commander Efrem.
    “Magnus Ridolph!” barked the commander, peering at the bland features on his telescreen. “What are you doing in jail?”
    “I have been arrested for hooliganism,” said Magnus Ridolph.
    “What’s that?” The commander’s jaw tightened. “Who’s responsible? Let me talk to the lieutenant, I’ll straighten him out.”
    An hour later Magnus Ridolph, sitting at his ease, had told his story to Commander Efrem, a small thin man with a very lean dark face, a jaw jutting forward like a plow.
    “We’ve finally got a lead on Acco May, ourselves,” said the commander. “We’re trying to link him to the Calhoun piracy. There’s positive identification of a photograph from several of the crew, but his alibi is good. Sanatoris Beta is three-hundred-eighty light-years away. The hold-up took place exactly—let’s see, twelve and a half days ago.”
    He then pointed out that the fastest a ship can go in free space,
c
2 ÷
e
3 , is 42½ light-years a day, which totaled almost nine days, with a rock-bottom minimum of two days acceleration and two days deceleration.
    “That makes it thirteen days from here to there at the absolute minimum,” the commander went on. “But Acco May came in out of space