---

If Maudie had only given me the ten thousand dollars to invest inthe Martian Development Company there would have been no reasonto kill her. The money would have been more than tripled and myfinancial troubles would have been over. But Maudie has always been sounreasonable. Even though she grudgingly admitted that I had been rightin the Martian venture, she still had no faith in my business judgment.She was as adamant as ever about parting with the smallest fraction ofher vast fortune when I had the opportunity to step in on the groundfloor of the Balsavius Six Mining Corporation.

Balsavius Six, in case you don't know, is the newest planet whichEarth's space ships have touched. Everything about Balsavius hasbeen kept strictly hush-hush. Only a handful of people have theslightest concept of the value of the new planet's mineral deposits.It just happened that one of the men in on the top secret was myfriend Sylvester, and he was willing to cut me in on a slice of thecorporation he was forming for as little as five thousand dollars onthe line.

The problem was how to get my hands on that much folding stuff. Theanswer should have been easy. Maudie (Mrs. Maude Terrain) was one ofEarth's wealthiest women and, after all, Maudie was my mother-in-law.The trouble with Maudie was that she was narrow-minded, prejudiced, Imight say bigoted. She liked to boast that her family have come fromgood, solid Earth stock from the beginning of time and, while shemingled with the socially elite from Venus, she considered Martianscrude, and refused to entertain guests from what she described as "theminor planets."

Maudie's second trouble was that she was mean. Although her daughter,Isabelle, and I have been married for eight years, Maudie never didmore than to provide us with a modest allowance. She always felt that Ishould work which, after all, is pretty non-sensical when there are somany ways for a man with a little capital to get rich quick.

Isabelle isn't like Maudie. She's easy-going, pliant, susceptibleto flattery and, on Maudie's death, Isabelle would inherit her fullfortune. So with a deal like this in the offing, it didn't take anygreat brain to see that Maudie's rapid demise would remove the singleobstacle that stood between myself and untold wealth.

The thought of killing Maudie had come often to my mind since my talkwith Sylvester but the available weapons all seemed too crude. I'm afastidious person and the idea of shooting or stabbing Maudie was justtoo vulgar. One of the more subtle poisons might have turned the trick,but certainly nothing as obvious as cyanide or arsenic. As for curareor beleston, to be frank, I hadn't the foggiest notion where to lay myhands on them.

That's the way things stood when I just happened to stop in front ofthe window of Melvin Rosy's House of Fantastic Jewelry in GreenwichVillage. I'd passed by the shop many times but I'd never paused tolook in. Of recent years, the Village has filled up with all sorts ofpeculiar people, Martians, Venusians and the little green men fromouter space. One thing I'll have to hand to Maudie, she was right aboutcalling some of these people uncouth. Some of the Galaxians really areriff-raff.