The last must have been to a robot out of the line of sight, and Gladia and her end of the room were gone and the original wall sprang back.
Daneel said, "Am I correct in believing you now consider this woman guilty?"
"No," said Baley flatly. "Whoever did this needed a great deal more of certain characteristics than this poor girl has."
"She has a temper."
"What of that? Most people do. Remember, too, that she has been under a considerable strain for a considerable time. If I had been under a similar strain and someone had turned on me as she imagined I had turned on her, I might have done a great deal more than wave a foolish little knife."
Daneel said, "I have not been able to deduce the technique of poisoning at a distance, as you say you have."
Baley found it pleasant to be able to say, "I know you haven't. You lack the capacity to decipher this particular puzzle."
He said it with finality and Daneel accepted the statement as calmly and as gravely as ever.
Baley said, "I have two jobs for you, Daneel."
"And what are they, Partner Elijah?"
"First, get in touch with this Dr. Thool and find out Mrs. Delmarre's condition at the time of the murder of her husband. How long she required treatment and so on."
"Do you want to determine something in particular?"
"No. I'm just trying to accumulate data. It isn't easy on this world. Secondly, find out who will be taking Gruer's place as head of security and arrange a viewing session for me first thing in the morning. As for me," he said without pleasure in his mind, and with none in his voice, "I'm going to bed and eventually, I hope, I'll sleep." Then, almost petulantly, "Do you suppose I could get a decent bookfilm in this place?"
Daneel said, "I would suggest that you summon the robot in charge of the library."
Baley felt only irritation at having to deal with the robot. He would much rather have browsed at will.
"No," he said, "not a classic; just an ordinary piece of fiction dealing with everyday life on contemporary Solaria. About half a dozen of them."
The robot submitted (it would have to) but even as it manipulated the proper controls that plucked the requisite bookfilms out of their niches and transferred them first to an exit slot and then to Baley's hand, it rattled on in respectful tones about all the other categories in the library.
The master might like an adventure romance of the days of exploration, it suggested, or an excellent view of chemistry, perhaps, with animated atom models, or a fantasy, or a Galactography. The list was endless.
Baley waited grimly for his half dozen, said, "These will do," reached with his own hands (his own hands) for a scanner and walked away.
When the robot followed and said, "Will you require help with the adjustment, master?" Baley turned and snapped, "No. Stay where you are."
The robot bowed and stayed.
Lying in bed, with the headboard aglow, Baley almost regretted his decision. The scanner was like no model he had ever used and he began with no idea at all as to the method for threading the film. But he worked at it obstinately, and, eventually, by taking it apart and working it out bit by bit, he managed something.
At least he could view the film and, if the focus left a bit to be desired, it was small payment for a moment's independence from the robots.
In the next hour and a half he had skipped and switched through four of the six films and was disappointed.
He had had a theory. There was no better way, he had thought, to get an insight into Solarian ways of life and thought than to read their novels. He needed that insight if he were to conduct the investigation sensibly.
But now he had to abandon his theories. He had viewed novels and had succeeded only in learning of people with ridiculous problems who behaved foolishly and reacted mysteriously. Why should a woman abandon her job on discovering her child had entered the same profession and refuse to explain her reasons until unbearable and ridiculous complications had resulted? Why should a doctor and an artist be humiliated at being assigned to one another and what was so noble about the doctor's insistence on entering robotic research?
He threaded the fifth novel into the scanner and adjusted it to his eyes. He was bone weary.
So weary, in fact, that he never afterward recalled anything of the fifth novel (which he believed to be a suspense story) except for the opening in which a new estate owner entered his mansion and looked through the past account films presented him by a respectful robot.
Presumably he fell asleep then with the scanner on his head and all lights blazing. Presumably a robot, entering respectfully, had gently removed the scanner and put out the lights.
In any case, he slept and dreamed of Jessie. All was as it had been. He had never left Earth. They were ready to travel to the community kitchen and then to see a subetheric show with friends. They would travel over the Expressways and see people and neither of them had a care in the world. He was happy.
And Jessie was beautiful. She had lost weight somehow. Why should she be so slim? And so beautiful?
And one other thing was wrong. Somehow the sun shone down on them. He looked up and there was only the vaulted base of the upper Levels visible, yet the sun shone down, blazing brightly on everything, and no one was afraid.
Baley woke up, disturbed. He let the robots serve breakfast and did not speak to Daneel. He said nothing, asked nothing, downed excellent coffee without tasting it.
Why had he dreamed of the visible invisible sun? He could understand dreaming of Earth and of Jessie, but what had the sun to do with it? And why should the thought of it bother him, anyway?