Sigismund didn't mind having his credit card used for purposes like that. The doorbell rang. It was Marvella Risingstar.

"I have a business proposition for you, Sigismund," she said. "I want to rent Renfrew for two weeks. I need him for my show, and I know you'd never part with him without compensation. Name your price, and I'll write a check."

Curlew's eyebrows went very high when he heard this. He pulled Sigismund into the kitchen and whispered that Marvella could not legally write checks because she was an android.

"Correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't all the Marvellas androids?" Sigismund asked her.

"The others are, but I'm the original. I'm human. Put your ear to my chest to hear my heartbeat. How about $1,000 dollars a week?"

Sigismund glanced at Curlew, who mouthed the words "Stall for time" and then headed for the phone in the back hall. After ten minutes of haggling, Sigismund got the price up to $1,500. Marvella finished writing the check just as the police arrived and demanded to know whether Marvella was a human or an android.

"This is outrageous!" Marvella screamed. "I'm a living breathing human being, and I can write a check for any amount I please."

"Well, since you are not an android, then you won't mind my touching you right here," Curlew said, placing a finger on each side of her neck in back. She became motionless. Curlew then pressed a spot just below her right ribcage, causing a drawer to slide out. Inside, among other things, there was a slip of paper listing her owner and a contact number. The owner was Bright Comet Rosen-Singh. The others were stunned when they heard this.

Meanwhile, the police were upstairs in Bright Comet's house watching the whole thing on her monitor. At first she denied having anything to do with Marvella's operations, but then Melissa led the police to a file cabinet which held all the documents tying her to them.

She softened a bit under questioning at the police station. "I was tracking Beatrice because I write books about her, and I like to see how she interacts with the real world. Then she spent some tme with Renfrew, and I needed to see how the two of them got along in Sigismund's condo. As for Marvella writing a check, I wanted to keep Renfrew from figuring out that I was an android; I didn't want him to blow my cover. I thought Sigismund would believe that there was one human Marvella; I never realized that Curlew would be around to blow the whistle." Melissa wangled her way into the police station, looking very smug.

The whole affair was leaked to the press, and was on all the news stations that night. Augustin, the son of Madeleine Monet who lived down the hall from Sigismund, happened to be watching, and he thought Bright Comet looked familiar. Then he realized why.

Paulh

29.05.23 Front Page

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