"Very well. We'll just take another look into the winery."
Nion shrugged and stood aside.
"What do you hope to find?
You've been through the place like a bad smell, into vats and all."
"True. But somewhere, somehow, we're missing something."
"How so?"
"This is the end of the trail. She was murdered in the truck. When you came for the truck, it had been moved and the body was gone. Time is limited; the body apparently was not buried; we would have markings in the soil, and the road shows the truck went no farther than the winery. What happened to the body?"
"I can't help you. Search if you like."
Scharde and Glawen stepped through the doorway and into the winery, with Nion coming behind. Ten vats loomed above them, five to either side, each vat painted a different color, and a console at each vat to control operations and supply information. During Scharde's previous visit, Nion had pumped dry each vat in turn, revealing no trace of Sessily.
Nion noticed Scharde's obvious interest in the vats. He asked gruffly: "What now? Must I pump my vats again? I waste a gallon-of good wine every time I pump over a vat."
"Are your gauges so accurate?"
"Certainly. The meters read to the tenth part of a gallon, which is important for careful blending, when even a half gallon of Diffin*s No. 4 Bitter Malvas too much or too little can affect a blend."
"So what is your procedure?"
"In simplest terms, I pump from the vats to the blending tank in proper proportions, to the amount of six hundred and sixty gallons, which is twelve casks, or three cases. This is a convenient batch size. Then I slide the casks along the ease way to the filling machine. I inspect the interior of each cask, the pump loads exactly fifty-five gallons of wine; I set the lid in place and the machine seals and clamps the lid to the cask. I slide away the full cask, and fill another to the number of twelve. These are held in stock over against the wall until I receive an order, when I load a shipping case appropriately and deliver it to the cargo bay at the spaceport."
Scharde looked along the wall.
"Your stock on hand is very low."
"There is no stock to speak of. Everything was sold during Parilia."
"And delivered to the spaceport?"
"True."
"And shipped?"
"I would suppose so."
"And one of those casks might well have contained a body?"
Nion started to speak, then stopped short. He looked toward the blending tank and seemed to slammer under his breath.
When he looked back at Scharde, his ruddy color had gone ashen.
"I can assert almost definitely that this is what happened."
"Hm. How so?"
"On Ort morning I filled casks from what remained in the vat, and when I was finished I discovered an overage of almost thirteen gallons."
Glawen turned and departed the winery. Nion and Scharde looked after him. Nion heaved a deep sigh and turned back to the blending tank.
"At the time, I wondered at the error;
how could it be, when my meters are accurate to a small fraction of this amount? How much did the girl weigh?"
"Glawen could tell us, but he is not present. I would guess about a hundred pounds, or a hundred and five."
"She would thereby displace something less than thirteen gallons of wine, and I would find the overage, and puzzle as to its source. Now all is clear."
"Who would know how to fill and seal a cask?"
Nion made a harsh wild gesture.
"It could be anyone: the oenology students, those who work the six House wineries, anyone who has ever watched me at work. I will go on to say this! With these two hands I would strangle the man who so despoiled the wine! It is a sickly perversion beyond all ordinary calculation!"
Scharde inclined his head in profound agreement.
"It is a crime doubly vicious; that is true. I join you in your disgust."
"Will we ever capture this person?"
"I can say only that we are making progress in our investigation. One other matter, in regard to the cask itself: can we trace it? What would be the label on the cask?"
"It would be the Graciosa, and I have shipped fifty or sixty such casks since Parilia to a large number of destinations.
