Death of Dr. Sarton

Dr. Sarton’s death, initially treated as the murder of a Spacer, is ultimately reconstructed as an accidental killing by Commissioner Julius Enderby. The decisive reversal is that Enderby had entered Spacetown intending to destroy R. Daneel, but, with his glasses broken, mistook Dr. Sarton for the robot and shot him instead. Baley’s explanation connects the death to Enderby’s fear of the Spacers’ project and to the physical evidence at Sarton’s dome.

Background and Motive

Enderby’s act grew from his opposition to the purpose for which R. Daneel had been designed. Baley identifies Enderby as an earnest Medievalist who worked with Dr. Sarton and knew why Daneel had been made. Enderby feared that the project might eventually draw Earthmen away from Earth, and hoped that destroying the unique robot would demonstrate the strength of Medievalism on Earth and discourage the Spacers from continuing their work.

Baley further argues that Enderby knew opinion on the Outer Worlds was already strongly disposed toward ending the Spacetown project. A demonstration of Earth’s opposition, he suggests, could supply a final push in that direction. This reconstruction makes Sarton’s death part of an intended act of sabotage, but not its intended result: Enderby’s target was Daneel, and his political purpose was to stop the project associated with the robot.

The Mistaken Identity

Baley reconstructs the immediate circumstances at the dome from the image transmitted to the room. Enderby had dropped his glasses while nervous and, after trying to wipe them, either broke them in the fall or stepped on them. At that moment the door opened, and a figure resembling Daneel appeared. Without his glasses, Enderby could not distinguish the robot from Dr. Sarton, who had designed Daneel in his own image.

Baley’s account is specific about the sequence: Enderby fired at the figure, gathered up the remains of his glasses, and fled. The body discovered at the scene was not Daneel but Sarton, who had risen early. The resemblance that connected creator and creation thus became the condition of the fatal mistake: Enderby believed he was destroying the robot, but killed its maker.

Evidence and Revelation

The case turns on the physical trace left at the dome. Baley rotates the transmitted image of the ground around the corpse, searching its successive views until he centers the image on the main door. The door is shown open and slid into its wall recess; in the runner grooves, Baley spots a sparkle he identifies as tangible proof. His reconstruction therefore does not rest only on a proposed motive or an account of Enderby’s state of mind, but on a detail visible in the image and associated with the broken glasses.

The revelation also distinguishes deliberate murder from accidental killing. Baley accepts that Enderby could not deliberately murder Dr. Sarton, but argues that this does not make him incapable of causing a death: his intended act was to wreck a machine, namely Daneel. The distinction allows the evidence to explain both Enderby’s apparent innocence of a planned murder and his responsibility for Sarton’s death.

Consequences

As the accusation is made, Enderby closes his eyes and appears ill; Baley, too, feels sick, but continues examining the image because his theory must be proved. When Baley finishes the reconstruction, Enderby admits that the killing was a mistake and that he had never meant to kill Sarton. At the turn of the day, he lowers his head onto his arms and slips from his chair. Daneel goes to him and tells Baley that Enderby has been hurt; Baley asks whether he is dead, and the scene does not report that he has died.

Daneel first objects that the theory is untenable because Enderby could not have murdered Sarton, then, after Baley’s explanation, says that he is convinced and congratulates his partner. That change registers the force of Baley’s distinction between intention and outcome. Sarton’s death is resolved not as a planned killing of the scientist but as the consequence of a failed attempt to destroy Daneel, a political motive, and a moment in which a broken pair of glasses erased the difference between the two figures.