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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 59369 ***
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+                        MURDER IN BLACK LETTER
+
+                             POUL ANDERSON
+
+                         THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
+                          NEW YORK · CHICAGO
+                   DALLAS · ATLANTA · SAN FRANCISCO
+                            LONDON · MANILA
+
+                               IN CANADA
+                         BRETT-MACMILLAN LTD.
+                             GALT, ONTARIO
+
+                              _New York_
+                         THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
+                                 1960
+
+                          POUL ANDERSON 1960
+
+ [Transcriber's Note: Extensive research did not uncover any evidence
+       that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
+
+  All rights reserved--no part of this book may be reproduced in any
+  form without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a
+   reviewer who wishes to quote brief passages in connection with a
+        review written for inclusion in magazine or newspaper.
+
+                           _First Printing_
+
+           Library of Congress catalog card number: 59-5690
+
+                    The Macmillan Company, New York
+                  Brett-Macmillan Ltd., Galt, Ontario
+
+                Printed in the United States of America
+
+                   _To him whom I shall ever regard
+                    as the best and wisest man whom
+                          I have ever known_
+
+
+
+
+DISCLAIMER
+
+
+Except, of course, for Taffimai Metallumai, all characters in this book
+are fictitious, without intentional resemblance to any actual person,
+living or dead. The events described are made up out of whole cloth.
+The hotels, restaurants, companies, and other business enterprises
+herein mentioned are equally nonexistent. Two real institutions occur:
+the University of California and the Berkeley Police Department. There
+is no implication intended that either of these would condone all the
+actions and opinions of the imaginary people I have wished onto their
+payrolls.
+
+
+
+
+1
+
+
+Steel talked between roses. Kintyre parried Yamamura's slash; his
+riposte thumped on the other man's arm.
+
+"Touché!" exclaimed the detective. He took off his mask and wiped sweat
+from a long, high-cheeked face. "Or is it you who's supposed to say
+that? Anyhow, enough for today."
+
+"You're not doing so badly, Trig," Kintyre told him. "And I have some
+revenge due for all those times you've had me cartwheeling through the
+air, down at the dojo."
+
+Trygve Yamamura clicked his tongue. He stood over six feet tall, lanky,
+the Oriental half of him showing mostly in narrow black eyes and
+smoked-amber skin. "You would use sabers, wouldn't you?" he said.
+
+Robert Kintyre shrugged. "A foil is for women and I'm not fast enough
+for an épée. Also, there's professional interest. A saber is a wee bit
+closer to the Renaissance weapon."
+
+"I think I'll stick to Japanese swords."
+
+Kintyre nodded. He was a stocky man of medium height, with straight
+dark hair above a square, snub-nosed, sallow-complexioned face. His
+eyes were gray under level brows, and set unusually far apart; there
+was little else to mark him out physically, until you noticed his
+gait. To an only slightly lesser degree than Yamamura's, it had the
+indefinable compactness of a judo man.
+
+They stood in a garden in Berkeley. Walls enclosed them: the main
+house, now vacant while its owner and family were on vacation; the
+three-room cottage to the rear which Kintyre rented; a board fence
+strewn with climbing blossoms on either side. Overhead lay a tall sky
+where the afternoon sun picked out the vapor trail of a jet sliding
+above San Francisco Bay.
+
+"I agree, Samurai swords make these look like pitchforks," said
+Kintyre. "But you can't do much with them except collect them. Too
+damned effective!"
+
+Yamamura removed his padded coat and fished for his pipe. "You off work
+now?" he asked.
+
+"Yep. Last bloody paper corrected, last report in, term's over, and I'm
+not teaching again till fall. It's great, though impoverished, to be
+free."
+
+"You're making a pack trip into Kings Canyon, aren't you?"
+
+"Uh-huh. Bruce Lombardi and I were supposed to leave tomorrow. Only
+what the devil has become of Bruce?" Kintyre scowled. "His girl called
+me last night, said he'd left the day before--Saturday--and hadn't come
+back yet. She was worried. I'm beginning to be."
+
+"Hm." Attentiveness flickered up in Yamamura. His agency, small and
+new, had no engagements at the moment. However, he spoke with no more
+than friendly concern. "Is it like the kid to go tearing off that way?
+I don't know him especially well, he's just somebody I meet now and
+then at your place."
+
+"That's the point," said Kintyre. "It is not like him. The department
+head inquired about it this morning. Bruce hasn't turned in the grades
+for two of his classes; and he's disgustingly reliable, normally."
+He paused. "On the other hand, he's having his troubles these days
+and--anyhow, I hesitate to--"
+
+Footsteps sounded in the driveway. A trim quasi-military shape came
+around the house.
+
+"Officer Moffat," said Yamamura. He had belonged to the Berkeley force
+until he set up for himself. "What's happened?"
+
+"Hello, Trig," said the policeman. He turned to the other. "Are you
+Professor Robert Kintyre?"
+
+"Assistant professor only, no cobwebs yet." Why did he answer with a
+bad joke, he wondered--postponing something?
+
+"How do you do. I'm sorry to bother you, sir, but we're trying to
+identify a young man who was found dead this morning. I was told that
+someone of his description was a teaching assistant in the history
+department, and that you knew him best."
+
+The voice was sympathetic, but Kintyre stood very quietly for a moment.
+Then: "I know a lot of young men, but perhaps--Bruce Lombardi?"
+
+"That's the name I was given," said Moffat. "I'm told you were his
+faculty adviser."
+
+"Yes." Kintyre pawed blindly after a cigarette, meeting only his
+jacket. "How did he come to die?"
+
+"If it is him. Do you think you could identify him for us? I warn you,
+it isn't pretty."
+
+"I've seen dead men before," said Kintyre. "Come on." He started toward
+the street.
+
+"Your clothes," said Moffat gently.
+
+"Oh, yes. Yes. Thanks." Kintyre fumbled at his equipment. He threw it
+on the grass. "Put this junk away for me, will you, Trig?" His voice
+was uncertain. "I'll call you later."
+
+"Sure," said Yamamura in a low tone. "Call me anytime."
+
+Kintyre followed Moffat to the police car. It nosed off the
+shabby-genteel residential street and into southbound traffic. Moffat,
+at the wheel, pointed to the cigarette lighter.
+
+Kintyre put tobacco smoke into his lungs and insisted: "What happened?"
+
+"He seems to have been murdered." Moffat's eyes flickered sideways
+along his passenger's wide shoulders, down to the thick wrists and
+hands. "We'll go to headquarters first, if you don't mind, and you can
+talk to Inspector Harries."
+
+In the following time, at the office, Kintyre answered many questions.
+Inspector Harries seemed to have little doubt who his corpse was, but
+much uncertainty about everything else.
+
+"Bruce Lombardi. Age twenty-four, did you say? Five feet nine, slender
+build, brown eyes, curly brown hair--m-hm. Did he wear glasses?"
+
+"Yes. He was nearsighted. Horn rims."
+
+"What kind of clothes did he ordinarily pick?"
+
+"Anything he got his hands on. He was a sloppy dresser. I remember--no,
+never mind."
+
+"Please tell me, Dr. Kintyre. It may have some bearing."
+
+"Hardly. This was about five years ago. I was an assistant bucking
+for an instructorship, he was a freshman with a major in my
+department--history, did I tell you? There was some kind of scholastic
+tea or something--semiformal--you know. He showed up in a secondhand
+tweed jacket and an old pair of khaki wash pants. He honestly thought
+they were suitable for--Never mind. It seemed funny at the time."
+
+Kintyre stubbed out his cigarette (the fifth, sixth, twentieth?) and
+took a deep breath. He was letting this run away with him, he thought.
+He was yattering like an old woman, shaken into brainlessness. It was
+not as if he had never encountered death before.
+
+He groped toward the teaching of the dojo, the judo school. Judo
+is only in part a sport; it is also a philosophy, the Gentle Way,
+with many aspects, and the first thing to learn is to relax utterly.
+The passive man is prepared for anything, for he can himself become
+anything.
+
+But it was an unreal attempt. Kintyre's interest in judo was a
+superficial growth of a few years; his roots lay in the West. He
+understood with sudden bleakness why Bruce's death had so clamped on
+him: once again someone he cared for was gone, and the horror he had
+borne for two decades stirred toward awakening.
+
+"Don't you feel well, Dr. Kintyre?"
+
+Harries leaned over the desk, politely concerned. "I'm sorry to put you
+to a strain like this. If you want to rest a while--"
+
+"No." Kintyre mustered a degree of steadiness. "I was a bit shaken,
+but--Go ahead. If Bruce really was murdered, I certainly want to give
+you any help I can finding who did it."
+
+The inspector regarded him thoughtfully. "You and he were pretty close,
+weren't you?"
+
+"In a way. He was almost eleven years younger than I, and had lived
+a--limited life. Not sheltered in the usual sense, his family being
+poor, but limited. And he was such a peaceful fellow, and his life
+since entering college had been mostly books. It made him seem even
+younger."
+
+Kintyre sighed. "We got to be about as friendly as one can get under
+such circumstances," he finished. "Maybe I looked on him as a son. Not
+being married, I can't be sure of that."
+
+"Did he ever say anything which led you to believe that he might be in
+serious trouble?"
+
+"No. Absolutely not. That is, I knew his older brother hung--hangs
+around with a dubious crowd over in San Francisco, and it distressed
+him, but he never implied anything really bad was involved."
+
+"Let's see." Harries looked at some notes. "I gather he left his,
+uh, girl friend's place about six P.M. Saturday, telling her he had
+business over in the City and she shouldn't wait up. She got worried
+and checked with you Sunday evening. And he was found by a patrol car
+this morning, at daybreak, on the bank of the old frontage road, near
+the Ashby Avenue turnoff."
+
+"You've worked fast," said Kintyre. _Or did I tell you all this?_ he
+wondered. _There are a few minutes which I remember only hazily. I was
+so busy fighting myself._
+
+"What did you do over the weekend?" asked Harries in a casual tone.
+
+"Oh, let's see--Saturday morning I puttered around down at the yacht
+harbor, doing some work on my boat. I went home in the afternoon,
+graded papers and so on, went out at night and had a few beers with a
+friend--Dr. Levinson of the physiology department. Sunday morning I
+took a sail on the Bay, and later finished my paperwork. Shortly after
+Miss Towne had called me, I was invited over to Gerald Clayton's suite
+at the Fairhill. We had some drinks and talked till quite late. This
+morning I turned in my last reports to the University, came home, and
+was horsing around with Trig Yamamura when your man arrived."
+
+"You seem pretty well alibied," smiled Harries. "Not that we suspect
+anyone on this side of the Bay."
+
+"Why not?"
+
+Harries' mouth tightened. "Dr. Kintyre, you'll undoubtedly be asked a
+great many more questions in the next several days. Get the worst over
+with now. Then go out with some friends and have a lot more drinks.
+That's my advice."
+
+They shook hands, feeling it was a somehow theatrical gesture, and thus
+being embarrassed without knowing how to avoid it. Moffat drove Kintyre
+through miles of city, down to that place in Oakland where the dead man
+was kept.
+
+They entered a chill room. Kintyre took the lead, compulsively. He went
+to the sheeted thing and uncovered it.
+
+After a while he turned around. "Bruce Lombardi," he said. "Yes."
+
+"I'm sorry you--Oh, hell." Moffat looked away. "He was a sort of
+handsome young chap, wasn't he? Thin regular features and so on. I'll
+bet his parents were proud of him."
+
+"They paid his undergraduate expenses," mumbled Kintyre. "Since then
+he went ahead on scholarships and assistantships, but those were four
+high-priced years for a poor family."
+
+"And now they'll see this. Hell." Moffat stood with fingers doubled
+together, talking fast. He himself was rather young, more shaken than
+his superiors would have wished. "Look at those burns--marks--He's like
+that all over. He was never unconscious once, unless he passed out
+now and then--no blackjack marks, no chloroform, just rope bruises.
+Then when he was dead, the murderers cut off his fingers and hacked
+his face some more, to make it harder for us to identify. Stuffed him
+into an old coat and pair of pants and left him half in the tidewater.
+Twenty-four years of age, did you say? This is what the old Lombardis
+have to show for their twenty-four years. Jesus Christ. I'll bet _I_
+have to take his father in here."
+
+"You think it was a sadist?"
+
+"Oh, sure, I don't doubt at least one of the murderers got his kicks.
+It takes a cracked brain to do something like this--even for money.
+Yes, I feel pretty sure it was a professional job. Most of the torture
+was systematic, almost neat, for a definite purpose. You can see that.
+When they reached their purpose, when he talked or whatever it was,
+they cut his throat--neatly--then mutilated him for a good logical
+reason, to make it harder for us, and disposed of the body in regular
+gangland style. They shouldn't have dumped him in Berkeley. The
+Berkeley force sees so many University people we automatically thought
+a nice-looking young fellow like this might belong on the campus, and
+checked. But that was their only mistake. Mine was going in for a job
+where I'll have to show this to his father."
+
+"Must you?"
+
+"It's the law. I wish it weren't."
+
+Moffat moved to pull back the sheet, but Kintyre was there first.
+Covering Bruce's face made a kind of finality. Though the real closing
+curtain had fallen hours ago, he thought, when Bruce lifted hands torn,
+broken, and burned, to take death for his weariness. And afterward they
+cut his fingers off. Maybe the curtain had not been rung down yet.
+
+
+
+
+2
+
+
+By the time Kintyre got back, it was close to sunset. He entered a
+book-lined living room. There were a few good pictures, a small record
+player, his sabers hung on the wall by Trig, the furniture bought used
+or made out of old boxes--otherwise little. He did not believe in
+cluttering life with objects.
+
+He poured himself a stiff drink. Glenlivet was his only expensive
+luxury. He sat down to savor it and perhaps think a little about Bruce.
+There was no solid reason why the boy should have made so large a niche
+in Kintyre's existence, but somehow he had. The emptiness hurt.
+
+When the phone rang, Kintyre was there picking it up before
+consciousness of the noise registered. He was not surprised to hear
+Margery Towne's voice.
+
+"Bob? You know?"
+
+"Yes. I'm sorry. I wish to hell I could tell you just how sorry."
+
+"I can guess." Her tone was flattened by the control she must be
+keeping on it. "We both loved him, didn't we?"
+
+"I think everybody did."
+
+"Somebody didn't, Bob."
+
+"I suppose you heard through the police?"
+
+"They were here a few minutes ago. Do they know _everything_?"
+
+"Probably I gave them your name. They came to me first, for the
+identification."
+
+"They were very nice about it and all that, but--"
+
+Silence whistled remotely over the wires.
+
+"Bob, could you come talk to me? Now?"
+
+"Sure, pony. Give me half an hour."
+
+Kintyre hung up one-handed, starting to undress with the other. He went
+through a shower and put on a suit in ten minutes.
+
+Margery's apartment was catercorner from his, with the University
+between. He parked his battered '48 De Soto on the near side of the
+campus and walked across, hoping to hoof out some of the muscular
+tightness and set his thoughts in order.
+
+Level yellow light came through eucalyptus groves to splash on a
+cropped greensward and pompous white buildings, almost bare of
+mankind in this pause between baccalaureate ceremonies and summer
+classes. Kintyre reflected vaguely that he would have to go through
+Bruce's desk, finish his work, yes, and complete his study of the
+Book of Witches.... His mind drifted off toward a worried practical
+consideration. What could he do about Margery?
+
+He wanted to help her, if he could--double damnation, hadn't he tried
+before? At the same time he was not, repeat not, going to get himself
+involved. It would be unfair to both of them.
+
+There were rules of the game, and so he had played it with her. You
+left wives and virgins alone: well, she was long divorced, and had
+slept around a bit since then. You neither gave to nor took from a
+woman. You made it perfectly clear you weren't interested in anything
+permanent. And when you broke it off, after a pleasant few months, you
+did it cleanly: he had the best excuse in the world, back in 1955, an
+academic grant that returned him to Italy for a year of research in his
+specialty, the Renaissance. (But she had been very quiet, the last few
+weeks; sometimes at night he had heard her trying not to cry.) Back
+home again, you didn't resume old affairs: you were simply friendly, on
+such occasions as you happened to meet.
+
+Yes, of course. Only then she took up with Bruce, and Bruce had wanted
+to marry her, and she had plainly been considering it, and now Bruce
+was dead and Kintyre was on his way to console her. Could you walk
+in her door and say: "Hello, I still subscribe to the why-buy-a-cow
+philosophy so be careful, now you may weep on my shoulder"?
+
+He realized he was sucking on a dead cigarette. He threw it away and
+stopped to light another. He was almost under the building which housed
+his own department.
+
+"Good evening."
+
+Kintyre looked up. Jabez Owens was walking toward him.
+
+"Hello," he answered. "How are you? Excuse me, but I've got to--"
+
+Owens reached him and took his hand. "My dear old chap," he said in his
+most Harvard accent, "I'm awfully sorry."
+
+"Hm?"
+
+"Young Lombardi. I saw it in the papers. You know?"
+
+"Yes." Kintyre looked coldly at Owens. The writer was a tall man, the
+breadth of his shoulders attributable only in part to his tailor. He
+had straight ruddy features, dark wavy hair graying at the temples,
+blue eyes behind wrought-iron glasses, tweedy clothes with a scarf
+filling the V of the jacket, and a small calabash pipe in one pocket.
+
+"I know he was murdered," said Kintyre, watching the other's face.
+
+"Terrible. I remember once in Sumatra--but that was long ago. See
+here," said Owens candidly, "I know you know of my disagreements with
+the poor young fellow. Why, it was only--when? Thursday night we were
+at that party at Clayton's. You must have heard us quarreling over his
+silly thesis. But this! _De mortuis nil nisi bonum._"
+
+Kintyre did not like Owens. It was not so much the scholar raising his
+hackles at a rather lurid popularizer. What the devil, Owens' books
+stirred up some public interest; they passed on some information,
+however distorted; and that was more than you could say for the average
+historiographic monograph. But during the whole week he had been in
+Berkeley, one long theatrical performance had gone on, with Jabez Owens
+the plot, dialogue, director, producer, star, supporting cast, and
+claque. It grew monotonous.
+
+Wherefore Kintyre said maliciously: "I'll be completing that thesis for
+him. Doubtless I too will be forced to include a side glance at those
+Borgia letters of yours. But it'll take me a while, I don't have all
+the facts and deductions at my fingertips as he did. So I suggest you
+hurry to Hollywood and get that movie started."
+
+Owens laughed a well gauged laugh, neither too loud for this posthumous
+argument nor too small to sound genuine. "I'd love to take you on," he
+said. "Nothing I like better than a good verbal fight, and that's what
+the boy was giving me. As a matter of fact, I may be staying here a few
+more days. Or maybe not. But what I really stopped you for was to offer
+my sympathy and ask if I could help."
+
+"What with?" asked Kintyre. It stuck him as a bit of a coincidence
+that Owens had happened to be passing by this special building at this
+moment.
+
+"Oh, I don't know. Nothing, I suppose. You seem headed toward his,
+ah--" Owens paused delicately--"his fiancée's place. I gathered from
+someone's remark, she lives in this area."
+
+"Uh-huh."
+
+"Charming girl. Poor Lombardi. She is so good a reason for not dying.
+Please give her my regrets. Ah--a moment more, if you will."
+
+"Yes?" Kintyre was turning to go; he stopped.
+
+Owens flushed. "Don't misunderstand me. It's none of my business,
+certainly. But I'd say at a guess I am a good fifteen years older than
+you, and perhaps--I suppose I needn't advise you. But I do want to help
+you. And her. See here, take her out tonight. I know they were living
+together. There'll be too many memories at her home." He nodded, almost
+awkwardly. "Pardon me. I have to go now. I'll be seeing you."
+
+Kintyre stared after him. _The deuce you say! I didn't think you had a
+genuine bone in your body._
+
+He glanced at his watch. He was late. His steps lengthened, a hollow
+noise on the sunset pavement.
+
+Past the elaborate south gate, down a few shop-lined blocks of
+Telegraph Avenue, then left, slightly uphill, along a street of rooming
+houses and small apartments. Margery's flat was here; or should you say
+it had been Bruce's? He had gotten his mail, discreetly, at another
+address (which must now be overrun with sight-seers)--but this was
+Theirs.
+
+Kintyre went upstairs. Margery opened her door at his buzz and closed
+it again behind him.
+
+Bruce had moved in with her during the Christmas holidays, half a year
+ago now, but the interior was still hers, airily modern. Starting on
+bluff and nerve and a jerkwater college's art degree, she had made
+herself important to a local firm of decorators. Bruce would have lived
+happily in a cave, if it had had book-shelves.
+
+And yet somehow, thought Kintyre as he waited for Margery to
+speak--somehow, she had reshaped the place around him. The piano he
+played so well stood tuned for him; by now, most of the records were
+ones which he had shown her--quietly, even unconsciously--were good to
+have. She had matted and hung one of his inkbrush sketches, a view from
+Albany Hill toward the Golden Gate, whose contours brought you back for
+a second look.
+
+And, of course, nearly all the books were his, and she had made an
+offside room into a study for him. When you added it up, maybe only the
+clothes and the parakeet were altogether her own.
+
+_I never affected her like this_, thought Kintyre. _Margery's
+apartments always felt nervous before. Somehow Bruce made this one
+peaceful._
+
+"Hello," he said, for she was evidently not going to speak first.
+
+"Hi." She went over to a glass-topped coffee table and opened a
+cigarette box. "Thanks for coming."
+
+"No thanks needed," he said. "Could be you'll help me more than I will
+you."
+
+She looked at him for a moment, and he realized it had been a tactless
+answer with too many unwanted implications. But then she picked up a
+cigarette and flicked a lighter to it. "Drink?" she asked.
+
+"Well--you drink too much, pony."
+
+"Perhaps you don't drink enough," she said.
+
+"I like the taste. I don't like being drunk."
+
+"You're afraid to lose control, aren't you? Sometimes, Bob, I think
+that explains you. To you, life is a ride on a tiger, and you've got to
+keep the reins every minute."
+
+"Let's have none of these bad amateur psychoanalyses," he said,
+following her into the kitchen. He came up behind her and laid his
+hands on her waist. "And let's not fight. I'm sorry, Marge. I'm sorry
+for Bruce and for you."
+
+Her head bent. "I know, Bob. Don't bother with words." She put the
+cigarette to her lips, took a puff of smoke, blew it out, lowered the
+cigarette, and twisted about between his hands. Her lips brushed his
+cheek. "Go on, I'll mix. I want to keep busy."
+
+He returned to the living room and prowled out his unrest for a few
+minutes. The piano caught his gaze, he saw ruled bescribbled sheets and
+went over to look. Margery found him thus, when she came in with two
+glasses. "Sit down," she invited.
+
+He regarded her through careful eyes, trying to judge her needs--and
+her demands, for his own warning. She was a trifle on the short side,
+her figure was good though tending to plumpness, and even he could
+appreciate the effect of her simple green dress. Her face was broad,
+with a slightly pug nose, very full lips, blue eyes under arched brows,
+a few freckles: "pert" was the word. Reddish hair fell in a soft bob
+just below the ears, which carried extravagant hoops.
+
+He nodded at the piano. "So Bruce was composing again," he said.
+
+"He was putting some poetry of his sister's to music, for some kind of
+little theater deal she has in preparation, over in the City."
+
+"How was he doing? I can't read music."
+
+"Listen." She sat down at the piano. "I'm a lousy player myself, but
+this will give you the idea."
+
+Darkness was smoking in through the walls. She had to peer close to
+see the notes; her hands stumbled on the keys. And yet she created
+something gentle for him. Afterward the sounds tinkled in his memory
+like rain in a young year.
+
+She ended it with a destructive sweep of her knuckles across the board.
+As the jangled basses fell silent, she said roughly: "That's all. He
+never finished it."
+
+"I wonder--" Kintyre remembered not to sit on the couch; he found a
+chair. "I wonder if the world may not have lost even more than you and
+I, Marge."
+
+"I don't give a four-lettering damn about the world," she told him. She
+crossed the room and snapped the light switch. The sudden radiance was
+harsh to them, they both squinted. "I'd settle for having Bruce back."
+
+"So would I. Naturally." He accepted the drink she offered and took a
+long swallow. It was heavy on the whisky and light on the soda. "And
+yet he was a scholar of unusual gifts. He even (he, my student) changed
+my opinions about some aspects of Machiavelli's thought--emphasized the
+idealism--he would, of course. I remember him quoting at me, '... _the
+best fortress is to be found in the love of the people_.' Isn't that
+exactly the sort of thing which would stick in Bruce's mind?"
+
+"'The best fortress.'" She stared into her glass. "It didn't help him
+much, did it?"
+
+Kintyre groped for another cigarette. He was smoking too much, he
+thought; he'd have a tongue like a fried shoe sole tomorrow.
+
+"How much do you know?" he asked.
+
+"Only a little." The eyes she raised to him from the couch were
+desperate. "Bob, what happened? Who did it to him?"
+
+"I can't imagine," he said tonelessly.
+
+"But--could it have been an accident, Bob? Maybe by mistake for someone
+else--could it have been?"
+
+"Perhaps." _I lie in my flapping front teeth. You don't use pliers on a
+man without getting his name straight._
+
+"What was in the paper?" he asked. "I haven't seen."
+
+"I don't know. I've been sitting here, ever since the policemen came.
+They asked me if I could guess--God!" She emptied her glass in three
+gulps.
+
+"Could you?" he murmured. "I find it hard to conceive of anyone who
+might hate Bruce."
+
+"There was Gene Michaelis," she said. "I've been thinking and thinking
+about him. He and his father. I met them once."
+
+"Yes. I'd forgotten that. But Michaelis is a cripple now, remember? He
+couldn't--"
+
+"Bruce was called over to San Francisco. Someone called him on the
+phone. Don't forget that. I can't forget it. I sat here while he
+talked! He didn't say what it was about, he just left. Took the train.
+He seemed excited, happy. Said he'd be out late and--" Margery's breath
+snapped into her lungs. "Bob! Gene Michaelis, sitting there and waiting
+for Bruce to come in--and those great ugly hands of his!"
+
+Kintyre got up and went over to the couch. He sat down on its arm, next
+to her. She felt blindly for his fingers; her own were cold.
+
+"The police think Bruce was killed by professional criminals," he said.
+"Can you imagine any reason why?"
+
+"No." Her head shook. "No. Only Gene Michaelis--he swore that accident
+was Bruce's fault. He almost had Bruce thinking so. You didn't see
+Bruce then. You didn't see how he was affected by it, his old friend
+biting at him like a dog, accusing him and his sister of--" She gave
+Kintyre a blurred look. "That was how Bruce and I started to live
+together. There was nothing else that would help him. He'd already
+proposed to me. I didn't want to get married again--to him--to get
+married. And he'd had no thought in his silly head of being anything
+but a gentleman. Sure. I practically shanghaied him into bed with me.
+What else would get that thing off his mind, Gene Michaelis lying on
+the highway with both legs mashed? Gene was the only person who ever
+hated Bruce, and just being hated nearly destroyed him. He couldn't
+have made any other enemies--knowingly--he wasn't able to!"
+
+_That's not quite true_, thought Kintyre briefly. _Jabez Owens._
+
+Margery's voice had risen raggedly, and her nails bit his palm. He
+stood up, pulling her after him by the wrist, and said: "Come on. We're
+getting out of here."
+
+"What?" She blinked at him, as if waking from sleep.
+
+"You're tired and scared and lonesome and hungry, and none of it is
+good. We're going out to dinner, and we'll talk about Bruce or whatever
+else you want, but we're going out."
+
+"I have to work tomorrow," she protested.
+
+"Cannonballs! Tell 'em you're down with Twonk's Disease and need the
+rest of the week off. Now grab your purse."
+
+She followed him then, shivering. He drove her car slowly, to give her
+and the drink within her time; he spoke of trivia.
+
+She hung back a moment when he had parked outside one of Oakland's
+first-class restaurants. "You can't afford this, Bob," she said.
+
+"If you mention money once again, I'm going to wash your mouth out with
+five-dollar bills," he snapped. "Old greasy ones."
+
+She smiled. "You know," she said, "you aren't so unlike Bruce after
+all. I remember how he also used to go out of his way for people. And
+then once when I tried to praise him for it, he answered, 'Ah, I'm no
+God damned saint.'"
+
+"Sounds like Bruce," agreed Kintyre.
+
+"He worshiped you," she said over the cocktails. "Did you know how
+much? You were everything he could dream of being, a traveler, an
+athlete, a scholar. He was even thinking of doing his military service
+in the Navy, because that's where you were. And then you treated him as
+an equal! You did more to make him happy than anyone else."
+
+"I'd say you did," he parried, embarrassed.
+
+"You know you pushed that affair." She was a little drunk, he saw, but
+no harm in that: under better circumstances, he'd have called it a
+happy drunk. "Remember how he and I first met? You were pub crawling
+with him one evening last year after you got back from Europe. You ran
+into me at the mulled-wine place; I was eating piroshki and looked very
+unglamorous, but I thought I'd have some fun with you--oh, hell, Bob, I
+thought there might be a chance to make you jealous--so I gave Bruce a
+big play. And you were delighted!"
+
+"I thought he needed a girl friend," he said. "There's more in life
+than books and beer."
+
+"You pander," she chuckled. "I'll bet you gloated when you found we
+were living in sin."
+
+He shrugged. "If you can call it sin. Actually, Bruce was a very
+domestic type. I hoped you'd marry him."
+
+"Sure," she said. "So I'm a very domestic type too, aren't I--ain't
+I--Bob, I know you don't like to dance, and your dancing is awful, but
+shall we try it just once before dinner?"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Afterward, when brandy and coffee were completing the meal, she said:
+"I'm still not sure if I was in love with Bruce or not. I always liked
+him. I think I was beginning to love him."
+
+"I should imagine it would be hard not to, under the circumstances."
+
+"He was the first man I ever knew who was--(a)--" she ticked the
+points off on her fingers--"interesting; which the solid citizens
+back in Ohio were not, not to me anyway--(b) reliable, which the local
+Bohemians are not."
+
+"Please! Call me what else you will, but not a Berkeley Bohemian."
+
+"You don't count. You're in a classification all by yourself.
+'Reliable' was the wrong word. What do I mean? Faithful; steady;
+loving. I guess that's it. Loving--not himself, like most of these
+perpetual undergraduates; not--whatever you love, Bob, there must be
+something but I've never found out what unless it's that sailboat of
+yours. Bruce was loving of me. Loving all the world, but including me."
+
+"You could call him tender," agreed Kintyre. "And yet he was a man. We
+took some rough hikes and pack trips, during the years we knew each
+other; and lately, after I got him interested in judo, he was doing
+very well. In the course of these amusements I've seen him get damaged
+now and then, sometimes rather badly. But he never admitted feeling any
+pain."
+
+"I guess you'd consider that a virtue," she said.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+They parked in the hills, with the Eastbay cities like a galaxy of
+stars below them, San Francisco an island universe across darkness. She
+sighed and leaned against him. He wondered, dimly alarmed, why he had
+come here.
+
+"What are you going to do?" she asked him.
+
+"Me? In the next few days, you mean? Oh, wind up his University work.
+Call on his family; haven't seen them in a long time now. What about
+you?"
+
+"Carry on. What else is there?"
+
+"I don't know," he said in his helplessness.
+
+She turned to him and her fingers clawed at his coat. "Bob, don't take
+me back to my place," she whispered. "Not tonight. Don't leave me
+alone."
+
+"Huh? But--"
+
+"I know, I know, you're afraid I'll trap you--you conceited baboon. For
+Christ's sake, let me sleep on your floor tonight, I won't touch a hair
+of your sanctimonious head, but don't leave me alone!"
+
+For the first time since he came to her, she began to cry.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The telephone woke him. He turned over, not wholly oriented. There was
+a woman sleeping beside him, wearing a pair of his pajamas. Where had
+he picked her up? Wait. Margery!
+
+She slept very much like a child, curled in a ball. The pale foggy
+morning light touched a line of dried tears on her cheek. Kintyre
+remembered how she had clung to him. Nothing else had happened; she
+might have been his terrified young--No! That was a thought he clamped
+off before it had formed. Let it be said only that he had been a friend
+to her last night, and no more.
+
+He was already padding into the kitchen, to pick up the phone before it
+woke her. "Hello," he said.
+
+"Dr. Kintyre? Moffat."
+
+"Oh--oh, yes, the officer. What is it?"
+
+"I wondered if you knew what's become of Miss Margery Towne. She isn't
+at home." The voice had a bland none-of-my-business-but-I-do-need-help
+overtone. Had he spotted her car outside the house?
+
+"I might be able to locate her, if it's urgent," said Kintyre
+cautiously; for it was in truth none of Moffat's business. "What's the
+trouble?"
+
+"Burglary."
+
+"What?"
+
+"A neighbor heard noises in her place last night. Stewed about it for
+several hours, got no answer to the doorbell, finally called us. Our
+man had to go up the fire escape and in a broken window. The thief's
+route. It's a mess in there."
+
+"The devil you say!"
+
+"The devil it might be, sir. There were valuables, jewelry and so on,
+lying in plain sight. They don't seem to've been touched. I suppose the
+burglar was looking for something else. Have you any idea what it might
+have been?"
+
+
+
+
+3
+
+
+Kintyre returned home about noon. Gerald Clayton caught him on the
+phone with an invitation to lunch. Kintyre accepted readily. He had
+his share of false pride, but not so much that he wouldn't let a
+millionaire pick up the tab for a good meal.
+
+The Fairhill Hotel sat in a swank area on the knees of the summer-brown
+hills walling the Eastbay. Kintyre parked his hand-me-down among
+mammaried Cadillacs and rump-sprung Plymouths and strolled into the
+lobby.
+
+Clayton rose from a chair. "Ah, there, Bob, how are you?" He shook
+hands and moved toward the elevator. "Thought I'd have lunch sent up.
+But if you'd like a drink beforehand--"
+
+"No, thanks. Maybe a bottle of beer with the meal. Uh, what's the
+occasion of all this?"
+
+"We've things to talk about. Not too urgent, I guess, but I'm going to
+be tied up over in the City." Clayton took Kintyre's arm. "Anyhow, I
+felt like having some company for lunch."
+
+He was fifty, still broad in the chest and erect in the spine, though
+his custom-made suit worked hard to disguise a beginning paunch. His
+grizzled auburn hair, brushed straight back, covered a long narrow
+head; nose and chin jutted out of a creased sinewy face which must
+once have been rather handsome. His eyes were deeply set, a darting
+dragonfly blue, without any burden of glasses. Kintyre liked him in a
+way, and felt sorry for him in a way, and sometimes wondered what the
+man was really thinking about.
+
+"I heard about young Lombardi," said Clayton in the elevator. "It's a
+terrible thing."
+
+"The police been after you too?" Kintyre's manner was abrupt; he didn't
+feel like more emotional scenes.
+
+"I had one interview. They weren't interested in my alibi at all. What
+a disappointment: I had such a beautiful one. Witnesses to every waking
+hour. I came to Berkeley about noon Saturday, had a long conference
+with the manager of a local motorcycle agency, and a theater party
+which lasted late. Sunday I was at church, then I played golf, in the
+evening you were over for drinks, and Monday I went back to the City
+and spent all day in the office."
+
+The elevator stopped and they got out and went down a long corridor. A
+little puzzled and annoyed, Kintyre said: "You protest too much."
+
+Clayton opened his door. "I'm sorry," he answered. "I was trying to
+lighten my own mood, and it came out sounding as if I were trying to be
+funny. Bruce was a good kid."
+
+He called room service. Kintyre's gaze strayed idly around the suite.
+Actually, Clayton's Bay Area interests centered in San Francisco. For
+the past several months he had kept an apartment there, while he went
+through the preliminary maneuvers of establishing a local branch of
+his import house. But the Eastbay was enough of a market in itself to
+justify Clayton in frequently staying at the Fairhill for days on end.
+
+Though his latest checking in had been on Thursday, the suite bore
+little trace of him. His San Francisco rooms were just as impersonal;
+Kintyre doubted that the New York penthouse or the luxurious flat in
+Rome had been given more of a soul. There were four pictures, which
+apparently went wherever Clayton did: a thin blonde woman, with a
+washed-out kind of prettiness, who had been his first wife; and two
+young men and a girl, the children she had given him. Otherwise,
+nothing but business mail and business documents could be seen.
+
+Oh, yes, Clayton smoked expensive cigars, and he had developed enough
+patter to get by in social circles whose small talk included the opera
+or Sartre's latest pronunciamento. But he had left no books lying
+around, only a news magazine; no chess set or cards or half-completed
+crossword puzzle; no private correspondence--well, if a man wanted to
+be simply a cash register, it was his privilege.
+
+But Clayton wasn't that either, thought Kintyre. Something of the
+brash young salesman (where was it he started, Indianapolis? Some such
+place) and the construction-gang foreman of worsening days and the
+minor executive in a Midwestern wholesale house--something of what
+Margery would label "Babbitt," with all of her own class's glibness in
+labeling--remained in the transoceanic entrepreneur. Yes. But something
+else must have developed too. Kintyre had never quite discovered what.
+It was one reason he accepted most of Clayton's invitations.
+
+"Okay, lunch will be on its way. Siddown, Bob."
+
+Kintyre crossed his legs by the window and took out a cigarette.
+Clayton chose a cigar. "Do the police have a lead on Bruce's murder?"
+he asked.
+
+"How should I know?"
+
+"You were his best friend." Clayton's eyes locked with Kintyre's and
+held steady. "The boy wasn't killed for fun. Somehow, he asked for it.
+If we knew what he was doing in, say, the last week of his life--"
+
+"Hm. You have a point. He was seeing a good deal of you also, wasn't
+he?"
+
+"Yes. That's the main reason I asked you over today, Bob. Perhaps
+between us we could reconstruct most of his movements." Clayton
+chuckled. "Not that I think we'd solve the crime ourselves or any such
+nonsense, but organized information might help the police."
+
+"Well--" Kintyre's memory walked backward into darkness. "Let me
+think.... We were pretty busy till last week, with term's end and the
+start of final exams. After that it gets irregular, if you're on a
+faculty. You might have two exams on one day, and then none for three
+days. So Bruce had a certain amount of leisure all week. Huh--a week
+ago last Sunday--didn't he mention something about having gone across
+the Bay to see you?"
+
+"He did." Clayton looked at a note pad. "He came up to my apartment to
+ask if I couldn't fix his older brother up with a job."
+
+"So?"
+
+"So I know that type. I'd met him, once before. I said no. Bruce got
+mad when I wouldn't even interview this Guido character."
+
+Kintyre smiled. "I know what you mean. It's a side of him that not many
+people saw. He seldom lost his temper, but when it happened, it was
+awesome. I hope you kept yours."
+
+"It wasn't easy," said Clayton. "Actually, this was not the first time
+we'd talked about the brother. There was once, some months ago--but I
+don't recall the details."
+
+"I believe I remember. It came up _à propos des bottes_ in my office,
+when you and he and I were discussing the Book of Witches, didn't it?
+He mentioned having this brother who spoke Italian. You doubted Guido
+would be qualified for any very responsible position. Yes, it comes
+back to me now, you got almost obnoxiously smug about how you had
+started from zero and so could anyone else."
+
+"Less than zero in my case," said Clayton. His mouth twitched downward,
+ever so faintly.
+
+"It riled Bruce," said Kintyre. "But he got over his mad fast enough.
+He was almost too reasonable for his own good."
+
+"That sounds contradictory. I shouldn't think a really reasonable man
+would ever get angry."
+
+"I beg to differ. Some things, it's unreasonable not to get furious
+about. Atrocities, including some governments whose existence is an
+atrocity. Or getting back to Bruce, there was the Point Perro incident
+several months ago."
+
+"What was that?"
+
+"Oh, nothing very important, I suppose. Point Perro is about sixty
+miles south on the coast highway. Uninhabited, though it's on any good
+map. Just a headland with a beach below, private property, fenced off,
+but I happen to know the owner and have his permission to use it. As
+isolated a spot, as primeval, as you'll find outside the High Sierras.
+Bruce and I took our sleeping bags down there for a weekend of surf
+casting. It has a deep-dropoff where the fish are apt to congregate
+at high tide. We found somebody had been dynamiting them, which had
+not only wasted and slaughtered fish but ruined some of the rock
+formations. Bruce followed the tire tracks above the cliffs, saw that
+the dynamiters had headed south, and insisted on following; He was
+quite ready to beat up on them himself. All we actually accomplished
+was to roust out the authorities, which spoiled our whole Saturday; but
+it never occurred to him to do less."
+
+Kintyre sighed. "I suspect that he crusaded himself to his death, in
+just that manner."
+
+"Let's return to our timetable," suggested Clayton. "Bruce stormed out
+of my place that Sunday night, but he did agree to come back the next
+afternoon. I said I'd think it over meanwhile, and he could bring Guido
+to see me after all."
+
+"What happened?"
+
+"They came together. I saw right off Guido was hopeless. Quite an
+amusing guy and all that, but once a bum always a bum. However, I made
+polite noncommittal noises. Hell, maybe I'll open a night club someday,
+and Guido can sing in it. That would be okay." Clayton drew on his
+cigar. "I didn't see Bruce again till that little party here Thursday
+night. Can you fill in the meantime?"
+
+"Mmm--I had it all sorted out in my mind--yes. The Monday you speak of,
+I introduced Jabez Owens to Bruce. We all talked for about an hour in
+my office. Otherwise I think he just had a routine day, till he went
+over to your apartment."
+
+"Tuesday?"
+
+"More routine, except that Owens showed up as agreed and lent him the
+Borgia letters. Bruce took them home that night to look over."
+
+"Oh, yes, those two were having quite an argument about it at the
+party. What's the deal, anyway? I didn't quite follow. Talking to
+Professor Ashwin most of the time, myself."
+
+"Well, you know Owens is a writer, specializing in historical
+nonfiction on the popular level."
+
+"I've heard the name, is all."
+
+Kintyre drew the long breath of an experienced lecturer.
+
+"Owens was a best seller in the late 1930's," he said. "Since the
+last official war, though, his sales have slipped. A couple of years
+back, he recouped with a thing called _Magnificent Monster: The Life
+and Times of Cesare Borgia_. Its scholarship is superficial--to put
+it kindly--but he has a flamboyant style and he dished up the sex and
+sadism with a liberal hand. All the old libels on Lucrezia are there,
+and so on. But it was a sensational seller even in hardback; the
+presses had trouble meeting the demand for pocket editions; and now
+Hollywood wants to film it as one of their more expensive superepics."
+
+"So?" Clayton looked bored. "Good for him, but what has all this to do
+with Bruce?"
+
+"Give me time. Prior to writing the book, Owens spent some months in
+Italy, allegedly doing research. He came back with certain letters he
+claims to have tracked down in the archives of a noble family--letters
+to and from Cesare, linking him with a cult of Satanists and all sorts
+of picturesque orgies and abominations.
+
+"The correspondence stirred up a bit of professional controversy. If
+forged, it's skillfully done, and the noble family in question has been
+well bribed and well rehearsed. I suspect that is the case, myself.
+However, Owens has not unnaturally used the chance, not just to brag
+himself up as a scholarly detective, as if he'd found another cache of
+Boswell papers--he makes it pivotal to his whole book."
+
+"Ah, yes. And now my Book of Witches manuscript--"
+
+"Disproves it. The Book of Witches is unquestionably genuine, and
+certain statements in it pretty well clinch matters. _La vecchia
+religione_ had been rooted out of the Romagna, even out of Liguria,
+long before Cesare Borgia was as much as a gleam in his daddy's
+apostolic eye. Therefore Owens' letters must be spurious. Either Owens
+had them cooked, or Owens was taken for a sucker himself.
+
+"When he established this, some time back, Bruce wrote to the man.
+That was Bruce, of course. Give the poor chap a chance to back out
+gracefully, before publishing the evidence that will smear him over
+the landscape. Owens replied politely enough, asking for personal
+discussions. And so he arrived Sunday a week ago, en route to Hollywood
+from New York, and here he's been ever since."
+
+"I shouldn't think he could keep the producer waiting like that," said
+Clayton.
+
+"He has no firm commitment yet: only an invitation to come out and talk
+things over. A Piltdown-type scandal might cause the studio to back
+off. After all, if they want to do a life of Borgia, it's in the public
+domain. They don't have to pay Owens a nickel--unless, of course, they
+use the witch-cult material, in which case they'll doubtless pay him a
+fat sum and engage him as technical adviser to boot."
+
+"Uh-huh." Clayton's eyes paled with thought.
+
+"I keep getting sidetracked," complained Kintyre. "Also hoarse. I do
+want that beer now."
+
+"In a minute, Bob. Let's continue this session first. You say Bruce
+took these letters home Tuesday night."
+
+"Yes. I gathered he saw Owens again on Wednesday and returned them with
+the remark that he saw no reason to change his mind. There must have
+been quite an argument. I was at the dojo that evening, didn't see him
+till Thursday night, as a matter of fact. Then, of course, you had him
+and me and some of our colleagues--and Owens--up here for that stag
+party."
+
+"I collect scholars," grinned Clayton.
+
+Kintyre wondered if it might not literally be true. In the upper levels
+of the European business world, where Clayton spent half his time, a
+man was not respected for his money alone; he would get further if he
+could show some solid intellectual achievement. Clayton was hardly a
+social climber, but he must know the practical value of such kudos.
+
+Any rich oaf of an American could buy paintings. Clayton was a bit more
+imaginative: he took up incunabula. And he invited specialists in, gave
+them liquor and sandwiches, turned them loose on each other, and sat
+around picking up the lingo.
+
+_And what's wrong with that?_ thought Kintyre. _Any Renaissance
+dignitary patronized artists and scholars in much the same way, for
+much the same reasons. So the Renaissance had its Leonardo, Rafael,
+Michelangelo--We throw our creative people out into the market place
+to peddle themselves to the general public. What do we have? Rock 'n'
+Roll._
+
+He jerked back to awareness. The other man was speaking: "--chemical
+tests. Owens said he wasn't going to let priceless relics be destroyed.
+It sounded phony to me."
+
+"That was a real dogfight those two had." Kintyre shook his head
+admiringly.
+
+"Never mind that now. Have you any information on Bruce's later
+movements?"
+
+"Why, Friday he and I were both working hard. Saturday too he must
+have been. Yes, Friday afternoon was the last time I saw Bruce alive.
+We only said hello in passing. Margery Towne tells me he was home that
+evening and Saturday afternoon, otherwise apparently at the University."
+
+"And that's all we can find out?" Clayton grimaced. "Not a hell of a
+lot, is it? Unless Miss Towne can tell--"
+
+"One more thing," said Kintyre. "It may not be relevant. But her
+apartment was burgled last night."
+
+The cigar dropped from Clayton's mouth. He bent over to pick it up,
+jerkily. His movements smoothed as Kintyre watched; when he raised
+himself and ground out the butt, his craggy face was under control.
+
+"Surprised?" murmured Kintyre.
+
+"Yes. Of course. What happened? What was taken?"
+
+"That's the odd part. Nothing she knew of. Someone had broken in and
+made a hooraw's nest; but he, she, or it hadn't taken any silverware or
+jewelry, nothing."
+
+"Uh." Clayton looked at his hands, folded in his lap, then back again,
+sharply. "How about papers?"
+
+"We thought of that. The desks and drawers had been rooted through, all
+right, but nothing seemed to be missing."
+
+"Would she know all about Bruce's papers?" Clayton fired the query like
+a policeman. "Don't stall, you damned Edwardian. I know she was his
+mistress."
+
+"I don't happen to like that word in that particular connection," said
+Kintyre gently. "However--she hadn't seen all of Bruce's letters and
+notes. He kept them in a couple of cardboard filing boxes. They didn't
+seem even to have been opened, though."
+
+"Did you look in to make sure?"
+
+"No. Should we have?"
+
+"I guess not." Clayton rubbed his chin. "No, I wouldn't bother. Because
+the burglar was evidently looking for something he thought might be in
+the apartment, but which wasn't. Something that might be in a desk or
+a bureau drawer, but was too large to fit into a filing box or a--any
+such thing."
+
+"As what?" challenged Kintyre.
+
+He had already guessed the answer: "The Book of Witches is a fairly big
+volume."
+
+Kintyre nodded. He was on the point of repeating what Margery had said
+to him, when they stood in the ruins after the police had gone.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+She poured herself a drink with shaking hands. A sunbeam splashed
+pale copper in her still tousled hair. She said: "That bastard. That
+crawling bastard. Why didn't I tell the cops?"
+
+"Who?"
+
+"Owens, of course! Who d'you think would come sneaking in here? What
+might we have of any use to anybody, except that old book Bruce was
+studying--the one that could torpedo Owens and his big movie sale and
+his precious reputation. Owens came in here to try and find that book
+and take it and burn it!"
+
+She tossed off her drink neat, poured another and glared at Kintyre.
+"Well?" she snarled.
+
+"Well, it's a serious accusation to make," he replied.
+
+"Serious my left buttock! You know what that snake already tried to
+do? He tried to bribe Bruce! Bruce told me about it. Friday after
+that stag party, Owens came to his office and talked all around the
+subject and--oh, he was pious-sounding enough about it, he knows his
+euphemisms. But he offered Bruce five thousand dollars to suppress
+his findings about witches in Italy. Five thousand bucks--Christ, the
+movies can pay him a quarter of a million!"
+
+"I take it, then, you're insulted by the size of the bribe."
+
+The attempt to jolly her didn't come off. She said viciously: "Bruce
+boiled over. He was still boiling when he came home. He told Owens
+to his face, he'd write an article about his research the minute he
+returned from your pack trip--he'd inform the newspapers, so the whole
+public could know the truth--Bob!"
+
+It was a scream in her throat.
+
+"What is it?" he cried, turning toward her in alarm.
+
+"Bob--do you think.... Oh, no, Bob!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"What's the matter?" asked Clayton.
+
+Kintyre shook himself. "Nothing. The manuscript is still with us,
+naturally," he said in a flat voice. "Bruce kept it in his office. I
+stopped by today and locked it in a safe."
+
+"Owens--"
+
+"Look here," said Kintyre angrily, "I went through this once before,
+with Miss Towne. I don't hold with talebearing. The police are
+competent, and have the essential facts already. Unless more evidence
+turns up to change my mind, I see no reason to run to them with any
+sordid little story of academic intrigue which can't even be proved."
+
+_However_, his brain continued, _while I'm in no position to pay fees,
+Trig isn't very busy these days. He may enjoy looking into the recent
+movements of a murder suspect._
+
+There was a knock on the door and a bellboy wheeled in lunch.
+
+
+
+
+4
+
+
+Not until evening was Kintyre free to cross the bridge into San
+Francisco. He had spent hours on Bruce's uncorrected papers, and talked
+with Yamamura, who said he would sniff around, and he had called
+Margery on the phone to see if she was all right.
+
+"Come over and take potluck, Bob," she said. He sensed loneliness.
+But--hell's boiling pots, she made him feel cluttered!
+
+"I'm afraid I can't," he evaded. "Commitments. But take it easy, huh?
+Go visit someone, go have a cup of espresso, don't sit home and nest on
+your troubles. I'll see you soon."
+
+He poured himself a small drink after hanging up and tossed it off.
+Then he changed into his darkest suit and got the car rolling.
+Personally, he would not have placarded a loss on his clothes, but
+Bruce's parents were from the Old World.
+
+As he hummed along the freeway and over the great double span of the
+bridge (Bruce must have been carried dead in the opposite direction,
+wedged in a corner so the tollgate guard would think him merely asleep;
+doubtless the police were checking the memories of all night shift
+men) Kintyre rehearsed the career of the Lombardis. Bruce was the only
+one he had really known, though he had been over there for dinner a
+few times. The parents had been very respectful, innocently happy that
+their son should be friends with a Doctor of Philosophy. His mother
+made good pasta....
+
+There wasn't much to remember. Angelo Lombardi was a Genoese sailor.
+Chronic hard times were not improved when his son Guido came along.
+Nor did he see much of his young wife. (Did Maria's years of being
+mostly alone in a dingy tenement, with nobody to love but one little
+boy, account for what Guido had become?) In 1930 the family arrived
+as immigrants at San Francisco. Here Angelo worked in the commercial
+fishing fleet; here Bruce and the daughter were born; here he
+saved enough money to buy his own boat; here he lost it again in a
+collision--by God, yes, it had been a collision with Peter Michaelis'
+single craft. Feeling the years upon him, Angelo used the insurance
+money to start a restaurant. It had neither failed nor greatly
+prospered: it gave him a living and little more.
+
+Yet Angelo Lombardi had remained a man with hope.
+
+Kintyre turned off at the first ramp, twisted through the downtown
+area, and got onto Columbus Avenue and so to North Beach. Hm, let's
+see--a minor street near the Chinatown fringe--uh-huh.
+
+The sky was just turning purple when he stopped in front of the place:
+Genoa Café set in a two-story frame building perpetrated, with bays and
+turrets, right after the 1906 fire. It was flanked by a Chinese grocery
+store, full of leathery fragrances, and a Portuguese Baptist mission. A
+sign on the door said closed. Well, the old people would be in no mood
+for discussing the various types of pizza tonight.
+
+Yellow light spilled from the upper windows. Kintyre found the door to
+the upstairs apartment and rang the bell.
+
+A street lamp blinked to life, a car went by, a grimy urchin watched
+him impassively from a doorway across the road. He felt much alone.
+
+He heard feet coming down the stairs, a woman's light quick tread.
+Expecting Maria Lombardi, he took off his hat and bowed in Continental
+style when the door opened. He stopped halfway through the gesture and
+remained staring.
+
+_Morna_, he thought, and he stood on the schooner's deck as it heeled
+to the wind, and she was grasping the mainmast shrouds with one
+hand, crouched on the rail and shading her eyes across an ocean that
+glittered. Her yellow hair blew back into his face, it smelled of
+summer.
+
+"Yes?"
+
+Kintyre shook himself, like a dog come out of a deep hurried river.
+"I'm sorry," he stammered. "I'm sorry. You startled me, looked like
+someone I used to--" He pulled the chilly twilight air into his lungs,
+until he could almost feel them stretch. One by one, his muscles
+relaxed.
+
+"Miss Lombardi, isn't it?" he tried again. "I haven't seen you for a
+couple of years, and you wore your hair differently then. I'm Robert
+Kintyre."
+
+"Oh, yes. I remember you well," she said. Her mouth turned a little
+upward, its tautness gentling. "Bruce's professor. He spoke of you so
+often. It's very kind of you to come."
+
+She stood aside to let him precede her. His hand brushed hers
+accidentally in the narrow entrance. Halfway up the stairs, he realized
+he was holding the fist clenched.
+
+_What is this farce?_ he asked himself angrily. Nothing more than
+straight blonde hair, worn in bangs across the forehead and falling
+to the shoulders. Now in the full electric light he could see
+that it wasn't even the same hue, a good deal darker than Morna's
+weather-bleached mane. And Corinna Lombardi was a mature woman--young,
+he recalled Bruce's going over to the City last month for her
+twenty-second birthday party--but grown. Morna would always be thirteen.
+
+Corinna had been nineteen when he saw her last, still living here and
+working in the café. That was at a little farewell dinner the Lombardis
+had given him, before he departed for his latest year in Italy. They
+had wanted him to look up Angelo's brother Luigi, the one who had made
+a success in the old country as a secret service man. Kintyre had
+visited Luigi a few times, finding him a pleasant sort with scholarly
+inclinations, most interested in his brilliant nephew Bruce, with whom
+he corresponded.
+
+At any rate, Kintyre had had too much else to think about to pay much
+attention to a quiet girl. By the time he returned, as Bruce told him,
+she had left home after a spectacular quarrel with her parents. That
+was soon repaired--it had only been a declaration of independence--but
+she had kept her own job and her own apartment since then.
+
+The rambling of his mind soothed him. At the time he did not realize
+that, down underneath, his mind was telling itself about Corinna
+Lombardi. It decided that she had few elements of conventional
+prettiness. She was tall, and her figure was good except that the
+shoulders were too wide and the bust too small for this decade's
+canons. Her face was broad, with high cheek-bones and square jaw and
+straight strong nose; it had seen a good deal of sun. Her eyes were
+greenish-gray under heavy dark brows, her mouth was wide and full,
+her voice was low. She wore a black dress, as expected, and a defiant
+bronze pin in the shape of a weasel.
+
+Then Kintyre had emerged on the landing, and Angelo Lombardi--thickset,
+heavy-faced, balding--engulfed his hand in an enormous sailor's paw.
+"Come in, sir, please to come in and have a small glass with us."
+
+Maria Lombardi rose for the Doctor of Philosophy. Her light-brown
+hair and clear profile told whence her children had their looks; he
+suspected that much of the brains had come from her too. "How do you
+do, Professor Keen-teer. We thank you for coming."
+
+He sat down, awkwardly. Overstuffed and ghastly, the living room
+belonged to a million immigrants of the last generation, who had built
+from empty pockets up to the middle class. But families like this would
+eat beans oftener than necessary for twenty years, so they could save
+enough to put one child through college. Bruce had been the one.
+
+"I just came to express my sympathy," said Kintyre. He felt himself
+under the cool green appraisal of Corinna's eyes, but could not think
+of words less banal. "Can I do anything to help? Anything at all?"
+
+"You are very kind," said old Lombardi. He poured from what was
+evidently his best bottle of wine. "Everyone has been so kind."
+
+"Do you know what his room was like, the past half of a year,
+Professor?" asked Maria. "He never invited us there."
+
+_I rather imagine not_, thought Kintyre wryly. "Nothing unusual," he
+said. "I'll bring you his personal effects as soon as I can."
+
+"Professor," said Lombardi. He leaned his bulk forward very slowly. The
+glass shivered in his fingers. "You knew my son so well. What do you
+think happen to him?"
+
+"I only know what the police told me," said Kintyre.
+
+Maria crossed herself. She closed her eyes, and he did not watch her
+moving lips; that conversation didn't concern him.
+
+"My son he was murdered," said Lombardi in an uncomprehending voice.
+"Why did they murder him?"
+
+"I don't know," insisted Kintyre. "The police will find out."
+
+Corinna left her chair and came around to stand before the men. It was
+a long stride, made longer by wrath. She put her hands on her hips and
+said coldly:
+
+"Dr. Kintyre, you're not naïve. You must know murder is one of the
+safest crimes there is to commit. What's the actual probability that
+they'll ever learn who did it, when they claim they haven't even a
+motive to guide them?"
+
+Kintyre couldn't help bristling a trifle. She was tired and filled with
+grief, but he had done nothing to rate such a tone. He clipped off his
+words: "If you think you have a clue, Miss Lombardi, you should take it
+to the authorities, not to me."
+
+"I did," she said harshly. "They were polite to the hysterical female.
+They'll look into it, sure. And when they see he has an alibi--as he
+will!--they won't look any further."
+
+Maria stood up. "Corinna!" she exclaimed. "_Basta, figliolaccia!_"
+
+The girl wrenched free of her mother's hand. "Oh, yes," she said,
+"that's how it was with the policeman too. With everybody. Don't pick
+on the poor cripple. Haven't you been enough of a jinx to him? Don't
+you see, that's exactly what he thinks! That's why he killed Bruce!"
+
+An inner door opened, and a man entered the room. He was thirty
+years old, with a strong burly frame turning a little fat. He was
+good-looking in a dark heavy-lipped way, his hair black and curly, his
+eyes a restless rusty brown, nose snubbed and jaw underslung. He wore
+tight black trousers with a silver stripe, a cummerbund, a white silk
+shirt open halfway down his chest; he carried a cased guitar under one
+arm.
+
+"Oh," he said. "I thought somebody'd come. Hello, Doc."
+
+"Hello, Guido," said Kintyre, not getting up. He had nothing personally
+against Bruce's older brother, who had been quite a charming devil
+the few casual times they met. However--"_He who does not choose the
+path of good, chooses to take the path of evil_," said Machiavelli's
+_Discourses_: and Guido had been an anchor around more necks than one.
+
+"Don't get in a bind, kitten," he said to his sister. "I could hear you
+making with the grand opera a mile upwind."
+
+She whirled about on him, shaking, and said: "You could let him get
+cold before you went back to that club to sing your dirty little songs."
+
+"My girl, you speak the purest B.S., as Bruce would have been the
+first to tell you." Guido smiled, took out a cigarette one-handed and
+stuck it in his mouth. "I was out of town the whole weekend, just when
+the cats go real crazy. If I don't make with it tonight, the man will
+ignite me, and what good would that do Bruce?" He flipped out a book of
+matches, opened it and struck one, all with the same expert hand.
+
+Corinna's gaze went from face to face, and a beaten look crept into it.
+"Nobody cares," she whispered. "Just nobody cares."
+
+She sat down. Lombardi twisted his fingers, looking wretched; Maria
+folded herself stiffly into a chair; Guido leaned on the doorjamb and
+blew smoke.
+
+Kintyre felt, obscurely, that it depended on him to ease the girl. He
+said: "Please, Miss Lombardi. We don't mean that. But what can we do?
+We'd only get in the way of the police."
+
+"I know, I know." She got it out between her teeth, while she looked
+at the floor. "Let George do it. Isn't that the motto of this whole
+civilization? Someday George isn't going to be around to do it, and
+we'll have gotten too flabby to help ourselves."
+
+It paralleled some of his own thinking so closely that he was startled.
+But he said, "Well, you can't declare a vendetta, can you?"
+
+"Oh, be quiet!" She looked up at him with a smoldering under her brows.
+"Of course I don't mean that. But I know who must have done it, and
+I know he'll have some kind of story, and no one will look past that
+story, because he seems like such a pathetic case. And he isn't! I know
+Gene and Peter Michaelis. They got what was coming to them!"
+
+"Too much!" roared Lombardi. "Now you be still!" She ignored him. Her
+eyes would not release Kintyre's.
+
+"Well?" she said after a moment.
+
+He wondered if it was only her misery which clawed at him, or if she
+was always such a harpy. He said with great care: "Well, in theory any
+of us could be guilty. I might have done it because Bruce was--going
+around with a girl I used to know. Or Guido here--jealousy? A quarrel?
+I assume we have merely his word he was out of town on Saturday and
+Sunday. Shall we also ask the police to check every minute of his
+weekend?"
+
+The man in the doorway flushed. "Dig that," he said slowly. "So you're
+going to--"
+
+"Nothing of the sort," rapped Kintyre. "I was trying to show how a
+private suspicion is no grounds for--"
+
+Guido took a long drag on his cigarette, snuffed it in a horrible
+souvenir ashtray, and left without a word. They heard his footfalls go
+down the stairs.
+
+"I am _so_ sorry, Mister Professor," faltered Lombardi.
+
+"_Niente affatto, signor._" Kintyre stood up. "All of you are worn
+out." He essayed a smile at Corinna. "You were echoing some of my own
+principles. We pessimists ought to stick together."
+
+She did not even turn her face toward him. But her profile was one he
+could imagine on Nike of Samothrace, the Victory which strides in the
+wind.
+
+"I've always thought principles should be acted on," she told him
+sullenly.
+
+"Corinna!" said Maria. Her daughter paid no attention.
+
+Kintyre took his leave in a confusion of apologies. When he stood alone
+on the dusky street, he whistled. That had been no fun.
+
+But now it was over with. He could let things cool down for a week
+or so, then deliver Bruce's possessions, and say farewell with an
+insincere promise to "look you up soon, when I get the chance." And
+there would be an end of that.
+
+But he had thought for a heartbeat she was Morna come home to him.
+
+His fingers were wooden, hunting for a cigarette; he dropped the pack
+on the sidewalk before getting one out. He could feel the first onset
+of the horror, moving up along the channels of his brain.
+
+Sometimes, he thought with a remnant of coolness, sometimes distraction
+could head off the trouble. If he could get involved in something
+outside himself, and yet important to himself, so that his whole
+attention was engaged, the horror might retreat.
+
+He yanked smoke into his lungs, blew it forth, tossed the cigarette to
+the paving and stamped on it. Then he went into the grocery. There was
+a public phone on the wall, he leafed through the directory until he
+found the name.
+
+_Michaelis Peter C._
+
+
+
+
+5
+
+
+He didn't call ahead, but drove on down. When he parked and got out, he
+saw Coit Tower whitely lit above him, on the steep art-colony heights
+of Telegraph Hill. Not many blocks away was Fisherman's Wharf, a lot of
+tourist pits and a few authentic restaurants. But here he stood in a
+pocket of slum, before a rotting rattrap tenement. A single street lamp
+a block away cast a purulent light at its own foot. Elsewhere the night
+flowed. He heard the nearby rattle of a switch engine, pushing freight
+cars over iron; a battered cat slunk past him; otherwise he was alone.
+
+He walked across to the house with forced briskness, struck a match and
+hunted through several grimy scrawls on mailboxes before Michaelis'
+name came to him. Number 8.
+
+The main entrance was unlocked. The hall, dusty in threadbare
+carpeting, held dim electric bulbs. He heard noises through some of the
+doors, and smelled stale cooking. A glance told him Number 8 must be
+upstairs. He climbed, only now starting to wonder just how he planned
+to do his errand.
+
+Or what his errand was, if it came to that.
+
+Bruce had never spoken much to him of Gene Michaelis. They had been
+children together on the waterfront. Bruce was a year younger,
+doubtless a quiet bookish sort, teacher's pet, even then--but
+apparently unaffected by it, so that he was not disliked. Still, he
+must have been lonely. And Gene was a rough-and-tumble fisherman's
+son. Nevertheless, one of those odd fierce boy-friendships had existed
+between them. Bruce had probably dominated it, without either of them
+realizing the fact.
+
+In time they drifted apart. Gene had left high school at sixteen, Bruce
+had said, after some whoopdedo involving a girl; he had tramped since
+then, dock walloper, fry cook, bouncer, salesman--he found it easy to
+lie about his age. Now and then he revisited the Bay Area. His return
+from Navy service had been last summer, when Kintyre was still in
+Europe; Kintyre had never actually met him. Gene had looked up Bruce in
+Berkeley, and through Bruce renewed an acquaintance with Corinna, and
+after that Gene had moved over to San Francisco.
+
+Number 8. Kintyre heard television bray through the thin panels. He
+looked at his watch. Past ten o'clock. _Oh, hell, let's play by ear._
+He knocked.
+
+Feet shuffled inside. The door opened. Kintyre looked slightly upward,
+into a lined heavy face with a thick hook nose and small black eyes and
+a gray bristle of hair. The man had shoulders like a Mack truck, and
+there wasn't much of a belly on him yet. He wore faded work clothes.
+The smell of cheap wine was thick around him.
+
+"What do you want?" he said.
+
+"Mr. Michaelis? My name's Kintyre. I'd like to talk to you for a few
+minutes."
+
+"We're not buying any, and if you're from the finance company you
+can--" Michaelis completed the suggestion.
+
+"Neither," said Kintyre mildly. "Call me a sort of ambassador."
+
+Puzzled, Michaelis stood aside. Kintyre walked into a one-room
+apartment with a curtained-off cooking area. A wall bed was opened out,
+unmade. There were a few chairs, a table with a half-empty gallon of
+red ink on it, a television set, a tobacco haze, much dust and many old
+newspapers on the floor.
+
+Gene Michaelis occupied a decaying armchair. He was a young,
+black-haired version of his father, and would have been rather handsome
+if he smiled. He wore flannel pajamas which had not been washed for
+some time. His legs stuck rigidly out before him, ending in shoes
+whose heels rested on the floor. Two canes leaned within reach. He was
+smoking, drinking wine, and watching the screen; he did not stop when
+Kintyre entered.
+
+"I'm sorry the place is such a mess," said Peter Michaelis. He spoke
+fast, with an alcoholic slur. "It's kind of hard. My wife's dead, and
+my son has to live with me and he can't do nothing. When I get home
+from looking for work, all day looking for a job, I'm too tired to
+clean up." He made vague dusting motions over a chair. "Siddown. Drink?"
+
+"No, thanks." Kintyre lowered himself. "I came--"
+
+"I was already down in the world when this happened last year," said
+Michaelis. "I owned my own boat once. Yes, I did. The _Ruthie M_. But
+then she got sunk, and there wasn't enough insurance to get another,
+and well, I ended up as a deckhand again. Me, who'd owned my own boat."
+He sat and blinked muzzily at his guest.
+
+"I'm sorry to hear that. But--"
+
+"Then my wife died. Then my son come back from the Navy, and got
+himself hurt real bad. Both legs gone, above the knees. It took all the
+money I had to pay the doctors. I quit work to take care of my son. He
+was in a bad way. When he got so he could look after himself a little,
+I went looking for my job back, only I didn't get it. And since then I
+haven't found nothing."
+
+"Well," said Kintyre, "there's the welfare, and rehabilitation--"
+
+Gene turned around and said a short obscenity.
+
+"That's what they'll do for you," he added. "They found me a job
+basket weaving. _Basket weaving!_ Kee-rist, I was a gunner's mate in
+the Navy. Basket weaving!"
+
+"I'm a Navy man myself," ventured Kintyre. "Or was, after Pearl Harbor.
+Destroyers."
+
+"What rank were you? A brown-nosing officer, I'll bet."
+
+"Well--"
+
+"A brass hat. Kee-rist." Gene Michaelis turned back to his television.
+
+"I'm sorry," muttered his father. "It's not so easy for him, you know.
+He was as strong and lively a young fellow as you could hope to see.
+God, six months ago! Now what's he got to do all day?"
+
+"I'm not offended," said Kintyre. _I would, in fact, be inclined to
+take offense only at a system of so-called education which has so
+little discipline left in it that its victims are unable to do more
+than watch this monkey show when the evil days have come. But that is
+not of immediate relevance._
+
+"What did you come for?" Peter Michaelis lifted his bull head and his
+voice crested: "You know of a job?" He sagged back again. "No. No, you
+wouldn't."
+
+"I'm afraid not," said Kintyre. "I came as--I came to help you in
+another way." _Maledetto! How much like Norman Vincent Peale is one man
+allowed to sound? But I can't think of anything else._
+
+"Yes?" Michaelis sat erect; even Gene twisted half around.
+
+"You know the Lombardi family, of course."
+
+"Do we know them?" spat Michaelis. "I wish to hell we didn't!"
+
+"Have you heard that the son, Bruce, is dead?"
+
+"Uh-huh," said Gene. He turned down the sound of his program and added
+with a certain pleasure: "Looks like there's some justice in the world
+after all."
+
+"Now, wait," began Kintyre.
+
+Gene turned more fully to face the visitor. His eyes narrowed. "What
+have you got to do with them?" he asked.
+
+"I knew Bruce. I thought--"
+
+"Sure. You thought he was God's little bare-bottomed baby angel. I
+know. Everybody does. It took a long time to get down past all those
+layers of holy grease on him. I did."
+
+"You know what the old man done to me?" shouted Peter Michaelis. "He
+rammed me. Sent my boat to the bottom in 1945. He murdered two of my
+crew. They drowned. I could of been drowned myself!"
+
+Kintyre remembered Bruce's account. A freakish, sudden fog had been
+blown down a strong wind. Such impossibilities do happen now and then.
+The boats blundered together and sank. The Coast Guard inquiry found
+it an act of God; Michaelis tried to sue, but the case was thrown out
+of court. Then, for the sake of their sons, Peter and Angelo made a
+grudging peace.
+
+What had happened lately must have brought all the old bitterness back,
+with a dozen years' interest added.
+
+"Shut up," said Gene. He was drunk too, Kintyre saw, but cold drunk, in
+control of everything except his emotions. "Shut up, Pete. It was an
+accident. Why should he ruin his own business?"
+
+"He got him a restaurant out of it," mumbled Michaelis. "What have we
+got?"
+
+"Look here," said Kintyre, not very truthfully. "I'm a neutral party. I
+didn't have to come around here, and there's nothing in it for me. But
+will you listen?"
+
+"If you'll listen too," said Gene. He poured himself another glass.
+"Huh. I know what the Lombardis been telling you about me. Let me tell
+you about them."
+
+Somewhere in the back of Kintyre's mind, a thin little warning whistle
+blew. He grabbed the arms of his chair and hung on tight. There was no
+time now to add up reasons why; he knew only that if he let Gene talk
+freely about Corinna, there was going to be trouble.
+
+"Never mind," he said coldly. "I'm not interested in that aspect. I
+came here because I don't think you murdered Bruce Lombardi and the
+police may think you did."
+
+That stopped them. Peter Michaelis looked up, his face turning a
+drained color. Gene puckered his lips, snapped them together, and went
+blank of expression. His dark gaze did not waver from Kintyre's, and he
+said quite steadily: "What are you getting at?"
+
+"Bruce was called over to the City by someone last Saturday evening,"
+said Kintyre. "His body was found Monday morning. You know very well
+that if you'd called him, offering to patch up the quarrel, he'd have
+come like a shot. Where were you two this weekend?"
+
+"Why--" Peter Michaelis' voice wobbled. "I was home all day
+Saturday--housework. Went out for a drink at night--church Sunday
+morning, yeah, then came back for a nap. Hey, I played pinochle down in
+front of the warehouse that evening with--" His words trailed off.
+
+"Nobody glanced in, then?" asked Kintyre. "No one who could verify that
+Bruce wasn't lying bound and gagged?"
+
+"Why--I--"
+
+"Hey!" Gene Michaelis surged to his feet. It was a single swinging
+leap, propelled upward by his arms. His aluminum legs spraddled,
+seeking clumsily for a foothold. Somehow he got one of his canes and
+leaned on it.
+
+"What business is it of yours, anyway?" he snarled.
+
+_Can I tell you that I don't know?_ thought Kintyre. _Can I tell you
+I'm here because a girl I'd scarcely seen before now wanted me to come?_
+
+_Hardly._
+
+He leaned back with strained casualness and said: "I want to make
+peace between your two families. Call it a gesture toward Bruce. I
+admit I liked him. And he never stopped liking you, Gene.
+
+"If you keep on spewing hatred at the Lombardis as you have been, the
+police are going to get very interested in your weekend. Where were
+you?"
+
+Gene hunched his shoulders. "None of your God damn business."
+
+"I take it you weren't home, then."
+
+"No, I was not. If you want to ask any more, let's see your Junior
+G-man badge."
+
+Kintyre sighed. "All right." He stood up. "I'll go. The cops won't be
+so obliging, if you don't cooperate with them."
+
+He looked past Gene, to the window. It was a hole into total blackness.
+He wondered if that had been the last sight Bruce saw--of all this
+earth of majesty, a single smeared window opening on the dark.
+
+"I didn't do it," said Gene. "We didn't." He showed his teeth. "But I
+say three cheers for whoever did. I'd like to get the lot of 'em here,
+that sister now--"
+
+"Hold on!" The violence of his tone shivered Kintyre's skull. Afterward
+it was a wonder to him, how rage had leaped up.
+
+Gene swayed for a moment. An unpleasant twisting went along his lips.
+Beside Kintyre, the father also rose, massive and watchful.
+
+"So you'd like some of that too, would you?" said Gene. "You won't get
+it. She's only a whore inside. Outside, she's like a goddam nun. You
+know what we call that kind where I come from? Pri--"
+
+"I'm going," said Kintyre harshly. "I prefer to be among men."
+
+Unthinkingly, he had chosen the crudest cut. He saw that at once. A
+physical creature like Gene Michaelis, whose sexual exploits must have
+been his one wall against every hidden inadequacy, must now be feeling
+nearly unmanned.
+
+Gene roared. His cane lifted and whistled down.
+
+It could have been a head-smashing blow. Kintyre stepped from it and it
+jarred against the floor. The cane broke across. Gene rocked forward on
+his artificial legs, his hands reaching out for Kintyre's throat.
+
+Kintyre planted himself passively, waiting. He didn't want to hit a
+cripple. Nor would fists be much use against all that bone and meat.
+
+As Gene lunged, Kintyre slipped a few inches to one side, so the
+clutching arm went above his shoulder. He took it in his hands, his
+knee helped the great body along, and Gene Michaelis crashed into the
+wall.
+
+As the cloud of plaster exploded, Kintyre saw the old man attack. Peter
+Michaelis was still as strong as a wild ox, and as wrathful.
+
+Kintyre could have killed him with no trouble.
+
+Kintyre had no wish to. Anyone could be driven berserk, given enough
+low-grade alcohol on top of enough wretchedness. He waited again, until
+the fisherman's fist came about in a round-house swing. There was time
+enough for a judo man to get out of the way, catch that arm, spin the
+opponent halfway around, and send him on his way. It would have been
+more scientific to throttle him unconscious, but that would have taken
+a few seconds and Gene was crawling back to his feet.
+
+"Let's call it a day," said Kintyre. "I'm not after a fight."
+
+"You--filthy--bastard." Gene tottered erect. Blood ran down one side of
+his mouth; the breath sobbed in and out of him; but he came.
+
+On the way he picked up the other cane.
+
+He tried to jab with it. Kintyre took it away from him. As simple as
+that--let the stick's own motion carry it out of the opponent's hand.
+Gene bellowed and fell. Kintyre rapped him lightly on the head, to
+discourage him.
+
+Someone was pounding on the door. "What's going on in there? Hey,
+what's going on?"
+
+"I recommend you cooperate with the police," said Kintyre. "Wherever
+you were this weekend, Gene, tell them. They'll find out eventually."
+
+He opened the window, went through, and hung for a moment by his hands.
+Father and son were sitting up, not much damaged. Kintyre straightened
+his elbows and let go. It wasn't too long a drop to the street, if you
+knew how to land.
+
+He went to his car and got in. There was no especial sense of victory
+within him: a growing dark feeling of his own momentum, perhaps. He had
+to keep moving, the horror was not yet asleep.
+
+_All right, Corinna_, he thought as the motor whirred to life. It was a
+bit childish, but he was not in any normal state. _I did your job. Now
+I'll do one for myself._
+
+
+
+
+6
+
+
+When Bruce last mentioned Guido to Kintyre, not so long ago, the name
+of the Alley Cat occurred. Presumably Guido was still singing there.
+Kintyre looked up the address in a drugstore phone book. It was back
+in North Beach, of course, in a subdistrict which proved to be quiet,
+shabby, and tough.
+
+There was no neon sign to guide him, only a flight of stairs downward
+to a door with the name painted on it. Once past a solid-looking
+bouncer, he found a dark low-ceilinged room, decorated with abstract
+murals and a few mobiles. The bar was opposite him. Otherwise the walls
+were lined with booths, advantageously deep, and the floor was packed
+with tables. Most of the light came from candles on these, in old
+wax-crusted Chianti bottles. Patronage was thin this evening, perhaps
+a dozen couples and as many stags. They ran to type: either barely
+of drinking age or else quite gray, the men with their long hair and
+half-open blouses more ornate than most of the women, a few obvious
+faggots, a crop-headed girl in a man's shirt and trousers holding hands
+with a more female-looking one.
+
+Hipsters, professionally futile; students, many of whom would never
+leave the warm walls of academe; a Communist or two, or a disillusioned
+ex-Communist who had not found a fresh illusion, perpetually refighting
+the Spanish Civil War; self-appointed intellectuals who had long ago
+stopped learning or forgetting; dabblers in art or religion or the
+dance; petty racketeers, some with a college degree but no will to make
+use of it--Kintyre stopped enumerating. He knew these people. One of
+his strictures on Margery was her weakness for such a crowd. They bored
+him.
+
+Guido sat on a dais near the bar, draped around a high stool with a
+glass of beer handy. His fingers tickled the guitar strings, they
+responded with life, he bore his brother's musical gifts. His voice was
+better than Bruce's:
+
+    "--_Who lived long years ago.
+    He ruled the land with an iron hand
+    But his mind was weak and low_--"
+
+Despite himself, Kintyre was amused to find such an old acquaintance
+here. He wondered if Guido knew the author.
+
+He threaded between the tables till he reached one close by the
+platform. Guido's glance touched him, and the curly head made a
+half-nod of recognition.
+
+Since he would be overcharged anyway, Kintyre ordered an import beer
+and settled back to nurse it. The ballad went on to its indelicate
+conclusion. Guido ended with a crashing chord and finished his brew at
+a gulp. There was light applause and buzzing conversation.
+
+Guido leaned back against the wall. His eyelids drooped and he drew
+wholly different sounds from the strings. Talk died away. Not many here
+would know this song. Kintyre himself didn't recognize it before the
+singer had embarked on the haunting refrain. Then Guido looked his way,
+smiling a little, and he knew it was a gift to him.
+
+    "_Quant' è bella giovinezza
+      Che si fugge tuttavia!
+    Di doman' non c' è certezza:
+      Chi vuol esse lieto, sia!_"
+
+Lorenzo the Magnificent had written it, long ago in the days of pride.
+
+When he finished, Guido said, "_Entr'acte_," laid down his guitar, and
+came over to Kintyre's table. He stood with his left hand on his hip,
+fetching out a cigarette and lighting it with the right.
+
+"Thanks," said Kintyre.
+
+Guido continued the business with the cigarette, taking his time.
+Kintyre returned to his beer.
+
+"Well," said Guido finally. He grinned. "You're a cool one. I mean in
+every sense of the word. Let's find a booth."
+
+They sat down on opposite sides of the recessed table. A handsome young
+waitress lit the candle for them. "On me," said Guido.
+
+"Same, then," said Kintyre, emptying his glass.
+
+Guido squirmed. "How d'you like the place?" he asked.
+
+Kintyre shrugged. "It's a place."
+
+"This Parisian bistro deal is only on slack nights. Weekends, we got a
+combo in here."
+
+"I think I prefer the bistro."
+
+"I guess you would."
+
+They fell back into silence. Guido smoked raggedly. Kintyre felt no
+need for tobacco; the implacable sense of going somewhere overrode his
+self.
+
+After the girl had brought their round, Guido said in a harsh tone,
+looking away from him: "Well, what is it? I got to go on again soon."
+
+"I just came from the Michaelis'," said Kintyre.
+
+"What?" Guido jerked. "What'd you go there for?"
+
+"Let's say I was curious. Gene Michaelis was out of sight last weekend.
+He won't say where."
+
+"You don't--" Guido looked up. Something congealed in him. "I thought
+Corinna was just flipping," he said, very softly.
+
+"I don't accuse anyone," said Kintyre. "I'm only a civilian. However,
+the police are going to give him a rough time if he won't alibi
+himself."
+
+Guido lit a fresh cigarette from the butt of the last.
+
+"Where were you, Saturday afternoon through Monday morning?" Kintyre
+tossed the question off as lightly as he was able.
+
+"Out of town," said Guido. "With some friends."
+
+"You'd better get in touch with them, then, so they can give statements
+to that effect."
+
+"They--Christ almighty!" In the guttering flamelight, Kintyre saw how
+sweat began to film the faun countenance.
+
+"My personal opinion," he said, watching Guido's lips fight to stiffen
+themselves, "is that you are not involved. The fact remains, though,
+you'd better account for your weekend."
+
+"To you?" It was a wan little truculence.
+
+"I can't force you. But without trying to play detective, I am sticking
+my nose a ways into this affair. Knowing the people concerned, I might
+possibly turn up something the police can use.
+
+"So where did you spend your weekend, Guido?"
+
+The full mouth pouted. "Rotate, cat, rotate. Why should anybody care?
+Where's my motive?"
+
+"Where is anyone's motive? You have a lot of shady friends. I daresay
+your mother had to shield you often enough from your father--or even
+from the authorities, once or twice." It was a guess on Kintyre's part,
+but he saw that he had struck a target. "Maybe of late you've gotten
+mixed up with something worse. Maybe Bruce found out."
+
+"Beat feet," said Guido. "Blow before I call the bouncer."
+
+"I'm merely trying to reason as a policeman might. I'm not accusing
+you, I'm warning you."
+
+"Well," said Guido, raising his eyes again, "there wasn't anything like
+that going on. Certainly nothing Bruce would know about. I mean, man,
+he was all professor!"
+
+"Jealousy," murmured Kintyre. "There's another motive. Bruce was the
+favorite. All his life he was the favorite. Oh, he deserved it--the
+well-behaved kid, the bright and promising kid. But it must have been
+hard for you to take, with your Italian background, where the oldest
+son normally has precedence. You were college material too. It just so
+happened Bruce was better, and there was only money for one. Of course,
+later you had your G.I., and didn't use it. You'd lost interest. Which
+doesn't change the fact: money was spent on Bruce that might otherwise
+have been spent on you."
+
+Guido finished his whisky and signaled out the booth. "Crazy," he
+fleered. "But go on."
+
+"Well, let's see. I imagine you're always at loggerheads with your
+father. That won't recommend you to a suspicious detective either. Here
+you are, thirty years old, and except for your military hitch you've
+always lived at home. You've sponged, between short-lived half-hearted
+jobs; you've drifted from one night club engagement to another, but all
+small time and steadily getting smaller. I hardly think you belong to
+the Church any more, do you?"
+
+"I was kicked out," admitted Guido with a certain cockiness. "I got
+married a few years back. It didn't take. So I got divorced and the
+Church kicked me out. Not that I'd believed that guff for a long time
+before. But there was quite a row."
+
+The waitress looked into the booth. Guido slid a hand down her hip.
+"Let's have a bottle in here," he said. "Raus!" He slapped her heartily
+on the rump. His gaze followed her toward the bar.
+
+"Nice piece, that," he said. "Maybe I can fix you up with her, if you
+want."
+
+"No, thanks," said Kintyre.
+
+Guido was winning back his confidence. He grinned and said: "Sure. I'm
+the bad boy. Bruce worked part time all his undergraduate years, and
+made his own way since. Corinna still helps out with a slice of her
+paycheck, which is none too big. But me, man, I got horns, hoof, and
+tail. I eat babies for breakfast.
+
+"Only lemme tell you something about Bruce. All the time he was so
+holy-holy, attending Mass every Sunday he was over on this side--but
+avoiding Communion, come to think of it--he didn't give a damn either.
+He just didn't have the nerve to make a clean break with those black
+crows, like me."
+
+Kintyre, who had listened to many midnight hours of troubled young
+confidences, said quietly: "At the time he died, Bruce hadn't yet
+decided what he believed. He wouldn't hurt his parents for what might
+turn out to be a moment's intellectual whim."
+
+"All right, all right. Only did you know he was shacking up?"
+
+Kintyre raised his brows. "I'm surprised he told you. He introduced the
+girl around as his fiancée. In the apartment house he said she was his
+wife. He was more concerned about her reputation than she was."
+
+"Come off it," snorted Guido. "Who did he fool?"
+
+"Nnn ... nobody who met her, I suppose. He tried, but--"
+
+"But this was the first woman he ever had, and it was such a big event
+he couldn't hide it. He was a lousy liar. Just for kicks, I badgered
+him till he broke down and admitted it to me."
+
+"It was her idea," said Kintyre. "He wanted to marry her."
+
+"Be this as it may," said Guido, "our little tin Jesus turns out to've
+been less than frank with everybody. So what else did he have cooking?
+Don't ask what I'm mixed up in. Look into his doings."
+
+"I might," said Kintyre, "except that you have explained to me how poor
+a liar he was."
+
+The girl came back with a pint of bourbon and a chit for Guido to sign.
+She leaned far over to set down a bottle of soda and two glasses of
+ice, so Kintyre could have a good look down her dress.
+
+"Man," said Guido when she had oscillated off again, "Laura's got ants
+tonight. If you don't help yourself to that, I will."
+
+"Why offer me the chance in the first place?" asked Kintyre. He ignored
+the proffered glass, sticking to his beer.
+
+"I was going out on the town when I finished here. Know some places,
+they cost but they're worth it." Guido slugged his own glass full,
+added a dash of mix, and drank heartily. "They'll keep till tomorrow,
+though."
+
+"I wonder where a chronically broke small-time entertainer gets money
+to splurge, all at once," said Kintyre.
+
+Guido set his drink down again. Behind the loose, open blouse, his
+breast muscles grew taut.
+
+"Never you mind," he said, in the bleakest voice Kintyre had yet heard
+him use. "Forget I mentioned it. Run along home and play with your
+books."
+
+"As you wish. But when you're being officially grilled--and you will
+be, sonny--I wouldn't talk about Bruce in exactly the terms you used
+tonight. It sounds more and more as if you hated him."
+
+Kintyre had no intention of leaving. Guido was disquietingly hard to
+understand. He might even, actually, be a party to the murder. Kintyre
+didn't want to believe that. He hoped all the tough and scornful words
+had been no more than a concealment, from Guido's own inward self, of
+bewildered pain. But he couldn't be sure.
+
+He would have to learn more.
+
+He sat back, easing his body, his mind, trying not to expect anything
+whatsoever. Then nothing could catch him off balance.
+
+But the third party jarred him nonetheless.
+
+A man came over toward the booth. He had evidently just made an inquiry
+of the waitress. He wore a good suit, painstakingly fashionable, and
+very tight black shoes. His face looked young.
+
+Guido saw him coming and tightened fingers around his glass. A pulse in
+the singer's throat began to flutter.
+
+"Get out," he said.
+
+"What's wrong now?" Kintyre didn't move.
+
+"Get out!" The eyes that turned to him were dark circles rimmed all
+around with white. The tones cracked across. "I'll see you later. There
+could be trouble if you stay. Blow!"
+
+Kintyre made no doubt of it. Ordinarily he would have left, he was
+not one to search for a conflict. But he did not think any man could
+be worse to meet than the horror, and he could feel the horror still
+waiting to take him, as soon as he stopped having other matters to
+focus on.
+
+He poured out the rest of his beer. Then the man was standing at the
+booth.
+
+He was young indeed, Kintyre saw, perhaps so young he needed false
+identification to drink. His face was almost girlish, in a broad-nosed
+sleepy-eyed way, and very white. The rest of him was middling tall and
+well muscled; he moved with a sureness which told Kintyre he was quick
+on his feet.
+
+"Uh," said Guido.
+
+The young man jerked his head backward.
+
+"He was just--just going," chattered Guido. "Right away."
+
+"When I finish my beer, of course," said Kintyre mildly.
+
+"Drink up," said the young man. He had no color in his voice. Its
+accent wasn't local, but Kintyre couldn't place the exact region. More
+or less Midwestern. Chicago?
+
+It was a good excuse to get his back up. "I don't see where you have
+any authority in the matter," said Kintyre.
+
+"Mother of God," whispered Guido frantically across the table. "Scram!"
+
+The young man stood droop-lidded for a moment, considering. Then he
+said to Guido: "Okay. Another booth."
+
+"Won't you join us here?" asked Kintyre. "You can say your say when
+I've gone."
+
+The young man thought it over for a second or two. He shrugged faintly
+and sat down beside Kintyre, a couple of feet away. Shakily, Guido
+poured a drink into the unused glass of ice.
+
+"Th-th-this is--Larkin," he said. "Terry Larkin. This is Professor
+Kintyre. He was a friend of my brother, is all."
+
+"Are you from out of town, Mr. Larkin?" said Kintyre.
+
+The young man took out a pack of cigarettes. It was the container for a
+standard brand, but the homemade cylinders inside were another matter.
+He lit one and sat back, unheeding of the whisky.
+
+Kintyre would not have thought an ordinary drug addict anything to
+reckon with: the effects are too ruinous. But in spite of all the lurid
+stories, marijuana is a mild sort of dope, which leaves more control
+than alcohol and probably does less physiological damage than tobacco.
+If it came to trouble, Larkin was not going to be inconvenienced by a
+reefer or two.
+
+"Friend of mine," said Guido. He was still tense, his smile a
+meaningless rictus. But a hope was becoming clear to see on him, that
+the episode would pass over quietly.
+
+Kintyre did not mean for it to. There was more than coincidence
+here. If Larkin simply had private business to discuss, even illegal
+business, Guido would have had no reason to fear trouble. Larkin could
+merely wait until the professor took his bumbling presence home.
+
+_The trouble is_, thought Kintyre, _I've been asking so many
+questions. I might irritate Happy here._
+
+Wherefore he dropped his bomb with some care: "Perhaps you can help
+me, Mr. Larkin. I suppose you know Guido's brother was murdered. Guido
+won't tell me where he was during that time, Saturday and Sunday, and
+I'm afraid he might get in trouble with the law."
+
+Guido regarded Larkin like a beggar.
+
+Larkin sat still. So still. It must have been half a minute before he
+moved. Then he looked through a woman's lashes at Kintyre and said:
+
+"He was with me. We went out and picked daisies all weekend."
+
+Kintyre smiled. "Well, if that's all--" His bomb had missed. He dropped
+another. "To avoid trouble, though, you'd better both go to the police
+with a statement."
+
+"You're no cop," said Larkin.
+
+"No. It was only a suggestion." Having bracketed the target, Kintyre
+dropped his third missile. "If they happen to ask me first what I know
+about it, I can refer them to you. Where are you staying?"
+
+"_Gèsu Cristo_," groaned Guido out of a lost childhood.
+
+Larkin's face remained dead. But he laid down his cigarette and said
+slowly and clearly: "I told you to run along home. This time I mean it,
+daddy-o."
+
+Kintyre bunched his muscles--only for an instant, then he remembered
+that he must be at ease, at ease.
+
+"I'm beginning to wonder what you really were doing last weekend,
+Terry," he said.
+
+There was hardly a visible movement. He heard the click, and the
+switchblade poised on the bench, aimed at his throat.
+
+"End of the line," Larkin told him without rancor. "On your way. If you
+know what's good for you, you won't come back."
+
+"Do you know," murmured Kintyre, "I think this really is a case for the
+police. Ever hear of citizen's arrest?"
+
+Guido's wind rattled in his gullet.
+
+Larkin's blade spurted upward. It was an expert, underhand sticking
+motion; Kintyre could have died with hardly a noise, in that booth
+designed not to be looked into from outside.
+
+From the moment the steel emerged, he had realized he was going to get
+cut. That was half the technique of facing a knife. His last remark had
+been absolutely sincere: the law needed Larkin a prisoner, now. His
+left arm moved simultaneously with Larkin's right. The blade struck
+his forearm and furrowed keenly through the sleeve. It opened the skin
+beneath, but little more, for Kintyre was already lifting the arm,
+violently, as the follow-through slid Larkin's wrist across. He smacked
+the knife hand back against the booth wall.
+
+His own right hand slipped under Larkin's knee. Then he half stood up;
+his left came down to assist; and he threw Larkin out of the booth.
+
+He followed, out where there was room to deal properly with the boy.
+Larkin had hit a table (_Western movie style_, grinned part of Kintyre)
+and the whole business crashed and skated over the floor.
+
+The bouncer ran ponderously to break up the fight. Kintyre had nothing
+against him, except that any delay would give Larkin too much time. He
+ran to meet the bouncer, therefore, stopped a fractional second before
+collision, and took the body's impact on his hip. It was elementary art
+from there on in. The bouncer bounced.
+
+Larkin was back on his feet, spitting fury and blood. He'd lost his
+knife--should be easy to wrap up--_Hold it!_
+
+The second switchblade gleamed among candles. Kintyre had almost
+impaled himself. He fell, in the judo manner, cushioned by an arm.
+Whetted metal buzzed where he had been. Rolling over on his back,
+Kintyre waited for Larkin to jump at him. Larkin was not that naïve. He
+picked a Chianti bottle off a table and threw it.
+
+Kintyre saved his eyes with an arm hastily raised. The blow was
+numbing. He whipped to his feet again. The bartender circled on the
+fringes, gibbering and waving a bungstarter: the typical barroom fight
+is ridiculous, these two meant what they were doing. The bouncer
+dragged himself to his hands and knees.
+
+"Call the police," snapped Kintyre. "And for God's sake, some of these
+tablecloths will start burning any minute!"
+
+The customers were milling away. One of the fairies screamed; the butch
+stood on a chair and watched with dry avid eyes. Larkin backed off
+along the wall. Kintyre followed. Larkin wasn't foolish enough to rush;
+Kintyre would have to.
+
+He waited till there was a small space clear of tables before him. Then
+he crouched low and ran in. His left arm was up, for a shield. He'd
+take that toadstabber in the biceps if he must.
+
+Larkin, back against the bar, drew into himself. _Almost on one knee_,
+thought Kintyre as he plunged in, _like a Roman gladiator trying for
+the belly._ A tactical change was called for.
+
+He shifted course and met the bar six feet from Larkin. His palms came
+down on it, he used his own speed to leap frogwise up to its surface,
+pivoting to face Larkin. He made one jump along the bar. His second was
+into the air. He landed with both feet on Larkin's back, before the
+other had more than half straightened.
+
+Larkin went down, the knife flying from his hand. Kintyre fell off and
+went in a heap. This wasn't judo, it wasn't anything; Trig would laugh
+himself sick if he could watch. But--
+
+Kintyre rolled back. Larkin was climbing unsteadily to his feet.
+Kintyre pulled him down and got a choking hold from behind. He lay on
+Larkin's back, his legs and sheer weight controlling the body, one arm
+around the throat, hands gripping wrists.
+
+"Okay," he panted. "Squirm away. You'll just strangle yourself, you
+know."
+
+Larkin hissed an obscenity. He was lighter, but Kintyre could feel a
+hard vitality in him. No matter, he was held now.
+
+"Bartender," wheezed Kintyre. "Call the police--"
+
+Something landed on his head.
+
+It was like an explosion. For a moment he spiraled down toward night.
+He felt Larkin wriggle free, he groped mindlessly but his hands were
+empty and the world was blackness and great millstones.
+
+Then he was aware once more. Guido crouched beside him, shaken and
+sobbing, and pawed at his bleeding scalp with a handkerchief. "Oh, God,
+Doc, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. Are you hurt?"
+
+Kintyre looked around. "Where'd Junior go?" he croaked.
+
+"Out the back door. Christ, Doc, I had to, you don't know what--Mary,
+Mother of God, forgive me, but--"
+
+Kintyre stood up, leaning on Guido. A small riot was developing among
+the clientele and the help. He ignored it, brushing someone aside
+without even looking. The singer's stool lay at his feet. Guido must
+have clobbered him with that.
+
+"Suppose you tell me why," he said.
+
+"I--Get out. Get out before the cops come. I'll cover for you--tell
+them I don't know who you are, you were a stranger and--Get out!" Guido
+pushed at him, still weeping.
+
+"I don't have anything to fear from them," said Kintyre. "It strikes me
+that maybe you do."
+
+"Maybe," whispered Guido.
+
+"Bruce died in a nasty way."
+
+"This isn't--nothing to do with--I swear it, Doc, so help me God I do.
+Think I'd ever--It's something else, for Christ's sake!" Guido spoke
+in a slurred muted scream. "It's not only the cops I'm scared of, Doc,
+it's the others. They'd kill me!"
+
+Kintyre studied him for a long second.
+
+After all, he thought, this was Bruce's brother. And Corinna's.
+
+"Okay," he said. "I promise you nothing. I, at least, will insist on
+knowing what this is all about. When I do, perhaps I'll decide the
+police ought to be told, and perhaps not. But for now, good night,
+Guido."
+
+He turned to go out the rear exit. Faintly through the main door, he
+heard approaching sirens, but there was time enough to get into a back
+alley and thence to his car.
+
+He realized, suddenly, with an unsurprised drowsy delight like the
+aftermath of love, that the horror had left him. When he continued his
+search for Larkin and for that more terrible thing which Larkin must
+represent, it would be from honor, because he was taking it on himself
+not to tell the police at once that there was a mansticker loose in
+their city. He would not be merely running from his private ghosts.
+
+Tonight he would be able to sleep.
+
+He paused at the door, looking back. "Good night, Guido," he repeated.
+"And thanks again for the song."
+
+
+
+
+7
+
+
+Two brawls in succession had not tired him; he got more exercise than
+that in an evening at the dojo. But the strain of the time before had
+had its effect. He woke with a fluttering gasp and saw dust motes dance
+in a yellow sunbeam. The clock said almost nine.
+
+"Judas priest," he groaned. Suddenly it came to him that he had left
+Guido unguarded. So much for the amateur detective.
+
+He sprang from bed and twirled the radio controls. Having found a
+newscast, he went into the bathroom and showered; Trig Yamamura had
+beaten that much Zen into his thick head. Through the water noise, he
+heard that more money was necessary so the nation's bought friends
+would stay bought; that the countries which had simply given their
+friendship were being imperialistic, i.e., hanging on to their overseas
+property, and therefore unworthy of help; that subversive elements
+in the bottle cap industry were to be investigated; and that Mother
+Bloor's Old Time Chicken Broth was made by a new scientific process
+which "sealed in" tiny drops of chicken goodness. Nothing was said
+about another murder.
+
+Kintyre sighed and gave himself time to cook breakfast. If Guido hadn't
+been killed last night, he must be safely asleep at home by now. There
+were a few hours to spare.
+
+He got into slacks and a gray sports shirt: he hated neckties and had
+no reason to wear one today. First, he decided, he must see Trig. After
+that he could wind up Bruce's University job. And, yes, he would take a
+closer look at the Book of Witches.
+
+Yamamura's office was unimpressively above a drugstore in downtown
+Berkeley, a mile or so to walk. Kintyre found him polishing a Japanese
+sword. "Hi. Isn't this a nice one?" he boasted mildly. "I picked it up
+last week. It's only Tokugawa period, but get the heft, will you?"
+
+Kintyre drew the blade. It came suddenly alive. He returned it with a
+faint sense of loss. "I could have used that chopper last night," he
+said.
+
+"Yeh." Narrow black eyes drifted across him, the plaster high on his
+forehead and the outsize Band-Aid on his left forearm. "What happened,
+and is she going to prefer charges?"
+
+"I suspect I met Bruce Lombardi's murderer," said Kintyre. "Or one of
+them."
+
+Yamamura slid the sword carefully into its plain wooden scabbard. He
+took out his oldest briar and stuffed the bowl. Kintyre had finished
+his account by the time the pipe had a full head of steam up.
+
+"--So I came on home."
+
+Yamamura looked irritated. "It's your own stupid fault Larkin got
+away," he said. "Obviously you were holding your neck muscles tense.
+The stool wouldn't have hurt you to speak of if you weren't." He
+waggled his pipestem. "How often must I tell you, _relax_? Or don't you
+want to win your black belt?"
+
+"Come off it," said Kintyre. "Look, what I'm afraid of is that Larkin,
+or someone associated with him, may decide Guido isn't safe to leave
+alive."
+
+"All right. Let Guido ask the police for protection."
+
+"He can't. I don't know why, but he doesn't dare. He'd rather take his
+chances with Larkin."
+
+"I'd suggest that if he's that scared of the authorities, he deserves
+whatever he'll get."
+
+"Don't be such a damned prig. Guido may be an accessory, of course, but
+I hate to think that. Why write him off before we're sure he wasn't
+just someone's dupe?"
+
+"Mmmm. What has all this to do with me?"
+
+"I want you to keep an eye on him."
+
+"So? What's wrong with you doing this? Your vacation is coming up. I
+still have a living to make, and you can't pay me."
+
+"I haven't the skill. And Guido and Larkin both know my face. Also, I
+do think I can be of some value on this side of the Bay."
+
+"Huh! Sherlock Nero Poirot rides again."
+
+"No. Think, Trig. The probability is that Bruce was killed by one or
+more professionals. But they didn't do it for fun. Somebody hired them,
+and that somebody is the real murderer. I've two reasons for wanting to
+meddle a little bit, rather than simply dumping what I know into the
+official lap. First, to spare Guido, at least till I'm sure if he's
+worth sparing or not. But second, this may not be entirely a police
+problem. They'll concentrate on the actual, physical killers, try to
+find one or two or three ants in the whole Bay Area antheap. They've no
+choice about that, it's their duty. Doubtless they'll put a man on the
+job of finding out who the killers' boss is. But the police don't know
+anyone concerned very intimately. The boss will have a certain amount
+of time to cover his tracks. Or to plan another murder.
+
+"I knew Bruce well. I must have met all his friends, however casually.
+_I have met whoever had Bruce killed._ It may be sheer megalomania on
+my part, but I think there's a chance I could get an idea who it was."
+
+Yamamura put his feet on the desk, leaned back, and stared out the
+window at the street. "Okay," he said at last. "On conditions."
+
+"What?"
+
+"I do have my family to keep. Not to mention my license. I'll undertake
+a week or so of Guido-guarding as an investment. Because if I could
+get a clue to the murderers, the boss or his torpedos, if I could give
+any substantial help to the police, the publicity would be good for my
+business. But to do anything useful along those lines, I'll have to
+leave Guido from time to time. I'll tail him when I think he may be in
+danger, yes, but when I think he's going to be safe for a few hours,
+I'll go check on something else."
+
+"All right," said Kintyre. "In fact, excellent."
+
+Yamamura looked at him through pipe smoke and said gravely: "If I find
+reasons why Guido should be arrested, I won't cover for him. I'll turn
+him in. Furthermore, I could make an error in judgment. I might leave
+Guido and come back to find Guido plus a knife. Now I sort of like
+you, Bob, don't ask me why. I'd hate to think you would hold either my
+informing or my mistake against me."
+
+"Certainly not."
+
+"Are you sure?"
+
+"You know me, Trig."
+
+Yamamura thought it over for a while. "Very well," he said. "Let's get
+the descriptions, addresses, and whatever else you know."
+
+When they had finished, they were silent a few seconds.
+
+"Oh, what did you find out about Owens?" asked Kintyre.
+
+"Wife and two grown children in New York. Started as a business
+traveler, years ago; found that his hobby of writing paid more,
+and quit to write full time; captain's commission during the war,
+chairborne brigade in Washington--"
+
+"If it takes a criminology degree to enter a bookstore, tell the clerk
+you're just looking, and read a dust jacket biography, then I'm in the
+wrong racket."
+
+Yamamura settled himself more comfortably. "Owens has been hanging
+around Berkeley for several days without obvious motive," he said.
+"Addressed a writers' club Saturday night, but left early and was
+presumably on the town. They say at the hotel he slept late on
+Sunday, but no one remembers when he came in. Played some golf Sunday
+afternoon, dropped from sight again that night. Since then he's been
+simply--around. Bored, lonesome, but waiting for something or other."
+
+"In short," said Kintyre, "it's possible he--"
+
+"Did it personally? I don't know. Anything is possible, I guess. He may
+just have been out on the make, too. The chambermaid at his hotel tells
+me he's the pawing type. Of course, if the murder was done by proxy,
+these timetables don't mean anything anyway."
+
+"Of course," said Kintyre.
+
+
+
+
+8
+
+
+Bruce had shared an office with four other assistants, but they were
+gone now. Bare of people, it had a hollow quality.
+
+Kintyre went through the desk a final time. There was so little which
+was personally a man's. A few scrawls on the memo pad, a scratch sheet
+covered with intricate doodles, Margery's picture, some reference
+books, and a fat folder of notes relating to his research: no more. It
+could all be carried away in a single trip.
+
+Kintyre attacked the remaining student papers. That was a mechanical
+task; few freshmen nowadays ever showed much originality, except in
+their spelling. Most of his brain idled. It occurred to him that one
+common element bound together everyone who seemed to figure in this
+affair. The Italian nation and culture.
+
+Angelo, Maria, Guido Lombardi: All born in Genoa.
+
+Bruce Lombardi: Born over here, but oriented toward the old country,
+writing his master's thesis as a critical exegesis of a medieval
+Italian manuscript, corresponding with an uncle in the Italian secret
+service.
+
+Corinna Lombardi: Well, Bruce's sister; spoke the language too.
+
+Margery Towne: Bruce's girl. Admittedly a weak connection.
+
+Himself, Robert Kintyre: Postgraduate studies of the Renaissance,
+on a fellowship which kept him in Italy from 1949 to 1951; took his
+Ph.D. at Cal with a study of those lesser known sociological writings
+before Machiavelli which had influenced the Florentine realist;
+returned overseas for a year ending last summer, on another grant to
+continue his researches; now teaching and working on a book which only
+specialists would ever read.
+
+Jabez Owens: Visited Europe, including Italy, many times. Claimed,
+as a semiamateur scholar, to have unearthed some lurid Borgia
+correspondence, which he had turned to his own profit.
+
+Gerald Clayton: Officer in the Army Quartermaster Corps in Italy,
+during the latter part of the war. Returned there immediately after his
+discharge, came back in a couple of years with the American franchise
+for a new line of Italian motor scooters. Since then he spent half his
+time abroad, pumping a steadily larger flow of European goods into the
+United States market, everything from automobiles to perfumes. Also
+interested in manuscripts. Had several tracked down for him by Italian
+scholars, bought them, sent them home. He obtained the Book of Witches
+in Sicily, and carried it along when business took him to San Francisco
+last fall. Found Kintyre was the man to see, looked him up, asked him
+to examine the volume for whatever value it had. Kintyre had turned
+the project over to Bruce; it would make a good M.A. thesis. Clayton
+had pungled up a couple of thousand dollars as a research grant: a
+graceful way of making it financially possible for Bruce to give some
+time to the task. Since then Clayton had frequently seen both Bruce
+and Kintyre, and shown a real if not very deep interest in the boy's
+progress.
+
+Gene Michaelis: Served his Navy hitch in the Mediterranean theater.
+Yes, Bruce had mentioned that. What might have happened during Gene's
+Italian shore leaves was an intriguing question.
+
+Peter Michaelis: Gene's father, as embittered as he toward the Lombardi
+tribe.
+
+Terry Larkin: No connection demonstrated, but it was quite possible in
+this land of many races.
+
+"Holy Hieronymus," muttered Kintyre, "next thing I'll be looking for a
+Black Hand."
+
+But melodramatic and implausible facts were still stubbornly facts.
+
+He completed his task about noon, turned in the papers and reports, and
+got the Book of Witches from the department safe. He wanted a better
+acquaintance with this thing.
+
+Bruce's office was too empty. He took the manuscript and the folder
+of notes to his own room. It was just as bare and quiet between these
+walls, but more familiar. He could look out the window to lawns and
+blowing trees and sunlight spilling over them--without thinking that
+Bruce lay frozen under a sheet.
+
+He put the book on his desk with care. It was almost six hundred years
+old.
+
+The phone rang. He jerked in surprise, swore at himself, and picked it
+up. "Hello?"
+
+"Kintyre? Jabez Owens."
+
+"Oh. What is it?"
+
+"I called your home and you weren't in, so I tried--How are you?"
+
+"I'll live. What's the occasion?"
+
+"I wondered--I'd like to talk to you. Would you care to have lunch with
+me?"
+
+"No, thanks." Kintyre had better plans than to watch Owens perform.
+"I'm busy."
+
+"Are you sure?" The voice was worried.
+
+"Quite. I'll be here for some hours. I'll just duck out for a
+sandwich." Maliciously: "I've some work to do on Bruce's project.
+Afterward--"
+
+What? Well, he hadn't called Margery today. He supposed, with a faintly
+suffocated feeling, that he ought to see her. "I have an engagement,"
+he finished.
+
+"Oh." Hesitantly: "Do you think I could drop up to your office, then?
+It really is urgent, and it may be to your own advantage."
+
+"Sure," said Kintyre, remembering his wish to play sleuth. "Walk into
+my parlor." He gave Owens the room number and hung up. Then he returned
+to the Book of Witches.
+
+It was a thick palimpsest, a little over quarto size. The binding,
+age-eaten leather with rusted iron straps, was perhaps a century newer
+than the volume itself. He opened it, heavy in his hands, and looked at
+the title page. _Liber Veneficarum_--
+
+_Book of Witches, Their Works and Days, Compiled from Records and the
+Accounts of Trustworthy Men, Done at the Sicilian Abbey of St. John the
+Divine at the Command of the Abbot Rogero, for the Attention and Use of
+the Authorities of Our Holy Mother Church._
+
+When Clayton first brought it around, Kintyre had only skimmed
+through the black uncials in a hasty fashion. He knew there had been
+considerable Satanism in the Middle Ages, partly pagan survivals and
+partly social protest, but that had not seemed to be in his immediate
+line. A man has only time to learn a few things before the darkness
+takes him back.
+
+Now he opened Bruce's folder and began to read the notes. Some were
+typewritten, some still in pothooks harder to decipher than the
+fourteenth century Low Latin. But they were in order, and their own
+references were clearly shown. Bruce had been a good, careful scholar.
+
+Well--Kintyre turned to the first page. It was very plain work,
+unilluminated. The opening sentences described the purpose: to set
+forth exactly what the witchcraft movement was, how widespread and
+how dangerous to the Faith and the state. Sources were given, with
+some commentary on their trustworthiness. The Middle Ages did not lack
+critical sense. The monk wrote soberly of witchcraft as a set of real
+activities in the real world; he wasted very little time on the demons
+presumed to be the object of worship.
+
+Kintyre struggled with his memory, brought back an approximate
+recollection of a later passage, and hunted for it again. Yes, here,
+near the middle: an account of a thirteenth century witch hunt in
+northern Italy, a follow-up to the Albigensian Crusade. The author
+said that since then there had been no covens worth mentioning
+north of Abruzzi, and cited proof--statements by Church and secular
+investigators, a couple of confessions extracted by torture.
+
+Bruce's notes at this point gave confirming cross references. A
+penciled afterthought occurred: "If there were no organized Satanists
+in the Romagna in 1398, it hardly seems reasonable that Cesare Borgia
+could have joined them a century later!" Evidence was marshaled to
+show there had been no revival in the meantime. Rather, the cults had
+been on the wane throughout the fifteenth century, as prosperity and
+enlightenment spread.
+
+_Well_, thought Kintyre, _that does pretty well sink Owens' boat._
+
+Something caught his eye. He leaned over the sheet. A fifteenth century
+"discourse," an official report, in the state archives of Milan was
+quoted to support the claim that there was no contemporary local Black
+Mass. In the margin was scribbled "L.L."
+
+Private abbreviations could be weird and wonderful, but Kintyre found
+himself obscurely irritated. So much was unknown about Bruce's final
+destiny, even an initial might tell something.
+
+He found the letters several times more in the next hour, as he worked
+his way through the volume and the notes. They seemed to mark findings
+which could only be made in Italy: by going out and looking at a site,
+or by reading in ancient libraries.
+
+The telephone interrupted him again. He glanced at his watch. Two
+o'clock already! He grew aware that he was hungry.
+
+"Hello. Robert Kintyre speaking."
+
+The voice in his ear was low. It stumbled the barest bit. "Professor
+Kintyre. This is Corinna Lombardi."
+
+"Oh." He sat gaping into the mouthpiece like a schoolboy, feeling his
+heartbeat pick up. "Oh, yes," he said stupidly.
+
+"I wanted to apologize to you."
+
+"Hm?" With an effort, he pulled himself toward sense. "What the
+dev--What in the world is there to apologize for?"
+
+"Last night. I was horrible."
+
+Habit took over, the smoothness of having known many women; but his
+tone was burred. "Oh, now, please don't be silly. If you won't mind my
+saying so at a time like this, I thought you were quite extraordinarily
+pleasant to meet."
+
+Did he catch the unsubstantial wisp of a chuckle? "Thank you. You're
+very kind. But I did pull a regular Lady Macbeth. It was nerves. I was
+tired and miserable. I hope you'll believe how sorry I've been all day.
+I've spent the past half hour at the phone, trying to track you down."
+
+"If I'd known that, I'd have laid a paper trail--Blast!" Kintyre
+checked himself. "Now it's my turn to ask your pardon. I wasn't
+thinking."
+
+"It's all right," she said gently.
+
+"No, but--"
+
+"Really it is. Now that the requiem Mass has been held, the solemn one
+Mother wanted--it was almost like a real funeral. Everything looks
+different now."
+
+"Yes, I saw the announcement. I couldn't come, I had to finish his
+work."
+
+"I could envy you that," she said. Then, with a lifting in her tone: "I
+came back and slept. I woke up only an hour ago. It's like a curtain
+falling. Bruce is dead, and that will always hurt, but we can go on now
+with our own lives."
+
+He hovered on the edge of decision, wondering what to do, afraid of the
+ghoul she might think him. A line from _The Prince_ came: "_... it is
+better to be impetuous than cautious, for fortune is a woman_--" All
+right, he told himself.
+
+"There's one thing, Miss Lombardi."
+
+"Yes?" She waited patiently for him to sort out his words.
+
+"I haven't forgotten what you did say last night. I went ahead and
+looked into it, your ideas, I mean."
+
+"Oh?" A noncommittal noise, not openly skeptical.
+
+"I can tell you something you may feel better for."
+
+"What?" Caution, now, not of him but of the thing he might say.
+
+"The phone is hardly suitable. Could we get together in person?"
+
+"Well--" It stretched into seconds, which he found unnaturally long.
+Then, clearly, almost gaily: "Of course. Whenever you like."
+
+"This evening? You're at your parents' home still, aren't you?"
+
+"I'm going back to my own place today. But this evening will be fine."
+
+He said with careful dryness: "Bearing in mind that I am a somewhat
+respectable assistant professor of history and more than a decade your
+senior, may I suggest dinner?"
+
+She did actually chuckle that time. "Thank you, you may. No references
+needed; Bruce told me enough about you. And it's a good deal better
+than sitting alone brooding, isn't it?"
+
+He had gotten the address and a six-thirty date before he wholly
+realized what was going on. When the phone was back in its cradle,
+he sat for some indefinite time. _Oh, no!_ he thought at last.
+_Impossible. I'm too old to be romantic and too young to be tired._
+
+He decided to eat before going back to the manuscript.
+
+While he went out for a sandwich and milkshake, while he walked back
+again, he twisted his attention to the problem of the book. It could
+have wrought a man's death, or it could only be a stack of inked
+parchment. Most likely the latter; but then who or what was L. L?
+
+The building was gloomy when he re-entered it from sunlight. Even his
+office seemed dark. It took his eyes a few seconds to register the fact
+that the book was gone.
+
+
+
+
+9
+
+
+Kintyre stood for a little while more, scarcely thinking.
+
+Then, during an instant, he had a vision of tiny black devils
+fluttering through the half-open window, lifting the volume and
+squeaking their way out on quick charred wings. But no, no, this was
+the twentieth century. We are rational, we don't believe in witchcraft,
+we are scientific and believe in vitamin pills, Teamwork, and the
+inalienable right of every language to have a country of its own. Also,
+the phase of the moon was wrong, and--and--
+
+His mind steadied. He whirled about the desk, to see if the book had
+somehow slid off. No. He snatched up the phone and called the main
+office. Had anyone come into his room in the past twenty minutes? We
+don't know, Dr. Kintyre. No, we did not pick up your book. No, we
+didn't see anyone.
+
+He put back the instrument and tried to start his thoughts. It was
+curiously hard. He tended to repeat himself. Someone must have come in.
+Yes, someone must have come in. It would be easy to do, unobserved.
+Someone must have come in and taken the book.
+
+What the hell had Margery's apartment been burgled for?
+
+That snapped him back to wakefulness. If, as Clayton had suggested
+yesterday, the burglar was after this volume and hadn't found it, the
+University was the next logical place to try.
+
+_Owens! I told him I'd go out to eat. He could have watched the
+entrance._
+
+But where was he now?--Wait. Close your eyes, let the mind float
+free, don't strain too hard--memory bobbed to the surface. Owens had
+mentioned taking a room in the Bishop, a hotel conveniently near campus.
+
+Kintyre forced himself into steadiness. If Owens had copped the book,
+Owens would want to get rid of it. Permanently. But leather and
+parchment don't burn easily. Dumping it meant too much chance of its
+being noticed and recovered. Owens would take it to Los Angeles with
+him, to destroy at leisure.
+
+He was probably packing at this moment.
+
+Kintyre tucked Bruce's notes into a drawer which he locked: not that
+they had any value without the physical evidence of the book. He went
+down the hall fast, a pace he kept up on the outside. His brain querned
+until he brought it under control. Damn it, Trig was right, there was
+no reason on God's earth ever to tense any muscle not actually working;
+and the same held true for the mind. An emotional stew would grind him
+down and get him to the Bishop no sooner.
+
+It was a hard discipline, though. Kintyre had no urge to embrace Zen
+Buddhism, or any other faith for that matter; but he would have given
+much to possess the self-mastery it taught.
+
+He entered the modest red-brick building a few blocks from Sather Gate
+and asked for Mr. Owens. The clerk checked the key rack and said: "Oh,
+yes, he came in a few minutes ago."
+
+"I'll go on up, I'm expected," said Kintyre. It was probably not a lie.
+
+When he knocked on the writer's door, he heard himself invited in.
+Owens had one suitcase open on the bed and was folding a coat into it.
+Another stood strapped on the floor.
+
+He looked up (was his color a shade more rubicund?) and said, "Hullo,
+there. I'm glad you came by. I'm leaving tonight."
+
+The voice was level. Perhaps too level. Kintyre closed the door and
+said: "I thought you were going to come and see me in my office."
+
+"Well, I was," said Owens. "I wanted to get my packing out of the way
+first." He felt in the suitcase and brought out a pocket flask. "Care
+for a drop?"
+
+"No," said Kintyre.
+
+He leaned in the doorway, watching. But he saw only that Owens stood
+neatly attired, calm of face, steady of hands, putting up a linen suit.
+
+"What brings you here?" asked the writer.
+
+Kintyre countered: "Isn't this a rather sudden decision to leave?"
+
+"Mm, yes. I made the reservation just a few minutes ago. But I haven't
+much reason to stay here any longer, have I?"
+
+"The Lombardi murder."
+
+Owens shook his head. "Poor chap. But what can I do about it? I assure
+you, the police didn't ask me to stay in town."
+
+He gave Kintyre a straight look, smiled, and went on: "Why don't you
+sit down and talk to me, though? I'm more or less stuck till Clayton
+arrives. He said he'd meet me here."
+
+"Clayton? Why--" Kintyre moved slowly forward, to the armchair Owens
+waved at. He continued talking, inanely. "I thought Clayton was in the
+City. He told me yesterday when we had lunch, he told me he'd be going
+right over there and didn't expect to come back to this side in the
+near future."
+
+"Oh? I called him at the Fairhill, just before you got here. He was
+right in his suite."
+
+Kintyre sat down. "What did you want him for?"
+
+"To make him an offer for the Book of Witches."
+
+"What!"
+
+"Take it easy," advised Owens. "You don't own the thing."
+
+The effort not to pounce left Kintyre rigid. He managed finally to say:
+"I suppose that was what you wanted to see me about, to offer me the
+same bribe Bruce wouldn't take."
+
+"I see you've gotten a somewhat biased version." Owens' reply had the
+blandness of conscious mastery. "Yes, it was to be a similar offer. Not
+that I don't stand behind my contentions in the Borgia matter, but you
+people in this academic cloudland don't realize that the rest of us
+have a living to make. I have no time at present to dig into minutiae,
+and anyhow there are more important things in life. What I asked
+Lombardi was that he postpone the argument. Not perjure his precious
+self, only wait a while. There were enough other things to be written
+about, anent that book. He didn't have to raise the Borgia issue at
+all. Maybe in five or ten years--"
+
+"Since you brought up the Borgia issue, as you call it, in the first
+place," said Kintyre harshly, "we in cloudland have no choice. If
+there's a notorious error afoot, we've got to correct it. What the hell
+do you think we get paid for?"
+
+"Publicity," said Owens. "Ornament. A ritual bow in the direction of
+yesterday." He took forth a silver case, opened it, fetched out a long
+cigarette and tapped it on his thumbnail.
+
+"You claim to be a realist," he said. "Then why don't you admit
+the facts? This business of scholarship, verification, the painful
+asymptotic approach to truth--it's dead. It went out with the society
+of aristocrats. This is a proletarian age." He lit the cigarette. His
+trained lecture-circuit voice rolled out, urbane, whimsical, with a
+bare touch of sadness. "He who dances must pay the piper, but he who
+pays the piper may call the tune. Since the bills today are all being
+footed by slobs, what do you expect but the onward march of slobbery?
+One day you'll be fired in the name of government economy. I'll hang on
+a little longer, because I gauge the current level of oafishness and
+make each succeeding book conform; but sooner or later it will be too
+much trouble for the public even to read my swill. Then I'll settle
+down to live on my investments, and perhaps I can even go back to a
+little honest scholarship. But not now. First I must survive."
+
+Kintyre said slowly, caught up in spite of himself: "Granted, this is
+the century of the common mind. But what makes you think it will last,
+even long enough for you to collect on those investments? This is also
+the so-called atomic age."
+
+Owens lifted his shoulders and let them fall again, gracefully. "How
+do I know I won't be hit by a car tomorrow? One estimates the situation
+and acts on probabilities."
+
+Kintyre leaned forward. "The probabilities are all for the worst,"
+he said. "Anyone who claims a roomful of people, all with grenades
+and all hating each other, will keep on acting rationally forever, is
+whistling past the graveyard of a dozen earlier civilizations. But I
+do believe scholarship--rigorous thinking--will be a survival factor.
+And afterward it will be one of the things which will make cultural
+rebuilding worth while. So I won't quit trying. It isn't for nothing."
+
+He stood up, not as tall as Owens, but broader and smoothly moving.
+"Let me therefore have that manuscript back," he finished.
+
+His enemy kept a half smile; but as he neared, Kintyre saw how cheeks
+and forehead began to glisten. The pupils that stared at him widened
+until they were two wells of dark.
+
+"What are you talking about?" said Owens shrilly.
+
+"You know bloody damn well what I mean. You took the Book of Witches.
+Give it back and we'll say no more. Otherwise--"
+
+Kintyre was almost upon the writer. Owens backed away, holding up his
+cigarette like a futile sword. "Look here," he protested. "Look here,
+now."
+
+There came a rap on the door. Owens went limp with relief. "Come in!"
+he yelled.
+
+Kintyre realized bitterly how he had been snared. Owens had thrown
+out words which he knew the other must stop to answer. It had gained
+him a few seconds that might well make his victory; Kintyre took him
+for a physical coward who would not have stood up long even to verbal
+browbeating.
+
+_Or did I actually intend to wring it from him with my hands?_ The
+thought was so shocking that Kintyre stepped back.
+
+Gerald Clayton entered, massive in gray, his narrow face wearing only a
+routine smile. It became more nearly genuine when he saw Kintyre. "Why,
+hello, there," he said. "What's going on?"
+
+Owens threw his opponent a look. _If you don't say anything about this,
+I won't._ Kintyre held himself expressionless, waiting.
+
+"Sit down, Mr. Clayton, do sit down." Owens gestured him to a chair. "I
+appreciate your coming. I know your time is valuable."
+
+The importer seated himself and took out a cigar. Owens hovered around
+with his pocket flask; the drink was declined. Kintyre leaned against
+the wall, arms folded, and strove for calm.
+
+"I wasn't very busy," said Clayton. "Glad of a chance to get away, in
+fact." He nodded at Kintyre and explained: "Something came up which
+forces me to stay in Berkeley at least till tomorrow. But it involves
+mostly waiting till I can see the person in question. So what did you
+want, Jabez?"
+
+Owens shot another glance at Kintyre, gathered himself, and said: "I
+wondered if you'd be interested in selling the _Liber Veneficarum_?"
+
+Clayton's mouth bent upward, creasing his lean cheeks. "Whatever for?"
+he asked, almost merrily. "I'm a collector."
+
+"Well." Owens sat down on the bed, more at ease now. "You're aware of
+my argument with Bruce Lombardi. I admit it's possible I was cheated on
+those letters--" _or commissioned the forgeries yourself_, reflected
+Kintyre--"and if not, at least the case against me deserves careful
+refutation. So I would like to have the manuscript, to study at my own
+leisure."
+
+"And never get around to publishing your findings?" asked Clayton. But
+he said it in a twitting, inoffensive tone.
+
+"It might take me a few years," said Owens doggedly. "I've other work
+to do. However, I'm prepared to make a fair offer for the book. Or, if
+you don't want to sell, I would like to borrow it for a year or two,
+under suitable guarantees against loss."
+
+Clayton rubbed his chin. "Seems to me that Bob has some rights in this
+matter," he declared.
+
+Kintyre stepped a pace forward. His voice snapped out: "The reason I
+came here is that the manuscript was stolen from me."
+
+"What?" Clayton shouted it, half rose, sat down again and puffed hard
+at his cigar. "What happened?" he said roughly.
+
+Kintyre related the morning. "It fits pretty well," he concluded.
+"First he plans an attempt to bribe me, as he tried to bribe Bruce.
+Did you know he offered Bruce five thousand dollars to withhold his
+findings? I mention on the phone I'll be going out to lunch. Since he
+doesn't really expect I'll bribe either, Owens hangs around. When he
+sees me leave, he ducks up into my office. If the book isn't there, he
+can always try the original scheme. But it's right on my desk, and I
+apologize for my own carelessness. Owens takes it back here. Then, to
+cover himself, he phones you with this offer to buy--as if he didn't
+know it was gone!"
+
+Kintyre finished in a growl: "That suitcase on the floor, already
+packed, would hold a quarto volume very easily."
+
+Clayton remained impassive.
+
+The writer said with strained calm: "I ask you to witness this, sir.
+I'm thinking of a suit for slander."
+
+"That book is worth enough to make it theft grand larceny," said
+Clayton.
+
+"And what alibi does the good Professor Kintyre have?" flung Owens.
+
+"Who but you has a motive for the book to disappear?" said Kintyre. "By
+God--"
+
+Owens got off the bed and retreated again. Kintyre strode up to him and
+laid a hand about his wrist. He did not squeeze unduly hard, but Owens
+opened his mouth to scream, face going paper colored. Kintyre dropped
+the wrist as if it had turned incandescent. The reaction was unnatural
+enough, to his mind, to jar him physically.
+
+"That'll do!" rumbled Clayton. He stood up. His grizzled ruddy hair
+made Kintyre think of a lion's mane, a fighting cock's comb; this man
+had slugged his own way up from nothingness.
+
+"That'll do," he repeated. "If we can't settle it between ourselves
+like gentlemen, we'd better call the police."
+
+Owens fumbled his way to the pocket flask, raised it and gulped. A
+little blood returned to his skin. "I thought you were going to hit
+me," he said in a tiny voice. "I never could--"
+
+"Owens," said Clayton, "did you steal the book?" His tone fell like
+iron.
+
+"No." The writer put his flask down on the bureau. He remained standing
+above it, leaning on his hands, looking back over a hunched shoulder.
+"No, of course not."
+
+"Mind if we look around to make sure?"
+
+"I don't wish my baggage opened," said Owens. "You haven't the right."
+
+Kintyre, with a measure of control restored to him, said: "We could
+prefer charges and have the police look."
+
+"Go ahead," said Owens more firmly. "I'll sue you for every nickel
+you've got. I'd enjoy that."
+
+"I don't like trouble," said Clayton. "If you have the book, return it.
+We'll say you--borrowed it--nobody else ever has to hear a word."
+
+Owens whirled around. "That's a reflection on my integrity!" he shouted.
+
+"If you really are innocent," said Clayton in a patient way, "I should
+think you'd want your integrity confirmed."
+
+Owens studied them for a moment.
+
+"All right," he said. "I don't blame you, Mr. Clayton. Your reaction is
+very understandable. But this character--Mr. Clayton, in case I decide
+to sue him, and I probably will, remember exactly what happened today.
+Now go ahead and search."
+
+The importer squatted by the suitcase. It didn't take him long to go
+through the neatly packed clothing. There was no book.
+
+
+
+
+10
+
+
+"Somewhere else," mumbled Kintyre. "Under the bed."
+
+"Stand aside," said Clayton.
+
+He went to work, peering, poking, moving about the room and its bath
+like a professional. He found places to check which Kintyre would not
+have thought of in a week's hunt; and yet the broad ropy-veined hands,
+which had once wielded a shovel, made little disarrangement.
+
+Owens sat down, poured himself another drink, and sipped as if it were
+victory he tasted. Kintyre stood by the window sill, wrestling himself
+toward calm. He had not yet fully achieved it when Clayton said: "Not
+in here."
+
+"Well," murmured Owens.
+
+Clayton puffed blue smoke, sat down on the bed, and gave them both a
+quizzical glance. "I suppose an apology is in order," he said.
+
+Owens waved his cigarette. "Look," he replied, giving it the complete
+treatment, "I've cooled off a bit myself. I can see how you were
+overwrought, Professor, from the death of your friend--and, to be sure,
+the loss of a valuable relic entrusted to you." Kintyre held his mouth
+stiff. "If you'll take this as a lesson, I for my part am willing to
+forget it."
+
+"You might thank the man, Bob," added Clayton lightly.
+
+Kintyre grunted. What could you say?
+
+"It's worth while reviewing the facts, though," went on Clayton. "Maybe
+between us we can figure who did swipe it."
+
+"No students around," said Owens.
+
+"True. But anybody could have lounged outside till Bob left and then
+walked up into his office, without much risk of being seen. Right?"
+
+Kintyre nodded. His neck ached with tension.
+
+"Okay." Clayton blew a smoke ring. "I guess we can rule out an ordinary
+thief. He wouldn't pick a college building. How about other people with
+offices there?"
+
+Kintyre stirred. "Now, wait," he began.
+
+Clayton waved him back. "Take it easy, Bob. Just for the record, is
+anybody but you working in that place between sessions?"
+
+"Well, some," he forced himself to say. "It's a sizable department. And
+then the clerical staff, and janitors. But for God's sake!"
+
+"Their own office doors wouldn't be locked, though?"
+
+"Hm? No, I suppose not. At least, a number wouldn't be. Even if they
+weren't in today, there'd be nothing to steal."
+
+"Except manuscripts." Owens had been seated, listening with a tolerant
+smile. Now he said in a cool voice, "Not to follow the recent bad
+example of accusations, but what _is_ your alibi, Kintyre?"
+
+"No motive!"
+
+"Oh? I daresay there are other wealthy collectors besides Mr. Clayton.
+With your contacts, you could have learned who they are. Mind you, I
+don't charge you with anything, but--"
+
+"Cut it out," interrupted Clayton. It was so cold a phrase that they
+both turned startled faces to him.
+
+He got up. "This farce has gone on long enough," he said. "Jabez, give
+me my book."
+
+"What?" Owens leaned away. Clayton walked toward him. Owens lifted a
+fending arm.
+
+"I don't feel like hunting through a lot of rooms for it," said
+Clayton. "Which did you leave it in?"
+
+"But--but--but--"
+
+"Do I have to spell it out? It's plain to see, either you or Bob took
+the thing. Who the hell else is there? I credit Bob with brains enough
+to steal it more neatly. Like setting an 'accidental' fire he could
+tell me burned it. You had to work fast, though. Play by ear. You
+grabbed it exactly as Bob thought. Only you realized he'd come back in
+a few minutes and go howling on your trail. What better way to throw
+him off it than to let him make a fool of himself before me--me, the
+owner, who's really got a right to blow his stack?"
+
+Clayton stood over Owens with the big fists on his hips, beating him
+about the head with words. "You left it in one of those empty offices,
+or maybe in the can. They won't lock the main entrance till five
+o'clock or so, I guess. You could have picked the thing up again at
+your convenience, when Bob had gone off with his tail between his legs.
+It was fun while it lasted, Jabez, but now suppose you tell me where
+that book is."
+
+"I didn't!" screamed Owens.
+
+"I don't want to press charges," said Clayton. "Tell me, and we'll call
+it quits. Otherwise we can all wait right here for the police."
+
+Owens began to shake. Kintyre looked away, feeling a little sick
+himself. "All right," said Clayton and picked up the phone.
+
+"No," whimpered Owens. "Don't."
+
+"Well?" Clayton paused, one finger in a dial hole.
+
+Owens got out a room number. "Under the desk," he added, and lowered
+his face into his hands.
+
+"Can we check that from here?" asked Clayton.
+
+Kintyre nodded, took the phone and called the department. He asked one
+of the girls to look, feeding her a story about having lent the volume
+out. Then he held the line and waited.
+
+"Well," said Clayton. He drew on his cigar, relaxed visibly, and
+laughed. "Maybe I ought to set up as a private eye. Know any
+hard-boiled blondes?"
+
+"Nice work," said Kintyre inadequately. "Good Lord, if that book really
+had been lost!"
+
+"It wouldn't have been your fault," said Clayton. "Forget it."
+
+Kintyre looked down at a shuddering back. "It seems to be my turn now,
+Owens," he said. "No hard feelings. _Va' tu con Dio._"
+
+"No," said Clayton. "I'm afraid not."
+
+Kintyre stared up again, into the narrow face and the deeply ridged
+eyes. "I thought," he said, "I thought you wouldn't--"
+
+"Prefer charges? Not about a lousy manuscript. My time's worth too
+much. But Bruce Lombardi was murdered, remember?"
+
+Owens lifted a seared countenance and gasped: "No, you can spare me
+that much, can't you?"
+
+"I hope so," said Clayton impersonally. "But the fact remains, Bruce
+was a threat to a fat piece of Hollywood cash."
+
+"He was going to expose the Borgia fraud publicly, as well as in
+specialized journals," said Kintyre, not wanting to.
+
+"That made it even more urgent," said Clayton. "If Bruce should die and
+the book disappear, I don't know who'd stand to benefit more than you."
+
+Owens emitted a little moaning noise and shriveled back into the mask
+of his hands. "You see?" said Clayton.
+
+"Wait," protested Kintyre. "I can't really believe he--"
+
+"I'm open to proof," said Clayton.
+
+Kintyre fell silent.
+
+After a while the girl's voice said in the phone: "I found it, Dr.
+Kintyre. Right where you told me."
+
+"Thanks a lot," he answered automatically. "Would you put it in the
+safe?" He nodded and hung up.
+
+"Good," said Clayton. He spoke slowly and carefully to Owens' bent
+head: "We'll leave now. You stay around Berkeley for a while. I'm going
+to have to call your motive to the attention of the police, so if you
+left there'd probably be a warrant for you by tonight. But I won't say
+anything about your peccadillo this afternoon. And if you're innocent,
+I recommend that you start scrounging around for witnesses to where you
+were all weekend."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Whoof!" said Kintyre when he was in the lobby. "I wouldn't like to go
+through that again."
+
+"Nor I," said Clayton. "Let's have something wet."
+
+They went into the coffee shop and ordered. Kintyre said: "Owens didn't
+do the murder. I doubt if he's capable of killing his own flies."
+
+"Himself," said Clayton shortly. "He could have hired a torpedo. He's
+got money enough. Not that killers come fabulously expensive."
+
+Almost, Kintyre told him of last night. He stopped with the words at
+his teeth. After this hour's performance, it seemed too probable that
+Clayton would insist on telling the San Francisco authorities about
+Larkin, on the instant, and the consequences to Guido (and thereby to
+Guido's parents and Corinna) go hang.
+
+_As far as that goes, I suppose I've made myself an accessory after the
+fact or something._
+
+They remained in a companionable silence until the coffee had arrived.
+It was refreshing to know an unfrantic businessman; but then, Clayton
+had acquired a lot of European traits.
+
+The importer asked suddenly: "Have you seen Miss Towne?"
+
+"Not today," said Kintyre, surprised.
+
+"Were you planning to?"
+
+"Why--yes. I thought I'd drop around this afternoon. She told me she
+didn't feel up to working for the rest of this week."
+
+"It might be better if she did," said Clayton. "She'll sit at home and
+grieve, or go out and laugh more than she means. Drinking too much in
+either case."
+
+"You seem to know her pretty well," said Kintyre. He felt a bit
+annoyed, he didn't know why.
+
+"I met her a few times is all. But she's pretty transparent, under all
+that careful sophistication, isn't she?" Clayton stirred his coffee,
+focusing on the spoon as if it were some precision instrument. "A good
+kid."
+
+"She's all right," said Kintyre.
+
+"I suppose you feel an obligation toward her?"
+
+Kintyre bridled. "I didn't mean to keyhole," said Clayton hurriedly.
+"I just couldn't help wondering what'll become of her. Somebody has to
+help her over the hump. She'll never make it alone."
+
+Against his own principles of respect for privacy, Kintyre found
+himself speculating. Where had Clayton picked up such intuitions? His
+first wife, whom he had loved, seemed by his few chance remarks and
+his _Who's Who_ biography to have been the conventional helpmeet of
+a conventional young man in the thirties: grocery clerk, salesman,
+pitchforked down by the Depression, up again via WPA to construction
+foreman to warehouse foreman to minor executive. Finally she got
+tuberculosis, with complications, and took a couple of years to die.
+The medical bills ruined him; he parked the three children with
+relatives for years. Afterward, on the way up once more in the defense
+boom and the early war boom, he married the boss's daughter. He got to
+be general superintendent of an aircraft plant before he learned what
+a bitch she was. The divorce cost him that job and his savings. He
+applied for an Army commission and got one in 1943.
+
+Kintyre knew little else; his information was only the gossip one is
+bound to encounter. Clayton had been a fairly large figure in Italy
+when Kintyre went over for the second time.
+
+"Eh?" he said, pulled back to awareness.
+
+"I asked if you wanted to take her out tonight," repeated Clayton.
+
+"Uh--"
+
+"Somebody ought to." As if he had heard Kintyre's thoughts, Clayton
+said with an enormous gentleness: "She reminds me a lot of my daughter."
+
+Clayton had never had any great chance to be a father, reflected
+Kintyre. After the war, his kids ended up in exclusive boarding schools
+while Dad was overseas reaping the money to keep them there. Now
+they were grown. The girl had been graduated last year and was still
+making her Grand Tour. Clayton sometimes bragged about her, in clumsy
+generalities: he scarcely knew her as a person. The second son was also
+worth a cautious boast or two, apparently a solid-citizen type, an
+engineer; he and his father doubtless exchanged very dutiful letters.
+The older boy, you didn't hear much about. You got an impression of
+a sinecure in the firm's New York office and divorce number three
+currently going through the mill.
+
+Kintyre wondered, suddenly, if he had ever known anyone more alone than
+Clayton.
+
+It came to him that an answer was expected. "No," he said, "I have
+another engagement this evening."
+
+"Not one you could break? She does need help."
+
+"So does Miss Lombardi. Bruce's sister. I have some news for her that
+could make a big difference."
+
+Clayton paused a moment. Then he grinned. "Well, in that case," he
+said, "d'you mind if I squire Miss Towne?"
+
+Kintyre looked up, startled. He had been slipping into a mood of utter
+oleaginous sentimentalism. Pity Clayton? The hell! You wouldn't think
+the man was past forty. He sat there with more life in his eyes than
+two buccaneer captains.
+
+"Good heavens, no," exclaimed Kintyre. "Why ever should I?"
+
+_Margery could do a lot worse_, he thought. He knew his eagerness
+was chiefly to get rid of whatever responsibility he bore for her.
+Nevertheless--_A lot worse!_
+
+
+
+
+11
+
+
+It was after four when Kintyre entered Margery's apartment. She had
+neglected its housekeeping, and the air was acrid with smoke.
+
+Slacks and sweater emphasized her figure. He had almost forgotten how
+good it was. When she sprang from the couch and into his arms he found
+himself kissing her without really having intended to.
+
+"Oh, God, Bob," she whispered. "You came. Hold me close, kiss me again,
+I need it."
+
+Her nails dug into his flesh, painfully, and her lips were tense
+against his. And yet it was but little a sexual passion, he realized;
+she was altogether forlorn.
+
+"Rough?" he asked. He freed one arm and rumpled the short coppery hair.
+
+"Reporters," she said. "Waiting at the door when I came home today.
+Like flies around a corpse."
+
+The phone rang. She left it alone; the bell had been turned down. "Most
+likely someone else panting to pry," she said.
+
+"How--oh, yes," said Kintyre. "The burglary would put them on to it. Or
+just asking around. You didn't really think your connection with Bruce
+would escape discovery forever?"
+
+"It'll be smeared over every newsstand in the area. Big black
+mouth-licking headlines." She raised reddened eyes. "I was at the
+service this morning. It was all so calm and--I don't know--so right.
+Even for him." She pulled herself away, picked up a handkerchief and
+blew her nose. "Excuse me. I can't help it. That was the only sane part
+of the day. His parents were there, of course, that decent old couple.
+I didn't have the nerve to talk to them. And now they'll see! They'll
+know that every moron in town knows their son they were so proud of
+was, was, with me!"
+
+She fell into a chair, coughing. The phone stopped its petulance.
+
+Kintyre said: "After all, pony, it's no crime in this state. Nor is it
+a very black sin in the Church. I wouldn't be at all surprised if the
+Lombardis got in touch with you in the friendliest way. If you loved
+Bruce too--"
+
+"Did I?" She didn't look at him. "I liked him, yes, but love? Not in
+the usual sense of the word."
+
+"Which is a pretty neurotic sense anyway, if you're past adolescence,"
+said Kintyre in his driest voice.
+
+She had regained her balance. She reached for a compact and began
+repairing her makeup. "Bob," she said, "for an intelligent man you can
+make some of the stupidest remarks on record."
+
+Kintyre smiled. "At least I riled you out of a tailspin." He wandered
+across the room to the coffee table. An empty cup and an ashtray
+overflowing with lipsticked butts rested by the long cardboard boxes
+where Bruce had kept his letters. They were open, and one of the sheets
+lay out.
+
+Margery came over and took his arm. "I was going through it," she
+said, suddenly anxious for the everyday. "Mostly it was business
+correspondence, official papers, that sort of thing. But there's one
+file in Italian. Maybe you can tell me what it means." The phone
+buzzed. "Shut up, God damn it!"
+
+Kintyre sat down, taking out a cigarette for himself. He did not quite
+like reading a dead man's mail. But doubtless it had to be done. "I'll
+make some more coffee," said Margery. She went out to the kitchen;
+his eyes shifted in her direction and he felt the animal pleasure of
+watching her walk. It was possible--once more, after a decent interval?
+
+Then he realized that the lilt within him was because he would be
+seeing Corinna.
+
+He bent his attention to the file. Sloppy in many other respects, Bruce
+had been meticulous here. If it was likely to have any future value at
+all, he typed his own letter, making a carbon for himself, and kept the
+reply, folded. The section indexed _Luigi Lombardi_ held at least a
+year's worth of mail.
+
+Luigi. Oh, yes, the uncle in the secret service, amateur scholar--hoy,
+there! L. L., of course. Kintyre felt chagrined. So much for that
+mystery. Bruce had only been noting those sections where he would be
+making an acknowledgment of his uncle's help.
+
+Kintyre began leafing through. No point in reading every word about
+Aunt Sofia's arthritis or Cousin Giovanni's marriage. But there were
+pages, where Luigi described exactly what he had looked into for Bruce,
+that had not yet been transcribed. Those should be preserved, they were
+essential to the completion of the thesis.
+
+Nothing else had occurred to Kintyre than that it would be finished and
+published, under Bruce's name.
+
+Yes. Here was that reference to the Milanese archives. It concluded:
+"... would like to look through the libraries and store-rooms of
+the older aristocratic homes in this neighborhood. Quite possibly a
+contemporary reference exists, in a letter or diary. But the time and
+the introductions are not available to a poor policeman. Why do you not
+ask your rich American friend Clayton to have it done?"
+
+Bruce's reply was grateful, but forebore to answer that faintly
+sarcastic question. Uncle Luigi took it up next time. Kintyre
+remembered the man, how he tried hard to be fair but was unable to
+refrain from cracks about Americans. It was only natural, if you were
+the patriot of a poor country: a form of self-defense.
+
+"... Not another Medici. Do you seriously believe he cares about these
+old books? It is his particular camouflage, to get him among people of
+breeding who can be useful. His real friends are a coarser sort, if
+indeed he has any friends except his bank accounts."
+
+Bruce protested: "... He had to make his own way in a world of fists.
+I think he has done very well, not only as a financier but as a human
+being. You cannot safely compare him with your own postwar newly-rich.
+From what I hear, many of them are crasser than any American parvenu
+ever dared to be. But let us not exchange ritual insults."
+
+Uncle Luigi answered a query about the Sicilian terrain and twisted
+it around to his particular obsession: "... if you believe his
+standardized success story. Use your reason, my nephew. Clayton was
+an Army officer in this country during the last two years of the war.
+After his discharge, he came right back here. It is uncertain what he
+did in the next couple of years. Out of a slightly malicious curiosity
+I checked with the appropriate bureau, and he was registered only as
+a visitor, who went in and out of our borders. Then suddenly, in 1949,
+he applied for his business permits. He had obtained the American
+agency for that new line of motor scooters. Since then, his rise has
+been somewhat swifter than can be accounted for merely by pyramiding
+profits. What follows from this, Bruce? (And again I ask why your
+father had to become so American that he visited that name upon you.)
+Why, since he had only his military pay during the war, and on his
+civilian return had no source of income within Italy for two years--he
+must have been drawing on a considerable capital in America! Our
+records show him obtaining most of his lire for Swiss francs. Evidently
+he deposits his dollars in Switzerland, which you know has a free money
+market, converts them to other currencies as needed, buys goods, and
+ships those to America to earn more dollars. Therefore all this story
+he has told you (what is your phrase, from rags to Algernon?) is so
+much pretentious hokum. Clayton started as a rich man."
+
+Margery came in with coffee. "What are you finding out?" she asked.
+
+"Mostly gossip," said Kintyre. He repeated the gist to her.
+
+"Oh, I remember that. It was several months ago." She sat down on the
+couch beside him. "Bruce was furious. He thought the world of Clayton.
+He wrote to Indianapolis and Des Moines and so on. It took him weeks to
+check everything, through local newspaper offices, old friends, that
+kind of reference. It's perfectly true, though. I doubt if Clayton had
+a thousand dollars left to his name when he joined the Army.
+
+"Bruce hadn't gotten around to it yet, but he was going to assemble the
+facts, with clippings and personal correspondence, and send it all to
+Luigi in one devastating package. Especially after the last couple of
+letters he got. Luigi said there was no evidence Clayton had floated
+a loan to get his start, and wondered if he mightn't have done some
+currency black marketing. Bruce really blew his top at that."
+
+"Oh?" said Kintyre. He should be on his way soon, he thought, and use
+the short time until then to be good to Margery. But a certain sense
+of the chase was on him. Trained to scan reading matter, he found the
+passage he wanted in a few minutes. Bruce's anger spoke through a cage
+of civilized words:
+
+"... I am not one of our radical rightists, but I too resent this
+eternal meddling which is the modern idea of government. It would not
+surprise me if Clayton profited originally on the free exchange, when
+the postwar official rates were so ludicrously unreal. Who didn't, in
+those days? But if so, I say he did you all a service! I swear you
+could double your production over there simply by abolishing those
+medieval frontiers and restrictions, and putting the customs men to
+useful jobs!"
+
+Luigi, after the inevitable reference to American tariffs, wrote: "The
+problem is more serious and urgent than you understand. One hears less
+about it than about your similar troubles, but we in the old countries
+are having our own postwar crime wave. And some of these syndicates
+are--not mere black markets, not mere smugglers of an occasional
+perfume bottle--but dealers in narcotics, prostitution, gun-running,
+extortion, blackmail, counterfeiting, corruption, and murder.
+
+"Yes, I blame your government in part. We watch the criminals they
+deport to us, but we cannot forbid everyone to come talk to them. There
+is influence, there is advice. From the Communists these syndicates
+have also learned much, including the cell type of organization. We
+can arrest a man here and a man there, but he can only lead us to
+a few others. Sometimes we think we have identified an organizing
+brain, but it does not always follow that he can be seized. Not even
+in this country, where the police have a latitude that I am sure your
+Anglo-Saxon mind would be shocked by. I name no names, but now and
+again something rises to the surface, a scandal, the corpse of a
+young woman who belonged to a proud family, a member of the parliament
+seen in dubious places--and nothing comes of it. The newspapers are
+forbidden to follow the story to its end; everywhere protecting hands
+are reached out.
+
+"Give us time, we will settle with these latter-day _condottieri_.
+Meanwhile, I could wish your Clayton were more circumspect in his
+choice of friends. He associates somewhat (not very much, to be sure,
+and there are business reasons) with a dealer named Dolce. And Dolce
+is a hard man from the slums of Naples. One of _his_ associates is the
+deported Italian-American criminal chief named--"
+
+Bruce's reply to this was a single explosive line: "And you used to
+wring your hands at me about Senator McCarthy!"
+
+Kintyre put the box aside. He had been translating as he read, in a
+rapid mutter. "That's the end," he said. "Bruce wrote that two weeks
+ago, and I guess the uncle hasn't replied yet."
+
+"Clayton," said Margery on a note of horror. "Do you think maybe--?"
+
+"That he's a crook? No. I don't know much about it, but I should
+certainly imagine that anybody who wanted to keep an import license
+would have to keep his nose pretty clean. If Clayton started hanging
+around with, oh, say Chicago gunmen, the FBI would be on his tail in a
+matter of weeks."
+
+"But couldn't he--"
+
+"Forget Clayton. He's alibied for every minute of that weekend. As for
+hiring professionals, look, pony, suppose you wanted such a job done.
+How would you find the pros?"
+
+"Why--" She hesitated, lifting a small hand to her chin. "I don't know."
+
+"You're a law-abiding citizen, so you don't know. Clayton is also
+reasonably law-abiding. He's got to be. The Italian police might
+conceivably not be aware of it if Clayton were doing something
+illicit. Over there, he could operate internationally. But the United
+States is another proposition. We talk about our free enterprise, but
+the plain fact is that an American businessman is required to operate
+in a goldfish bowl, under innumerable petti-fogging regulations.
+So, I repeat, Clayton must be more or less straight. Even if the US
+government was unable to indict him for anything, they could rescind
+his various licenses, virtually by fiat.
+
+"How, then, would he get in touch with an assassin? Walk into a tough
+bar and ask? Large laugh." Kintyre threw away his cigarette stub. "Oh,
+sure, given enough time, you or I or anyone could locate a murderer.
+But this job must have been done on short notice. There was nothing in
+Bruce's previous life to bring it on. You know how burblesome he was;
+could he have kept from you, for weeks, the fact that he knew something
+big? Of course not. Nor from me, or any of his associates. Ergo, it was
+something he blundered onto lately, probably without even realizing its
+significance. The person who was threatened by this had to react fast:
+find his killers and get them here, or do the job himself, within days.
+That lets Clayton out."
+
+Margery nodded, a trifle overwhelmed. "I'm glad," she said. "I like
+him, the little I've seen."
+
+"Yeh." Kintyre thought a couple of hours back. "Me too."
+
+She smiled. "But there's still something that he isn't telling. I'm
+curious to know what."
+
+"You may have your chance to find out tonight," said Kintyre. "I saw
+him and he mentioned he would call up and ask for a dinner date."
+
+"Oh!" She looked at him, round-eyed. "And I haven't been answering!"
+
+Kintyre laughed. "Turn up that phone bell right away, gal."
+
+She shook her head. The blue eyes darkened with pain. "Only so I could
+say no in a nice way."
+
+"Huh?"
+
+"I'm not interested. Not yet." For an instant, there was a brightening
+across her face. "Unless you, Bob--"
+
+"Sorry, kid. I'm tied up tonight." He checked his watch. "In fact, I
+should have left already."
+
+"Oh," she said listlessly.
+
+"Look here," he said. He took her by the shoulders and forced her to
+turn around and meet his gaze. "This can only go on so long, then they
+put you in the foundry. Bruce is dead. We're still alive. Start acting
+like it."
+
+"It's only been--two days? Three?" She twisted away from him. "Give me
+time to get used to it."
+
+"You never will, at this rate. I know you."
+
+"You should," she said with a flick of anger. "Your castoff mistress."
+
+"Castoff, hellfire! We terminated an association which--"
+
+"Yes, yes. I've heard that line too. You warned me and so on. Go ahead,
+call yourself a gentleman."
+
+"_Maròn!_" He sprang to his feet and paced the floor. She leaned back
+and watched him, breathing hard.
+
+Eventually his temper cooled. "Margery," he said, "I think I know what
+Bruce meant to you. Besides being someone you cared for, I mean. He was
+your chance at emotional security, wasn't he? A home, children. Why
+don't you admit it, you'll always be the little girl from Ohio, and
+what's wrong with that? The average man will breed the unaverage one
+again, someday when the human race gets back its health. He has before.
+But these hipster types are a biological and cultural dead end.
+
+"I can't build your house in Ohio for you. Forget me. Bruce was not
+your last chance, but if you sit on your tocus feeling sorry for
+yourself, he will have been. Get the devil out of this hole!"
+
+"Thanks for the counsel," she said. It fell flatly on his ears. The
+rising fury tinted her and tensed her; she spoke through jaws held
+stiff. "So much cheaper than help, isn't it? But it happens I choose to
+stay home tonight. Alone. Starting at once."
+
+Kintyre stopped in midstride. "I'm sorry," he said. "I'm not sure what
+I did wrong just now, but I'm sorry."
+
+She slumped. "Please go away," she said without tone. "Call me tomorrow
+if you want, but please go away now."
+
+"All right," he said.
+
+She didn't stir as he went out the door.
+
+He walked fast, being late. Anger changed to concern, and then that
+faded too, when he had Corinna to think about. Margery would be feeling
+better tomorrow, he could make friends again. At the moment, he needed
+a bath and a shave and a change of clothes.
+
+Headlines on a news rack caught his eye, an extra edition. Peter and
+Eugene Michaelis had been arrested on suspicion of murder.
+
+
+
+
+12
+
+
+Corinna had an apartment on a quiet street not far from Golden Gate
+Park. Kintyre had been told by Bruce that she worked on the staff of
+a small art museum, belonged to a little theater group, owned a light
+target rifle, and made most of her own clothes. He had seen for himself
+that she spoke Italian. That was all. He felt ridiculously like a
+schoolboy on his first date.
+
+She opened her door and smiled him in. High heels put her almost on a
+level with him. She wore black, which set off her pale hair, but the
+sleeves flared and the skirt swirled: it was not mourning.
+
+"I'm nearly ready, Dr. Kintyre. Won't you sit down? Watch out for the
+cat, she bites."
+
+Kintyre enjoyed cats; he would have kept one himself if he had
+wanted to assume obligations. This was that loveliest of the tribe, a
+blue-point Siamese, white as new snow and markings like twilight. She
+flowed up toward his extended fist as he settled in a chair. "What's
+the name?" he asked.
+
+"Taffimai Metallumai," said Corinna, returning to her
+bedroom. "If you remember your Kipling, that means
+Small-Person-Without-Any-Manners-Who-Ought-To-Be-Spanked. But she lives
+under the name of Tipsy. Gold letters over her door, and so on."
+
+He looked around. This room was individualistically decorated, she
+must have done it herself, in reds and blues and a couple of delicate
+Chinese paintings. Her books ran toward poetry, drama, and art; but one
+shelf held the popular works of Gamow, Russell, Ley, and company. There
+was a medium-fi and a lot of good records.
+
+Taffimai Metallumai levitated up onto his lap, gave him a sleepy
+turquoise look, and ordered him to scratch her beneath the chin. She
+was pure hard muscle under the virginal fur; she must weigh twice as
+much as any peasant cat her size.
+
+Kintyre took his attention from the corner where a small worktable held
+an unfinished papier-maché mask. Corinna was coming back in. "That was
+quick," he said, rising.
+
+"Oh, don't! You're catted! Oh, dear!"
+
+He looked at his gashed thumb. Tipsy told him in a few well chosen
+words that he had no business upsetting her without warning.
+
+Corinna's eyes were green distress. "People never do believe my
+warning," she said, "and then Snow Leopard j.g. makes a lunch off them
+and--Can I tell you how sorry I am?"
+
+"Occupational hazard if you like cats," Kintyre answered. "And I do. We
+might put on some stickum, just for appearances."
+
+She regarded him closely. "I believe you mean that," she said. "Thank
+you." She led him to the bathroom. The route gave him a glimpse of her
+kitchen and a crammed shelf of herbs and spices.
+
+"Instead of going out," he said as he repaired the damage, "I could
+probably get a better dinner here."
+
+"Why, I hadn't prepared anything, but--"
+
+"Nonsense. Maybe you'll give me a rain check. Let's go."
+
+Tipsy assured him that she bore no hard feelings, and he stroked
+her with real pleasure. It occurred to him that there was something
+pathetic about Margery's little caged parakeet, set beside this
+beautiful killing engine.
+
+"You're quite a scientist," he remarked, nodding at the books.
+
+"Only as a spectator," said Corinna. "I would have liked to get a
+degree in math, but we hadn't the money and I was needed to help in the
+restaurant." Her explanation was unresentful.
+
+He helped her into her coat and they went down to his car. "Where are
+we going?" she asked.
+
+"I know a Dutch place near Russian Hill," he told her. "Ever been
+there? No? Good. Dutch cuisine is badly underrated. It's fully
+comparable to the French, in its own way."
+
+She fell silent. He stole a look at the Egyptian profile; it was grave
+again.
+
+"Forgive me if I'm tactless," he said.
+
+"You aren't. You're very kind to come and--What good would we do Bruce,
+sitting around with our faces dragging on the floor?"
+
+"I thought as much myself," he ventured. "But then, I was only a
+friend."
+
+"Bruce never had a better one. I rather imagine you knew him more
+intimately than any of his kin. He grew away from us, toward something
+of his own. As was right, of course."
+
+Kintyre had no reply.
+
+"And then," she said in a matter-of-fact tone, "he was good. Not holy,
+but good. I don't think he will be too long in Purgatory."
+
+Kintyre, for whom the soul was a metaphor, had to think over every
+aspect of her remark until he could understand that, quite simply, she
+believed it. That was not a consolation he wished to take from her.
+
+"But damn," she whispered, "I'll miss him!"
+
+They drove on in silence. At last she said, more awkwardly than the
+average modern woman: "I have to ask you about one thing. I saw a
+newspaper today. This girl he--he knew--"
+
+"Yes," said Kintyre, focusing intently on the traffic. "I know her.
+They were living together. She's an altogether fine person who would
+have made him a wonderful wife. Bruce was very much in love with her
+and wanted to get married. She hesitated only because she--was afraid
+she might hurt him--she would have changed her mind soon. They were
+happy."
+
+Corinna sighed. He could almost feel how she relaxed. "Thank you," she
+said. "I have a lot to thank you for, haven't I? We needn't say any
+more about this except--if the girl would like to see me, or have me
+visit her, I'd be more than glad to."
+
+"I think so," said Kintyre. "In a few more days."
+
+At once he damned himself for an idiot. He had spoken truth; but it
+gave Margery the chance to relate a few truths of her own, if she
+chose, and what might come of that?
+
+They spoke little for the remainder of the drive. It was, somehow, a
+restful quietness.
+
+It was broken when they stepped from the car. Another news rack faced
+them, with ARREST FATHER, SON FOR LOMBARDI MURDER staggering across the
+page.
+
+Corinna drew a gasp. She snatched Kintyre's hand with fingers that were
+suddenly cold. "_Santa Maria_," she mumbled.
+
+He steadied her. "Easy, there," he said.
+
+"I knew it." Her voice came saw-toothed. "I knew it was them. What does
+it say?"
+
+He bent over the page. "Not much more than that. Picked up this
+afternoon on suspicion, father and son. No details."
+
+"It'll be out tomorrow. Everything. And then the trial."
+
+"I thought you were all for this," he said. "You were convinced of
+their guilt and--"
+
+"I wasn't thinking. I was only hurt, and tired. No, I don't want it to
+be this way." Slowly, she stiffened herself. "But so be it, then. Can I
+have a drink?"
+
+"You can have more than that." He steered her along the sidewalk. She
+still moved a little unsurely. "You can have the news I mainly came to
+give you."
+
+"What?"
+
+"The Michaelises are not guilty."
+
+A bar stood by their path. He led her inside, to a booth. The drab
+routine of checking Corinna's age seemed to help calm her. She asked
+for straight Irish whisky, he took beer.
+
+Only then did she challenge him: "How do you know?"
+
+"It's a long story," he said, "and frankly, I'm not certain how much of
+it you should hear. So suppose you begin by telling me why you think
+they did it."
+
+"The police--"
+
+"Uh-huh. They paid a little more attention to your ideas than you
+thought. They checked and found Gene had dropped out of sight over the
+weekend. He and his father refused to cooperate, doubtless being very
+surly about it, so now they're in the calaboose. But what could their
+motive have been in the first place?"
+
+Her fingers twisted together. "Oh, all that business years ago, when
+their boat rammed Dad's."
+
+"What more? It's something to do with you, isn't it?"
+
+"Yes. Nothing disgraceful, I suppose. But ugly. A million people
+sniggering over this new revelation about our family--isn't there going
+to be end to it, ever?"
+
+The drinks came. She tossed hers off recklessly and asked for another.
+While she waited, and he worked on his beer, she looked squarely across
+the table at him and said:
+
+"Gene came back from the Navy last summer. He looked up Bruce in
+Berkeley. Bruce took him home to our parents for dinner; I happened to
+be there too. Gene gave me quite a play. He could be very charming. We
+had a number of dates." The color crept into her face, but she went
+on: "Yes, he did his best to seduce me. When that didn't work, he
+asked me to marry him. Every time we went out, it would end up with a
+proposal--and a wrestling match. I liked him, though. And he'd moved
+back to San Francisco from the Eastbay, taken a different job, just to
+be near me. Who wouldn't be flattered, and touched? But I finally had
+to lay down the law. It was a fight, physically, to make him behave. I
+caught a taxi home."
+
+The waitress came back. Corinna picked up her second glass and sipped
+slowly. "He apologized the next day," she said, "but I told him I
+couldn't go out with him any more. He seemed to take it pretty well,
+said he would go back to Chicago--he'd spent a lot of time there
+once--but he asked for some kind of send-off. I--I spoke to Bruce.
+Gene had always been an admirer of Bruce. Odd, that big, husky,
+world-tramping fellow, admiring Bruce. We couldn't just drop him like
+that. We arranged a double date for a weekend early in December, a trip
+down to Carmel. I knew Bruce was in love, he couldn't hide that, but I
+asked him to take a friend of mine from the theater. It would make the
+atmosphere different. Safer, I thought."
+
+Corinna stared into her drink. "We got a couple of hotel rooms down
+there," she said flatly. "We did a little drinking. Gene did more than
+a little. He made several open passes at me. I was afraid of a fight,
+but this girl and I got to bed at last. Back in their room, Gene's and
+Bruce's, Gene kept on drinking. He urged Bruce to come with him, into
+our room. Well, what would you expect? Bruce lost his temper and threw
+a punch at him. It couldn't have hurt--outside--but I wonder what it
+did to Gene, really. He started screaming about how we were all against
+him. I could hear him through the wall. We'd come down in his car. He
+said we could all find our own way home, he staggered out to his car
+and drove back along the highway--drunk."
+
+Corinna brought her voice under control again. "That's all. We heard of
+the accident after we got home next day on the bus. We went to see him
+in the hospital as soon as we could. How he cursed us! Bruce was crying
+too, when we left."
+
+"I know," said Kintyre. "I saw him a day or so later." And, briefly, he
+told her what Margery had done.
+
+She seemed to thaw before his eyes. "If there could be such a thing as
+a blessed sin--"
+
+"Now let's return to business," said Kintyre. "I want to get the
+nightmare off your back. _Imprimis_, how sorry are you for Gene?
+Actually?"
+
+She hesitated. At last: "That's impossible to answer."
+
+"He got what he asked for. It's pure luck the man in the other car
+wasn't killed."
+
+"I suppose so." Hardness grew along her jawline. "And if he murdered my
+brother--how does the saying go? God may forgive him, but I never can."
+
+"Good. However, _secundus_: He was not involved in Bruce's death."
+
+"What makes you so certain?" she demanded, almost belligerently.
+
+"Let me tell you what happened last night." _Was it only last night?_
+
+He related it in a few words. She looked at him so strangely that he
+was puzzled, until it came to him that not many college professors
+enter waterfront tenements and throw people around.
+
+"I hope you don't think I asked for the brawl," he finished. "I'm
+ashamed of it. But it gave me the proof I needed."
+
+Her hand stole out, toward the plaster on his forehead. "Is that how
+you got hurt?" she asked softly.
+
+"No." He continued hastily: "A strong possibility is that Bruce was
+killed by professionals. Imported murderers are likeliest, since the
+police will be seining all local toughs."
+
+"Gene lived in Chicago," she murmured through tightened lips.
+
+"Gene and his father are stonkering poor. Even if Gene has a murderer
+friend, such a job would not be done just as a favor."
+
+"Then they could have done it themselves, father and son."
+
+"Look, we had a minor scrap, the three of us. Those walls are like
+paper. Half the building heard it and came pounding on the door. Bruce
+could not have been--hurt, as he was--in that place. It would have to
+be somewhere else. Consider all the practical difficulties, finding an
+abandoned warehouse or whatever. Getting an automobile, for heaven's
+sake! Where would paupers like those two find the money to rent a car,
+even for a day?
+
+"Oh, well, if we stretch our reasoning all out of shape, we can say
+they _might_ have done all that. But one thing they could never have
+managed, and that was to capture Bruce in the first place. He would
+have tied them in bowknots."
+
+"Bruce?" She was openly bewildered.
+
+"Yes. Stop thinking of him as a mere bookworm. Bruce and I were going
+to pack into Kings Canyon, which is still pretty wild. And he was
+taking up judo, and doing quite well. A gun could have taken him
+prisoner, of course, but the Michaelises don't have a gun; they'd have
+gone for it last night if one were on the premises. So Bruce would have
+had to be slugged from behind. But there was no mark of a club on his
+body, no anesthetic--I have that from the police. Weaponless, neither
+Gene nor his father could have held Bruce for ten seconds. They're
+both strong, but they fall over themselves. I threw them with baby
+techniques."
+
+"That's right," she said, "you do go in for judo, don't you? But Bruce
+said you were an expert."
+
+"I only wear a brown belt so far. Bruce, of course, was a white.
+He could not have coped with one or two men who knew how to handle
+themselves--not necessarily judo men, just experienced fighters."
+_Consider Terry Larkin._ "However, he could certainly have thrown two
+unarmed Michaelises. Take my word for it. I know."
+
+"Oh."
+
+She studied her hands for a while.
+
+"They'll be released in a few days at the outside," said Kintyre. "The
+most elementary procedures will show they're innocent. I can think of a
+dozen lines of proof myself. To be sure, you may be subjected to some
+publicity before that happens, but it will never get as far as a grand
+jury. Believe me."
+
+"Thank you." When she smiled, he could see no other thing in all that
+dingy building. "I always seem to be thanking you."
+
+"Which I find pleasant enough," he bowed.
+
+"Why don't we go down to the station and explain it right now?" she
+asked hesitantly. "You're not afraid of being arrested for the fight,
+are you? That wasn't your fault."
+
+"Oh, no. But my testimony and my reasoning aren't legally conclusive,"
+he evaded.
+
+"It would help a lot. It might get them out, tip the scales. I feel so
+sorry for them now. That poor old man!"
+
+Kintyre looked straight into the green eyes. "Will you trust me a
+little bit?" he said. "Will you take my word that we can't do it
+immediately?"
+
+_Because the police would inquire further. Did I indeed hurt my arm and
+my head in that fracas? No, say the Michaelises. Where, then? I do not
+think their search would end short of Guido, your brother._
+
+She bit her lip. "I hate to think of them locked up for something they
+haven't done."
+
+"At the present time," he said, "my story would compromise someone else
+whom I also know to be innocent."
+
+_Like hell I do._
+
+She sighed. "All right. That's good enough for me." And then, with the
+morning of her smile upon him again: "You've done enough for one day's
+knight errantry. Let's go eat."
+
+
+
+
+13
+
+
+The restaurant was small and quiet. Corinna and Kintyre had a corner
+table, where the light fell gently.
+
+"By rights we should have a Genever apéritif," he said, "but I'm
+convinced Dutch gin is distilled from frogs. On the other hand, Dutch
+beer compares to Hof, Rothausbräu, or Kronenbourg."
+
+"You've traveled a lot, haven't you?" she said. "I envy you that. Never
+got farther than the Sierras myself."
+
+A little embarrassed--he had not been trying to play the
+cosmopolite--he fell silent while she glanced at her menu. "Will you
+order for me?" she asked finally. "You know your way around these
+dishes."
+
+He made his selections, pleased by the compliment. When the beer came,
+in conical half-liter glasses, he raised his: "_Prosit._"
+
+"_Salute._" She drank slowly. "Wonderful. But this may not be wise on
+top of two whiskies."
+
+"It's all right if you go easy. Take the word of a hardened bowser." He
+searched out an inward weariness on the strong broad face. "You could
+use a little anesthesia."
+
+"Well--" She set her glass down. "Bear with me. I promise not to
+blubber, but I may get sentimental. Or maybe even hilarious, I don't
+know. I've never lost anyone close to me before now."
+
+"I understand," said Kintyre.
+
+"And please help me steer clear of myself," she added. "I would like
+to talk about Bruce, and otherwise about wholly neutral things." She
+managed a smile. "I've been meaning to ask you something. You're the
+Machiavelli specialist. Our theater did _Mandragola_ last year. Tell
+me, how could the same man write that and _Il Principe_?"
+
+"Actually," said Kintyre, "I would be surprised if the author of _The
+Prince_--or, rather, the _Discourses on Livy_, since _The Prince_ is
+really just a pamphlet--I'd be surprised if he had not done sheer
+amusement equally well. One of the more damnable heresies of this
+era is its notion that a man can only be good at one thing. That
+versatility is not the inborn human norm."
+
+"I've often thought the same," she said. "I suppose you know Bruce
+changed his major to history because of you. He took one of your
+classes as a freshman. Now I see why."
+
+"Well," he stalled, and hoisted his beer.
+
+She shifted the conversation with a tact he appreciated: "But how did
+you happen to get interested in it, in the Italian Renaissance yet,
+with a name like yours?"
+
+"I served time in one of those private schools back East," he said.
+"The Romance languages master got me enthusiastic."
+
+He paused, then continued slowly: "I entered Harvard, but Pearl
+Harbor happened in my sophomore year. I was in the Navy the whole
+war, the Pacific; fell in love with the Bay Area on my shore leaves,
+which is why I came here to live afterward. But during the war I
+had a lot of time to read and try to think where this world was
+going. To the wolves, I decided--like Machiavelli's world--I suppose
+that's why I feel so close to him. He was also studying the problem
+of how the decent man can survive. He spoke the truth as he saw it,
+because he didn't think that civilization should be encumbered with
+nice-nellyisms that the barbarians had already discarded. Wherefore he
+became the original Old Nick, and the very people--us, the free people,
+whom he could warn--won't listen, because we think he speaks for the
+enemy!"
+
+He braked. "Sorry. I didn't mean to orate at you."
+
+"I wish more men had convictions," she said. "Even when I don't agree.
+Everybody respects everybody else's sensibilities so much these days,
+there's nothing left to talk about but football scores."
+
+"You're very kind," he said. "Ah, here come the appetizers. Pay special
+attention to the characteristically Dutch delicacy, Russian eggs, but
+don't ask me how they came by that name."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Later, after much talk, some of it with enough laughter to tell him she
+was a merry soul in better days:
+
+A ruby spark lay in their glasses of Cherry Heering. "This isn't Dutch
+either," said Kintyre. "However."
+
+"Do you know," she said, "I begin to understand the old idea of a wake.
+Getting the clan together and having one fine brawling celebration.
+It's more an act of love, really, than drawing the parlor curtains and
+talking in hushed voices."
+
+"That's the Latin who speaks," he said. "We Protestant races are cursed
+with the tradition that misery is a virtue."
+
+"But you, you Bostonian Scot or whatever you are--I hear a trace of
+accent--_you_ approve."
+
+"I left Boston for the Pacific at the arthritic age of nine."
+
+"What was the reason for that?"
+
+"My father was a marine architect. He was laid off in, uh, 1930. Being
+an imaginative man, he spent his savings on a schooner, hired a Mexican
+crew, and we all lit out for the South Seas. For seven years we lived
+on that schooner."
+
+"Bruce told me you were a sailor." Her eyes were very bright upon him.
+"But how did you make it pay?"
+
+"Miscellaneously. Sometimes we carried cargo and passengers between
+islands. The passengers were usually Kanakas, and those who didn't have
+money would pay us in food and hospitality when we got where we were
+going. Father wasn't after riches anyway. His main enterprise was to
+gather and prepare marine specimens, for museums and colleges and so
+on. Toward the end, he was making a name for himself. Well, we never
+saw much cash money, but we never needed a lot either."
+
+Kintyre held his glass to the light, tossed it off and followed it
+with a scalding sip of coffee. Why was he speaking of this? He had
+barely mentioned his youth to anyone else, except Trig, who was the
+friend of a dozen years. Trig had led him into the dojo, hoping that
+its discipline of mind as well as body would strangle the horror. But
+Corinna had the story out of him in a matter of hours, not even knowing
+what she did.
+
+He had taken her for Morna last night.
+
+"What happened?" she asked. Her tone said that he needn't answer unless
+he wanted to.
+
+"A typhoon and a lee shore," he said. "I was the only survivor."
+
+He took out a cigarette. She folded her hands and waited, in case he
+should want to say more.
+
+"That was in the Gilbert Islands," he continued after the smoke was
+curling down his tongue. "The British authorities shipped me home. The
+guardianship was wished onto a cousin of my mother's. So I went to the
+boarding school I spoke of, and summers I worked at a seaside resort.
+Don't feel sorry for me, it was quite a good life."
+
+"But a lonely one," she said.
+
+He grinned with a single corner of his mouth. "'_He travels the fastest
+who travels alone._'"
+
+"I understand a great deal now." She held her cup so lightly that he
+grew aware he was in danger of breaking his. Tendon by tendon, he
+eased his fingers. "Yes," she said after a moment. "Bruce was always
+puzzled by you. As I imagine most people are. You don't seem to belong
+anywhere, to anything or anyone. And yet you do. You belong to a world
+that foundered in the ocean."
+
+It jarred him. Not given to self-analysis, he had imagined he lived a
+logical, well adapted round of days.
+
+"Sometime you'll build it again," she said. "Oh, not the physical ship,
+you've more important things on hand, but a personal world."
+
+And again it was a blow, to be shown himself as alien as a castaway
+from Mars.
+
+"Please," he said, more roughly than he had intended. "I don't find my
+personality the most interesting object on earth."
+
+She nodded, as if to herself. The long hair swept her flat high-boned
+cheeks. "Of course. You wouldn't."
+
+"Perhaps I'd better take you home now," he said, without noticeable
+enthusiasm. "Are you working tomorrow?"
+
+"Only if I feel like it, my boss told me. I'd planned to, but--Are you
+in any hurry?"
+
+"Contrariwise." _I don't think I would sleep much._
+
+"Then could we go somewhere and talk? I'd like to ask you some things."
+
+"I'd love to be asked. I know a place."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was small, dark, and masculine, undegraded by jukebox or television.
+Kintyre led Corinna into a booth at the rear.
+
+"They serve steam beer," he said. "The only really good beer made in
+this country."
+
+"Oof! I couldn't. Another Irish, if I may. I promise to go slow." Her
+tone was not as light as the words.
+
+Nonetheless, he needed a little while to sense the trouble in her.
+
+After much time she met his eyes, obviously forcing his own. "Dr.
+Kintyre," she began.
+
+He was about to ask her to use his given name; and then he thought how
+little intimacy could be achieved in this American cult of first-name
+familiarity with all the universe. "Yes?" he said.
+
+"I would--I would have thanked you for a wonderful time, which helped
+me more than you know. And then I would have gone home. But--"
+
+He waited.
+
+"I don't know how to say it," she stumbled. "I knew you were
+Bruce's--Bruce's brother, the one he should have had. But only tonight
+could I _feel_ it." She searched for a phrase. Finally: "I don't
+believe I could hurt myself by being serious with you."
+
+"I hope not," he said, as grave as she. "I can't promise it."
+
+"Why did you go to the Michaelises last night?"
+
+"I'm not quite sure."
+
+"You want to discover who killed Bruce? Isn't that it?"
+
+"I am not a self-appointed detective. The police can do that job
+infinitely better than I. But I have been thinking."
+
+"What do you think?" she persisted.
+
+"I certainly wouldn't go accusing someone who--"
+
+"Can you realize what Bruce meant to me?" She asked it quietly, as a
+meaningful request for truth. "We were more than siblings. We were
+friends, all our lives, in a way they haven't made words for."
+
+"I do know," he said, and he would have told it to few other creatures
+that lived. "I had a younger sister myself."
+
+"Even after he left home--can you imagine the way he continued to watch
+over me? How often he stepped in and used a word or two to straighten
+out a lonesome, confused, unhappy girl whom nobody else liked; how he
+steered me toward the kind of people I can feel at home with; how he
+healed the breach with my parents, when I _had_ to get away and they
+didn't understand; how he got me out of a wretched business office and
+into the museum, where I can like what I'm doing and believe it has
+some value. You knew Bruce, did you know that side of him?"
+
+"No," said Kintyre. "He wouldn't have talked about it. Still, yes, I
+can imagine."
+
+"And he was lured somewhere, and tortured, and murdered," she said. The
+lacquered fingernails stood white where she caught the table edge.
+
+Kintyre didn't touch her himself, but he held out his hand. She gripped
+it for a while. Her face was lowered. When she let go and looked up
+again, he saw tears.
+
+"I'm sorry," she gulped. "I promised not to bawl, and then--"
+
+Kintyre let her have it out. It didn't take long, nor was it noisy.
+
+She said at last, in a wire-thin voice: "Why was it done? Who would do
+it, to him of all people in the world?"
+
+"I don't know," said Kintyre. "I just don't know."
+
+"But you can guess, can't you? You know everyone concerned. That writer
+he was having the fight with. That businessman who owns the thesis
+manuscript. Gene Michaelis. You could be wrong! Even his girl, God help
+me for saying it. Who?"
+
+"Why must you know?" he asked.
+
+"Why?" It took her aback. "To know! To understand--"
+
+"Do you want to be reassured the murderer won't strike at you next? I
+hardly think you need fear that."
+
+"Of course not!" she flared. "I want to know so the world can make some
+sense again."
+
+"That's too metaphysical to be true," he said.
+
+Briefly, she shivered with tension. Then, leaning back, she picked up
+her whisky glass and sipped of it and asked coldly:
+
+"Where did you go last night after you left the Michaelis place?"
+
+"Home," he said.
+
+"Guido was badly shaken today. He hadn't slept at all, I could see that
+in the morning. He stayed around the apartment like a hurt animal. I
+know him, he's terrified." Corinna spat as if at an enemy: "What did
+you do to him?"
+
+"Nothing!" said Kintyre.
+
+Her lip caught her teeth.
+
+"I didn't think of it till just now," she breathed. "But it all fits.
+You do know something. In God's name, tell me!"
+
+He said, with an overpowering compassion: "I see. You're afraid Guido
+is involved."
+
+"Yes," she said dully.
+
+"Why should he be?"
+
+"Oh--I don't know--jealousy? Who can tell? Guido always seemed like the
+wild, reckless one and Bruce a mama's boy. Yet it was Bruce who left
+home and Guido never has."
+
+"Let's have no half-digested psychological theory," he said, purposely
+astringent. "Stick to facts. What leads you to suspect your brother is
+involved?"
+
+"I might as well tell you," she sighed. "Last week he was dropping
+all kinds of dark hints about a big job which would take him out of
+town over the weekend. He's like that, has to sound important, mostly
+there's no harm in it. But he came back Monday evening with a good deal
+of money. I knew he was broke before. He had even been forced to sell
+his car. He came in loaded with expensive presents for all of us, and
+had a fat roll in his wallet. Of course, when we told him about Bruce,
+that more or less made us forget it. But then today, how frightened he
+was--
+
+"What happened last night?"
+
+Kintyre took out a cigarette. "Excuse me while I think," he said. He
+made a ceremony of lighting it.
+
+"Guido is in trouble," he admitted. "I don't know how closely related
+to the murder it is."
+
+"Don't misunderstand me." Her face could have been modeled in chalk. "I
+never thought Guido would--would dream of--no! But he could have been
+drawn into something. And what would the police think?"
+
+"Uh-huh. The same notion occurred to me."
+
+"What happened, then?"
+
+He told her.
+
+"Oh, no." Her eyes closed.
+
+"You see my dilemma," he said wearily. "I'll protect Guido if
+my conscience will let me, even though it's already led me into
+lawbreaking. But I don't know, I can't tell--"
+
+She opened her eyes again. They blazed.
+
+"Thank You," she said, not to Kintyre.
+
+His scalp crawled. "What are you thinking of?"
+
+"I know Guido," she answered. "I can get the truth out of him."
+
+"You can try."
+
+She stood up. "I'll take a cab," she said.
+
+"What?" He rose himself. "You're not going there now?"
+
+"When else? I'm sorry, it's a shabby way to treat you, but do you think
+something like this can wait?"
+
+"A murderer is hanging around that place," he said. "You can see Guido
+tomorrow at your parents', but tonight I won't have it."
+
+She grinned. There was even a little humor in the expression. "What do
+you plan to do?"
+
+"Call the police!" he rapped.
+
+She said like a sword: "By the time you've explained all the ins and
+outs to them, I'll have taken him elsewhere. And you needn't bother
+speaking to either of us again."
+
+He took her by the wrist. "Let me go," she said, almost casually.
+
+"Wait a second." Again he knew the night feeling, that he must go, and
+that that would happen which another force than he had willed. But
+somehow, crazily, this time he was glad of it.
+
+"Just wait for me," he finished.
+
+
+
+
+14
+
+
+The doorkeeper-bouncer was the first obstacle. Kintyre wished he had
+worn a hat. Nothing disguised him except a gray suit; the square of
+bandage at his hairline felt like a searchlight.
+
+"Follow my lead," whispered Corinna as they went down the stairs.
+
+It was dark in the doorway, and narrow. She contrived to get herself
+squeezed between Kintyre and the other man; and as she slithered by
+she threw him such a look that he would have let a rhinoceros enter
+unnoticed beside her.
+
+The Alley Cat was full tonight. Mostly the cool crowd, Kintyre judged,
+drawn by the rumors of last night's affair. He could not help himself,
+but whispered to Corinna: "Where in the hell did you learn to put five
+thousand volts of raw sex into three motions and one sidelong glance?"
+
+"Theater." Even at this moment, when she saw through a harsh blue haze
+her brother who might be a murderer singing a dirty ballad, she could
+have been a female Puck. "Also, it helps to live with a cat."
+
+They threaded their way along the wall until they found a table in
+shadow. "We can see him at the intermission," he proposed. She nodded.
+The waitress who lit their candle--Kintyre snuffed it again when she
+had left--and brought them a demi of burgundy, paid them no special
+attention. Well, it was long established that an excited eyewitness has
+no value. Those who saw the fight had not really seen the fighters.
+
+Corinna fell silent, resting her cheek on one fist. She didn't drink
+at all. Kintyre tried to read the way she was looking at Guido, but
+understood only a troubled tenderness.
+
+"Mind if I join you?"
+
+Kintyre looked up, startled, into Trygve Yamamura's flat face. "Oh,"
+he said stupidly. "Sit down. Miss Lombardi, this is--" He explained in
+detail.
+
+"I'm glad to know you," she said. Her eyes added: _Maybe. It will
+depend on what comes next._ Guido's guitar twanged and capered. His
+voice overrode the room, as full of satyr laughter as if it had never
+known anything else. "With his whack-fol-de-diddle-di-day--"
+
+"Were we that conspicuous coming in?" whispered Kintyre.
+
+"Lay off the stage hiss," Yamamura told him. "A low speaking voice
+draws less attention. No, you pulled it off okay. It was only that I
+was making it my business to see everyone who comes in. Still am." His
+eyes remained in motion as he sat holding his beer; the rest of him was
+nearly limp, taking its ease until a muscle should be needed.
+
+"Been here long?" asked Kintyre.
+
+"Couple hours, since the act went on," said Yamamura. "I tailed Guido
+from his place. Before then, though, I assumed he wouldn't leave his
+four safe walls, so I found plenty to do elsewhere."
+
+Corinna exclaimed: "You learned something?"
+
+"Uh-huh. I came right over this morning after Bob saw me. No grass
+grows where I have been, I mean no grass grows under my feet." Yamamura
+took a pipe from his maroon sports jacket. "The best way to get a line
+on your friend Larkin seemed to be to check Guido's recent movements.
+I started at the other end--his call on Clayton, a week ago last
+Monday. You know, when he and Bruce went around to see about a job.
+Clayton himself isn't in the City today, but I went to that swank
+apartment hotel he inhabits and jollied the staff."
+
+Having filled his pipe, he took his time lighting it. "I gather Clayton
+gave Guido and Bruce a rather long interview," he went on. "Or, rather,
+Bruce. Guido left about an hour before his brother did."
+
+"He never mentioned that!" said Corinna.
+
+"Why should he?" countered Yamamura. "Not good for his pride, is it?
+But what did Bruce and Clayton find to talk about?"
+
+"And how much of it did Guido hear?" murmured Kintyre.
+
+Corinna flushed. "Please don't," she said in a hard voice.
+
+"I'm sorry," he answered, torn. "But if Bruce had to tell Clayton
+something important, even worth killing about--they'd shoo Guido out
+first. But Guido might have gotten enough hints to make some deductions
+and--No, wait, let me finish! Maybe Guido blabbed to someone else, not
+realizing himself what it signified."
+
+She gave him a shaky little smile. "Thanks for trying," she said.
+
+"Ah, this is probably of no significance at all," said Yamamura. "Bruce
+could just as well have been giving Clayton the latest information
+about the mildew on page 77 of that book." He attempted a smoke ring
+and failed. "Or could he? Depends on how you interpret this tidbit:
+Clayton telephoned Genoa, Italy, that same night."
+
+"Who did he call?" asked Kintyre.
+
+"The switchboard girl doesn't remember. All she heard was a lot of
+Italian: they started gabbling right away, before she could take
+herself out of the circuit. Clayton stayed home for several hours
+next day. The Italian called again. Now none of this would be worth
+retailing, I guess, except for one more oddity about Mr. Clayton. He
+had the bellhop bring him several dollars in change. Then he went out
+and was gone for some hours."
+
+Corinna raised her thick dark brows in puzzlement. Kintyre nodded.
+"Yes. Long-distance, though not transatlantic, calls from a public
+booth," he said. "No chance of being eavesdropped on."
+
+"It may not mean a damn relevant thing," said Yamamura. "The most
+legitimate businesses have their secrets. But I'll admit to being
+curious. Did Bruce steer him onto something big? And did a business
+rival then strike at Bruce? That doesn't sound likely. Maybe Clayton
+himself--no, hardly that. In my line of work I'd have heard it if he
+weren't straight, or if he associated with thugs."
+
+Kintyre jammed his fists into knots. An intake of air hissed between
+his teeth.
+
+"What is it?" Corinna's alarm seemed to come from far away.
+
+"Nothing. Or possibly something. Never mind. Go on, Trig."
+
+Only part of him heard the detective continue. The rest said through
+thunder: _One more suspect. I had been sure Clayton, of all people,
+must be innocent. For the Federal government would have assured
+itself he knows no assassins--Trig, perhaps more reliably, tells me
+the same--and he could not have found any on short notice, and it is
+impossible he could have done the crime personally._
+
+_But Guido might have such connections!_
+
+_Did Clayton see Guido again?_
+
+"Then I went around and chivvied the cops," said Yamamura. "They were
+just hauling in the Michaelis family, and hadn't much time for any
+other ideas. However, they are going to check house rentals over the
+weekend. You see, what was done--I'm sorry, Miss Lombardi--the deed
+would require an isolated spot. An entire house, at least. For the
+noise."
+
+"Has anything come of that?" asked Corinna with a great steadiness.
+
+"Not yet. These things take time. Well, then I had some supper and came
+here. Wasn't open yet, but they were making ready. Someone will have to
+meet my expense account, twenty-five good dollars to grease my way in
+and learn something."
+
+"I can," said Corinna.
+
+"Not you, Miss Lombardi. Most especially not you." Yamamura fumbled
+with his pipe; he was all at once an unhappy man. "Must I say it?"
+
+Her eyes closed again, a flicker of aloneness. Then: "Please. It's
+better now, isn't it, than later from someone else?"
+
+"A couple of strangers were in here last Thursday night. They
+introduced themselves to Guido, stood him drinks, talked at length. All
+this was noticed by the bartender, without any special interest, simply
+because it was a slack midweek night. He didn't hear what was said.
+After closing time, Guido went out with them.
+
+"The description of one of those birds answers moderately well to Bob's
+description of Larkin."
+
+Corinna shook herself, as if something rode her neck. "Is that all?"
+she asked.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"It could be worse," she said. "We already know he knows Larkin."
+
+"What did the other man look like?" asked Kintyre.
+
+"Smallish fellow, sandy-haired, long nose. And I'm surprised the
+barkeep could tell me that much. Look how you've come right back in
+here tonight, a stranger, after tearing the joint up."
+
+Guido finished. Applause crackled, abnormally loud for a place like
+this: did they clap the knife which had been drawn? wondered Kintyre.
+
+Corinna got up and made her way toward the platform. Guido gaped at
+her. "I like that girl," said Yamamura. "Do we have to go on with this
+business?"
+
+"If we don't, she will alone," Kintyre told him.
+
+Corinna and Guido held a muted argument. The fear was bulging his eyes.
+Finally he collapsed, somehow, and went out through the rear door.
+Corinna followed.
+
+"Here we go," said Yamamura. "No, you ape, don't blow your nose! Oldest
+trick in the book, and you can bet there's at least one plainclothesman
+here tonight."
+
+He sauntered affably between the tables. Kintyre came behind, his
+shoulders aching with tension. The bartender, the man who could
+actually notice things, regarded him speculatively as he passed by. A
+small surf of conversation lapped at his feet, he had to choke down the
+idiotic belief that it was all about him.
+
+Then they were in the back room. Kintyre recognized the alley door he
+had used previously. Almost hidden by stacked beer cases, a stair led
+upward. At its top they found a dusty room with an iron cot, a couple
+of chairs, and an old vanity table. A naked electric bulb glared from
+the ceiling. Dressing room, Kintyre supposed.
+
+Guido sat on the bedstead. He held a cigarette to his lips and drew
+on it as if it kept him alive. Corinna stood before him. The overhead
+light made her hair into a helmet and her face into a mask. Shadows lay
+huge in the corners.
+
+Guido didn't look up. "I'll see you later," he mumbled. "I swear it.
+But not here. For Chrissake, we can all be killed here."
+
+"Then why did you come tonight?" asked Yamamura.
+
+"God! I was afraid not to."
+
+"Did you see anyone dangerous in the audience?"
+
+"I can't tell." His forehead glistened under the tangled hair. "There's
+a baby spot on me when I sing. I can't see past the first couple
+tables."
+
+Corinna said: "Mr. Yamamura is a private detective. I understand he's
+even better at judo than Dr. Kintyre, which you should know is saying
+quite a lot."
+
+"And when they go home?" He lifted a skull face. "What happens to me
+then?"
+
+Yamamura replied: "Your only real safety will come when those people
+you are afraid of have been settled with. Do you want to go the rest of
+your life being afraid?"
+
+"You can't settle with them," whispered Guido. "I mean, it's not
+just Larkin with his switchblades. O'Hearn carries a gun, and he's a
+three-time loser already, do you understand what that means? I've seen
+his gun!"
+
+"Is there anyone else?" asked Kintyre.
+
+"I don't know. You expect me to tell you if I do? I'll get myself
+killed!"
+
+Corinna waved Kintyre and Yamamura back. She sat down beside Guido and
+took his free hand. "Bruce got himself killed too," she said in her
+gentlest tone.
+
+"Oh, yes, yes, yes! Leave me alone!"
+
+"He was tied down somewhere and tortured," she said, not raising her
+voice. "They burned him. The marks were all over his body, even after
+they finished hacking it up. I know that much, no more. Nobody would
+tell me more, and I didn't want to ask. But he must have been glad when
+they finally cut his throat."
+
+Guido tried to rise. She pulled him back, without using much strength.
+"Jesus!" he screamed.
+
+"Why did you help them?" she asked.
+
+"I didn't! It's got nothing to do with--I _didn't_!"
+
+She stood up again and looked down upon him. "Why did you do it?" she
+said as calmly. "How had he hurt you, that you had to let him be burned
+and twisted and killed?"
+
+"No! Not me! I don't know!" His mouth was stretched into a gash; a
+tongue like dry wood bobbed within it.
+
+She slapped him. It could not have been hard, but he fell back onto the
+bed and clawed at the mattress.
+
+"Good-by," she said, and walked from him.
+
+Kintyre looked at her and knew why the Furies had been women. His heart
+was a cold lump.
+
+Corinna waited in a corner, her hands writhing together. Guido tried,
+horribly, to weep, and could not.
+
+Then at last he rolled over on his back, blinked at the light, and said
+in a high childish voice: "I'll tell you what happened. I'll tell you
+so you can see it wasn't me, wasn't anything to do with Bruce, it just
+happened to happen the same weekend, and then maybe if you get out and
+leave me alone they won't kill me.
+
+"All I did was this. These cats from Chicago came around last week and
+said they were after some of the pod and could I get it, it was worth
+five hundred bucks to them plus expenses. Not horse, now, I don't have
+anything to do with horse. Just marijuana, it never hurt anybody, you
+don't get hooked, you don't go nuts, hell, I mean you even have to will
+yourself to keep the jag up and it's only in your head, man, you don't
+do nothing to nobody else, dig?"
+
+"Guido," said Corinna warningly.
+
+He snapped after air. Presently he continued: "So I told them I didn't
+handle it myself but I knew some who did. But they didn't dig that,
+said they didn't want nothing to do with any local pushers, they
+didn't even want it from any near town. Well, it seemed way out to
+me, but five hundred plus expenses for finding a small packet wasn't
+to be turned down, so I asked around and got the name of a dealer in
+Tijuana, and when I saw them the next day they said that would do. So
+I rented a car and drove down Saturday. I was supposed to meet Larkin
+here again Monday night and give him the packet and get the rest of my
+money--they paid two-fifty in advance. I came back to town late Monday.
+When I hit my pad I heard about Bruce and the old lady was crying all
+over me, so I called the place here and talked with Larkin, could he
+meet me Tuesday night instead. So he said all right, only the professor
+was here when he arrived. I haven't seen Larkin or O'Hearn since, and
+what're they thinking I said?"
+
+Kintyre didn't look at Corinna, he didn't believe it would be decent
+for a minute or two. He asked Guido: "What other jobs did you do for
+these men? Rent a house for them?"
+
+"No--nothing. I turned the car back to the rental agency on Monday,
+that's all. They'd advanced some of my expenses. They still owe me--"
+
+"You're not likely to collect," said Yamamura. He nodded to Kintyre. "I
+see what you're driving at. They missed a bet, not having him rent the
+scene of the crime too. And of course it was a mistake to dump the body
+across the Bay: that expedited the investigation, rather than slowing
+it up as intended. But then, they were strangers to this locality. And
+there's not much long-range difference, is there?"
+
+"What do you mean?" asked Guido lifelessly.
+
+"I mean you've been played for an all-time sucker," said Kintyre.
+"It's pure luck--the Michaelises just happened to become Patsy Number
+One--that you haven't been arrested on suspicion of murder. So far."
+
+He heard Corinna gasp. Guido seemed too drained to understand.
+
+"Another thing," said Kintyre. "What's between you and Gerald Clayton?"
+
+"Clayton?" The empty eyes blinked from the bed. "Clayton. Oh, him.
+Nothing."
+
+"Are you certain?"
+
+"We talked for a while, up at his pad. Bruce took me there. So finally
+he gave me the polite brush-off and I came on over here to do my show.
+Bruce stayed."
+
+"That's all? You're sure?"
+
+"For a long time, anyway. I met him once before--months and months
+ago--just social like--" Guido's tones dribbled to silence.
+
+Kintyre rubbed his chin. "That seems to let Clayton off," he said. "If,
+to be sure, our friend here is telling the truth."
+
+"He is," said Corinna. Turning, Kintyre saw her inhumanly composed. "I
+know him. He can't be lying now."
+
+"I wish I could be that certain," said Kintyre. "The whole thing makes
+so little sense that--Though Judas, I feel I could almost grasp the
+answer, but no."
+
+Yamamura asked Guido: "Where is this dope you brought?"
+
+"It's not dope," said the figure on the cot: a tired, automatic
+protest. "It's only pod."
+
+"Never mind that. If you don't like the law, write your Congressman.
+Where's the dope?"
+
+"They'll kill me if--"
+
+"What use is your life to you right now?" asked Yamamura scornfully.
+
+It had not seemed possible Guido could shrink further into himself.
+"That dressing table over there," he whimpered.
+
+Yamamura opened the drawer, flipped out a small parcel, and tore a
+corner. "Uh-huh," he said.
+
+"Well?" said Kintyre.
+
+"Well, by rights we should turn this and the kid in. It could mean a
+stretch in a Federal prison, since he crossed a border. It could even
+mean a loss of citizenship, he being naturalized. Dope is a hysterical
+issue."
+
+Corinna did not speak.
+
+Yamamura continued, in an almost idle tone: "However, it's true enough
+that this isn't a really vicious drug. I could heave it into the
+nearest garbage can and there'd be an end of the matter. If you think
+he's had a little sense beaten into him."
+
+Kintyre said: "That's my guess, Trig." Yamamura slipped the package
+into a coat pocket. Corinna shuddered, her fingers closed about
+Kintyre's.
+
+Yamamura knocked the dottle from his pipe, which had gone cold between
+his teeth, and said, "Let's assume for now that he is telling the
+truth. Then what have we got?"
+
+"A couple of murderers still hanging around," said Kintyre. "Why?
+Surely not to collect their hashish. That was just a gimmick to make
+Guido, their decoy, leave town, and make it damn near impossible for
+him to explain why. Whether or not a murder charge could have been made
+to stick, it would certainly confuse the issue long enough for this job
+to be finished, for the killers to go safely home again, and for the
+one who hired them to cover his tracks completely."
+
+"You imply their job is not yet finished," said Yamamura.
+
+"I sure do. There's no other sane reason for them to stay around,
+risking detection and arrest. Only--who's next?"
+
+"Guido?" It was Corinna who asked it, firmly.
+
+"I doubt that, at least as far as the original plan went. Who wants a
+dead red herring? Of course, now they may indeed go for him, afraid of
+what he has spilled. I think we'd better take him across the bay."
+
+Yamamura nodded. "Let's get moving," he said. "Up there, lad." He
+stepped to the cot, took Guido under the arms and hauled him erect. "We
+can go out the back door."
+
+Guido shambled, leaning heavily on the detective. Kintyre and Corinna
+followed. "He must be telling the truth," she said. "I know him! And
+that package--"
+
+"Does tend to bear out his yarn," said Kintyre. "I want to believe in
+his essential innocence myself. The trouble is, if his story is true,
+then who hired the killers?"
+
+"That Mr. Clayton?"
+
+"Not if Guido has given us a full and fair account. I've explained to
+you that the Michaelises are out. Who's left?"
+
+"I've heard of a writer. Owens, is that his name?"
+
+"I don't know. I plain don't. And yet I'm nagged by a feeling that
+I already have the answer--and I can't name it! Things have been
+happening too fast." Kintyre scowled. "And until we can identify the
+one who hired the killers--the real murderer; the others are only a
+deodand--he's free to murder someone else."
+
+They had come down the stairs now, slowly, and stepped into the alley
+behind the building. Windowless brick walls closed three sides: it was
+a cul-de-sac thick with shadows, opening on a wanly lit trafficless
+street of hooded shops.
+
+The man by the alley entrance stepped a little closer. There was
+just light enough to show that he was not tall, that he had sloping
+shoulders, and that he carried an automatic pistol. He stopped three
+yards from the door, too far off for a leap.
+
+"Hold it," he said.
+
+
+
+
+15
+
+
+Yamamura and Guido had come out first. Guido's legs seemed to go fluid;
+only the arm around his waist held him up.
+
+"Jimmy," he bleated.
+
+Kintyre's hand swung backward in an arc, shoving Corinna behind him. He
+said aloud--very loudly, "What the devil do you want?"
+
+"Quiet, there," said the man called Jimmy. "This thing has a silencer
+on it." He waved the gun. "I want to see Lombardi."
+
+"It isn't nothing, Jimmy," chattered Guido. "Before God, Jimmy, they're
+just friends of mine!"
+
+"Yeh. You can tell us all about it. The rest of you stand back against
+the door. Come on, Guido. I got a car waiting."
+
+Yamamura eased his burden to the ground. Guido huddled on hands and
+knees, retching. "He'll never make it," said the detective. "He's
+scared spitless."
+
+"I just want to talk with him," said Jimmy. "I was supposed to see him
+here tonight, only they said he'd gone upstairs. I figured if it was
+just for a nap or something, he'd be down again to finish his act and
+I'd catch him later. Only if he wanted to skip out this way instead, it
+would be soon and he might not come back. I didn't want to miss him, so
+I figured I'd wait here a while."
+
+It was not meant as an explanation. It was an indictment, nailed word
+by word on the man who tried to stand up.
+
+"Well," said Yamamura, "let me help him."
+
+Jimmy laughed under his hat. "I'm not that simple-minded. Stay put."
+With shrillness: "Come on, Guido. Or do you want to get drilled right
+here and now?"
+
+Guido began to drag himself forward, as if a bullet had already smashed
+his spine. The sound of it, and of his breath going in and out an open
+mouth, and the nearby clamor of automobiles filled with meek taxpayers,
+was all that Kintyre could hear.
+
+He wondered if he could let Guido be taken from him, by the same
+instrument which had taken Bruce, and call himself male. Two or three
+jumps should reach Jimmy. But Jimmy was no amateur, he wouldn't miss
+if he shot. But there were many cases on record of men being hit once,
+twice, being filled with lead, and still coming on. But Guido wasn't
+worth anybody's time. But Guido was brother to Bruce and Corinna,
+therefore worth a great deal of time. But a possible forty years?
+
+But a deeper shadow filled the open end of the brick gut. It ran
+forward in total silence, light touched its glassy uplifted club and
+its flowing hair.
+
+As the bottle came down on Jimmy's head, Kintyre started to move.
+Yamamura beat him to it, arriving a second after Jimmy lurched forward
+from the impact on his skull. The sound had been a shattering; Kintyre
+heard the tinkles that followed the blow. Yamamura knocked the gun from
+Jimmy's hand with an edge-on palm, seized his lapel, and applied a
+scissor strangle.
+
+Jimmy fell, as if the bones had been sucked from him. Corinna swayed
+over his form, still holding the broken beer bottle. Almost, she fell
+too. Kintyre caught her.
+
+She held him closely, shuddering. It was not necessary, he thought
+beneath his own pulse. She fought herself, and grew worn down thereby.
+Her physical output had been negligible. Clearly she had slipped back
+through the door, unobserved (that was the chance she took, but chance
+had a way of favoring those who acted boldly). Picking up an empty
+bottle on the way, tucking it inconspicuously under an arm, she had
+gone out past the bar, out the main door (doubtless noticed, maybe
+wondered about, but not stopped and soon forgotten) and around the
+building. Then she took off her shoes and ran up behind Jimmy and hit
+him.
+
+That was all. There was no reason to grow exhausted. But God damn all
+smug judokas, hadn't she earned the right?
+
+"You clopped him a good one," said Yamamura, squatting to look.
+"It's as well he had a hat on. A cut scalp could get very messy.
+Congratulations."
+
+"Did you say there was a cop in the bar?" asked Kintyre.
+
+"Beyond doubt," said Yamamura. "Or we can phone, of course. Only I'm
+carrying a parcel of smoke, and the neighborhood will be searched quite
+thoroughly if our friend here mentions it." He sat on his heels, chin
+in hand, for what seemed like a long time. Jimmy moaned, but did not
+stir.
+
+"Bob," asked Yamamura finally, "do you know anyone living on this side
+who's mixed up in the affair?"
+
+"Just Guido, if we rule out the Michaelises."
+
+"So the big chief--and his next victim--are probably in the Eastbay.
+If another murder is to be forestalled, I wonder if we ought to spend
+time here chatting with a lot of well intentioned policemen who will
+first have to be convinced the Michaelises are innocent and this wasn't
+a simple stick-up. Especially when the papers will tell the big chief
+exactly what's happened. Or, even if they can be made to keep quiet,
+Jimmy will fail to report in; the gang will try to check for him in the
+San Francisco pokey, first of all; so we could do some trail-covering
+of our own."
+
+"You mean to take this character to Berkeley, then? Isn't that pretty
+irregular? You don't want to jeopardize your license."
+
+"It's as irregular as a German verb, and the police are going to be
+annoyed. But I do think we can flange up enough excuses to get by
+with it. Of course, the Berkeley force will call up the San Francisco
+force immediately, but that'll go on a higher level, chief to chief I
+imagine; we can explain the need for secrecy, as much secrecy as the
+law allows, and--Hell, Bob, let's stop mincing words. What we need is
+time to construct a story that'll cover Guido. And you."
+
+Kintyre felt how the stone-rigid body he held began to come alive
+again. "Blessings," he murmured.
+
+"We'll go to your place first, and then decide what's next."
+
+"Can you finagle Jimmy across the bridge?"
+
+"Him and Guido both," grinned Yamamura. "Which will leave you a clear
+field when you take the lady home."
+
+"I'm coming," said Corinna. She pulled herself away from Kintyre,
+gently.
+
+"You are not," he answered. Seeing in the dirty gray half-light how
+her face grew mutinous, he went on: "There are enough complications
+already. What could you do over there, except be one more element we
+have to explain away--or one more target for the gang? At present, only
+Jimmy knows you have any concern with this business, and he'll get no
+chance to talk of it."
+
+She thought on his words for a little. Then: "Yes. You're right. But
+don't drive me all the way. A taxi will--"
+
+"Shut up!" he laughed, shakily, and took her arm.
+
+They had to wait, guarding a half-conscious prisoner, while Yamamura
+went after his car. Guido sat on the pavement, knees drawn up under his
+chin. After a while he took out a cigarette and lit it.
+
+Corinna leaned over him. "Go with them," she said. "They're the only
+real friends you've got."
+
+"Besides you, sis," he muttered. Then, barking a sort of laugh: "Next
+week, East Lynne."
+
+She sighed, like an old woman, and stood back again.
+
+Yamamura returned and bound Jimmy's wrists with Jimmy's tie. He and
+Kintyre frogmarched their captive to the Volkswagen and put him in back
+on the floor. Yamamura secured his ankles with his belt. "Toss me your
+house key, Bob, I'll see you there. Hop in, Guido. Cheerio."
+
+Kintyre and Corinna walked hand in hand back toward his own car. They
+stopped to pick up her shoes. "I'm afraid you ruined your stockings,"
+he said inanely.
+
+"You don't have to talk," she said. "I don't need it."
+
+He was grateful for that. The silence in which they drove home (she did
+not lean against him, but she sat close by) was somehow like--memory
+groped--like Bruce's music which Margery had played for him a few
+centuries ago. He wondered if she had heard it yet.
+
+"I hope you'll be able to sleep," he said at her door.
+
+"Oh, yes, I think so." She considered him and asked gravely: "Why are
+you doing this for us?"
+
+"I can't stop now," he said. "I'm in up to the eyebrows."
+
+"But why did you begin? Not for Bruce's sake, surely. He wouldn't have
+cared about being avenged."
+
+"Which is what the police are for, anyway. I don't like this evading
+them that we've been forced into."
+
+"Well?" she continued.
+
+"Why do you want to know?" he dodged.
+
+Her head drooped. "I suppose it isn't any of my business. I'm sorry."
+
+It hammered within him to tell her: that he had been escaping a demon,
+that she had worn its shape for a single moment, and that now he wanted
+to give peace to her. But there had been too many locks in him, for too
+many years.
+
+He took her hand. "Later," he said, wondering if he meant it. "This is
+no time for a long, involved story."
+
+"I'll stay home tomorrow," she said. "Will you call me as soon
+as--anything happens? The first minute you're able to?"
+
+"Of course."
+
+She smiled then, reached up and ran her palm along his cheek.
+"Arrivederci," she said. The door closed behind her.
+
+It was so much more than he had awaited, that he never remembered going
+down the stairs. He was driving over the bridge before the complete
+bleakness of his purpose returned.
+
+The hour was not yet midnight, but Berkeley was quiet. Kintyre parked
+behind Yamamura's Volks and walked around the empty house to his
+cottage. The detective let him in.
+
+"Where are our friends?" asked Kintyre.
+
+"Guido is in your bed, snoring," said Yamamura. "As clear a case of
+nervous exhaustion as I ever saw. By the way, Jimmy's name is O'Hearn;
+I went through his billfold. I borrowed some of that rope you've been
+making grommets with and stashed him in the john."
+
+He had stripped off his jacket, to show a noisy aloha shirt; his pipe
+strove to be Vesuvius. "Are you very tired?" he asked.
+
+"No. Keyed up, in fact."
+
+"Have a drink. Apropos vices, the evidence against Guido is in the Bay.
+I assumed we're not going to hand him over to the law."
+
+"Not for one bit of foolishness," said Kintyre. "I doubt if he'll ever
+touch dope running again. He's gotten a hefty scare."
+
+"Jimmy will tattle, though."
+
+"Our word against his. We're somewhat more respectable."
+
+"You and Machiavelli! But, yeh. A check with the Chicago police--he's
+from there, all right--would doubtless show he's got a record as
+long as King Kong's arm. A pro killer doesn't come out of nowhere;
+he starts with petty stuff and works his way up." Yamamura shook his
+head. "And on the other hand, a lot of good men are doing time for one
+slip regretted the moment it was over. Makes me wonder about our whole
+concept of penology. That's why I'll help you cover for Guido."
+
+Kintyre took down his bottle of Scotch and raised brows at Yamamura.
+The detective shook his head. Kintyre poured for himself and sat down.
+The other man prowled.
+
+"We haven't much time," said Yamamura. "What do we tell the cops?"
+
+"Perhaps nothing--yet," said Kintyre slowly.
+
+"Huh? How do you mean?"
+
+"They don't use the third degree around here. O'Hearn isn't going to
+tell them a thing, and you know it. They'll have to check with Chicago,
+the FBI, follow a dozen separate leads for days at least. And what do
+his pals do meanwhile?"
+
+Yamamura stopped in midstride. "If you have any half-cooked scheme of
+beating the truth out of him, forget it," he said in a chill voice.
+
+"Oh, no," said Kintyre. "But do you think we could get away with
+holding him, unharmed, for maybe twenty-four hours?"
+
+"It would be kidnaping."
+
+"What was he trying to do to Guido?"
+
+Yamamura stared at the sabers on the wall. "What do you want to do?"
+
+"Get his information out of him in less time than the police will need."
+
+"I think an excuse could be manufactured," said Yamamura dreamily. "If
+not for a whole twenty-four hours, for twelve or so. This reminds me of
+my days in OSS. Okay, I'll risk it."
+
+"Good," said Kintyre. "Then follow my lead."
+
+"Better explain--"
+
+Kintyre was already in the bathroom, looking down at the man on the
+floor. O'Hearn had a long nose and not much chin. "Who hired you,
+Jimmy?" said Kintyre.
+
+Hatred glared back at him. "Tough, aren't you?" said O'Hearn. "Big
+deal."
+
+"I asked who hired you," said Kintyre.
+
+He saw the growth of fear. "Look, I don't know," said O'Hearn. "And if
+I spilled anything, anything at all, they'd find out."
+
+"And kill you. I've heard that line before." Kintyre shrugged. "You are
+going to tell me. Think about it while I make ready."
+
+He took Yamamura out into the yard, toward the house. "My landlord
+left some extra keys with me, just in case," he said. "We'll borrow a
+soundproof room."
+
+"Hey!" Yamamura stopped. "I told you, bodily harm is out."
+
+"I've no such intention." Kintyre led him into the house and down to
+its basement. "We'll use the rumpus room. It has a pool table we can
+tie him to. The process seems to work best when the victim lies supine.
+I admit he might get a little stiff from the hard surface."
+
+Yamamura grabbed his shoulder. "What the blue hell are you talking
+about?" he growled.
+
+"They're just now beginning to study the mental effects of eliminating
+sensory stimuli," said Kintyre. "The mind goes out of whack amazingly
+fast. My friend Levinson, in the physiology department, was telling me
+about some recent experiments. Volunteers, intelligent self-controlled
+people who knew what it's all about and knew they could quit any time
+they wanted--none of which applies to O'Hearn--didn't last long.
+Hallucinations set in. Of course, we may have to mop up certain messes
+afterward."
+
+"Do I understand you rightly?"
+
+"I suppose so. The only thing we're going to do to O'Hearn is tie him
+down, flat on his back, blindfolded."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+They would have to stand watch and watch outside the door. Kintyre
+took the first one, though he didn't expect a reaction soon. (On the
+other hand, an hour can stretch most hideously when you are alone
+in soundless dark, not even able to move.) He pulled up a chair and
+opened a book, but didn't read it. Nor did he listen to the defiant
+obscenities which came very faintly through the panels. Mostly he sat
+in a wordless half sleep.
+
+_Corinna_, he thought. And then, later: _I'm being infantile. It
+doesn't mean a thing, except that I've been celibate too long
+and by sheer chance she pushes a few buttons in me. It could not
+last--consider the difference in faith alone--and she would be hurt._
+
+_How do I know it wouldn't, even to the altar? (For surely it would
+last always, having taken us that far.)_
+
+_I don't know. I suppose I'm being cowardly in not finding out._
+
+Then again, long afterward: _This couldn't be hurried in any event.
+We'd both go slowly, her loss is still so new. There'd be ample
+time for me to escape, before the pleasure of her presence became a
+necessity._
+
+And once more: _But why should I want to escape at all?_
+
+The first thin gray was stealing over the hills when Yamamura yawned
+his way in. O'Hearn hadn't cried out for some time; he lay breathing
+hard. "Solved the case yet?" asked Yamamura. "No? Well, run along and
+let a professional handle it."
+
+Kintyre went across the yard. A bird twittered somewhere, drowsily. He
+entered the cottage and looked at Guido. Still out. The face was gone
+innocent with sleep, years had been lost, a della Robbia angel lay in
+his bed. He sighed, kicked off his shoes, and stretched on the living
+room couch. Darkness was quickly upon him.
+
+
+
+
+16
+
+
+Once the phone rang. He rolled over, refusing its summons, and went to
+sleep again. It was a little after six when a hand shook him awake. He
+struggled up through many gray layers. From far off he heard: "Jimmy's
+broken. Busted into pieces all over the place. Hoo, what a devil you
+are, my friend!"
+
+Kintyre sat up, feeling sticky. Yamamura gave him a lighted cigarette
+and he took a few puffs. "Okay," he said.
+
+The early sunlight and the rushing sound of early traffic whetted him
+as he left the cottage, until he went clear-brained to the shivering,
+screaming thing on the pool table and said: "I'll take the blindfold
+off when you've talked. Not before."
+
+"Let me go, let me go, let me see!" wept O'Hearn.
+
+"Shut up or I'll leave you for another day or two," said Kintyre.
+
+O'Hearn gasped himself toward a kind of silence.
+
+"Did you help kill Bruce Lombardi?" asked Kintyre.
+
+"No." A cracked whine. "I mean, I was there. But the others, Silenio,
+Larkin, they done it. I didn't touch him myself. Let me out of here!"
+
+"Shut up, I told you." Kintyre drew deeply on his cigarette. "I suspect
+you're lying about your own role," he continued, "but never mind that
+now, if you don't lie on the next question. Who hired you?"
+
+"I don't know!"
+
+"So long," said Kintyre.
+
+"I don't know! I don't! They never told me! Silenio knows! I don't! I
+just worked for Joe Silenio! Ask him!"
+
+Yamamura, looking a little sick, said: "That's probably true, Bob.
+Our kingpin called this Silenio in Chicago, and Silenio rounded up a
+couple of assistants. The less they know, the better. Silenio gets the
+kingpin's money and pays off the other two himself."
+
+Kintyre groaned. "And we had to catch one of the deadheads! Well, let's
+see what else can be learned."
+
+It came out in harsh automatic sentences. O'Hearn's will, never strong,
+had altogether failed him. He answered questions without evasions, but
+like a robot.
+
+Silenio had contacted him and Larkin the Tuesday of last week. It
+was to be a well paid job, ten thousand dollars on completion of the
+first assignment and a hundred dollars a day while they waited for
+the next. ("No, I didn't know nothing, I don't know who else we'd
+go after!") The trio caught a plane to San Francisco that night. At
+intervals on Wednesday and Thursday Silenio had conferred with whoever
+engaged them, while Larkin and O'Hearn looked for a suitable house.
+Their find was rented on Friday, an old house in a run-down district
+at the southern end of town; and each of them bought a good used car
+elsewhere. Meanwhile, on Thursday night, Larkin and O'Hearn had lined
+up Guido. That had been at Silenio's orders, presumably derived from
+the boss's. The boss himself had arranged for Bruce to come to the
+house on Saturday, calling him on the phone with some plausible story.
+They captured Bruce very simply, with a gun, and tied him up. Silenio
+questioned him. Bruce had gotten stubborn with outrage--Kintyre knew
+how stubborn that could be--and the interrogation took a few hours;
+even after he broke they continued the pain a while, to make sure.
+Finally they cut his throat over the bathtub, dressed him in old
+clothes, and got rid of the body across the Bay on Sunday night.
+
+"The questions, you bastard," snarled Kintyre. "Didn't the questions
+Silenio was asking tell you something?"
+
+"It was all in wop," groaned O'Hearn. "I don't know wop."
+
+_Italy again. Though I suppose that our X would have made a special
+effort to get an Italian-speaking lieutenant, as another safeguard for
+himself._
+
+"One thing so far," murmured Yamamura. "Guido is in the clear."
+
+"Is he?" said Kintyre bitterly. "Wouldn't it be a beautiful turnabout,
+to make himself look like the fall guy for his own scheme?"
+
+He turned back to the crooked blind face on the table. "What did you do
+afterward?"
+
+"Waited in the house. Played cards. Silenio got the money for this job
+in the afternoon. Cash. He went out for it. Larkin went to pay off
+the Lombardi sucker Tuesday evening. That was because he didn't show
+Monday, account of his brother. Larkin got into a fight. We didn't know
+what it meant. Silenio called the boss and they talked on the phone in
+wop. Silenio told me to go pick up Guido Lombardi tonight. I figured we
+was going to find out how much he knew and then maybe dump him too, but
+I don't know for sure."
+
+"Did anything else go on, this night?"
+
+"Silenio and Larkin had another job."
+
+"Where?"
+
+"I don't know." The voice had become a worn rattling.
+
+"Were you supposed to meet them at the house?"
+
+"I was supposed to wait there with Lombardi till they got back. Silenio
+wasn't telling either of us more'n he had to."
+
+"Will they be back there now?"
+
+"I dunno."
+
+"Suppose they came back and didn't find you? What would they do?"
+
+"Try and find out what happened, I guess. Wouldn't stay in the house if
+it looked like something had gone wrong."
+
+"Where would they go?"
+
+"I don't know. Some hotel, I guess."
+
+"And what would you do, if you couldn't find them?"
+
+"Go back to Chi, I guess."
+
+"No spare rendezvous," said Yamamura. "Lousy doctrine."
+
+"Not if you're using expendables," said Kintyre. "And this bum is
+expendable. I imagine Larkin is too, though enough more valuable to go
+with Silenio--where?"
+
+"Over here," said Yamamura.
+
+"Very likely to kill someone else." Kintyre looked dully at the stub of
+his cigarette on the floor. He didn't remember dropping it. "We'll read
+in the papers who it was."
+
+"If we aren't the target ourselves," said Yamamura. "Right now anything
+seems possible." He sighed. "Well, I'd better call the police."
+
+"Wait a bit," said Kintyre.
+
+"But that house--God knows what's going on there, right now!"
+
+"Nothing, I'm sure. If only because Silenio and Larkin will be worried
+by O'Hearn's absence. Let's have breakfast, at least, before calling.
+You devise a story that won't make us quite such lawbreakers. I'm
+going to try and sort out my thoughts. I have an idea. It's driving me
+crackers, Trig. I feel I know what this is all about and still there's
+some kind of wall between me and the knowledge. A wall I've built
+myself!"
+
+"Hm," said Yamamura. He gave the other man a meditative stare. "Yes, it
+might be worth while waiting till after we eat."
+
+Kintyre went out, beating a fist softly into his palm. Yamamura paused
+to release O'Hearn's eyes. O'Hearn lay and wept.
+
+While the detective made breakfast in the cottage, Kintyre took a
+shower. Then a shave, clean clothes, tee shirt, khaki pants, tennis
+shoes, brought him physically closer to humanness.
+
+Inside, he was afraid, and he did not know why.
+
+Guido appeared in the kitchen as Kintyre re-entered. He looked at the
+others with deer shyness. "Good morning," he ventured.
+
+"Hello," said Yamamura. "Pull up an egg and sit down."
+
+Guido perched on a chair's edge. No one spoke until coffee and food
+were within them. Somehow, the blue and green planet beyond the windows
+had become alien; they sat in a private darkness.
+
+"I--" began Guido. He stopped.
+
+"Go ahead," said Yamamura. Kintyre listened with a fractional ear.
+Mostly he was inside his own skull, shouting for something which did
+not answer.
+
+"I'd like to say thanks, is all," offered Guido.
+
+"It's okay," said Yamamura.
+
+"Look, are you sitting and worrying about me?"
+
+"In a way. The trouble is, you see, if we take your story at face
+value, we have no plausible suspects left. But two more killers and
+their chief are loose, probably arranging another murder. If it hasn't
+already been done."
+
+"Whose?" whispered Guido.
+
+"If we knew that," said Yamamura gloomily, "we could get a police
+guard for him. But until we've identified the chief, there's no way of
+figuring who the next victim might be."
+
+"No," said Kintyre.
+
+He sat up straight, feeling how cold his hands were. It came to him,
+through a great hollowness--each instant he seemed more remote from
+himself--that he could have found his enemy before now. He had enough
+facts to reason on. He was still feeling his way a step at a time, but
+he felt there would be an end to his journey.
+
+And he felt, without yet knowing why, that the horror waited for him
+there.
+
+He said, sensing a resonance within his head, as if his voice formed
+echoes:
+
+"It has to be someone who knew Bruce at least fairly well. He went
+to that house because of a telephone call. He didn't own a car and
+wouldn't borrow Margery's. That's a long awkward trip, by street
+train and bus. He wouldn't make it casually. He'd want to know why he
+was being asked to come to this address he'd never heard of before,
+_without telling anyone_. The person who called (and could have been
+right in Berkeley, of course) had to be somebody who could give Bruce a
+strong, convincing reason. What it was, I don't know. It doesn't matter
+now, it was surely a lie. But a lie he would accept! From a person he
+trusted."
+
+He stopped. Guido said with a certain boy-eagerness: "Who knew him
+best? His girl friend!"
+
+Kintyre shook his head, violently, uncertain why the idea should smite
+him so.
+
+"Nope," said Yamamura. "Too much lets her out; hell, the simple fact
+that she doesn't speak Italian. That she hasn't the money, or the
+connections, or anything."
+
+"I haven't the money either," said Guido defensively.
+
+"For all I know, you could have ten million dollars hoarded," said
+Yamamura.
+
+The anger in Guido's face reminded Kintyre of Corinna. He snatched for
+the memory, it warmed him a minute and was torn away again. He shivered.
+
+"Guido's story has to be accepted, I think," he said. There was
+no color in his words, but they came fast. "All the psychological
+quirks he's shown. He bopped me with a stool to let Larkin get away,
+because he was deathly afraid. But he cried at having hurt me, even
+so trivially. Also: could that parcel of marijuana have been in the
+drawer by sheer coincidence? And even if he planned some complicated
+misdirection that made him his own fall guy, it would not have involved
+something as serious as dope. He could have gone to jail for that, or
+been deported. And why? What reason? Insane jealousy won't fit such an
+elaborate procedure. It would have to be money. And where would he,
+drifting between minor night club engagements, sponging off his parents
+when he isn't shacked up with some tart, where would he find time for a
+million-dollar enterprise?"
+
+Guido reddened. "Hey!" he protested.
+
+"You had that coming," said Yamamura. He turned his back on Guido,
+who slumped, pouting. "It doesn't look as if X really believed an
+accessory-to-murder rap could be hung on the boy," he remarked. "Not
+when you demolish it so fast."
+
+"Perhaps not." Kintyre struggled for clarity within himself. "But Guido
+would have wriggled and evaded much more if the police had questioned
+him, dug in his heels at every step, for fear of the dope charge. When
+he finally realized the situation and confessed, if he did at all, it
+would have been too late. He would have served X's purpose of holding
+up the police for days.
+
+"And the fact that he fell so neatly into the slot clinches the proof
+that X knows the Lombardi family well."
+
+"You've ruled out Michaelis & Son," said Yamamura. "That's confirmed
+by the gangsters still operating with them in clink. Who's left, the
+writer?"
+
+Kintyre said: "He blew into town less than two weeks ago, having never
+met Bruce in his life before. Their time together was a few meetings
+devoted to professional arguments. How could he know Guido? And his
+only motive would have been to eliminate Bruce. Simple murder would
+have sufficed, not calling in three expensive sadists to do a job of
+kidnaping and interrogation. Also, I proved to myself, without meaning
+to, that he's a physical coward. I doubt if he could have asked someone
+like Larkin the time of day. Or run the risk of detection. No, there
+was just one way Owens helped the killers, and that was unintentional."
+
+"How?" asked Yamamura.
+
+Kintyre looked at his hands. They were clasped together, as if to
+hold the safe nonmurderer, Jabez Owens, tightly to him. But the wind
+streamed and the sea ramped beneath it, Owens was whirled from his
+fingers and drowned with all the rest, all the rest. He said from the
+noise of great waters:
+
+"Owens was after the Book of Witches, yes. First he tried bribery.
+Then, the minute he heard Bruce was dead, he went over to the history
+building, I suppose trying to get up nerve to go in and see if the
+volume was there. He saw me instead, and urged me to take Margery out
+that night; he did know, like everyone else, that she'd been living
+with Bruce. He burgled the apartment. An amateur job. If he'd used his
+brains, he would at least have taken some valuables. But he didn't even
+bother to open places where the book couldn't possibly be. That alone
+pretty well shows who did it. He tried again yesterday, in my office,
+actually pulled it off, but Clayton--well, all it accomplished was to
+divert our attention."
+
+He wondered remotely how they could fail to see what was happening to
+him; and how long before it broke his shell and they could not escape
+seeing.
+
+"Bruce's immediate family?" said Yamamura. "No motive, no money, no
+connections, no opportunity. Write 'em off. Can you think of any of his
+friends at the University who aren't eliminated by the same reasoning?"
+
+"No."
+
+"But who's left? Clayton? What motive? And in all the months he's been
+here, I'd have an inkling if he weren't honest. No hint of underworld
+tie-ins. Who's left?"
+
+Kintyre stood before the last wall. It had the form of a ship's tilted
+deck.
+
+"If I knew why," he said, holding his voice utterly planar, "I think
+the how would follow. Why was Bruce killed? Because of something he
+knew. It could only be that. He was tortured to get out of him the
+precise extent of his knowledge, and who else might share it. That
+other person is the next victim. But what was in Bruce's background?
+A knowledge of history--the Book of Witches--correspondence with--"
+His throat seemed to swell, it would not let the words out for a
+moment--"with an uncle in Italy, who told him something--"
+
+"Something about the Mafia?" snorted Yamamura. "Come, now!"
+
+"Bruce didn't realize the significance of what he knew," said Kintyre.
+Iron bands lay across his chest. "He couldn't have kept a secret like
+that. He went to X, I suppose--with--a warning? Or mere gossip, as he
+thought? What about? Surely not Cousin Giovanni, or the Albigensians.
+What else was there? Some information on crime in the Mediterranean
+countries. And--God help us!"
+
+The table went over with a crash as Kintyre stood up. It was not
+himself who screamed: "Margery! She's next in line!" Himself stood
+among breakers and heard the mainmast split.
+
+Yamamura looked at him, cursed, and reached for the telephone.
+
+"I'm going over there," rattled Kintyre. "I might get there first. I
+might, it might not be too late."
+
+"They had all night," said Yamamura. His finger stabbed the dial.
+
+Kintyre blundered into the door. He thought vaguely that he ought to
+open it. Someone stood at his elbow. He shoved. "Take it slow," said
+Guido. "Let me help you."
+
+Yamamura said in the phone: "Tim? This is Trig. Never mind formalities.
+Get a car to the apartment of Margery Towne. She may still be alive....
+No, I don't remember the damned address! What's the directory for?"
+
+"You're in no shape to steer a car," said Guido. "Where are your keys?
+Come on and guide me."
+
+Kintyre sat shaking all the way over. Guido drove with a Cossack will
+to arrive at which a part of Kintyre, drowning among the reefs of
+Taputenea, knew dim surprise.
+
+They did not beat the police, though. Officer Moffat met them on the
+front steps. Blankness lay in his gaze.
+
+"We came too late," he said. "Her throat's cut."
+
+"I expected that," said Kintyre.
+
+The horror rose up and took him.
+
+
+
+
+17
+
+
+Jimmy O'Hearn was still snuffling when the police unbound him and led
+him off to be booked. Inspector Harries went back into the yard with
+Yamamura and Guido. "All right, Trig," he said, "now tell me just what
+did happen."
+
+"Dr. Kintyre, Mr. Lombardi's sister, and I went to see Mr. Lombardi
+at the night club where he works," answered Yamamura. "He was pretty
+worried. O'Hearn and another chap named Larkin had hired him to do a
+certain out-of-town job over the very weekend his brother was killed.
+He wondered if it was a coincidence."
+
+"O'Hearn babbled something about a package of dope," said Inspector
+Harries grimly. Guido became busy lighting a cigarette.
+
+"Sure," said Yamamura. "Why not try to drag down the witnesses against
+him? Where is this package?"
+
+"Suppose you tell me yourself what the job was, Mr. Lombardi," said
+Harries without warmth.
+
+"Well, they did want me to go to Tijuana and get some pod," said Guido.
+Yamamura had briefed him in a moment's stolen privacy. "I admit I went
+down--is uncompleted intent a crime? I changed my mind and didn't
+actually get the stuff." Impudence danced over his lips. "It'd have
+been illegal. And also, thinking it over, I saw that the errand didn't
+make sense. There are enough places right here that carry the same
+line."
+
+"Hm. Any witnesses?"
+
+Guido shrugged. "No. How could there be? I suppose you can prove I was
+in Tijuana and ate a few meals there."
+
+"I would think you'd have more important things to do than asking out
+the details of something which is contradicted only by the unsupported
+word of a gangster," said Yamamura.
+
+Harries considered him angrily. "You were my friend, Trig," he said.
+"Don't add insult to injury."
+
+"I had no choice," said Yamamura, very low.
+
+"The night before last," said Guido, "Larkin showed up and got violent
+with Professor Kintyre, who was talking to me. Quite a brawl. Larkin
+got away, and Kintyre left too when I begged him. I admit I lied to the
+officers afterward, claiming I didn't know either one of them, but by
+then I was scared."
+
+"Go on," grunted Harries.
+
+"So we had a conference of friends-and-relations last night," said
+Yamamura. "We decided it was best to make a clean breast with the
+police. Ahem, that was my advice. But O'Hearn stopped us at gun point
+as we came out the back way. He was going to kidnap Mr. Lombardi. We
+got the upper hand, though. Yes, we took him over here, instead of
+turning him in to the San Francisco authorities as we should have. Why?
+First, Larkin might well be hanging around, and why should he be helped
+by seeing a lot of uniforms and realizing what had happened to his
+buddy? Second, we were afraid for our lives on that side and wanted to
+get the hell away from there."
+
+Harries gave him a thin look. "I know you. I don't believe that."
+
+"A jury would," said Yamamura. "Let me go on. Dr. Kintyre took Miss
+Lombardi home--she's entirely innocent in all of this. When he finally
+arrived here, we were so bushed that none of us thought we could face
+all the questions without a little sleep. Sure, sure, Inspector,
+everything we did was foolish and mildly illegal, but consider how
+exhausted we were. Much too tired to think straight. We tied O'Hearn to
+the table--"
+
+"Why the blindfold, for Pete's sake?"
+
+"It just seemed like a good idea. When we woke up, we found O'Hearn had
+the screaming meemies. Naturally we wouldn't lose such a chance, it
+might not come again. We asked him some things. We talked it over. All
+of a sudden the significance dawned on Dr. Kintyre. You know the rest."
+
+"What I don't yet know is what you'll be charged with," said Harries.
+"Among other things, some of the coldest-blooded lying I've heard all
+week."
+
+"Isn't that a problem for the district attorney?" asked Yamamura,
+unruffled.
+
+"Yes. And of course nothing will be done. You're comic book heroes--for
+violating the Fifth Amendment!" Harries shook his head. "If it hadn't
+been for all your shilly-shallying, Miss Towne might be alive this
+morning."
+
+"When was she killed?" asked Yamamura.
+
+"The doctor thinks around midnight or one o'clock."
+
+"Nobody could have known," said Yamamura. "Suppose we had turned
+O'Hearn in directly. He had no idea who was slated to die: not even
+what kind of job his associates were doing. He's just a goon."
+
+"I suppose so." As he watched, Yamamura saw the anger go out of
+Harries. "We'd still be interrogating him and getting no place. Whereas
+now, maybe the San Francisco force can take the others in that house."
+The inspector hesitated. "Officially, I can only condemn your actions,
+including your concealment of facts. And you know I know fairly well
+what those facts are. I'll have to report all this and--and hell,
+there's no material evidence, and the D.A. has to consider public
+opinion, and why waste funds on petty charges which would never
+get past a jury? You'll get away with it this time. And strictly
+unofficially, I've no right to say it, but I guess I'm not too damn mad
+at you."
+
+Yamamura did not smile. "I wish Bob could see it that way," he answered.
+
+"What's the matter with him, anyhow?"
+
+"A bad nervous spell. He gets them once in a while."
+
+"Just like that?" asked Guido.
+
+"No," said Yamamura. "It looks like a sudden collapse, but it isn't.
+He worked hard through the academic year. It brought him close to the
+edge, he needed a vacation badly. Instead, all this strain and--He
+feels morbidly responsible. There are reasons for it. They lie in his
+past and don't concern us."
+
+"How about a psychiatrist?" inquired Harries.
+
+"He hasn't got that kind of money. And we all have some such
+curse--don't we now? Some people have dizzy spells. Some people are
+hypochondriacs. Once every couple of years, Kintyre spends a few days
+in hell."
+
+"But what made him realize Miss Towne was--?"
+
+"He answered the riddle, of course. He knew who had hired the killers,
+and why. From that, it followed she was next."
+
+Harries caught his arm so tightly he winced. "What?"
+
+"Uh-huh," said Yamamura. "Wait, though. He didn't tell me."
+
+"But he's in there now and--come on!"
+
+Yamamura caught Harries by the shoulder and spun him around. "No," he
+said. "It isn't right. Leave him alone."
+
+"Leave the murderers alone, too!" snapped Harries.
+
+Yamamura rubbed his chin. They could see how he slumped.
+
+"There is that," he agreed. "Let me go in by myself, then, and talk to
+him."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Kintyre thought he had carried it off very well. He had spoken
+coherently with Moffat. The policeman told him in a sick voice that
+blood had soaked through her mattress until the floor was clotted
+beneath her bed. Guido swayed on his feet. Kintyre's face had remained
+like carved bone.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Was jewelry lifted this time?" he asked. "Oh, yes, it was a
+professional job, all the earmarks," said Moffat. "But did you see two
+long gray cardboard boxes with files of papers? They'd be in plain
+sight in the living room if they're there at all," said Kintyre. "No,
+no such thing, the burglars must have taken them in the hope of finding
+stowed cash," said Moffat. "The jewelry was only to make you think
+that. Had she simply been murdered, or was she tied down first?" asked
+Kintyre. "Yes, tied down, blindfolded, mouth full of towel," said
+Moffat. "The burglars came in and grabbed her while she slept, secured
+her so there would be no chance she could identify them," said Kintyre.
+"That's not unheard of, but then why did they kill her afterward?"
+asked Moffat. "Because the letter boxes were still open on the coffee
+table," said Kintyre. "What?" said Moffat. "It proved she had been
+reading Bruce Lombardi's mail; the burglars' orders were to get rid
+of her if that was the case," said Kintyre. "Hey, how do you know all
+this?" asked Moffat. But then Kintyre felt his control begin to crack,
+so he turned about and went back to his car with Guido.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+He lay on his couch, pillowing his head with an arm, a cigarette in
+the free hand. Now and then he noticed himself smoking it. The morning
+streamed in through the window behind him and splashed light, and
+the delicate shadows of leaves, on the wall before his eyes. Once he
+remembered how a sunbeam, spearing through a sky roiled and black with
+oncoming rain, had flamed from crest to crest along the ocean; he
+watched the sun's shining feet stride past him. But there followed an
+M which staggered among hideous winds, it spoke of Morna and Margery
+and the Moon. He spent a long time wondering why M stood for the Moon
+until he remembered Hecate, in whose jaws he lived. M was also for
+Machiavelli, a Moldering skull which knew somewhat of Murder. But all
+this was not important, it was Morbid and he only played with it on the
+surface, as if it were spindrift driven by that wind he knew. In the
+ocean of his damnation there were green Miles, which became black as
+you went downward, drank all sunlight and ate drowned folk.
+
+This, however, was natural and right, life unto life and he could
+wish no better ending for himself than to breathe the sea. It must be
+remembered, though, that Morna was only thirteen years old. She reached
+for him through a shattering burst of water. He could not hear if she
+screamed, the wind made such a haro, but a wave picked her up and threw
+her backward and growled. He saw her long hair flutter in its white,
+blowing mane. Then dark violence rolled over him.
+
+He stirred, and felt that his cigarette had gone so short it would burn
+his fingers. A part of him suggested he let it, but he ground the butt
+out in an ashtray on the floor. What he was would not be lessened by a
+few blisters, he thought.
+
+It was not that he accepted guilt (he told the morning gulls on the
+reef, among sharded timbers). It was that he was damned, without a God
+or a Devil to judge him: it was merely in the nature of things that
+he did nothing well. Morna should drown and Margery should drown--the
+human body held that much blood--because--_no_, said the seed of
+survival within him, not because it was his fault.
+
+And was there anything more irrelevant than the question of his guilt
+or innocence? The sole fact that mattered was:
+
+Morna, thirteen years old, hauled down under the sea and rolled across
+a barnacled reef. He had found her washed up the next morning, before
+the boat came out to rescue him. A strand of hair still clung in place,
+darkened by water but more bright than the coral. He saw some of the
+bones; a tiny crab ran out of her eye socket.
+
+Kintyre hung onto the couch through a whiteness that hummed.
+
+Ages afterward he remembered Margery. She had never spoken of it, but
+he had an impression that she feared death. It ended future and past
+alike, nothing would be, nothing had ever been. She must have told
+herself often enough that maybe science would find a way to make her
+immortal, before she died. But death was a long way off, fifty years or
+more were a distance which dwindled the shape, only a small black blot
+on the edge of her world.
+
+She lay blind and bound, a towel choking her mouth. She could hear her
+heart, how it leaped, she feared it would crack itself open. And then
+the hand under her jaw, the nearly painless bite of the knife, and the
+minutes it took for her blood to run out, while she lay there and felt
+it!
+
+"No," said Kintyre. "No, no, no. Please."
+
+He reached hazily for another cigarette. He couldn't find the pack.
+Suddenly he was afraid to look for it. He lay back on the couch. The
+sunlight on the wall seemed unreal.
+
+He didn't hear Yamamura come in. He needed a while to understand that
+the detective was looking at him.
+
+"What is it?" he got out somehow.
+
+"Let's work some of that stiffness out," said Yamamura.
+
+Kintyre didn't move. He wasn't sure he could. At least it didn't seem
+worth while. Yamamura swore, hauled him to a sitting position, peeled
+off his tee shirt and dumped him on the rug.
+
+The Japanese massage, thumbs, elbows, and bare feet, was hard, cracking
+muscles loose from their tension. Kintyre heard joints pop when
+Yamamura straightened his arms. Once anguish got an oath from him.
+
+"Sorry," said Yamamura. "I gauged wrong."
+
+"Like hell! You did that on purpose!"
+
+"Trade secrets. Now, over on your side."
+
+In half an hour Kintyre was sitting on the couch, drawing ragged gulps
+of smoke down his lungs. "All right," he said. "So you relaxed me
+physically."
+
+"Helps, doesn't it?" Yamamura leaned against the wall and mopped his
+sweating face.
+
+"Some. But no cure." Kintyre looked bleakly toward the afternoon and
+the night.
+
+"Didn't claim it was. Got any tranquilizers on hand?"
+
+"Uh-huh. Only helps a little bit. I might as well ride these things
+out."
+
+"Same symptoms?"
+
+"Yes. Futility. Loss. Destruction. Grief? No, that's too healthy
+a word. I'm only talking to you with the top of my brain now, you
+realize. It feels the same as ever, down below."
+
+"Basically, you feel guilt," said Yamamura.
+
+"Perhaps. I saw my sister drown. I was hanging onto a spar when the
+ship broke up. She was swept past me. I reached out, our fingers
+touched, then she was gone again. I didn't let go of the spar."
+
+"If you had, both of you would have drowned. I know the Pacific surf.
+With a typhoon behind it--You're guilty of nothing except better luck
+than she had."
+
+"Sure," said Kintyre. "I've told myself the same thing for twenty
+years."
+
+"You've told me this story three times so far," said Yamamura. "I don't
+like parlor Freudianism, but it would seem obvious that something
+deeper is involved than the mere fact that you survived and she didn't."
+
+Kintyre half rose. He felt the lift of rage within himself. "Be
+careful!" he shouted.
+
+Yamamura's face went totally blank. "Ah-ha. Sit back, son. I'm still
+the black belt man here. You'd only succeed in tearing up this nice
+room."
+
+Kintyre spat: "There was nothing!"
+
+"I never said that. Of course there was nothing improper. I am
+not implying you had any conscious thoughts whatsoever that you
+can't safely remember. Or if you did now and then--and as for your
+subconscious wishes--were they really so evil? She was the only girl of
+your generation whom you'd see for weeks and months at a time. So you
+loved her. Is love ever a sin?"
+
+Kintyre slumped. Yamamura laid a hand on his shoulder. "There's a story
+about two Zen Buddhist monks who were walking somewhere," he said.
+"They came to a river. A woman stood by the bank, afraid to cross. One
+of them carried her over. Then the two monks continued on their way.
+The gallant one was singing cheerfully, the other got gloomier and
+gloomier. Finally the second one exclaimed: 'How could you, a monk,
+take up a woman in your arms?' The first one answered: 'Oh, are you
+still carrying her? I set her down back at the ford.'"
+
+Kintyre didn't move. "Forgive my amateur psychoanalysis," said
+Yamamura. "It's none of my business." He paused. "I would only suggest
+that it's no service to anyone we've cared for, not to let them rest."
+
+He sat down beside Kintyre and took out his pipe. They smoked together
+for a wordless while.
+
+"Well," said Kintyre at last. "Have you figured out who's behind the
+murders?"
+
+"No. Think you can tell us? Feel free to wait."
+
+"Oh, I can. M-m-m-m-_margery_--"
+
+Yamamura worked powerful fingers along Kintyre's shoulders and the base
+of his neck. "Go on," he said.
+
+"Margery's death--brought back Morna's, I suppose--I failed them both.
+I didn't need O'Hearn's story to determine who instigated all this. I
+could have told you yesterday afternoon, if I'd used my head--_Ouch!_"
+
+"That," said Yamamura, "was to halt an incipient tailspin. I felt it
+coming. You are not to blame for one damn item except being human and
+therefore limited, fallible, and unable to do everything simultaneously
+on roller skates. If you forget that again, I shall punch you in a more
+sensitive spot. Now why don't you go swallow one of those chemical
+consolations?"
+
+"I told you they don't help much."
+
+"I've no high opinion of 'em myself, but do so anyway."
+
+When Kintyre had returned and sat down again, Yamamura said: "Okay,
+carry on. Who is our man?"
+
+
+
+
+18
+
+
+"Clayton," said Kintyre.
+
+"Huh?" The pipe almost dropped from Yamamura's hand. "What the hell!
+Why, for God's sake?"
+
+"Bruce got too much information about Clayton's rackets."
+
+"What rackets? Clayton's straight! I never heard a hint--"
+
+"Oh, yes. He's straight enough on this side of the Atlantic."
+
+Yamamura muttered something profane. "How do you know?" he added.
+
+"It fits the facts. Bruce was corresponding with his uncle Luigi, the
+secret service man. Some discussion of highly organized postwar crime
+syndicates in the Mediterranean countries came up. Now Clayton was a
+go-getter type who'd lost everything he had three times in a row: the
+Depression, his first wife's death, divorce from his second wife. It
+must have embittered him, so that he determined he would never again
+be poor and defenseless. He came to Italy as a Quartermaster officer
+in the war. Perfect chance for black marketing, if a man didn't mind
+taking a few risks. The miracle is not that a few QM people went bad
+but that most stayed honest. Clayton probably started in a very small
+way with cigarettes and K rations. But by the end of the war he was in
+touch with some pretty big figures in the Italian underworld, and saw
+the opportunities. He came right back after his discharge and went to
+work at it full time.
+
+"Obviously, he's a hell of a good organizer. He got in on the postwar
+reconstruction of crime, along lines borrowed from gangland and
+Communism. He probably set out as a currency black marketeer, working
+through Switzerland. He soon expanded into other things, smuggling,
+dope, prostitution, gambling, the works. He became rich."
+
+"Have you any proof of all this?" interrupted Yamamura.
+
+"Chiefly, that it and only it will fit the facts. Let me go on, I'll
+fill in evidence as I proceed. The trouble with Clayton's riches was,
+they were mostly in lire, French francs, and other soft valuta. Also,
+governments all get nosy about resident aliens; he couldn't hope to
+avoid suspicion forever, without a good cover. He solved both his
+problems by becoming an importer. He bought European goods with his
+European money, shipped them over here, and sold them for dollars. On
+this side he's lily white, and familiar with prominent Americans of
+unquestionable integrity. Knowing this, Europeans don't think he might
+be something else on their continent. You can imagine the details."
+
+"Yes," said Yamamura. "I can."
+
+"Now for some facts as well as theories. Let's go back to Uncle Luigi.
+He's trying to break these syndicates, one of which is headed by the
+eminent Signor Clayton. Of course, because of its cell organization,
+Luigi and his colleagues don't know that. If they did, they could crack
+a lot of rackets open. All they have against Clayton is that a few of
+his business associates have bad associates of their own, notably some
+of the deported Italian-American gangsters. But what of it? Everybody
+outside a monastery must know some dubious characters.
+
+"Well, because Clayton came here to work at opening a San Francisco
+branch, and because he brought the _Liber Veneficarum_ along, he got to
+know Bruce. In fact, they came to be on very friendly terms. Clayton is
+genial enough, if you don't get in his way. Uncle Luigi, being somewhat
+anti-American, insisted that Signor Clayton had an unfair advantage,
+having started as a wealthy man with lots of dollars. That didn't fit
+with Clayton's own rags-to-riches story. Bruce got indignant, checked
+up, and established that Clayton had indeed been almost penniless
+when he came to Italy. And Luigi, as I mentioned before, had also
+happened to give Bruce some facts regarding crime, corruption, and the
+syndicates.
+
+"I don't know just when Clayton learned about all this discussion.
+Perhaps a week ago last Sunday, when he saw Bruce over in the City and
+refused to give Guido a job. Clayton admits Bruce got mad; perhaps he
+said things then. Clayton smoothed his feathers and agreed to interview
+Guido next day. Maybe Clayton was already spinning a plan.
+
+"Or it may have been amicable. Bruce had no reason to suspect Clayton
+of anything. We'd have known it otherwise; Bruce was constitutionally
+incapable of keeping a secret. Maybe in the love feast following his
+explosion, he blurted out how he had triumphantly refuted Uncle Luigi's
+sneers at the Horatio Alger rise of Gerald Clayton, and planned to send
+Uncle Luigi all the facts and demand an apology. At the same time,
+Bruce could have spoken about the syndicates. He was just naïve enough
+to have warned Clayton, who spent half his time overseas, to look out
+for the mobs! Well, one way or another, Clayton drew him out, doubtless
+in that conference they had after Guido was dismissed. Clayton was
+alerted."
+
+It was peculiar, thought Kintyre, that he could talk so coolly while
+the horror was on him. But he had the horror locked away for this short
+time, he heard it speaking but did not really feel it.
+
+"He could have pumped both brothers on Monday," nodded Yamamura. "Bruce
+in particular, but he would have seen how Guido might be made into a
+decoy--uh-huh. So he called a Chicago mob. But--"
+
+"But why? Isn't it obvious, Trig? Bruce and Luigi were corresponding
+on two subjects which would explode if they were ever fitted together:
+Clayton and the Old World rackets. When Bruce revealed that Clayton
+had not, after all, started by depositing American dollars in Swiss
+banks, Luigi would begin to wonder. Bruce had even casually agreed
+that Clayton might have picked up a little loose change originally
+on the black bourse, which did not strike him as very heinous. Luigi
+might see deeper possibilities along those lines. Or things Luigi
+wrote could even make Bruce wonder, who knows? It wouldn't necessarily
+happen either way, but it was too big a risk to take. The American
+government itself, if it gets interested, has ways to check on its
+citizens abroad. So Bruce had to be eliminated. And he had to be
+questioned first, in detail, to learn precisely what he did know and
+who _else_ knew. For instance, was Luigi already so well informed as to
+be dangerous? This was a job for professionals."
+
+"And there's where your theory creaks," said Yamamura. "If Clayton is
+so law-abiding on American soil, where could he dig up his butcher boys
+on such short notice?"
+
+"That hint was in Bruce's files," said Kintyre. "Your information
+about Clayton's telephoning adds detail. He must have called one of
+his not-very-respectable Italian associates. I seem to remember the
+name Dolce, you can try that on the switchboard girl for recognitionor.
+Does the phone office keep records of such things? I don't know. Let's
+assume he called Dolce, to give the man a name. He ordered him: 'Get
+hold of a recent deportee from America'--you can guess who better
+than I, Trig--'and ask him how I can get in touch with a professional
+killer in this country.' He may have phrased it more euphemistically,
+but that was the sense of it. Next day Dolce or whoever called back.
+(Why else should a busy man like Clayton hang around home? Why not take
+the call in his office? Because his office deals directly with Italy,
+the switchboard girl there probably speaks the language and might
+eavesdrop.) Thus Clayton got the number of Silenio, and any passwords
+or the like that were needed. He went out to a pay booth and called
+him. O'Hearn has told us the rest."
+
+Yamamura nodded. "Could be," he said.
+
+"Tell me what else will explain the facts. And let me continue. Clayton
+came over here last Thursday on business, and threw a party in his
+suite for historians and literary scholars, including Bruce and me.
+I rather imagine he was looking for another red herring. Owens must
+have been promising. Not that Owens seems to have been jockeyed into
+anything, as Guido was, but Clayton dropped hints detrimental to him
+later on.
+
+"Clayton made sure of being alibied the whole weekend. Of course, it
+was simple enough to make the call which lured Bruce to his death. He
+could have phoned from a pay booth right in sight of the world. I don't
+know what he told Bruce, probably that he might have something for
+Guido after all but it was confidential. Make your own lie.
+
+"Monday he returned to the City. Silenio reported to him, got paid
+off, and was told to wait. Clayton had a problem: Bruce's files were
+still in Margery's apartment. Silenio would have learned that. Clayton
+had to choke off this last source of information. He came back here
+Tuesday and invited me to lunch with him. I gave him some idea of how
+well his tracks really were covered--and when I told him Margery's
+place had already been raided, it was a shock. He questioned me, found
+that the papers he was after were still unread, and deftly turned
+suspicion back on Owens: where for once it actually belonged. However,
+he must have felt the need to act fast. So he stayed in Berkeley,
+though he'd told me at lunch he planned to go back to San Francisco.
+(Will any hypothesis of yours explain why he changed his mind and spent
+more than twenty-four unproductive hours on this side? He, the animated
+cash register?) I met him again on Wednesday, when we had our run-in
+with Owens."
+
+Kintyre sighed. "That's the damnable part of it. I sat there drinking
+coffee with the true, ultimate murderer. He urged me to take Margery
+out. I told him I had another engagement. If I had gone out with her,
+she'd be alive. God, if she'd dated him she might be! He was going to
+ask her. She told me, when I mentioned it, that she would refuse his
+invitation. He wanted to get her out of the way. But when she stayed--
+
+"I helped her read those letters!"
+
+"Slow down there," said Yamamura.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was still later when the detective went back outdoors. An officer
+was watching Guido, who was laying out a solitaire hand on the stoop.
+The policeman said: "Inspector Harries would like to get a formal
+statement from you at headquarters, sir."
+
+Yamamura nodded. Guido raised his brows and slanted his head at the
+cottage. "Could be worse," said Yamamura. "Suppose you leave him alone
+for an hour or so and then go in and make him some lunch."
+
+"Sure," said Guido.
+
+The policeman followed Yamamura out the drive. At the station, he was
+shown directly into Harries' office. The inspector was just laying down
+the phone. "San Francisco," he said. "They raided that address. Traces
+of occupancy, but nobody home."
+
+"Any other news?" Yamamura sat down and folded his long legs.
+
+"They let the Michaelises go. Gene broke down when they did--reaction,
+I guess--and admitted where he'd been Saturday night and Sunday.
+Shacked up."
+
+"I wouldn't think he'd try to hide that. He'd have bragged."
+
+"This time he had two metal legs and he paid. Not much, he hasn't got
+much, but he paid, for the first time in his life."
+
+"Poor bastard. I can imagine how he feels."
+
+"Well," said Harries, "what does Kintyre think?"
+
+Yamamura told him.
+
+Harries whistled. "That wouldn't even get past a grand jury," he said.
+
+"It's a line worth further investigation, though," said Yamamura
+mildly. "I wonder where Clayton is right now?"
+
+Harries snatched up the phone. Yamamura waited.
+
+The inspector hung up with a bang. "Not at the Fairhill. I'll try his
+place in the City, and the office. Know the numbers?"
+
+Presently: "Not there, either. Well, it's no crime. But I'll put a man
+on it."
+
+"About releasing information to the press," said Yamamura. "Could you
+withhold any mention of Kintyre? He's in no shape to see reporters, or
+even tell them to go away."
+
+"Glad to," said Harries. "We're going to sit on the facts as much as
+possible. We'll get the papers to cooperate. Why let the killers know
+what we know? They can guess we hold O'Hearn, but not that O'Hearn
+squealed."
+
+"Good. Now let me make that statement so I can get back to my own
+office. Maybe a client has shown up, for a change."
+
+None had. Yamamura polished his new sword. A thought nagged the back of
+his being. If Clayton was guilty, why should Clayton disappear? Harries
+was right, Kintyre's reasoning was skeletal. Without further evidence,
+it wouldn't be enough to arrest a dog for flea scratching. Clayton
+would do best to sit tight and be wronged righteousness.
+
+But did he know that? O'Hearn had been sent after Guido merely because
+Larkin had gotten in a fight at the Alley Cat. If Larkin had not
+remembered the name "Kintyre" and reported it through Silenio, Clayton
+could still have made a shrewd guess at it. Yamamura picked up his own
+phone and dialed.
+
+"Hi, Bob. How goes it?"
+
+"I'm breathing," said Kintyre listlessly.
+
+"Nobody at the murder house. Clayton has dropped from sight, too. You
+and Guido could be the next targets. Want a police guard?"
+
+"No. He wouldn't be stupid enough to try for us just now," said
+Kintyre, without great interest. "Especially when he doesn't know how
+much I know. He would establish that first--yes, that would need his
+personal attention. Let's reconstruct it."
+
+He voiced his thoughts as they ran, in flat metallic words. "Larkin and
+Silenio got back from their--their mission--and didn't find O'Hearn at
+the house. They waited till they got alarmed, then bolted and called
+Clayton in Berkeley. That would have been in the small hours, before
+sunrise. Clayton could have called the old Lombardis, pretending to be
+an anxious friend, and found Guido had not come home. The same pretense
+might have worked with the San Francisco police--nope, they had no word
+of any Guido Lombardi--no O'Hearn. He would also have drawn a blank in
+Berkeley. So. Somebody picked them both up. In view of the Alley Cat
+episode, he would suspect me. I remember now my phone rang, early in
+the morning. I didn't answer. Was that him, trying to check if I was at
+home? If he drove by, he'd have seen my shades pulled. He had no way
+of knowing O'Hearn was right here. He would have concluded: either I
+had nothing to do with it, or I had taken O'Hearn somewhere for private
+investigation.
+
+"If he rubbed me out and I was innocent of meddling, well, too bad. He
+dared not assume anything except that Guido and I had O'Hearn--where?
+If he could track us down and dispose of us--of anyone who might finger
+him--yes, then later on he could bribe someone, a call girl perhaps, to
+give him a perjured alibi for the time involved, if any alibi was ever
+needed. Then nothing could ever be proved about his misdeeds on this
+side of the water. Of course, the Italian police and American foreign
+agents might be clued to his overseas work--but at worst he could stay
+home, or retire to some South American country that won't extradite
+him. But all this, avoiding arrest long enough to regain his balance,
+it all hinges on finding me--"
+
+Kintyre's voice trailed off. Yamamura heard the receiver crash down.
+
+Somewhat later his phone rang again. Kintyre said like a machine:
+"Trig, you can get the official ear quicker than I. Last night Corinna
+said she'd wait home till I called. I just did. There's no answer."
+
+
+
+
+19
+
+
+The Phone buzzed. Kintyre snatched it up. "Well?" he cried.
+
+"Trig. Headquarters has just gotten word from San Francisco. Miss
+Lombardi isn't home. They checked inside with the superintendent's
+passkey. No trace of a ruckus. Couldn't she simply have gone out?"
+
+"Look," said Kintyre. His vocal chords felt stiff. "This concerned her
+own family, herself--and O'Hearn, whom she had been forced to slug.
+I'd promised to call with the latest news. Would you have stepped out,
+even for a minute?"
+
+"No. Of course, they queried her neighbors, parents, employer, and so
+forth. At last reports they were still getting nulls."
+
+"Another thing," said Kintyre. "Clayton knew she saw me last night. I
+mentioned it to him yesterday afternoon!"
+
+It whistled in his receiver. Then: "So you think he picked her up in
+the hope of finding out exactly where you are and what you know. Isn't
+that taking quite a risk?"
+
+"For him, it's a greater risk to remain passive," said Kintyre. "Didn't
+we agree that if necessary he can probably buy a witness to account
+for a day or so absence? Though if Bruce, Guido, C-c-corinna, and
+I--Margery--if we've simply been found murdered, he might not even need
+that. There'll be no evidence to convict him."
+
+"But why should he gamble his own precious hide? Let Silenio and Larkin
+do this job too."
+
+"No. For one thing, Corinna might have been under protection
+already--God, if we'd had the brains to request it!"
+
+"Mm, yes, I see. A gangster could ring her doorbell and pull a gun when
+she opened, and be nabbed the next minute if the police did have a
+stakeout. Clayton is a friend of her family; she'd invite him in and he
+could extract the gun in privacy after conversation had established it
+was safe to do so."
+
+"That's it. Clayton doesn't know what we know. All he's sure of is that
+somebody has O'Hearn. He's got to find out who."
+
+"Does it matter so much? O'Hearn doesn't know Clayton."
+
+"But he knows Silenio, who does. Now suppose the police do have
+O'Hearn. They won't get the facts from him in a hurry, so there'll be
+time to dispose of those of us who Corinna tells Clayton know more
+than he likes. However, eventually the police will learn a few things,
+and in Chicago they'll be prepared to arrest Silenio and Larkin for
+questioning. So he'll have to give Silenio and Larkin a prolonged
+vacation somewhere, till the whole affair has blown over.
+
+"On the other hand, if I am keeping O'Hearn, I can be expected to get
+rough. Therefore Clayton and his friends will have to act in an awful
+hurry. But if they succeed, all will be well for them: because I and
+any associates of mine will have been eliminated, in the course of
+rescuing O'Hearn, and no clues at all will be left for the police."
+
+"Games theory," murmured the telephone. "You plan your strategy on the
+basis of the strategy your opponent would plan on the basis of the
+information you believe him to have. But this game is for keeps. What
+do you think we ought to do?"
+
+"Throw out a dragnet, of course," said Kintyre. "As for the news angle,
+the knowledge we admit having--"
+
+"That's an obvious one. The police can handle it. Though frankly,
+events will probably move so fast that our news releases won't
+influence them one way or another. Sorry, Bob, it had to be said.
+
+"One more item. Now that their house is unsafe, have you any idea where
+they'll go?"
+
+Kintyre groaned. "That's the one thing I can't even guess."
+
+"You've done pretty well so far," said the gentle tone. "Need any help?"
+
+"Yes," said Kintyre. "Get out there and find her."
+
+"I'll do what I can," said Trygve Yamamura.
+
+Kintyre hung up. Guido sat knotted about a kitchen chair. "Well?" he
+asked raggedly.
+
+"You were listening," said Kintyre. "They've got her. Give me a
+cigarette."
+
+"My sister," mumbled Guido.
+
+Kintyre barked an obscenity. "Hell of a brother she's got," he said.
+
+He lit up and stalked the kitchen floor. The clock said after eleven.
+Corinna had been taken--when? Three-plus hours ago, at a guess. But
+they would have had to find a place to question her. That would give a
+little time. They could conceivably be en route this minute.
+
+"We're being a pair of prize schtunks," said Guido.
+
+"Hm?" Kintyre threw him a look.
+
+"Sitting here calling each other hard names. I mean, we ought to be out
+searching for her."
+
+"Where?"
+
+"Any place!" Guido's face was drawn taut; there was a tic over his
+right eye. "Every address we eliminate is something."
+
+"How many houses in the Bay Area?" Kintyre flopped onto a chair.
+Through the doors he had locked in himself, the horror hooted.
+
+"Well, for Chrissake, man," said Guido, "I don't mean to search the
+bishop's! We can think of some possible places, can't we?"
+
+"I don't know."
+
+"Ah, spit. We're doing nobody any good. Let's go for a ride. It might
+clear our brains some."
+
+"The great American solution. Let's go for a ride."
+
+Guido regarded Kintyre for a moment or so.
+
+"Does it help you to feel superior, cat?" he asked quietly.
+
+Kintyre's head jerked up. After a few seconds:
+
+"Okay. I'll just phone in to let the police know we're going."
+
+They left the cottage and Guido took the wheel of Kintyre's old black
+sedan. "Any special route, Doc?" he inquired.
+
+"Oh, I don't know. The coast highway, southbound."
+
+"State One? It's a bastardly slow drive beyond the freeway."
+
+"What have we to hurry for?"
+
+Guido slid the car into smooth motion. One-handed, he lit a fresh
+cigarette. "My solitary trick," he said wryly.
+
+"You sing pretty well," said Kintyre.
+
+"Not as well as I might. That takes work, and I'm not that interested."
+
+"What are you interested in?" Kintyre responded mechanically.
+
+"Right now, getting her back unhurt," said Guido. "Think there's a
+chance?"
+
+"I thought we were going to clear our brains," rapped Kintyre.
+
+They remained silent past the tollgate. Once they were on the bridge,
+with the quicksilver sheet of the Bay under them and San Francisco
+thinly misted ahead, Guido nagged:
+
+"Where could they go? It'd have to be some place nobody would hear
+them, no cops would come around to. Pretty short notice to rent a
+house again. I mean, especially when an alarm might go out with their
+descriptions. Of course, they could just bust into a house offered to
+let."
+
+"The police will be checking that."
+
+"Uh-huh. Only Doc, wouldn't they expect it and try to outsmart the
+police? Dig me? Let's turn off at the ramp. I'm a waterfront kid, I
+know some old places where you could get in and--"
+
+"Would they know about it?" snorted Kintyre.
+
+"I suppose not." Crestfallen, Guido held the car in the middle lane.
+When they got onto the southbound freeway, he opened up.
+
+Kintyre, a conservative driver, had never pressed his car to the limit.
+Now he saw the needle hover at ninety; wind snapped by the doors. "You
+want a ticket?" he asked.
+
+"I don't much care," said Guido roughly. "Man, I got to do something,
+don't I? If I can't help her, I got to do something."
+
+The minutes passed. No patrol car sirened at them. There was not,
+indeed, much traffic at this time of a Thursday. As they fled south,
+onto the old two-lane highway, the sky grew overcast.
+
+"Nuts," said Guido. "There'll be fog along the coast. We'll have to
+crawl. Let's turn back."
+
+"No," said Kintyre. "Keep going."
+
+Guido stole an indignant look at him. "Wait a second," he began.
+
+"Keep going, I said!" Kintyre roared it.
+
+Guido started. Then, shrugging, he gave his attention back to the road.
+"Is it that important?" he asked.
+
+Kintyre didn't answer because he didn't know. He sat hunched into
+passivity, not caring how fast they went or if they crashed. It
+shouldn't matter to him where he was taken. But it did. He couldn't
+tell why--_damn that fouled subconscious of mine, anyway!_ But it was
+like a hand upon him.
+
+Perhaps it was only that he had to get back for a while to the great
+shouting decency of the ocean.
+
+"You're a funny one, Doc," said Guido after a long time.
+
+"Aren't we all?"
+
+"You're crazy, even for a human being. I mean, you're the cat who's
+had the adventurous life, got the culture, made the big success--oh,
+yes, you don't get paid much, but you know damn well how far you've
+succeeded and how much further you can go--you're everything Bruce
+wanted to be. Hell, you're everything I wish I wanted to be. And you
+can't wait to die!"
+
+Kintyre said, jarred: "That isn't true. I'm just in a bad mood."
+
+"So am I, Doc, so am I. Think I dare let myself imagine about Corinna?
+Think I enjoy realizing how poorly I've shown up in the last few days?
+But I keep going. What is it makes you fold up?"
+
+Kintyre turned his face from the bluffs now humping up around him,
+toward Guido. There was a radiation of vitality from the other man;
+something had disfigured it, so that his days ran out in pettiness, but
+he would always be more alive than most.
+
+"Why do you stay around here?" asked Kintyre slowly.
+
+"Man, I like it."
+
+"Can't you see it's poison for you? As long as you stay where you were
+a child, you'll always be one. If you could get away, you'd have a
+chance to grow up."
+
+Guido reddened. "Thanks, Mother Superior."
+
+"I'm not trying to insult you. I'm only thinking, your trouble could be
+caused by a situation. A place. Did you get overseas in the Army?"
+
+"No, unless you count Alaska."
+
+"And of course it wasn't your kind of life. All you'd think about
+would be going home. But suppose you went somewhere else, someplace
+congenial--and stayed. I wonder if you mightn't feel like buckling
+down. You could still make a name for yourself, or at least a fair
+living, as an entertainer. If you'd try."
+
+"Go where?"
+
+"Well, Trig Yamamura has connections in Honolulu. Or via people I know,
+we could probably finagle a start in New York, if you'd rather. The
+main point would be, stay away from here! For a few years anyhow, till
+you got your feet well planted."
+
+Guido said in a low voice: "I've thought the same from time to time.
+But Bruce was the only one who ever got behind me and pushed, and he
+didn't have any such contacts."
+
+He smiled. "Could be, Doc, that blue funk of yours is also situational.
+If I need to get away, maybe you need to settle down. Dig? Pipe,
+slippers, a wife and a lot of runny-nosed kids to worry about, instead
+of whatever dead thing it was that happened years ago."
+
+"Let's quit the personal remarks," said Kintyre.
+
+They drove on. The sea came into view, tumbling at the foot of steep
+yellowish cliffs. It was a cold, etched gray, under a gray sky. There
+was no clear horizon, sky and water ran together in mist. Guido had to
+slow down somewhat on the curves, but he managed a dangerous speed.
+Tires squealed and once he passed another car on a hill and avoided
+collision only by some inspired steering.
+
+When they had left Berkeley more than an hour behind, he asked: "How
+far do you want to go, anyway?"
+
+"Go on," said Kintyre.
+
+"How come?"
+
+Kintyre didn't answer.
+
+At Half Moon Bay, the beach was empty and the clustered cabins forlorn;
+fog had closed in until you could not see past the breakers. It was
+clammy out there.
+
+"Never liked the coast myself," said Guido. "She did--does, God damn
+it! She's queer for beach picnics. Likes to play volley ball and make
+sand castles."
+
+Kintyre unclenched his fists.
+
+"If we don't get her back," said Guido, almost matter-of-factly, "of
+course I can't leave home. The old lady won't have nobody left but me."
+
+He crammed his foot on the gas. The car spurted ahead. The ground
+climbed again.
+
+Presently they were on a deserted stretch. The land fell too abruptly
+to attract visitors: most places had no way down to the water. Sere
+brown hills lifted on the east side of the highway, trees huddled along
+them in clumps. The fog came streaming over the road.
+
+"Now what?" said Guido. "It'll be socked in farther south."
+
+"Continue," said Kintyre.
+
+"Like hell!" Mutiny leaped on the dark snub face. "I've gone far
+enough. How d'you know they don't need us back in town?"
+
+Kintyre felt his muscles congeal.
+
+"What's the matter?" Guido stamped on the brakes. The car skidded to a
+halt.
+
+Kintyre shuddered. The horror screamed, once, and drained from
+him. He knew remotely that it was not conquered--not yet--but his
+disintegrated self had coalesced for at least the time during which all
+of him would be needed.
+
+He said, hearing his voice like another man's:
+
+"Can you push this car back up to ninety going onward?"
+
+"Huh?"
+
+"I think I know where Corinna is."
+
+Guido's hands slackened on the wheel. Suddenly they tensed again. The
+car growled from the shoulder and began to accumulate speed.
+
+"I don't want to pile us up," said Guido, "but I guess I could average
+fifty. Where is she?"
+
+"Do you know Point Perro?"
+
+"I don't believe so."
+
+"It's a little privately owned cove. Not far to go now. It's fenced
+off, posted, and there's nothing from the road to indicate it even has
+a beach. You couldn't find a lonelier spot in a day's driving."
+
+Cloven air bawled past the windows. Guido squinted into thickening
+fog. He could only see a few yards ahead before the gray curtain fell;
+he had to imagine when the turns were coming up, and take them on two
+wheels. All at once Kintyre was terrified of an accident.
+
+"I mentioned it to Clayton a couple of days ago," he said. The words
+came out one by one. "I seem to have forgotten that--down underneath,
+perhaps, I didn't want to admit to myself I'd given him any help--but I
+don't think it was coincidence I chose this route. Never mind. Clayton
+is an Easterner. His time out here has been spent entirely in the
+respectable sections of the Bay Area. Silenio and Larkin are complete
+strangers. How would they know where to take her, except some such
+randomly learned-about spot as this? At least, it's one chance for us.
+One chance!"
+
+Guido said above the wind, the engine, and the wheels: "If you're
+right, Doc, it's even a good chance. An Easterner would drive a lot
+slower than me along this route, especially when they hit the fog. We
+might catch up to them."
+
+"They've had hours," said Kintyre. "On the other hand, they had to meet
+each other too, and confer. They're not supermen, they would try to
+think of something, and argue about their plans, for a long time while
+they just drove aimlessly, surely not in this direction. We can hope."
+
+"If they've done anything to her," said Guido, his face the mask of
+flayed Marsyas, "I myself will--"
+
+"You'll let me off at Point Perro," said Kintyre. "Then burn up the
+motor getting to a phone. Don't waste time on any sheriff's office,
+call Berkeley headquarters direct. They can call the local authorities
+for you. It should actually be quicker that way."
+
+"You, though," said Guido. "I can't leave you alone with them."
+
+"Do you want to help Corinna, or do you want to get yourself sliced
+open for no purpose at all? You're a better driver, so you can get help
+sooner. I'll have a better chance of delaying matters down in the cove."
+
+"I suppose so." Guido spoke it with difficulty.
+
+"'_One must therefore be a fox to recognize traps, and a lion to
+frighten wolves_,'" recited Kintyre in Machiavelli's Italian. "'_Those
+that wish to be only lions do not understand this._'"
+
+Guido laughed shakily. "Modest fellow," he said.
+
+Kintyre would have liked to clap his shoulder, but dared not. They were
+going seventy miles an hour on a winding road and it was becoming less
+visible each minute.
+
+"Good for you," he said. "We'll salvage you yet." After another mile:
+"Or do you even need it any more?"
+
+
+
+
+20
+
+
+The fog had grown so dense that Kintyre knew his goal only by the car
+parked at the roadside. "Don't stop!" he cried, the moment it hove into
+view. "Brake easy. Let me out a hundred yards on." He began to open
+the door. "The nearest phone I remember is a gas station a few miles
+farther south. Don't raise your own posse and come back. They'd hear
+you and might shoot her first. Wait for the police. Good luck."
+
+They rolled softly through a dripping gray swirl. Kintyre stepped from
+the car. Contact jarred in his feet. Almost, he fell, running alongside
+it in search of balance. Then the dark wet body slipped from him and
+was lost. He heard a muffled slam as Guido closed the door, the rising
+drone of speed, and now just his shoes thudding on pavement.
+
+He stopped himself and jogged back. He was no track star, but he
+remembered to conserve his wind. The fog was moving with him, its
+eddies and streamers gave him the nightmare sense of a treadmill bound
+south. He could see the highway and something of the right-hand cliff
+that rose up and lost itself overhead. To his left there was nothing,
+world's edge and smoky endlessness. The air was chill.
+
+Presently he regained the automobile. It was a new model, built for an
+impression of lowness and width; it sat and bared its teeth between
+blind headlights like some garish dinosaur defying the glaciers. Judas!
+Suppose this was only a harmless passer-by? But a signboard told him
+POINT PERRO, and who else would have come today? Kintyre tried the
+door. It wasn't locked. He eased it open to read the registration on
+the steering column.
+
+Gerald R. Clayton. So. Kintyre felt his hands shaking. One more
+reassurance, before he went down the path. The dashboard thermometer
+showed the engine still warm. They hadn't been here long.
+
+_I do not wish for a God to help me_, he thought. _But I wish I had one
+to thank._
+
+He filled his lungs and emptied them, filled and emptied them. Those
+were dank breaths, but they helped him ease up. He had three armed men
+to face; if he must also war with himself, it would be hopeless. Not
+that he felt any great conviction of winning. But--yes. He reached
+under the dash and yanked loose the ignition wires. After he was dead,
+that might delay their escape with Corinna.
+
+He climbed the low barbed-wire fence. It guarded a jut of cliff maned
+with harsh yellow grass. You had to go to its very edge to see that
+there was a beach underneath. As he approached, he began to hear the
+surf. Incoming tide: breakers crashed among rocks, the water streamed
+down again with a roar, whirlpools gurgled in small grottoes. He did
+not think a human cry would be heard this far above.
+
+When he came to the brink, he could just make out a sketch of jumbled
+crags and a laciness on the bull combers; then the rifted mist hid
+the sea from him again. There would be a highness to either side, the
+arms enclosing this inlet, but those were lost in the gray. He walked
+cautiously until he saw the path, a goat track plunging downward.
+
+Its dirt was gritty under his feet. Despite himself, he loosed gravel
+showers now and again. After each he stopped, crouching and listening
+for voices. There were none: only the surf, snorting more loudly every
+time. The fog was his friend, could he have approached without it? Yes,
+he'd have found a way somehow, swum around a headland if he must, but
+the fog helped him. No proof of supernatural assistance, of course;
+this was a notoriously wet stretch of coast; however, he was advantaged
+thereby.
+
+At the cliff's foot he stood among half-seen boulders and considered
+where his enemy might be. Not more than a hundred yards from him,
+but he had perhaps fifty feet of unclear vision. This pea soup was
+thickening by the minute. If the others arrived, say, twenty minutes
+ago, they would have been granted better visibility, could have
+selected a spot. Kintyre stretched his memory. The cliffs made a
+semicircular wall, with driftwood and great stones at its foot; the
+diameter was a narrow strip of sand, paralleled by a line of rocks.
+These latter were below high-water mark and would be drenched already.
+Kintyre could just glimpse the sleet-colored ocean breasting them.
+Okay. So his quarry was under the cliff. Was there some way to lure one
+of them out?
+
+An idea came. It was hazardous, but no more so than blundering blind.
+And he was not afraid of what might happen to him. In a certain way, he
+had been given another chance to rescue Morna; he could not but take it.
+
+Crouching in the rocks, he started to cough, as much like a sea lion's
+bark as he could manage. It was a bad imitation, but he dealt with
+pavement people. The noise went deep, wet, and ringing among the
+breakers.
+
+"What's that?"
+
+From the right! Kintyre fell on his stomach and began to eel his way
+over the rocks.
+
+"A gahdam seal yet." Larkin's youthful whine. "Holy Moses, what a spot!"
+
+"Better go see." It was an unfamiliar bass. Silenio.
+
+"Ah, nuts, you go."
+
+"You heard me, Terry," said Silenio.
+
+"The girl knows this coast," said Clayton. Kintyre flowed over a
+bleached white tree trunk. It snagged his shirt, he had to stop and
+fumble for his liberty. And the fog talked and talked.
+
+"It's just a seal, isn't it, Miss Lombardi?"
+
+No answer.
+
+"Silenio," said Clayton.
+
+A tearing gasp: "Let go, you'll break my arm, let go!"
+
+"I'm sorry to have to do this, Miss Lombardi," said Clayton. "But
+now that we've gotten settled here, such things will happen pretty
+continuously. Unless you cooperate. So to start with--that was a seal
+we heard barking, wasn't it?"
+
+"Yes. _Oh!_"
+
+"Go look, Terry," said Silenio.
+
+Kintyre put his ear to the stones. He heard them rattle. If he could
+intercept Larkin, get him from behind without any noise....
+
+He tried to judge whence the footsteps came. There were no more voices,
+no sound at all except Larkin and the sea. Kintyre followed, bent
+nearly double.
+
+When he saw the vague shape, he changed course to intercept. Larkin was
+little more than a trench coat and a hat, fog-blurred. He was making
+no attempt to be silent, he slipped and stumbled, but his progress was
+quick. Kintyre decided he was going to get away, rose and sprinted the
+last few yards.
+
+Larkin heard the hunter. He turned. "What--" Kintyre hit him. They went
+down together. Kintyre tried to get an arm around Larkin's throat. He
+didn't quite manage it. Larkin screamed.
+
+That was a lost cause already. Kintyre wriggled free of threshing arms
+and legs, rolled away and bounded to his feet. Larkin was crawling to
+hands and knees. His face was a white blob with holes for eyes and
+mouth. He continued to scream.
+
+Kintyre fled toward the sand. He heard Silenio curse. "What is it?
+What's going on out there?"
+
+"It's a raid!" bawled Larkin. He reeled erect, the switchblade in one
+hand.
+
+"Get back here!" said Silenio.
+
+Kintyre whirled and threw himself prone. The sand was hard against his
+stomach. He could make out Larkin at the very edge of visibility, head
+weaving around. "Where did he go?" Larkin was crying. "Where is he?"
+
+"Get back, I said, back here before I start shooting!" yelled Silenio.
+
+Larkin groped a way toward the bodiless voice. Kintyre went on hands
+and feet this time, a quadruped rush. Larkin heard something and looked
+behind him. Kintyre went flat, simultaneously. Larkin faced back toward
+the cliff and resumed. Kintyre came after him again.
+
+Three feet away, Kintyre stood up and leaped.
+
+Larkin could not miss that. He spun on one heel, his knife already
+slicing. Kintyre moved in, presenting his left side, staying just out
+of reach. Larkin stepped forward. He was wary on the uncertain footing,
+too wary to be thrown hard. Kintyre feinted a blow with his left hand.
+Larkin slipped aside to avoid it. That took some of the rattlesnake
+speed off his striking blade. Kintyre's right hand chopped down, edge
+on, as he bent at the waist. The steel went half an inch past his
+belly. His hand connected with the arm behind. In that awkward stance
+it was not a blow of the real bone-cracking force, but Larkin moaned
+and went down on one knee.
+
+Kintyre kicked at his neck. Larkin lowered his head and took the impact
+on the skull. This boy was good! It threw him onto his back, though.
+Kintyre circled for an opening. Larkin sat up, poised the knife in one
+hand, and threw it.
+
+Kintyre felt a dull blow in his left biceps. He stared down. The knife
+stood in the muscle, blood was a red shout against skin and cloth.
+Larkin scrambled to his feet and pelted in the direction of Silenio's
+cries.
+
+Kintyre knew little shock. Coolness at such moments was normal; he even
+had time to think that. The blood was simply oozing around the steel,
+no important vessel had been cut. He went after Larkin.
+
+The boy slipped on a wet rock. There were shadows ahead, Clayton's
+lair? Kintyre sprang for him. To hell with defensive judo. Larkin had
+just gotten up. He heard the feet which followed, turned around and
+lifted his hands. "Help!" he shrieked.
+
+"I'm coming!" cried Silenio in the gray.
+
+Larkin flung himself into a clinch. His arms wrapped around Kintyre's
+waist with astonishing strength. Automatically, Kintyre's right arm
+went up to jam into his larynx. But Larkin's chin was down, guarding
+the throat. His right hand let go and reached after the knife in
+Kintyre's flesh.
+
+Kintyre pressed a thumb into the boy's jugular. Larkin choked and
+pulled himself free. The knife came with him, in his grasp; blood
+runneled from the metal. He stepped in to rip. Kintyre's right hand
+traveled up. The heel of it struck Larkin at the root of the nose.
+
+Larkin gurgled and flopped backward. His face was no longer quite
+human: the blow had driven his nasal bone into the brain. So much for
+him.
+
+Silenio burst from cold clouds. He was a squat balding man with a round
+blue-cheeked face. There was an automatic in his hand. He looked a
+fractional second upon Kintyre and the body. Then he fired.
+
+Kintyre was already running. He didn't hear the bullets, or even the
+ricochets, only the flat _smack! smack! smack!_ as the gun went off
+behind him. He crouched low, zigzagging a little. A pistol is not a
+very accurate weapon. When he felt sand under his feet again, he looked
+back. Nothing but fog. He heard Clayton and Silenio calling to each
+other.
+
+He glanced down at his wounded arm. It bled merrily. He flexed the
+fingers, tested their resistance to pressure: good, nothing had been
+severed which a few stitches wouldn't heal. But until he got the
+stitches, if ever, he had an arm and a half at best.
+
+And Clayton and Silenio were still holding Corinna. It wouldn't take
+them long to think of making a hostage of her.
+
+Kintyre hurried to the base of the cliff and went along it as quietly
+as he could. A weapon, how about throwing stones, no, they all seemed
+too large or too small. Bare hands were limited by the reach of an arm.
+Passing a log, he stopped to feel after clubs. He found a broken-off
+branch, four feet long and not very crooked. It had a narrow end,
+almost a point. Salt water and weather had turned it bone-white,
+iron-hard.
+
+Kintyre followed the cliff. When he heard them talking again, he went
+with his back flat against it. Total silence would be his one chance,
+when he got into seeing range; they mightn't look his way.
+
+They sat behind a log, a yard or two from the precipice. Clayton was
+huddled into a topcoat, hands in pockets, squatting wretchedly on a
+flat boulder. Silenio stood up, sentrylike, the gun in his hand.
+
+Corinna sat facing Clayton. Her arms were free; a rope lashed her
+ankles. The long hair was heavy with dampness. She didn't seem to have
+been injured yet, except for that one short episode--
+
+"It could only have been Kintyre," Clayton was saying. "And alone.
+Otherwise this beach would be solid with police."
+
+"He may have the whole force on its way here," grumbled Silenio.
+
+"That's possible. I think we had better get going. But remember, it's a
+single man. If you can nail him, we're safe."
+
+Clayton stooped and began to untie Corinna. "I'm sorry about this," he
+said.
+
+"Like hell you are!" she spat. Even now, Kintyre must grin at her rage,
+it was so much Corinna.
+
+"As you like," shrugged Clayton.
+
+"Why are you doing this?" she asked, almost with wonder.
+
+Sudden pain sharpened Clayton's voice: "I've got three children. They'd
+be dragged down with me. The mud would stick to them all their lives.
+No!"
+
+Kintyre glided forward. Corinna spied him over Clayton's shoulder.
+Through the watery air he saw her lips part. She cocked her head and
+looked out at sea. "What was that?" she exclaimed.
+
+Clayton and Silenio turned wholly from Kintyre. He made the last few
+yards in a rush.
+
+Silenio whipped around. Kintyre was almost upon him. He raised the gun.
+Kintyre thrust with his stick. It was ill-balanced, but he had fenced
+for many years. He got Silenio's hand and knocked it around. The gun
+went off with a crack; stone and lead spurted. Kintyre jabbed Silenio
+in the stomach. Silenio fell to his knees. He still had the gun.
+Kintyre snapped the point of his stick to the back of his enemy's hand
+and bore down. Bones parted; the stick went through, into the sand.
+
+Silenio howled and tried to pull it loose. From the edge of his eye,
+Kintyre glimpsed Clayton's bulky frame launched at him. He let go the
+stick and caught an extended arm. He heaved Clayton over his shoulder
+and onto the rocks.
+
+Silenio freed himself and scrabbled for the automatic. Kintyre put his
+foot on it. Silenio rose and threw himself at his opponent. The weight
+struck Kintyre's left biceps. Agony went like lightning. He staggered
+back, holding the arm.
+
+The man from Chicago laughed. He picked up the gun, awkwardly
+left-handed, and fired.
+
+And missed. Kintyre recovered himself, moving in again. Another shot
+went off nearly in his face. Another miss. There wouldn't be a third,
+he knew. He snatched up the stick. Silenio backed off, grinning with
+hatred. He steadied his left hand with the wounded right and took
+careful aim.
+
+Kintyre lunged. It was a swordsman's movement, more leap than stride,
+with all his mass behind it. He took Silenio in the throat.
+
+Silenio dropped the gun, clawed at the stick, and began to fold up. He
+tried to call out, but could only say blood. He sat down in a dazed
+way, plucked at his neck, and bled to death.
+
+Kintyre had no time to notice it. He saw Clayton coming back. It did
+not seem possible Clayton could still move; the left side of his face
+was one giant bruise, the cheek flayed. Kintyre groped after the gun.
+Where was it?
+
+Clayton advanced with a rush. He fell the last six feet. Raising his
+head and his arm, he showed metal in the hand. "Got it!" he said.
+
+Kintyre pounced on him. They rolled over, kneeing and gouging. Clayton
+hammered a fist on Kintyre's hurt. The grasp on him loosened. Clayton
+writhed free, got up and ran. The fog whirled him from sight.
+
+Kintyre pulled himself to hands and knees. Blood dripped from his
+wounds, bright little puddles formed on the ice-gray stones. His head
+tolled.
+
+Hands fell gently upon him. He sat back, leaning into the circle of her
+arms. Her hair brushed his face. "You came," she said.
+
+"Are you hurt?" he asked.
+
+"No. There wasn't time. Oh, your poor arm!"
+
+"Can you make some kind of bandage for it? My tee shirt will do."
+
+"It isn't sterile. No, there are antibiotics these days, thank God for
+that." She pulled the garment over his head, sawed the seams across on
+an edged stone, and ripped it up. He noticed that her dress was gray.
+When she looked directly at him, her eyes and blonde hair were the only
+color in his world.
+
+"Thank God for you," she added.
+
+Her hands were deft, fashioning a compress and binding it in place. He
+kept his head toward the sea, listening. "What is it?" she asked.
+
+"Clayton. Where did he go?"
+
+"Wouldn't he try to escape?"
+
+"If so, fine. I sabotaged his car. Or even if he gets it going, he'll
+never make it out of this state. But I'm afraid he realizes as much
+himself."
+
+She knelt behind him, where he sat on the ground regaining his breath,
+and laid a hand in his hair. She asked steadily: "What will he do?"
+
+"In his place," said Kintyre, "I'd come back and kill us. He should
+have done that when he broke free of me, he had the gun. But of course
+he was half stunned. Now that he's had a little time to think the
+situation over--yes. If he got rid of us, there'd be no witnesses
+to prove he hadn't also been kidnaped and was the single fortunate
+survivor. The kind of lawyers he can afford would have at least a
+chance to brazen out that yarn."
+
+He stood up. "Fade back along the cliff, away from the path," he said.
+"Find yourself a sheltered spot and hunker down in it. If you need
+help, scream."
+
+"You?" For the first time he heard fear. She stood up, and trembled.
+
+"As I said, he has a gun and he will probably be stalking us, if he
+hasn't started yet," Kintyre answered. "I'd better forestall that."
+
+She considered him with a somehow old look.
+
+"All right," she said. "There is no other way. Christ guard you."
+
+She reached up and kissed him, a brief light contact, and walked away.
+
+Kintyre stood thinking of a certain letter. It had been written by
+Machiavelli from the farm at San Casciano, after he had gone there
+disgraced, tortured, and exiled, with all his work fallen, to dust. He
+wrote a friend:
+
+"_All my life I have behaved as I chose in love affairs. I let love
+do as it likes with me, I have followed it over hill and over vale,
+through fields, through woods, and after all I think I have done better
+than if I had avoided it._"
+
+You needed a certain courage to be happy.
+
+Kintyre turned and went toward the path. It was a starting point for
+his search; Clayton's instinct would have been to bolt. He made no
+effort to be still. A snap shot in the fog wouldn't hit him, except by
+chance, and his racket would draw attention from Corinna.
+
+Nevertheless, when the fire came, it was shocking. From the sea!
+
+Kintyre whirled and padded toward the water. Clayton must have thought
+to circumvent him, wade out and around till he struck the cliff. Or
+perhaps he figured to hide among the rocks and--No matter. It was
+necessary to get him.
+
+The tide was coming in heavily now. Kintyre saw how the sand gleamed,
+even in this sunless air, and then how it was whelmed in foam. Spray
+beat his face; he heard a hollow sucking roar among the stones. Where
+was Clayton?
+
+Out in the surf, it tongued flame. He saw the beach furrowed beside
+him. So--crouched on a rock, approachable only through the water!
+Kintyre ran along the shore, trying to get out of visual range before a
+bullet smote him. The pursuing shots had a muffled sound.
+
+He entered the water. It was savagely cold. It pulled at his ankles,
+sand shifted under the tidal drag. How deep was it where Clayton
+laired? Not over a man's height: Clayton was planning to get Corinna
+also, he'd have to come back ashore without wetting his gun too much.
+Not that a brief soak would disable a well-oiled automatic. But he
+would first lure Kintyre to him, if he could. A man struggling through
+chest-deep turbulence ought to make an easy target.
+
+Kintyre strained eyes into the fog. He could just see the fortress
+rock as a shadow, fifteen feet high at the peak, forty feet long,
+Gibraltar-shaped. Breakers hurled against its seaward flank. This was
+a rapidly sloping bottom. The depth on Clayton's side was hardly over
+four feet, but it might be ten at the western end of the rock.
+
+Kintyre waded straight out until a wave hit him in the face. He kicked
+off his shoes and swam.
+
+His bad arm gave him saw-toothed pain and reddened the water. He used
+his right, a side stroke. The undertow grabbed him and yanked him
+outward. He wrestled to stay afloat. A comber went over him. Briefly he
+was in a remembered darkness.
+
+He drank salt fear, threshed to the wave's top, and spun down into the
+trough behind it. A chill seething had him. It bawled in his ears. He
+knew himself empty of strength and hope.
+
+The sea battered itself upon the earth, recoiled, laughed, and reared
+back to gallop in again. It was like the beating of a maul. A ship, a
+man, a girl could be crunched between wave and stone until ribs broke
+across. Kintyre strangled in a noisy wild night. He was spewed up again
+for a moment, scornfully. Spray sheeted in his face. The cold drained
+him, he could feel how warmth ran out. The sea rolled him over and
+toned in his skull.
+
+Somehow you could swim, he thought. It was only to keep going. Though
+all the world were smashed on a reef, you could keep going. And there
+could be victory.
+
+He saw the rock face shine before him. The waves pounded him against
+its roughness. Fog smoked in his eyes. He let the sea upbear him,
+and took its anger, while he fumbled about. His fingers closed on
+something, a handhold. His toes sought beneath the surface.
+
+He pulled himself out.
+
+For a little while he lay on the sloping stone back. The tide covered
+his feet. Life returned in some measure. He sighed and began to climb.
+
+At the peak he looked over. Clayton sat on a small ledge, four sheer
+yards below him. The ruddy hair hung dark, there was blood matting one
+side of the long narrow head. Clayton's gun wove about in a seeking
+fashion, aimed toward shore and then down again. Once he jerked, making
+an odd little whimper like a lost child, and fired. The sound was flat,
+nearly lost among rumbling tides.
+
+A twelve-foot jump could easily miss that tiny projection--and once
+fallen into the water below, Kintyre would be Clayton's. But so he
+would be if he tried to crawl down.
+
+He made his estimates, poised, and sprang.
+
+His feet struck Clayton between the shoulders. They went over together.
+It spouted where they hit. A wave swung in from the ocean and climbed
+the rock in one white burst.
+
+Kintyre came up. He stood in four feet of water. Clayton was just
+arising. Somehow, incredibly, he still had the gun. It lifted, at
+point-blank range.
+
+Kintyre's left arm found the power to chop down. The gun was knocked
+loose. The sea ate it. Kintyre laid his good hand upon Clayton. Enough.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Murder in Black Letter, by Poul Anderson
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 59369 ***