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.
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?"
"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 theLiber Veneficarumalong, 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 whoelseknew. 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."
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?"
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 flatsmack! 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.