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 fromThe Princecame: "... 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.
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 theLiber 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.
"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 whatisyour 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 hisWho's Whobiography 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!
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 indexedLuigi Lombardiheld 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-daycondottieri. 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 ofhisassociates 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.
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."