"I'm sorry you--Oh, hell." Moffat looked away. "He was a sort of
handsome young chap, wasn't he? Thin regular features and so on. I'll
bet his parents were proud of him."
"They paid his undergraduate expenses," mumbled Kintyre. "Since then
he went ahead on scholarships and assistantships, but those were four
high-priced years for a poor family."
"And now they'll see this. Hell." Moffat stood with fingers doubled
together, talking fast. He himself was rather young, more shaken than
his superiors would have wished. "Look at those burns--marks--He's like
that all over. He was never unconscious once, unless he passed out
now and then--no blackjack marks, no chloroform, just rope bruises.
Then when he was dead, the murderers cut off his fingers and hacked
his face some more, to make it harder for us to identify. Stuffed him
into an old coat and pair of pants and left him half in the tidewater.
Twenty-four years of age, did you say? This is what the old Lombardis
have to show for their twenty-four years. Jesus Christ. I'll bet _I_
have to take his father in here."
"You think it was a sadist?"
"Oh, sure, I don't doubt at least one of the murderers got his kicks.
It takes a cracked brain to do something like this--even for money.
Yes, I feel pretty sure it was a professional job. Most of the torture
was systematic, almost neat, for a definite purpose. You can see that.
When they reached their purpose, when he talked or whatever it was,
they cut his throat--neatly--then mutilated him for a good logical
reason, to make it harder for us, and disposed of the body in regular
gangland style. They shouldn't have dumped him in Berkeley. The
Berkeley force sees so many University people we automatically thought
a nice-looking young fellow like this might belong on the campus, and
checked. But that was their only mistake. Mine was going in for a job
where I'll have to show this to his father."
"Must you?"
"It's the law. I wish it weren't."
Moffat moved to pull back the sheet, but Kintyre was there first.
Covering Bruce's face made a kind of finality. Though the real closing
curtain had fallen hours ago, he thought, when Bruce lifted hands torn,
broken, and burned, to take death for his weariness. And afterward they
cut his fingers off. Maybe the curtain had not been rung down yet.
2
By the time Kintyre got back, it was close to sunset. He entered a
book-lined living room. There were a few good pictures, a small record
player, his sabers hung on the wall by Trig, the furniture bought used
or made out of old boxes--otherwise little. He did not believe in
cluttering life with objects.
He poured himself a stiff drink. Glenlivet was his only expensive
luxury. He sat down to savor it and perhaps think a little about Bruce.
There was no solid reason why the boy should have made so large a niche
in Kintyre's existence, but somehow he had. The emptiness hurt.
When the phone rang, Kintyre was there picking it up before
consciousness of the noise registered. He was not surprised to hear
Margery Towne's voice.
"Bob? You know?"
"Yes. I'm sorry. I wish to hell I could tell you just how sorry."
"I can guess." Her tone was flattened by the control she must be
keeping on it. "We both loved him, didn't we?"
"I think everybody did."
"Somebody didn't, Bob."
"I suppose you heard through the police?"
"They were here a few minutes ago. Do they know _everything_?"
"Probably I gave them your name. They came to me first, for the
identification."
"They were very nice about it and all that, but--"
Silence whistled remotely over the wires.
"Bob, could you come talk to me? Now?"
"Sure, pony. Give me half an hour."
Kintyre hung up one-handed, starting to undress with the other. He went
through a shower and put on a suit in ten minutes.
Margery's apartment was catercorner from his, with the University
between. He parked his battered '48 De Soto on the near side of the
campus and walked across, hoping to hoof out some of the muscular
tightness and set his thoughts in order.
Level yellow light came through eucalyptus groves to splash on a
cropped greensward and pompous white buildings, almost bare of
mankind in this pause between baccalaureate ceremonies and summer
classes. Kintyre reflected vaguely that he would have to go through
Bruce's desk, finish his work, yes, and complete his study of the
Book of Witches.... His mind drifted off toward a worried practical
consideration. What could he do about Margery?
He wanted to help her, if he could--double damnation, hadn't he tried
before? At the same time he was not, repeat not, going to get himself
involved. It would be unfair to both of them.
There were rules of the game, and so he had played it with her. You
left wives and virgins alone: well, she was long divorced, and had
slept around a bit since then. You neither gave to nor took from a
woman. You made it perfectly clear you weren't interested in anything
permanent. And when you broke it off, after a pleasant few months, you
did it cleanly: he had the best excuse in the world, back in 1955, an
academic grant that returned him to Italy for a year of research in his
specialty, the Renaissance. (But she had been very quiet, the last few
weeks; sometimes at night he had heard her trying not to cry.) Back
home again, you didn't resume old affairs: you were simply friendly, on
such occasions as you happened to meet.
Yes, of course. Only then she took up with Bruce, and Bruce had wanted
to marry her, and she had plainly been considering it, and now Bruce
was dead and Kintyre was on his way to console her. Could you walk
in her door and say: "Hello, I still subscribe to the why-buy-a-cow
philosophy so be careful, now you may weep on my shoulder"?
He realized he was sucking on a dead cigarette. He threw it away and
stopped to light another. He was almost under the building which housed
his own department.
"Good evening."
Kintyre looked up. Jabez Owens was walking toward him.
"Hello," he answered. "How are you? Excuse me, but I've got to--"
Owens reached him and took his hand. "My dear old chap," he said in his
most Harvard accent, "I'm awfully sorry."
"Hm?"
"Young Lombardi. I saw it in the papers. You know?"
"Yes." Kintyre looked coldly at Owens. The writer was a tall man, the
breadth of his shoulders attributable only in part to his tailor. He
had straight ruddy features, dark wavy hair graying at the temples,
blue eyes behind wrought-iron glasses, tweedy clothes with a scarf
filling the V of the jacket, and a small calabash pipe in one pocket.
"I know he was murdered," said Kintyre, watching the other's face.
"Terrible. I remember once in Sumatra--but that was long ago. See
here," said Owens candidly, "I know you know of my disagreements with
the poor young fellow. Why, it was only--when? Thursday night we were
at that party at Clayton's. You must have heard us quarreling over his
silly thesis. But this! _De mortuis nil nisi bonum._"
Kintyre did not like Owens. It was not so much the scholar raising his
hackles at a rather lurid popularizer. What the devil, Owens' books
stirred up some public interest; they passed on some information,
however distorted; and that was more than you could say for the average
historiographic monograph. But during the whole week he had been in
Berkeley, one long theatrical performance had gone on, with Jabez Owens
the plot, dialogue, director, producer, star, supporting cast, and
claque. It grew monotonous.
Wherefore Kintyre said maliciously: "I'll be completing that thesis for
him. Doubtless I too will be forced to include a side glance at those
Borgia letters of yours. But it'll take me a while, I don't have all
the facts and deductions at my fingertips as he did. So I suggest you
hurry to Hollywood and get that movie started."
Owens laughed a well gauged laugh, neither too loud for this posthumous
argument nor too small to sound genuine. "I'd love to take you on," he
said. "Nothing I like better than a good verbal fight, and that's what
the boy was giving me. As a matter of fact, I may be staying here a few
more days. Or maybe not. But what I really stopped you for was to offer
my sympathy and ask if I could help."
"What with?" asked Kintyre. It stuck him as a bit of a coincidence
that Owens had happened to be passing by this special building at this
moment.
"Oh, I don't know. Nothing, I suppose. You seem headed toward his,
ah--" Owens paused delicately--"his fiancée's place. I gathered from
someone's remark, she lives in this area."
"Uh-huh."
"Charming girl. Poor Lombardi. She is so good a reason for not dying.
Please give her my regrets. Ah--a moment more, if you will."
"Yes?" Kintyre was turning to go; he stopped.
Owens flushed. "Don't misunderstand me. It's none of my business,
certainly. But I'd say at a guess I am a good fifteen years older than
you, and perhaps--I suppose I needn't advise you. But I do want to help
you. And her. See here, take her out tonight. I know they were living
together. There'll be too many memories at her home." He nodded, almost
awkwardly. "Pardon me. I have to go now. I'll be seeing you."
Kintyre stared after him. _The deuce you say! I didn't think you had a
genuine bone in your body._
He glanced at his watch. He was late. His steps lengthened, a hollow
noise on the sunset pavement.
Past the elaborate south gate, down a few shop-lined blocks of
Telegraph Avenue, then left, slightly uphill, along a street of rooming
houses and small apartments. Margery's flat was here; or should you say
it had been Bruce's? He had gotten his mail, discreetly, at another
address (which must now be overrun with sight-seers)--but this was
Theirs.
Kintyre went upstairs. Margery opened her door at his buzz and closed
it again behind him.
Bruce had moved in with her during the Christmas holidays, half a year
ago now, but the interior was still hers, airily modern. Starting on
bluff and nerve and a jerkwater college's art degree, she had made
herself important to a local firm of decorators. Bruce would have lived
happily in a cave, if it had had book-shelves.
And yet somehow, thought Kintyre as he waited for Margery to
speak--somehow, she had reshaped the place around him. The piano he
played so well stood tuned for him; by now, most of the records were
ones which he had shown her--quietly, even unconsciously--were good to
have. She had matted and hung one of his inkbrush sketches, a view from
Albany Hill toward the Golden Gate, whose contours brought you back for
a second look.
And, of course, nearly all the books were his, and she had made an
offside room into a study for him. When you added it up, maybe only the
clothes and the parakeet were altogether her own.
_I never affected her like this_, thought Kintyre. _Margery's
apartments always felt nervous before. Somehow Bruce made this one
peaceful._
"Hello," he said, for she was evidently not going to speak first.
"Hi." She went over to a glass-topped coffee table and opened a
cigarette box. "Thanks for coming."
"No thanks needed," he said. "Could be you'll help me more than I will
you."
She looked at him for a moment, and he realized it had been a tactless
answer with too many unwanted implications. But then she picked up a
cigarette and flicked a lighter to it. "Drink?" she asked.
"Well--you drink too much, pony."
"Perhaps you don't drink enough," she said.
"I like the taste. I don't like being drunk."
"You're afraid to lose control, aren't you? Sometimes, Bob, I think
that explains you. To you, life is a ride on a tiger, and you've got to
keep the reins every minute."
"Let's have none of these bad amateur psychoanalyses," he said,
following her into the kitchen. He came up behind her and laid his
hands on her waist. "And let's not fight. I'm sorry, Marge. I'm sorry
for Bruce and for you."
Her head bent. "I know, Bob. Don't bother with words." She put the
cigarette to her lips, took a puff of smoke, blew it out, lowered the
cigarette, and twisted about between his hands. Her lips brushed his
cheek. "Go on, I'll mix. I want to keep busy."
He returned to the living room and prowled out his unrest for a few
minutes. The piano caught his gaze, he saw ruled bescribbled sheets and
went over to look. Margery found him thus, when she came in with two
glasses. "Sit down," she invited.
He regarded her through careful eyes, trying to judge her needs--and
her demands, for his own warning. She was a trifle on the short side,
her figure was good though tending to plumpness, and even he could
appreciate the effect of her simple green dress. Her face was broad,
with a slightly pug nose, very full lips, blue eyes under arched brows,
a few freckles: "pert" was the word. Reddish hair fell in a soft bob
just below the ears, which carried extravagant hoops.
He nodded at the piano. "So Bruce was composing again," he said.
"He was putting some poetry of his sister's to music, for some kind of
little theater deal she has in preparation, over in the City."
"How was he doing? I can't read music."
"Listen." She sat down at the piano. "I'm a lousy player myself, but
this will give you the idea."
Darkness was smoking in through the walls. She had to peer close to
see the notes; her hands stumbled on the keys. And yet she created
something gentle for him. Afterward the sounds tinkled in his memory
like rain in a young year.
She ended it with a destructive sweep of her knuckles across the board.
As the jangled basses fell silent, she said roughly: "That's all. He
never finished it."
"I wonder--" Kintyre remembered not to sit on the couch; he found a
chair. "I wonder if the world may not have lost even more than you and
I, Marge."
"I don't give a four-lettering damn about the world," she told him. She
crossed the room and snapped the light switch. The sudden radiance was
harsh to them, they both squinted. "I'd settle for having Bruce back."
"So would I. Naturally." He accepted the drink she offered and took a
long swallow. It was heavy on the whisky and light on the soda. "And
yet he was a scholar of unusual gifts. He even (he, my student) changed
my opinions about some aspects of Machiavelli's thought--emphasized the
idealism--he would, of course. I remember him quoting at me, '... _the
best fortress is to be found in the love of the people_.' Isn't that
exactly the sort of thing which would stick in Bruce's mind?"
"'The best fortress.'" She stared into her glass. "It didn't help him
much, did it?"
Kintyre groped for another cigarette. He was smoking too much, he
thought; he'd have a tongue like a fried shoe sole tomorrow.
"How much do you know?" he asked.
"Only a little." The eyes she raised to him from the couch were
desperate. "Bob, what happened? Who did it to him?"
"I can't imagine," he said tonelessly.
"But--could it have been an accident, Bob? Maybe by mistake for someone
else--could it have been?"
"Perhaps." _I lie in my flapping front teeth. You don't use pliers on a
man without getting his name straight._
"What was in the paper?" he asked. "I haven't seen."
"I don't know. I've been sitting here, ever since the policemen came.
They asked me if I could guess--God!" She emptied her glass in three
gulps.
"Could you?" he murmured. "I find it hard to conceive of anyone who
might hate Bruce."
"There was Gene Michaelis," she said. "I've been thinking and thinking
about him. He and his father. I met them once."
"Yes. I'd forgotten that. But Michaelis is a cripple now, remember? He
couldn't--"
"Bruce was called over to San Francisco. Someone called him on the
phone. Don't forget that. I can't forget it. I sat here while he
talked! He didn't say what it was about, he just left. Took the train.
He seemed excited, happy. Said he'd be out late and--" Margery's breath
snapped into her lungs. "Bob! Gene Michaelis, sitting there and waiting
for Bruce to come in--and those great ugly hands of his!"
Kintyre got up and went over to the couch. He sat down on its arm, next
to her. She felt blindly for his fingers; her own were cold.
"The police think Bruce was killed by professional criminals," he said.
"Can you imagine any reason why?"
"No." Her head shook. "No. Only Gene Michaelis--he swore that accident
was Bruce's fault. He almost had Bruce thinking so. You didn't see
Bruce then. You didn't see how he was affected by it, his old friend
biting at him like a dog, accusing him and his sister of--" She gave
Kintyre a blurred look. "That was how Bruce and I started to live
together. There was nothing else that would help him. He'd already
proposed to me. I didn't want to get married again--to him--to get
married. And he'd had no thought in his silly head of being anything
but a gentleman. Sure. I practically shanghaied him into bed with me.
What else would get that thing off his mind, Gene Michaelis lying on
the highway with both legs mashed? Gene was the only person who ever
hated Bruce, and just being hated nearly destroyed him. He couldn't
have made any other enemies--knowingly--he wasn't able to!"
_That's not quite true_, thought Kintyre briefly. _Jabez Owens._
Margery's voice had risen raggedly, and her nails bit his palm. He
stood up, pulling her after him by the wrist, and said: "Come on. We're
getting out of here."
"What?" She blinked at him, as if waking from sleep.
"You're tired and scared and lonesome and hungry, and none of it is
good. We're going out to dinner, and we'll talk about Bruce or whatever
else you want, but we're going out."
"I have to work tomorrow," she protested.
"Cannonballs! Tell 'em you're down with Twonk's Disease and need the
rest of the week off. Now grab your purse."
She followed him then, shivering. He drove her car slowly, to give her
and the drink within her time; he spoke of trivia.
She hung back a moment when he had parked outside one of Oakland's
first-class restaurants. "You can't afford this, Bob," she said.
"If you mention money once again, I'm going to wash your mouth out with
five-dollar bills," he snapped. "Old greasy ones."
She smiled. "You know," she said, "you aren't so unlike Bruce after
all. I remember how he also used to go out of his way for people. And
then once when I tried to praise him for it, he answered, 'Ah, I'm no
God damned saint.'"
"Sounds like Bruce," agreed Kintyre.
"He worshiped you," she said over the cocktails. "Did you know how
much? You were everything he could dream of being, a traveler, an
athlete, a scholar. He was even thinking of doing his military service
in the Navy, because that's where you were. And then you treated him as
an equal! You did more to make him happy than anyone else."
"I'd say you did," he parried, embarrassed.
"You know you pushed that affair." She was a little drunk, he saw, but
no harm in that: under better circumstances, he'd have called it a
happy drunk. "Remember how he and I first met? You were pub crawling
with him one evening last year after you got back from Europe. You ran
into me at the mulled-wine place; I was eating piroshki and looked very
unglamorous, but I thought I'd have some fun with you--oh, hell, Bob, I
thought there might be a chance to make you jealous--so I gave Bruce a
big play. And you were delighted!"
"I thought he needed a girl friend," he said. "There's more in life
than books and beer."
"You pander," she chuckled. "I'll bet you gloated when you found we
were living in sin."
He shrugged. "If you can call it sin. Actually, Bruce was a very
domestic type. I hoped you'd marry him."
"Sure," she said. "So I'm a very domestic type too, aren't I--ain't
I--Bob, I know you don't like to dance, and your dancing is awful, but
shall we try it just once before dinner?"
* * * * *
Afterward, when brandy and coffee were completing the meal, she said:
"I'm still not sure if I was in love with Bruce or not. I always liked
him. I think I was beginning to love him."
"I should imagine it would be hard not to, under the circumstances."
"He was the first man I ever knew who was--(a)--" she ticked the
points off on her fingers--"interesting; which the solid citizens
back in Ohio were not, not to me anyway--(b) reliable, which the local
Bohemians are not."
"Please! Call me what else you will, but not a Berkeley Bohemian."
"You don't count. You're in a classification all by yourself.
'Reliable' was the wrong word. What do I mean? Faithful; steady;
loving. I guess that's it. Loving--not himself, like most of these
perpetual undergraduates; not--whatever you love, Bob, there must be
something but I've never found out what unless it's that sailboat of
yours. Bruce was loving of me. Loving all the world, but including me."
"You could call him tender," agreed Kintyre. "And yet he was a man. We
took some rough hikes and pack trips, during the years we knew each
other; and lately, after I got him interested in judo, he was doing
very well. In the course of these amusements I've seen him get damaged
now and then, sometimes rather badly. But he never admitted feeling any
pain."
"I guess you'd consider that a virtue," she said.
* * * * *
They parked in the hills, with the Eastbay cities like a galaxy of
stars below them, San Francisco an island universe across darkness. She
sighed and leaned against him. He wondered, dimly alarmed, why he had
come here.
"What are you going to do?" she asked him.
"Me? In the next few days, you mean? Oh, wind up his University work.
Call on his family; haven't seen them in a long time now. What about
you?"
"Carry on. What else is there?"
"I don't know," he said in his helplessness.
She turned to him and her fingers clawed at his coat. "Bob, don't take
me back to my place," she whispered. "Not tonight. Don't leave me
alone."
"Huh? But--"
"I know, I know, you're afraid I'll trap you--you conceited baboon. For
Christ's sake, let me sleep on your floor tonight, I won't touch a hair
of your sanctimonious head, but don't leave me alone!"
For the first time since he came to her, she began to cry.
* * * * *
The telephone woke him. He turned over, not wholly oriented. There was
a woman sleeping beside him, wearing a pair of his pajamas. Where had
he picked her up? Wait. Margery!
She slept very much like a child, curled in a ball. The pale foggy
morning light touched a line of dried tears on her cheek. Kintyre
remembered how she had clung to him. Nothing else had happened; she
might have been his terrified young--No! That was a thought he clamped
off before it had formed. Let it be said only that he had been a friend
to her last night, and no more.
He was already padding into the kitchen, to pick up the phone before it
woke her. "Hello," he said.
"Dr. Kintyre? Moffat."
"Oh--oh, yes, the officer. What is it?"
"I wondered if you knew what's become of Miss Margery Towne. She isn't
at home." The voice had a bland none-of-my-business-but-I-do-need-help
overtone. Had he spotted her car outside the house?
"I might be able to locate her, if it's urgent," said Kintyre
cautiously; for it was in truth none of Moffat's business. "What's the
trouble?"
"Burglary."
"What?"
"A neighbor heard noises in her place last night. Stewed about it for
several hours, got no answer to the doorbell, finally called us. Our
man had to go up the fire escape and in a broken window. The thief's
route. It's a mess in there."
"The devil you say!"
"The devil it might be, sir. There were valuables, jewelry and so on,
lying in plain sight. They don't seem to've been touched. I suppose the
burglar was looking for something else. Have you any idea what it might
have been?"
3
Kintyre returned home about noon. Gerald Clayton caught him on the
phone with an invitation to lunch. Kintyre accepted readily. He had
his share of false pride, but not so much that he wouldn't let a
millionaire pick up the tab for a good meal.
The Fairhill Hotel sat in a swank area on the knees of the summer-brown
hills walling the Eastbay. Kintyre parked his hand-me-down among
mammaried Cadillacs and rump-sprung Plymouths and strolled into the
lobby.
Clayton rose from a chair. "Ah, there, Bob, how are you?" He shook
hands and moved toward the elevator. "Thought I'd have lunch sent up.
But if you'd like a drink beforehand--"
"No, thanks. Maybe a bottle of beer with the meal. Uh, what's the
occasion of all this?"
"We've things to talk about. Not too urgent, I guess, but I'm going to
be tied up over in the City." Clayton took Kintyre's arm. "Anyhow, I
felt like having some company for lunch."
He was fifty, still broad in the chest and erect in the spine, though
his custom-made suit worked hard to disguise a beginning paunch. His
grizzled auburn hair, brushed straight back, covered a long narrow
head; nose and chin jutted out of a creased sinewy face which must
once have been rather handsome. His eyes were deeply set, a darting
dragonfly blue, without any burden of glasses. Kintyre liked him in a
way, and felt sorry for him in a way, and sometimes wondered what the
man was really thinking about.
"I heard about young Lombardi," said Clayton in the elevator. "It's a
terrible thing."
"The police been after you too?" Kintyre's manner was abrupt; he didn't
feel like more emotional scenes.
"I had one interview. They weren't interested in my alibi at all. What
a disappointment: I had such a beautiful one. Witnesses to every waking
hour. I came to Berkeley about noon Saturday, had a long conference
with the manager of a local motorcycle agency, and a theater party
which lasted late. Sunday I was at church, then I played golf, in the
evening you were over for drinks, and Monday I went back to the City
and spent all day in the office."
The elevator stopped and they got out and went down a long corridor. A
little puzzled and annoyed, Kintyre said: "You protest too much."
Clayton opened his door. "I'm sorry," he answered. "I was trying to
lighten my own mood, and it came out sounding as if I were trying to be
funny. Bruce was a good kid."
He called room service. Kintyre's gaze strayed idly around the suite.
Actually, Clayton's Bay Area interests centered in San Francisco. For
the past several months he had kept an apartment there, while he went
through the preliminary maneuvers of establishing a local branch of
his import house. But the Eastbay was enough of a market in itself to
justify Clayton in frequently staying at the Fairhill for days on end.
Though his latest checking in had been on Thursday, the suite bore
little trace of him. His San Francisco rooms were just as impersonal;
Kintyre doubted that the New York penthouse or the luxurious flat in
Rome had been given more of a soul. There were four pictures, which
apparently went wherever Clayton did: a thin blonde woman, with a
washed-out kind of prettiness, who had been his first wife; and two
young men and a girl, the children she had given him. Otherwise,
nothing but business mail and business documents could be seen.
Oh, yes, Clayton smoked expensive cigars, and he had developed enough
patter to get by in social circles whose small talk included the opera
or Sartre's latest pronunciamento. But he had left no books lying
around, only a news magazine; no chess set or cards or half-completed
crossword puzzle; no private correspondence--well, if a man wanted to
be simply a cash register, it was his privilege.
But Clayton wasn't that either, thought Kintyre. Something of the
brash young salesman (where was it he started, Indianapolis? Some such
place) and the construction-gang foreman of worsening days and the
minor executive in a Midwestern wholesale house--something of what
Margery would label "Babbitt," with all of her own class's glibness in
labeling--remained in the transoceanic entrepreneur. Yes. But something
else must have developed too. Kintyre had never quite discovered what.
It was one reason he accepted most of Clayton's invitations.
"Okay, lunch will be on its way. Siddown, Bob."
Kintyre crossed his legs by the window and took out a cigarette.
Clayton chose a cigar. "Do the police have a lead on Bruce's murder?"
he asked.
"How should I know?"
"You were his best friend." Clayton's eyes locked with Kintyre's and
held steady. "The boy wasn't killed for fun. Somehow, he asked for it.
If we knew what he was doing in, say, the last week of his life--"
"Hm. You have a point. He was seeing a good deal of you also, wasn't
he?"
"Yes. That's the main reason I asked you over today, Bob. Perhaps
between us we could reconstruct most of his movements." Clayton
chuckled. "Not that I think we'd solve the crime ourselves or any such
nonsense, but organized information might help the police."
"Well--" Kintyre's memory walked backward into darkness. "Let me
think.... We were pretty busy till last week, with term's end and the
start of final exams. After that it gets irregular, if you're on a
faculty. You might have two exams on one day, and then none for three
days. So Bruce had a certain amount of leisure all week. Huh--a week
ago last Sunday--didn't he mention something about having gone across
the Bay to see you?"
"He did." Clayton looked at a note pad. "He came up to my apartment to
ask if I couldn't fix his older brother up with a job."
"So?"
"So I know that type. I'd met him, once before. I said no. Bruce got
mad when I wouldn't even interview this Guido character."
Kintyre smiled. "I know what you mean. It's a side of him that not many
people saw. He seldom lost his temper, but when it happened, it was
awesome. I hope you kept yours."
"It wasn't easy," said Clayton. "Actually, this was not the first time
we'd talked about the brother. There was once, some months ago--but I
don't recall the details."
"I believe I remember. It came up _à propos des bottes_ in my office,
when you and he and I were discussing the Book of Witches, didn't it?
He mentioned having this brother who spoke Italian. You doubted Guido
would be qualified for any very responsible position. Yes, it comes
back to me now, you got almost obnoxiously smug about how you had
started from zero and so could anyone else."
"Less than zero in my case," said Clayton. His mouth twitched downward,
ever so faintly.
"It riled Bruce," said Kintyre. "But he got over his mad fast enough.
He was almost too reasonable for his own good."
"That sounds contradictory. I shouldn't think a really reasonable man
would ever get angry."
"I beg to differ. Some things, it's unreasonable not to get furious
about. Atrocities, including some governments whose existence is an
atrocity. Or getting back to Bruce, there was the Point Perro incident
several months ago."
"What was that?"
"Oh, nothing very important, I suppose. Point Perro is about sixty
miles south on the coast highway. Uninhabited, though it's on any good
map. Just a headland with a beach below, private property, fenced off,
but I happen to know the owner and have his permission to use it. As
isolated a spot, as primeval, as you'll find outside the High Sierras.
Bruce and I took our sleeping bags down there for a weekend of surf
casting. It has a deep-dropoff where the fish are apt to congregate
at high tide. We found somebody had been dynamiting them, which had
not only wasted and slaughtered fish but ruined some of the rock
formations. Bruce followed the tire tracks above the cliffs, saw that
the dynamiters had headed south, and insisted on following; He was
quite ready to beat up on them himself. All we actually accomplished
was to roust out the authorities, which spoiled our whole Saturday; but
it never occurred to him to do less."
Kintyre sighed. "I suspect that he crusaded himself to his death, in
just that manner."
"Let's return to our timetable," suggested Clayton. "Bruce stormed out
of my place that Sunday night, but he did agree to come back the next
afternoon. I said I'd think it over meanwhile, and he could bring Guido
to see me after all."
"What happened?"
"They came together. I saw right off Guido was hopeless. Quite an
amusing guy and all that, but once a bum always a bum. However, I made
polite noncommittal noises. Hell, maybe I'll open a night club someday,
and Guido can sing in it. That would be okay." Clayton drew on his
cigar. "I didn't see Bruce again till that little party here Thursday
night. Can you fill in the meantime?"
"Mmm--I had it all sorted out in my mind--yes. The Monday you speak of,
I introduced Jabez Owens to Bruce. We all talked for about an hour in
my office. Otherwise I think he just had a routine day, till he went
over to your apartment."
"Tuesday?"
"More routine, except that Owens showed up as agreed and lent him the
Borgia letters. Bruce took them home that night to look over."
"Oh, yes, those two were having quite an argument about it at the
party. What's the deal, anyway? I didn't quite follow. Talking to
Professor Ashwin most of the time, myself."
"Well, you know Owens is a writer, specializing in historical
nonfiction on the popular level."
"I've heard the name, is all."
Kintyre drew the long breath of an experienced lecturer.
"Owens was a best seller in the late 1930's," he said. "Since the
last official war, though, his sales have slipped. A couple of years
back, he recouped with a thing called _Magnificent Monster: The Life
and Times of Cesare Borgia_. Its scholarship is superficial--to put
it kindly--but he has a flamboyant style and he dished up the sex and
sadism with a liberal hand. All the old libels on Lucrezia are there,
and so on. But it was a sensational seller even in hardback; the
presses had trouble meeting the demand for pocket editions; and now
Hollywood wants to film it as one of their more expensive superepics."
"So?" Clayton looked bored. "Good for him, but what has all this to do
with Bruce?"
"Give me time. Prior to writing the book, Owens spent some months in
Italy, allegedly doing research. He came back with certain letters he
claims to have tracked down in the archives of a noble family--letters
to and from Cesare, linking him with a cult of Satanists and all sorts
of picturesque orgies and abominations.
"The correspondence stirred up a bit of professional controversy. If
forged, it's skillfully done, and the noble family in question has been
well bribed and well rehearsed. I suspect that is the case, myself.
However, Owens has not unnaturally used the chance, not just to brag
himself up as a scholarly detective, as if he'd found another cache of
Boswell papers--he makes it pivotal to his whole book."
"Ah, yes. And now my Book of Witches manuscript--"
"Disproves it. The Book of Witches is unquestionably genuine, and
certain statements in it pretty well clinch matters. _La vecchia
religione_ had been rooted out of the Romagna, even out of Liguria,
long before Cesare Borgia was as much as a gleam in his daddy's
apostolic eye. Therefore Owens' letters must be spurious. Either Owens
had them cooked, or Owens was taken for a sucker himself.
"When he established this, some time back, Bruce wrote to the man.
That was Bruce, of course. Give the poor chap a chance to back out
gracefully, before publishing the evidence that will smear him over
the landscape. Owens replied politely enough, asking for personal
discussions. And so he arrived Sunday a week ago, en route to Hollywood
from New York, and here he's been ever since."
"I shouldn't think he could keep the producer waiting like that," said
Clayton.
"He has no firm commitment yet: only an invitation to come out and talk
things over. A Piltdown-type scandal might cause the studio to back
off. After all, if they want to do a life of Borgia, it's in the public
domain. They don't have to pay Owens a nickel--unless, of course, they
use the witch-cult material, in which case they'll doubtless pay him a
fat sum and engage him as technical adviser to boot."
"Uh-huh." Clayton's eyes paled with thought.
"I keep getting sidetracked," complained Kintyre. "Also hoarse. I do
want that beer now."
"In a minute, Bob. Let's continue this session first. You say Bruce
took these letters home Tuesday night."
"Yes. I gathered he saw Owens again on Wednesday and returned them with
the remark that he saw no reason to change his mind. There must have
been quite an argument. I was at the dojo that evening, didn't see him
till Thursday night, as a matter of fact. Then, of course, you had him
and me and some of our colleagues--and Owens--up here for that stag
party."
"I collect scholars," grinned Clayton.
Kintyre wondered if it might not literally be true. In the upper levels
of the European business world, where Clayton spent half his time, a
man was not respected for his money alone; he would get further if he
could show some solid intellectual achievement. Clayton was hardly a
social climber, but he must know the practical value of such kudos.
Any rich oaf of an American could buy paintings. Clayton was a bit more
imaginative: he took up incunabula. And he invited specialists in, gave
them liquor and sandwiches, turned them loose on each other, and sat
around picking up the lingo.
_And what's wrong with that?_ thought Kintyre. _Any Renaissance
dignitary patronized artists and scholars in much the same way, for
much the same reasons. So the Renaissance had its Leonardo, Rafael,
Michelangelo--We throw our creative people out into the market place
to peddle themselves to the general public. What do we have? Rock 'n'
Roll._
He jerked back to awareness. The other man was speaking: "--chemical
tests. Owens said he wasn't going to let priceless relics be destroyed.
It sounded phony to me."
"That was a real dogfight those two had." Kintyre shook his head
admiringly.
"Never mind that now. Have you any information on Bruce's later
movements?"
"Why, Friday he and I were both working hard. Saturday too he must
have been. Yes, Friday afternoon was the last time I saw Bruce alive.
We only said hello in passing. Margery Towne tells me he was home that
evening and Saturday afternoon, otherwise apparently at the University."
"And that's all we can find out?" Clayton grimaced. "Not a hell of a
lot, is it? Unless Miss Towne can tell--"
"One more thing," said Kintyre. "It may not be relevant. But her
apartment was burgled last night."
The cigar dropped from Clayton's mouth. He bent over to pick it up,
jerkily. His movements smoothed as Kintyre watched; when he raised
himself and ground out the butt, his craggy face was under control.
"Surprised?" murmured Kintyre.
"Yes. Of course. What happened? What was taken?"
"That's the odd part. Nothing she knew of. Someone had broken in and
made a hooraw's nest; but he, she, or it hadn't taken any silverware or
jewelry, nothing."
"Uh." Clayton looked at his hands, folded in his lap, then back again,
sharply. "How about papers?"
"We thought of that. The desks and drawers had been rooted through, all
right, but nothing seemed to be missing."
"Would she know all about Bruce's papers?" Clayton fired the query like
a policeman. "Don't stall, you damned Edwardian. I know she was his
mistress."
"I don't happen to like that word in that particular connection," said
Kintyre gently. "However--she hadn't seen all of Bruce's letters and
notes. He kept them in a couple of cardboard filing boxes. They didn't
seem even to have been opened, though."
"Did you look in to make sure?"
"No. Should we have?"
"I guess not." Clayton rubbed his chin. "No, I wouldn't bother. Because
the burglar was evidently looking for something he thought might be in
the apartment, but which wasn't. Something that might be in a desk or
a bureau drawer, but was too large to fit into a filing box or a--any
such thing."
"As what?" challenged Kintyre.
He had already guessed the answer: "The Book of Witches is a fairly big
volume."
Kintyre nodded. He was on the point of repeating what Margery had said
to him, when they stood in the ruins after the police had gone.
* * * * *
She poured herself a drink with shaking hands. A sunbeam splashed
pale copper in her still tousled hair. She said: "That bastard. That
crawling bastard. Why didn't I tell the cops?"
"Who?"
"Owens, of course! Who d'you think would come sneaking in here? What
might we have of any use to anybody, except that old book Bruce was
studying--the one that could torpedo Owens and his big movie sale and
his precious reputation. Owens came in here to try and find that book
and take it and burn it!"
She tossed off her drink neat, poured another and glared at Kintyre.
"Well?" she snarled.
"Well, it's a serious accusation to make," he replied.
"Serious my left buttock! You know what that snake already tried to
do? He tried to bribe Bruce! Bruce told me about it. Friday after
that stag party, Owens came to his office and talked all around the
subject and--oh, he was pious-sounding enough about it, he knows his
euphemisms. But he offered Bruce five thousand dollars to suppress
his findings about witches in Italy. Five thousand bucks--Christ, the
movies can pay him a quarter of a million!"
"I take it, then, you're insulted by the size of the bribe."
The attempt to jolly her didn't come off. She said viciously: "Bruce
boiled over. He was still boiling when he came home. He told Owens
to his face, he'd write an article about his research the minute he
returned from your pack trip--he'd inform the newspapers, so the whole
public could know the truth--Bob!"
It was a scream in her throat.
"What is it?" he cried, turning toward her in alarm.
"Bob--do you think.... Oh, no, Bob!"
* * * * *
"What's the matter?" asked Clayton.
Kintyre shook himself. "Nothing. The manuscript is still with us,
naturally," he said in a flat voice. "Bruce kept it in his office. I
stopped by today and locked it in a safe."
"Owens--"
"Look here," said Kintyre angrily, "I went through this once before,
with Miss Towne. I don't hold with talebearing. The police are
competent, and have the essential facts already. Unless more evidence
turns up to change my mind, I see no reason to run to them with any
sordid little story of academic intrigue which can't even be proved."
_However_, his brain continued, _while I'm in no position to pay fees,
Trig isn't very busy these days. He may enjoy looking into the recent
movements of a murder suspect._
There was a knock on the door and a bellboy wheeled in lunch.
4
Not until evening was Kintyre free to cross the bridge into San
Francisco. He had spent hours on Bruce's uncorrected papers, and talked
with Yamamura, who said he would sniff around, and he had called
Margery on the phone to see if she was all right.
"Come over and take potluck, Bob," she said. He sensed loneliness.
But--hell's boiling pots, she made him feel cluttered!
"I'm afraid I can't," he evaded. "Commitments. But take it easy, huh?
Go visit someone, go have a cup of espresso, don't sit home and nest on
your troubles. I'll see you soon."
He poured himself a small drink after hanging up and tossed it off.
Then he changed into his darkest suit and got the car rolling.
Personally, he would not have placarded a loss on his clothes, but
Bruce's parents were from the Old World.
As he hummed along the freeway and over the great double span of the
bridge (Bruce must have been carried dead in the opposite direction,
wedged in a corner so the tollgate guard would think him merely asleep;
doubtless the police were checking the memories of all night shift
men) Kintyre rehearsed the career of the Lombardis. Bruce was the only
one he had really known, though he had been over there for dinner a
few times. The parents had been very respectful, innocently happy that
their son should be friends with a Doctor of Philosophy. His mother
made good pasta....
There wasn't much to remember. Angelo Lombardi was a Genoese sailor.
Chronic hard times were not improved when his son Guido came along.
Nor did he see much of his young wife. (Did Maria's years of being
mostly alone in a dingy tenement, with nobody to love but one little
boy, account for what Guido had become?) In 1930 the family arrived
as immigrants at San Francisco. Here Angelo worked in the commercial
fishing fleet; here Bruce and the daughter were born; here he
saved enough money to buy his own boat; here he lost it again in a
collision--by God, yes, it had been a collision with Peter Michaelis'
single craft. Feeling the years upon him, Angelo used the insurance
money to start a restaurant. It had neither failed nor greatly
prospered: it gave him a living and little more.
Yet Angelo Lombardi had remained a man with hope.
Kintyre turned off at the first ramp, twisted through the downtown
area, and got onto Columbus Avenue and so to North Beach. Hm, let's
see--a minor street near the Chinatown fringe--uh-huh.
The sky was just turning purple when he stopped in front of the place:
Genoa Café set in a two-story frame building perpetrated, with bays and
turrets, right after the 1906 fire. It was flanked by a Chinese grocery
store, full of leathery fragrances, and a Portuguese Baptist mission. A
sign on the door said closed. Well, the old people would be in no mood
for discussing the various types of pizza tonight.
Yellow light spilled from the upper windows. Kintyre found the door to
the upstairs apartment and rang the bell.
A street lamp blinked to life, a car went by, a grimy urchin watched
him impassively from a doorway across the road. He felt much alone.
He heard feet coming down the stairs, a woman's light quick tread.
Expecting Maria Lombardi, he took off his hat and bowed in Continental
style when the door opened. He stopped halfway through the gesture and
remained staring.
_Morna_, he thought, and he stood on the schooner's deck as it heeled
to the wind, and she was grasping the mainmast shrouds with one
hand, crouched on the rail and shading her eyes across an ocean that
glittered. Her yellow hair blew back into his face, it smelled of
summer.
"Yes?"
Kintyre shook himself, like a dog come out of a deep hurried river.
"I'm sorry," he stammered. "I'm sorry. You startled me, looked like
someone I used to--" He pulled the chilly twilight air into his lungs,
until he could almost feel them stretch. One by one, his muscles
relaxed.
"Miss Lombardi, isn't it?" he tried again. "I haven't seen you for a
couple of years, and you wore your hair differently then. I'm Robert
Kintyre."
"Oh, yes. I remember you well," she said. Her mouth turned a little
upward, its tautness gentling. "Bruce's professor. He spoke of you so
often. It's very kind of you to come."
She stood aside to let him precede her. His hand brushed hers
accidentally in the narrow entrance. Halfway up the stairs, he realized
he was holding the fist clenched.
_What is this farce?_ he asked himself angrily. Nothing more than
straight blonde hair, worn in bangs across the forehead and falling
to the shoulders. Now in the full electric light he could see
that it wasn't even the same hue, a good deal darker than Morna's
weather-bleached mane. And Corinna Lombardi was a mature woman--young,
he recalled Bruce's going over to the City last month for her
twenty-second birthday party--but grown. Morna would always be thirteen.
Corinna had been nineteen when he saw her last, still living here and
working in the café. That was at a little farewell dinner the Lombardis
had given him, before he departed for his latest year in Italy. They
had wanted him to look up Angelo's brother Luigi, the one who had made
a success in the old country as a secret service man. Kintyre had
visited Luigi a few times, finding him a pleasant sort with scholarly
inclinations, most interested in his brilliant nephew Bruce, with whom
he corresponded.
At any rate, Kintyre had had too much else to think about to pay much
attention to a quiet girl. By the time he returned, as Bruce told him,
she had left home after a spectacular quarrel with her parents. That
was soon repaired--it had only been a declaration of independence--but
she had kept her own job and her own apartment since then.
The rambling of his mind soothed him. At the time he did not realize
that, down underneath, his mind was telling itself about Corinna
Lombardi. It decided that she had few elements of conventional
prettiness. She was tall, and her figure was good except that the
shoulders were too wide and the bust too small for this decade's
canons. Her face was broad, with high cheek-bones and square jaw and
straight strong nose; it had seen a good deal of sun. Her eyes were
greenish-gray under heavy dark brows, her mouth was wide and full,
her voice was low. She wore a black dress, as expected, and a defiant
bronze pin in the shape of a weasel.
Then Kintyre had emerged on the landing, and Angelo Lombardi--thickset,
heavy-faced, balding--engulfed his hand in an enormous sailor's paw.
"Come in, sir, please to come in and have a small glass with us."
Maria Lombardi rose for the Doctor of Philosophy. Her light-brown
hair and clear profile told whence her children had their looks; he
suspected that much of the brains had come from her too. "How do you
do, Professor Keen-teer. We thank you for coming."
He sat down, awkwardly. Overstuffed and ghastly, the living room
belonged to a million immigrants of the last generation, who had built
from empty pockets up to the middle class. But families like this would
eat beans oftener than necessary for twenty years, so they could save
enough to put one child through college. Bruce had been the one.
"I just came to express my sympathy," said Kintyre. He felt himself
under the cool green appraisal of Corinna's eyes, but could not think
of words less banal. "Can I do anything to help? Anything at all?"
"You are very kind," said old Lombardi. He poured from what was
evidently his best bottle of wine. "Everyone has been so kind."
"Do you know what his room was like, the past half of a year,
Professor?" asked Maria. "He never invited us there."
_I rather imagine not_, thought Kintyre wryly. "Nothing unusual," he
said. "I'll bring you his personal effects as soon as I can."
"Professor," said Lombardi. He leaned his bulk forward very slowly. The
glass shivered in his fingers. "You knew my son so well. What do you
think happen to him?"
"I only know what the police told me," said Kintyre.
Maria crossed herself. She closed her eyes, and he did not watch her
moving lips; that conversation didn't concern him.
"My son he was murdered," said Lombardi in an uncomprehending voice.
"Why did they murder him?"
"I don't know," insisted Kintyre. "The police will find out."
Corinna left her chair and came around to stand before the men. It was
a long stride, made longer by wrath. She put her hands on her hips and
said coldly:
"Dr. Kintyre, you're not naïve. You must know murder is one of the
safest crimes there is to commit. What's the actual probability that
they'll ever learn who did it, when they claim they haven't even a
motive to guide them?"
Kintyre couldn't help bristling a trifle. She was tired and filled with
grief, but he had done nothing to rate such a tone. He clipped off his
words: "If you think you have a clue, Miss Lombardi, you should take it
to the authorities, not to me."
"I did," she said harshly. "They were polite to the hysterical female.
They'll look into it, sure. And when they see he has an alibi--as he
will!--they won't look any further."