Chapter III: Part 3

Larkin went down, the knife flying from his hand. Kintyre fell off and went in a heap. This wasn't judo, it wasn't anything; Trig would laugh himself sick if he could watch. But--

Kintyre rolled back. Larkin was climbing unsteadily to his feet. Kintyre pulled him down and got a choking hold from behind. He lay on Larkin's back, his legs and sheer weight controlling the body, one arm around the throat, hands gripping wrists.

"Okay," he panted. "Squirm away. You'll just strangle yourself, you know."

Larkin hissed an obscenity. He was lighter, but Kintyre could feel a hard vitality in him. No matter, he was held now.

"Bartender," wheezed Kintyre. "Call the police--"

Something landed on his head.

It was like an explosion. For a moment he spiraled down toward night. He felt Larkin wriggle free, he groped mindlessly but his hands were empty and the world was blackness and great millstones.

Then he was aware once more. Guido crouched beside him, shaken and sobbing, and pawed at his bleeding scalp with a handkerchief. "Oh, God, Doc, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. Are you hurt?"

Kintyre looked around. "Where'd Junior go?" he croaked.

"Out the back door. Christ, Doc, I had to, you don't know what--Mary, Mother of God, forgive me, but--"

Kintyre stood up, leaning on Guido. A small riot was developing among the clientele and the help. He ignored it, brushing someone aside without even looking. The singer's stool lay at his feet. Guido must have clobbered him with that.

"Suppose you tell me why," he said.

"I--Get out. Get out before the cops come. I'll cover for you--tell them I don't know who you are, you were a stranger and--Get out!" Guido pushed at him, still weeping.

"I don't have anything to fear from them," said Kintyre. "It strikes me that maybe you do."

"Maybe," whispered Guido.

"Bruce died in a nasty way."

"This isn't--nothing to do with--I swear it, Doc, so help me God I do. Think I'd ever--It's something else, for Christ's sake!" Guido spoke in a slurred muted scream. "It's not only the cops I'm scared of, Doc, it's the others. They'd kill me!"

Kintyre studied him for a long second.

After all, he thought, this was Bruce's brother. And Corinna's.

"Okay," he said. "I promise you nothing. I, at least, will insist on knowing what this is all about. When I do, perhaps I'll decide the police ought to be told, and perhaps not. But for now, good night, Guido."

He turned to go out the rear exit. Faintly through the main door, he heard approaching sirens, but there was time enough to get into a back alley and thence to his car.

He realized, suddenly, with an unsurprised drowsy delight like the aftermath of love, that the horror had left him. When he continued his search for Larkin and for that more terrible thing which Larkin must represent, it would be from honor, because he was taking it on himself not to tell the police at once that there was a mansticker loose in their city. He would not be merely running from his private ghosts.

Tonight he would be able to sleep.

He paused at the door, looking back. "Good night, Guido," he repeated. "And thanks again for the song."

7

Two brawls in succession had not tired him; he got more exercise than that in an evening at the dojo. But the strain of the time before had had its effect. He woke with a fluttering gasp and saw dust motes dance in a yellow sunbeam. The clock said almost nine.

"Judas priest," he groaned. Suddenly it came to him that he had left Guido unguarded. So much for the amateur detective.

He sprang from bed and twirled the radio controls. Having found a newscast, he went into the bathroom and showered; Trig Yamamura had beaten that much Zen into his thick head. Through the water noise, he heard that more money was necessary so the nation's bought friends would stay bought; that the countries which had simply given their friendship were being imperialistic, i.e., hanging on to their overseas property, and therefore unworthy of help; that subversive elements in the bottle cap industry were to be investigated; and that Mother Bloor's Old Time Chicken Broth was made by a new scientific process which "sealed in" tiny drops of chicken goodness. Nothing was said about another murder.

Kintyre sighed and gave himself time to cook breakfast. If Guido hadn't been killed last night, he must be safely asleep at home by now. There were a few hours to spare.

He got into slacks and a gray sports shirt: he hated neckties and had no reason to wear one today. First, he decided, he must see Trig. After that he could wind up Bruce's University job. And, yes, he would take a closer look at the Book of Witches.

Yamamura's office was unimpressively above a drugstore in downtown Berkeley, a mile or so to walk. Kintyre found him polishing a Japanese sword. "Hi. Isn't this a nice one?" he boasted mildly. "I picked it up last week. It's only Tokugawa period, but get the heft, will you?"

Kintyre drew the blade. It came suddenly alive. He returned it with a faint sense of loss. "I could have used that chopper last night," he said.

"Yeh." Narrow black eyes drifted across him, the plaster high on his forehead and the outsize Band-Aid on his left forearm. "What happened, and is she going to prefer charges?"

"I suspect I met Bruce Lombardi's murderer," said Kintyre. "Or one of them."

Yamamura slid the sword carefully into its plain wooden scabbard. He took out his oldest briar and stuffed the bowl. Kintyre had finished his account by the time the pipe had a full head of steam up.

"--So I came on home."

Yamamura looked irritated. "It's your own stupid fault Larkin got away," he said. "Obviously you were holding your neck muscles tense. The stool wouldn't have hurt you to speak of if you weren't." He waggled his pipestem. "How often must I tell you, _relax_? Or don't you want to win your black belt?"

"Come off it," said Kintyre. "Look, what I'm afraid of is that Larkin, or someone associated with him, may decide Guido isn't safe to leave alive."

"All right. Let Guido ask the police for protection."

"He can't. I don't know why, but he doesn't dare. He'd rather take his chances with Larkin."

"I'd suggest that if he's that scared of the authorities, he deserves whatever he'll get."

"Don't be such a damned prig. Guido may be an accessory, of course, but I hate to think that. Why write him off before we're sure he wasn't just someone's dupe?"

"Mmmm. What has all this to do with me?"

"I want you to keep an eye on him."

"So? What's wrong with you doing this? Your vacation is coming up. I still have a living to make, and you can't pay me."

"I haven't the skill. And Guido and Larkin both know my face. Also, I do think I can be of some value on this side of the Bay."

"Huh! Sherlock Nero Poirot rides again."

"No. Think, Trig. The probability is that Bruce was killed by one or more professionals. But they didn't do it for fun. Somebody hired them, and that somebody is the real murderer. I've two reasons for wanting to meddle a little bit, rather than simply dumping what I know into the official lap. First, to spare Guido, at least till I'm sure if he's worth sparing or not. But second, this may not be entirely a police problem. They'll concentrate on the actual, physical killers, try to find one or two or three ants in the whole Bay Area antheap. They've no choice about that, it's their duty. Doubtless they'll put a man on the job of finding out who the killers' boss is. But the police don't know anyone concerned very intimately. The boss will have a certain amount of time to cover his tracks. Or to plan another murder.

"I knew Bruce well. I must have met all his friends, however casually. _I have met whoever had Bruce killed._ It may be sheer megalomania on my part, but I think there's a chance I could get an idea who it was."

Yamamura put his feet on the desk, leaned back, and stared out the window at the street. "Okay," he said at last. "On conditions."

"What?"

"I do have my family to keep. Not to mention my license. I'll undertake a week or so of Guido-guarding as an investment. Because if I could get a clue to the murderers, the boss or his torpedos, if I could give any substantial help to the police, the publicity would be good for my business. But to do anything useful along those lines, I'll have to leave Guido from time to time. I'll tail him when I think he may be in danger, yes, but when I think he's going to be safe for a few hours, I'll go check on something else."

"All right," said Kintyre. "In fact, excellent."

Yamamura looked at him through pipe smoke and said gravely: "If I find reasons why Guido should be arrested, I won't cover for him. I'll turn him in. Furthermore, I could make an error in judgment. I might leave Guido and come back to find Guido plus a knife. Now I sort of like you, Bob, don't ask me why. I'd hate to think you would hold either my informing or my mistake against me."

"Certainly not."

"Are you sure?"

"You know me, Trig."

Yamamura thought it over for a while. "Very well," he said. "Let's get the descriptions, addresses, and whatever else you know."

When they had finished, they were silent a few seconds.

"Oh, what did you find out about Owens?" asked Kintyre.

"Wife and two grown children in New York. Started as a business traveler, years ago; found that his hobby of writing paid more, and quit to write full time; captain's commission during the war, chairborne brigade in Washington--"

"If it takes a criminology degree to enter a bookstore, tell the clerk you're just looking, and read a dust jacket biography, then I'm in the wrong racket."

Yamamura settled himself more comfortably. "Owens has been hanging around Berkeley for several days without obvious motive," he said. "Addressed a writers' club Saturday night, but left early and was presumably on the town. They say at the hotel he slept late on Sunday, but no one remembers when he came in. Played some golf Sunday afternoon, dropped from sight again that night. Since then he's been simply--around. Bored, lonesome, but waiting for something or other."

"In short," said Kintyre, "it's possible he--"

"Did it personally? I don't know. Anything is possible, I guess. He may just have been out on the make, too. The chambermaid at his hotel tells me he's the pawing type. Of course, if the murder was done by proxy, these timetables don't mean anything anyway."

"Of course," said Kintyre.

8

Bruce had shared an office with four other assistants, but they were gone now. Bare of people, it had a hollow quality.

Kintyre went through the desk a final time. There was so little which was personally a man's. A few scrawls on the memo pad, a scratch sheet covered with intricate doodles, Margery's picture, some reference books, and a fat folder of notes relating to his research: no more. It could all be carried away in a single trip.

Kintyre attacked the remaining student papers. That was a mechanical task; few freshmen nowadays ever showed much originality, except in their spelling. Most of his brain idled. It occurred to him that one common element bound together everyone who seemed to figure in this affair. The Italian nation and culture.

Angelo, Maria, Guido Lombardi: All born in Genoa.

Bruce Lombardi: Born over here, but oriented toward the old country, writing his master's thesis as a critical exegesis of a medieval Italian manuscript, corresponding with an uncle in the Italian secret service.

Corinna Lombardi: Well, Bruce's sister; spoke the language too.

Margery Towne: Bruce's girl. Admittedly a weak connection.

Himself, Robert Kintyre: Postgraduate studies of the Renaissance, on a fellowship which kept him in Italy from 1949 to 1951; took his Ph.D. at Cal with a study of those lesser known sociological writings before Machiavelli which had influenced the Florentine realist; returned overseas for a year ending last summer, on another grant to continue his researches; now teaching and working on a book which only specialists would ever read.

Jabez Owens: Visited Europe, including Italy, many times. Claimed, as a semiamateur scholar, to have unearthed some lurid Borgia correspondence, which he had turned to his own profit.

Gerald Clayton: Officer in the Army Quartermaster Corps in Italy, during the latter part of the war. Returned there immediately after his discharge, came back in a couple of years with the American franchise for a new line of Italian motor scooters. Since then he spent half his time abroad, pumping a steadily larger flow of European goods into the United States market, everything from automobiles to perfumes. Also interested in manuscripts. Had several tracked down for him by Italian scholars, bought them, sent them home. He obtained the Book of Witches in Sicily, and carried it along when business took him to San Francisco last fall. Found Kintyre was the man to see, looked him up, asked him to examine the volume for whatever value it had. Kintyre had turned the project over to Bruce; it would make a good M.A. thesis. Clayton had pungled up a couple of thousand dollars as a research grant: a graceful way of making it financially possible for Bruce to give some time to the task. Since then Clayton had frequently seen both Bruce and Kintyre, and shown a real if not very deep interest in the boy's progress.

Gene Michaelis: Served his Navy hitch in the Mediterranean theater. Yes, Bruce had mentioned that. What might have happened during Gene's Italian shore leaves was an intriguing question.

Peter Michaelis: Gene's father, as embittered as he toward the Lombardi tribe.

Terry Larkin: No connection demonstrated, but it was quite possible in this land of many races.

"Holy Hieronymus," muttered Kintyre, "next thing I'll be looking for a Black Hand."

But melodramatic and implausible facts were still stubbornly facts.

He completed his task about noon, turned in the papers and reports, and got the Book of Witches from the department safe. He wanted a better acquaintance with this thing.

Bruce's office was too empty. He took the manuscript and the folder of notes to his own room. It was just as bare and quiet between these walls, but more familiar. He could look out the window to lawns and blowing trees and sunlight spilling over them--without thinking that Bruce lay frozen under a sheet.

He put the book on his desk with care. It was almost six hundred years old.

The phone rang. He jerked in surprise, swore at himself, and picked it up. "Hello?"

"Kintyre? Jabez Owens."

"Oh. What is it?"

"I called your home and you weren't in, so I tried--How are you?"

"I'll live. What's the occasion?"

"I wondered--I'd like to talk to you. Would you care to have lunch with me?"

"No, thanks." Kintyre had better plans than to watch Owens perform. "I'm busy."

"Are you sure?" The voice was worried.

"Quite. I'll be here for some hours. I'll just duck out for a sandwich." Maliciously: "I've some work to do on Bruce's project. Afterward--"

What? Well, he hadn't called Margery today. He supposed, with a faintly suffocated feeling, that he ought to see her. "I have an engagement," he finished.

"Oh." Hesitantly: "Do you think I could drop up to your office, then? It really is urgent, and it may be to your own advantage."

"Sure," said Kintyre, remembering his wish to play sleuth. "Walk into my parlor." He gave Owens the room number and hung up. Then he returned to the Book of Witches.

It was a thick palimpsest, a little over quarto size. The binding, age-eaten leather with rusted iron straps, was perhaps a century newer than the volume itself. He opened it, heavy in his hands, and looked at the title page. _Liber Veneficarum_--

_Book of Witches, Their Works and Days, Compiled from Records and the Accounts of Trustworthy Men, Done at the Sicilian Abbey of St. John the Divine at the Command of the Abbot Rogero, for the Attention and Use of the Authorities of Our Holy Mother Church._

When Clayton first brought it around, Kintyre had only skimmed through the black uncials in a hasty fashion. He knew there had been considerable Satanism in the Middle Ages, partly pagan survivals and partly social protest, but that had not seemed to be in his immediate line. A man has only time to learn a few things before the darkness takes him back.

Now he opened Bruce's folder and began to read the notes. Some were typewritten, some still in pothooks harder to decipher than the fourteenth century Low Latin. But they were in order, and their own references were clearly shown. Bruce had been a good, careful scholar.

Well--Kintyre turned to the first page. It was very plain work, unilluminated. The opening sentences described the purpose: to set forth exactly what the witchcraft movement was, how widespread and how dangerous to the Faith and the state. Sources were given, with some commentary on their trustworthiness. The Middle Ages did not lack critical sense. The monk wrote soberly of witchcraft as a set of real activities in the real world; he wasted very little time on the demons presumed to be the object of worship.

Kintyre struggled with his memory, brought back an approximate recollection of a later passage, and hunted for it again. Yes, here, near the middle: an account of a thirteenth century witch hunt in northern Italy, a follow-up to the Albigensian Crusade. The author said that since then there had been no covens worth mentioning north of Abruzzi, and cited proof--statements by Church and secular investigators, a couple of confessions extracted by torture.

Bruce's notes at this point gave confirming cross references. A penciled afterthought occurred: "If there were no organized Satanists in the Romagna in 1398, it hardly seems reasonable that Cesare Borgia could have joined them a century later!" Evidence was marshaled to show there had been no revival in the meantime. Rather, the cults had been on the wane throughout the fifteenth century, as prosperity and enlightenment spread.

_Well_, thought Kintyre, _that does pretty well sink Owens' boat._

Something caught his eye. He leaned over the sheet. A fifteenth century "discourse," an official report, in the state archives of Milan was quoted to support the claim that there was no contemporary local Black Mass. In the margin was scribbled "L.L."

Private abbreviations could be weird and wonderful, but Kintyre found himself obscurely irritated. So much was unknown about Bruce's final destiny, even an initial might tell something.

He found the letters several times more in the next hour, as he worked his way through the volume and the notes. They seemed to mark findings which could only be made in Italy: by going out and looking at a site, or by reading in ancient libraries.

The telephone interrupted him again. He glanced at his watch. Two o'clock already! He grew aware that he was hungry.

"Hello. Robert Kintyre speaking."

The voice in his ear was low. It stumbled the barest bit. "Professor Kintyre. This is Corinna Lombardi."

"Oh." He sat gaping into the mouthpiece like a schoolboy, feeling his heartbeat pick up. "Oh, yes," he said stupidly.

"I wanted to apologize to you."

"Hm?" With an effort, he pulled himself toward sense. "What the dev--What in the world is there to apologize for?"

"Last night. I was horrible."

Habit took over, the smoothness of having known many women; but his tone was burred. "Oh, now, please don't be silly. If you won't mind my saying so at a time like this, I thought you were quite extraordinarily pleasant to meet."

Did he catch the unsubstantial wisp of a chuckle? "Thank you. You're very kind. But I did pull a regular Lady Macbeth. It was nerves. I was tired and miserable. I hope you'll believe how sorry I've been all day. I've spent the past half hour at the phone, trying to track you down."

"If I'd known that, I'd have laid a paper trail--Blast!" Kintyre checked himself. "Now it's my turn to ask your pardon. I wasn't thinking."

"It's all right," she said gently.

"No, but--"

"Really it is. Now that the requiem Mass has been held, the solemn one Mother wanted--it was almost like a real funeral. Everything looks different now."

"Yes, I saw the announcement. I couldn't come, I had to finish his work."

"I could envy you that," she said. Then, with a lifting in her tone: "I came back and slept. I woke up only an hour ago. It's like a curtain falling. Bruce is dead, and that will always hurt, but we can go on now with our own lives."

He hovered on the edge of decision, wondering what to do, afraid of the ghoul she might think him. A line from _The Prince_ came: "_... it is better to be impetuous than cautious, for fortune is a woman_--" All right, he told himself.

"There's one thing, Miss Lombardi."

"Yes?" She waited patiently for him to sort out his words.

"I haven't forgotten what you did say last night. I went ahead and looked into it, your ideas, I mean."

"Oh?" A noncommittal noise, not openly skeptical.

"I can tell you something you may feel better for."

"What?" Caution, now, not of him but of the thing he might say.

"The phone is hardly suitable. Could we get together in person?"

"Well--" It stretched into seconds, which he found unnaturally long. Then, clearly, almost gaily: "Of course. Whenever you like."

"This evening? You're at your parents' home still, aren't you?"

"I'm going back to my own place today. But this evening will be fine."

He said with careful dryness: "Bearing in mind that I am a somewhat respectable assistant professor of history and more than a decade your senior, may I suggest dinner?"

She did actually chuckle that time. "Thank you, you may. No references needed; Bruce told me enough about you. And it's a good deal better than sitting alone brooding, isn't it?"

He had gotten the address and a six-thirty date before he wholly realized what was going on. When the phone was back in its cradle, he sat for some indefinite time. _Oh, no!_ he thought at last. _Impossible. I'm too old to be romantic and too young to be tired._

He decided to eat before going back to the manuscript.

While he went out for a sandwich and milkshake, while he walked back again, he twisted his attention to the problem of the book. It could have wrought a man's death, or it could only be a stack of inked parchment. Most likely the latter; but then who or what was L. L?

The building was gloomy when he re-entered it from sunlight. Even his office seemed dark. It took his eyes a few seconds to register the fact that the book was gone.

9

Kintyre stood for a little while more, scarcely thinking.

Then, during an instant, he had a vision of tiny black devils fluttering through the half-open window, lifting the volume and squeaking their way out on quick charred wings. But no, no, this was the twentieth century. We are rational, we don't believe in witchcraft, we are scientific and believe in vitamin pills, Teamwork, and the inalienable right of every language to have a country of its own. Also, the phase of the moon was wrong, and--and--

His mind steadied. He whirled about the desk, to see if the book had somehow slid off. No. He snatched up the phone and called the main office. Had anyone come into his room in the past twenty minutes? We don't know, Dr. Kintyre. No, we did not pick up your book. No, we didn't see anyone.

He put back the instrument and tried to start his thoughts. It was curiously hard. He tended to repeat himself. Someone must have come in. Yes, someone must have come in. It would be easy to do, unobserved. Someone must have come in and taken the book.

What the hell had Margery's apartment been burgled for?

That snapped him back to wakefulness. If, as Clayton had suggested yesterday, the burglar was after this volume and hadn't found it, the University was the next logical place to try.

_Owens! I told him I'd go out to eat. He could have watched the entrance._

But where was he now?--Wait. Close your eyes, let the mind float free, don't strain too hard--memory bobbed to the surface. Owens had mentioned taking a room in the Bishop, a hotel conveniently near campus.

Kintyre forced himself into steadiness. If Owens had copped the book, Owens would want to get rid of it. Permanently. But leather and parchment don't burn easily. Dumping it meant too much chance of its being noticed and recovered. Owens would take it to Los Angeles with him, to destroy at leisure.

He was probably packing at this moment.

Kintyre tucked Bruce's notes into a drawer which he locked: not that they had any value without the physical evidence of the book. He went down the hall fast, a pace he kept up on the outside. His brain querned until he brought it under control. Damn it, Trig was right, there was no reason on God's earth ever to tense any muscle not actually working; and the same held true for the mind. An emotional stew would grind him down and get him to the Bishop no sooner.

It was a hard discipline, though. Kintyre had no urge to embrace Zen Buddhism, or any other faith for that matter; but he would have given much to possess the self-mastery it taught.

He entered the modest red-brick building a few blocks from Sather Gate and asked for Mr. Owens. The clerk checked the key rack and said: "Oh, yes, he came in a few minutes ago."

"I'll go on up, I'm expected," said Kintyre. It was probably not a lie.

When he knocked on the writer's door, he heard himself invited in. Owens had one suitcase open on the bed and was folding a coat into it. Another stood strapped on the floor.

He looked up (was his color a shade more rubicund?) and said, "Hullo, there. I'm glad you came by. I'm leaving tonight."

The voice was level. Perhaps too level. Kintyre closed the door and said: "I thought you were going to come and see me in my office."

"Well, I was," said Owens. "I wanted to get my packing out of the way first." He felt in the suitcase and brought out a pocket flask. "Care for a drop?"

"No," said Kintyre.

He leaned in the doorway, watching. But he saw only that Owens stood neatly attired, calm of face, steady of hands, putting up a linen suit.

"What brings you here?" asked the writer.

Kintyre countered: "Isn't this a rather sudden decision to leave?"

"Mm, yes. I made the reservation just a few minutes ago. But I haven't much reason to stay here any longer, have I?"

"The Lombardi murder."

Owens shook his head. "Poor chap. But what can I do about it? I assure you, the police didn't ask me to stay in town."

He gave Kintyre a straight look, smiled, and went on: "Why don't you sit down and talk to me, though? I'm more or less stuck till Clayton arrives. He said he'd meet me here."

"Clayton? Why--" Kintyre moved slowly forward, to the armchair Owens waved at. He continued talking, inanely. "I thought Clayton was in the City. He told me yesterday when we had lunch, he told me he'd be going right over there and didn't expect to come back to this side in the near future."

"Oh? I called him at the Fairhill, just before you got here. He was right in his suite."

Kintyre sat down. "What did you want him for?"

"To make him an offer for the Book of Witches."

"What!"

"Take it easy," advised Owens. "You don't own the thing."

The effort not to pounce left Kintyre rigid. He managed finally to say: "I suppose that was what you wanted to see me about, to offer me the same bribe Bruce wouldn't take."

"I see you've gotten a somewhat biased version." Owens' reply had the blandness of conscious mastery. "Yes, it was to be a similar offer. Not that I don't stand behind my contentions in the Borgia matter, but you people in this academic cloudland don't realize that the rest of us have a living to make. I have no time at present to dig into minutiae, and anyhow there are more important things in life. What I asked Lombardi was that he postpone the argument. Not perjure his precious self, only wait a while. There were enough other things to be written about, anent that book. He didn't have to raise the Borgia issue at all. Maybe in five or ten years--"

"Since you brought up the Borgia issue, as you call it, in the first place," said Kintyre harshly, "we in cloudland have no choice. If there's a notorious error afoot, we've got to correct it. What the hell do you think we get paid for?"

"Publicity," said Owens. "Ornament. A ritual bow in the direction of yesterday." He took forth a silver case, opened it, fetched out a long cigarette and tapped it on his thumbnail.

"You claim to be a realist," he said. "Then why don't you admit the facts? This business of scholarship, verification, the painful asymptotic approach to truth--it's dead. It went out with the society of aristocrats. This is a proletarian age." He lit the cigarette. His trained lecture-circuit voice rolled out, urbane, whimsical, with a bare touch of sadness. "He who dances must pay the piper, but he who pays the piper may call the tune. Since the bills today are all being footed by slobs, what do you expect but the onward march of slobbery? One day you'll be fired in the name of government economy. I'll hang on a little longer, because I gauge the current level of oafishness and make each succeeding book conform; but sooner or later it will be too much trouble for the public even to read my swill. Then I'll settle down to live on my investments, and perhaps I can even go back to a little honest scholarship. But not now. First I must survive."

Kintyre said slowly, caught up in spite of himself: "Granted, this is the century of the common mind. But what makes you think it will last, even long enough for you to collect on those investments? This is also the so-called atomic age."

Owens lifted his shoulders and let them fall again, gracefully. "How do I know I won't be hit by a car tomorrow? One estimates the situation and acts on probabilities."

Kintyre leaned forward. "The probabilities are all for the worst," he said. "Anyone who claims a roomful of people, all with grenades and all hating each other, will keep on acting rationally forever, is whistling past the graveyard of a dozen earlier civilizations. But I do believe scholarship--rigorous thinking--will be a survival factor. And afterward it will be one of the things which will make cultural rebuilding worth while. So I won't quit trying. It isn't for nothing."

He stood up, not as tall as Owens, but broader and smoothly moving. "Let me therefore have that manuscript back," he finished.

His enemy kept a half smile; but as he neared, Kintyre saw how cheeks and forehead began to glisten. The pupils that stared at him widened until they were two wells of dark.

"What are you talking about?" said Owens shrilly.

"You know bloody damn well what I mean. You took the Book of Witches. Give it back and we'll say no more. Otherwise--"

Kintyre was almost upon the writer. Owens backed away, holding up his cigarette like a futile sword. "Look here," he protested. "Look here, now."

There came a rap on the door. Owens went limp with relief. "Come in!" he yelled.

Kintyre realized bitterly how he had been snared. Owens had thrown out words which he knew the other must stop to answer. It had gained him a few seconds that might well make his victory; Kintyre took him for a physical coward who would not have stood up long even to verbal browbeating.

_Or did I actually intend to wring it from him with my hands?_ The thought was so shocking that Kintyre stepped back.

Gerald Clayton entered, massive in gray, his narrow face wearing only a routine smile. It became more nearly genuine when he saw Kintyre. "Why, hello, there," he said. "What's going on?"

Owens threw his opponent a look. _If you don't say anything about this, I won't._ Kintyre held himself expressionless, waiting.

"Sit down, Mr. Clayton, do sit down." Owens gestured him to a chair. "I appreciate your coming. I know your time is valuable."

The importer seated himself and took out a cigar. Owens hovered around with his pocket flask; the drink was declined. Kintyre leaned against the wall, arms folded, and strove for calm.

"I wasn't very busy," said Clayton. "Glad of a chance to get away, in fact." He nodded at Kintyre and explained: "Something came up which forces me to stay in Berkeley at least till tomorrow. But it involves mostly waiting till I can see the person in question. So what did you want, Jabez?"

Owens shot another glance at Kintyre, gathered himself, and said: "I wondered if you'd be interested in selling the _Liber Veneficarum_?"

Clayton's mouth bent upward, creasing his lean cheeks. "Whatever for?" he asked, almost merrily. "I'm a collector."

"Well." Owens sat down on the bed, more at ease now. "You're aware of my argument with Bruce Lombardi. I admit it's possible I was cheated on those letters--" _or commissioned the forgeries yourself_, reflected Kintyre--"and if not, at least the case against me deserves careful refutation. So I would like to have the manuscript, to study at my own leisure."

"And never get around to publishing your findings?" asked Clayton. But he said it in a twitting, inoffensive tone.

"It might take me a few years," said Owens doggedly. "I've other work to do. However, I'm prepared to make a fair offer for the book. Or, if you don't want to sell, I would like to borrow it for a year or two, under suitable guarantees against loss."

Clayton rubbed his chin. "Seems to me that Bob has some rights in this matter," he declared.

Kintyre stepped a pace forward. His voice snapped out: "The reason I came here is that the manuscript was stolen from me."

"What?" Clayton shouted it, half rose, sat down again and puffed hard at his cigar. "What happened?" he said roughly.

Kintyre related the morning. "It fits pretty well," he concluded. "First he plans an attempt to bribe me, as he tried to bribe Bruce. Did you know he offered Bruce five thousand dollars to withhold his findings? I mention on the phone I'll be going out to lunch. Since he doesn't really expect I'll bribe either, Owens hangs around. When he sees me leave, he ducks up into my office. If the book isn't there, he can always try the original scheme. But it's right on my desk, and I apologize for my own carelessness. Owens takes it back here. Then, to cover himself, he phones you with this offer to buy--as if he didn't know it was gone!"

Kintyre finished in a growl: "That suitcase on the floor, already packed, would hold a quarto volume very easily."

Clayton remained impassive.

The writer said with strained calm: "I ask you to witness this, sir. I'm thinking of a suit for slander."

"That book is worth enough to make it theft grand larceny," said Clayton.

"And what alibi does the good Professor Kintyre have?" flung Owens.

"Who but you has a motive for the book to disappear?" said Kintyre. "By God--"

Owens got off the bed and retreated again. Kintyre strode up to him and laid a hand about his wrist. He did not squeeze unduly hard, but Owens opened his mouth to scream, face going paper colored. Kintyre dropped the wrist as if it had turned incandescent. The reaction was unnatural enough, to his mind, to jar him physically.

"That'll do!" rumbled Clayton. He stood up. His grizzled ruddy hair made Kintyre think of a lion's mane, a fighting cock's comb; this man had slugged his own way up from nothingness.

"That'll do," he repeated. "If we can't settle it between ourselves like gentlemen, we'd better call the police."

Owens fumbled his way to the pocket flask, raised it and gulped. A little blood returned to his skin. "I thought you were going to hit me," he said in a tiny voice. "I never could--"

"Owens," said Clayton, "did you steal the book?" His tone fell like iron.

"No." The writer put his flask down on the bureau. He remained standing above it, leaning on his hands, looking back over a hunched shoulder. "No, of course not."

"Mind if we look around to make sure?"

"I don't wish my baggage opened," said Owens. "You haven't the right."

Kintyre, with a measure of control restored to him, said: "We could prefer charges and have the police look."

"Go ahead," said Owens more firmly. "I'll sue you for every nickel you've got. I'd enjoy that."

"I don't like trouble," said Clayton. "If you have the book, return it. We'll say you--borrowed it--nobody else ever has to hear a word."

Owens whirled around. "That's a reflection on my integrity!" he shouted.

"If you really are innocent," said Clayton in a patient way, "I should think you'd want your integrity confirmed."

Owens studied them for a moment.

"All right," he said. "I don't blame you, Mr. Clayton. Your reaction is very understandable. But this character--Mr. Clayton, in case I decide to sue him, and I probably will, remember exactly what happened today. Now go ahead and search."

The importer squatted by the suitcase. It didn't take him long to go through the neatly packed clothing. There was no book.

10

"Somewhere else," mumbled Kintyre. "Under the bed."

"Stand aside," said Clayton.

He went to work, peering, poking, moving about the room and its bath like a professional. He found places to check which Kintyre would not have thought of in a week's hunt; and yet the broad ropy-veined hands, which had once wielded a shovel, made little disarrangement.

Owens sat down, poured himself another drink, and sipped as if it were victory he tasted. Kintyre stood by the window sill, wrestling himself toward calm. He had not yet fully achieved it when Clayton said: "Not in here."

"Well," murmured Owens.

Clayton puffed blue smoke, sat down on the bed, and gave them both a quizzical glance. "I suppose an apology is in order," he said.

Owens waved his cigarette. "Look," he replied, giving it the complete treatment, "I've cooled off a bit myself. I can see how you were overwrought, Professor, from the death of your friend--and, to be sure, the loss of a valuable relic entrusted to you." Kintyre held his mouth stiff. "If you'll take this as a lesson, I for my part am willing to forget it."

"You might thank the man, Bob," added Clayton lightly.

Kintyre grunted. What could you say?

"It's worth while reviewing the facts, though," went on Clayton. "Maybe between us we can figure who did swipe it."

"No students around," said Owens.

"True. But anybody could have lounged outside till Bob left and then walked up into his office, without much risk of being seen. Right?"

Kintyre nodded. His neck ached with tension.

"Okay." Clayton blew a smoke ring. "I guess we can rule out an ordinary thief. He wouldn't pick a college building. How about other people with offices there?"

Kintyre stirred. "Now, wait," he began.

Clayton waved him back. "Take it easy, Bob. Just for the record, is anybody but you working in that place between sessions?"

"Well, some," he forced himself to say. "It's a sizable department. And then the clerical staff, and janitors. But for God's sake!"

"Their own office doors wouldn't be locked, though?"

"Hm? No, I suppose not. At least, a number wouldn't be. Even if they weren't in today, there'd be nothing to steal."

"Except manuscripts." Owens had been seated, listening with a tolerant smile. Now he said in a cool voice, "Not to follow the recent bad example of accusations, but what _is_ your alibi, Kintyre?"

"No motive!"

"Oh? I daresay there are other wealthy collectors besides Mr. Clayton. With your contacts, you could have learned who they are. Mind you, I don't charge you with anything, but--"

"Cut it out," interrupted Clayton. It was so cold a phrase that they both turned startled faces to him.

He got up. "This farce has gone on long enough," he said. "Jabez, give me my book."

"What?" Owens leaned away. Clayton walked toward him. Owens lifted a fending arm.

"I don't feel like hunting through a lot of rooms for it," said Clayton. "Which did you leave it in?"

"But--but--but--"

"Do I have to spell it out? It's plain to see, either you or Bob took the thing. Who the hell else is there? I credit Bob with brains enough to steal it more neatly. Like setting an 'accidental' fire he could tell me burned it. You had to work fast, though. Play by ear. You grabbed it exactly as Bob thought. Only you realized he'd come back in a few minutes and go howling on your trail. What better way to throw him off it than to let him make a fool of himself before me--me, the owner, who's really got a right to blow his stack?"

Clayton stood over Owens with the big fists on his hips, beating him about the head with words. "You left it in one of those empty offices, or maybe in the can. They won't lock the main entrance till five o'clock or so, I guess. You could have picked the thing up again at your convenience, when Bob had gone off with his tail between his legs. It was fun while it lasted, Jabez, but now suppose you tell me where that book is."

"I didn't!" screamed Owens.

"I don't want to press charges," said Clayton. "Tell me, and we'll call it quits. Otherwise we can all wait right here for the police."

Owens began to shake. Kintyre looked away, feeling a little sick himself. "All right," said Clayton and picked up the phone.

"No," whimpered Owens. "Don't."

"Well?" Clayton paused, one finger in a dial hole.

Owens got out a room number. "Under the desk," he added, and lowered his face into his hands.

"Can we check that from here?" asked Clayton.

Kintyre nodded, took the phone and called the department. He asked one of the girls to look, feeding her a story about having lent the volume out. Then he held the line and waited.

"Well," said Clayton. He drew on his cigar, relaxed visibly, and laughed. "Maybe I ought to set up as a private eye. Know any hard-boiled blondes?"

"Nice work," said Kintyre inadequately. "Good Lord, if that book really had been lost!"

"It wouldn't have been your fault," said Clayton. "Forget it."

Kintyre looked down at a shuddering back. "It seems to be my turn now, Owens," he said. "No hard feelings. _Va' tu con Dio._"

"No," said Clayton. "I'm afraid not."

Kintyre stared up again, into the narrow face and the deeply ridged eyes. "I thought," he said, "I thought you wouldn't--"

"Prefer charges? Not about a lousy manuscript. My time's worth too much. But Bruce Lombardi was murdered, remember?"

Owens lifted a seared countenance and gasped: "No, you can spare me that much, can't you?"

"I hope so," said Clayton impersonally. "But the fact remains, Bruce was a threat to a fat piece of Hollywood cash."

"He was going to expose the Borgia fraud publicly, as well as in specialized journals," said Kintyre, not wanting to.

"That made it even more urgent," said Clayton. "If Bruce should die and the book disappear, I don't know who'd stand to benefit more than you."

Owens emitted a little moaning noise and shriveled back into the mask of his hands. "You see?" said Clayton.

"Wait," protested Kintyre. "I can't really believe he--"

"I'm open to proof," said Clayton.

Kintyre fell silent.

After a while the girl's voice said in the phone: "I found it, Dr. Kintyre. Right where you told me."

"Thanks a lot," he answered automatically. "Would you put it in the safe?" He nodded and hung up.

"Good," said Clayton. He spoke slowly and carefully to Owens' bent head: "We'll leave now. You stay around Berkeley for a while. I'm going to have to call your motive to the attention of the police, so if you left there'd probably be a warrant for you by tonight. But I won't say anything about your peccadillo this afternoon. And if you're innocent, I recommend that you start scrounging around for witnesses to where you were all weekend."

* * * * *

"Whoof!" said Kintyre when he was in the lobby. "I wouldn't like to go through that again."

"Nor I," said Clayton. "Let's have something wet."

They went into the coffee shop and ordered. Kintyre said: "Owens didn't do the murder. I doubt if he's capable of killing his own flies."

"Himself," said Clayton shortly. "He could have hired a torpedo. He's got money enough. Not that killers come fabulously expensive."

Almost, Kintyre told him of last night. He stopped with the words at his teeth. After this hour's performance, it seemed too probable that Clayton would insist on telling the San Francisco authorities about Larkin, on the instant, and the consequences to Guido (and thereby to Guido's parents and Corinna) go hang.

_As far as that goes, I suppose I've made myself an accessory after the fact or something._

They remained in a companionable silence until the coffee had arrived. It was refreshing to know an unfrantic businessman; but then, Clayton had acquired a lot of European traits.

The importer asked suddenly: "Have you seen Miss Towne?"

"Not today," said Kintyre, surprised.

"Were you planning to?"

"Why--yes. I thought I'd drop around this afternoon. She told me she didn't feel up to working for the rest of this week."

"It might be better if she did," said Clayton. "She'll sit at home and grieve, or go out and laugh more than she means. Drinking too much in either case."

"You seem to know her pretty well," said Kintyre. He felt a bit annoyed, he didn't know why.

"I met her a few times is all. But she's pretty transparent, under all that careful sophistication, isn't she?" Clayton stirred his coffee, focusing on the spoon as if it were some precision instrument. "A good kid."

"She's all right," said Kintyre.

"I suppose you feel an obligation toward her?"

Kintyre bridled. "I didn't mean to keyhole," said Clayton hurriedly. "I just couldn't help wondering what'll become of her. Somebody has to help her over the hump. She'll never make it alone."

Against his own principles of respect for privacy, Kintyre found himself speculating. Where had Clayton picked up such intuitions? His first wife, whom he had loved, seemed by his few chance remarks and his _Who's Who_ biography to have been the conventional helpmeet of a conventional young man in the thirties: grocery clerk, salesman, pitchforked down by the Depression, up again via WPA to construction foreman to warehouse foreman to minor executive. Finally she got tuberculosis, with complications, and took a couple of years to die. The medical bills ruined him; he parked the three children with relatives for years. Afterward, on the way up once more in the defense boom and the early war boom, he married the boss's daughter. He got to be general superintendent of an aircraft plant before he learned what a bitch she was. The divorce cost him that job and his savings. He applied for an Army commission and got one in 1943.

Kintyre knew little else; his information was only the gossip one is bound to encounter. Clayton had been a fairly large figure in Italy when Kintyre went over for the second time.

"Eh?" he said, pulled back to awareness.

"I asked if you wanted to take her out tonight," repeated Clayton.

"Uh--"

"Somebody ought to." As if he had heard Kintyre's thoughts, Clayton said with an enormous gentleness: "She reminds me a lot of my daughter."

Clayton had never had any great chance to be a father, reflected Kintyre. After the war, his kids ended up in exclusive boarding schools while Dad was overseas reaping the money to keep them there. Now they were grown. The girl had been graduated last year and was still making her Grand Tour. Clayton sometimes bragged about her, in clumsy generalities: he scarcely knew her as a person. The second son was also worth a cautious boast or two, apparently a solid-citizen type, an engineer; he and his father doubtless exchanged very dutiful letters. The older boy, you didn't hear much about. You got an impression of a sinecure in the firm's New York office and divorce number three currently going through the mill.

Kintyre wondered, suddenly, if he had ever known anyone more alone than Clayton.

It came to him that an answer was expected. "No," he said, "I have another engagement this evening."

"Not one you could break? She does need help."

"So does Miss Lombardi. Bruce's sister. I have some news for her that could make a big difference."

Clayton paused a moment. Then he grinned. "Well, in that case," he said, "d'you mind if I squire Miss Towne?"

Kintyre looked up, startled. He had been slipping into a mood of utter oleaginous sentimentalism. Pity Clayton? The hell! You wouldn't think the man was past forty. He sat there with more life in his eyes than two buccaneer captains.

"Good heavens, no," exclaimed Kintyre. "Why ever should I?"

_Margery could do a lot worse_, he thought. He knew his eagerness was chiefly to get rid of whatever responsibility he bore for her. Nevertheless--_A lot worse!_

11

It was after four when Kintyre entered Margery's apartment. She had neglected its housekeeping, and the air was acrid with smoke.

Slacks and sweater emphasized her figure. He had almost forgotten how good it was. When she sprang from the couch and into his arms he found himself kissing her without really having intended to.

"Oh, God, Bob," she whispered. "You came. Hold me close, kiss me again, I need it."

Her nails dug into his flesh, painfully, and her lips were tense against his. And yet it was but little a sexual passion, he realized; she was altogether forlorn.

"Rough?" he asked. He freed one arm and rumpled the short coppery hair.

"Reporters," she said. "Waiting at the door when I came home today. Like flies around a corpse."

The phone rang. She left it alone; the bell had been turned down. "Most likely someone else panting to pry," she said.

"How--oh, yes," said Kintyre. "The burglary would put them on to it. Or just asking around. You didn't really think your connection with Bruce would escape discovery forever?"

"It'll be smeared over every newsstand in the area. Big black mouth-licking headlines." She raised reddened eyes. "I was at the service this morning. It was all so calm and--I don't know--so right. Even for him." She pulled herself away, picked up a handkerchief and blew her nose. "Excuse me. I can't help it. That was the only sane part of the day. His parents were there, of course, that decent old couple. I didn't have the nerve to talk to them. And now they'll see! They'll know that every moron in town knows their son they were so proud of was, was, with me!"

She fell into a chair, coughing. The phone stopped its petulance.

Kintyre said: "After all, pony, it's no crime in this state. Nor is it a very black sin in the Church. I wouldn't be at all surprised if the Lombardis got in touch with you in the friendliest way. If you loved Bruce too--"

"Did I?" She didn't look at him. "I liked him, yes, but love? Not in the usual sense of the word."

"Which is a pretty neurotic sense anyway, if you're past adolescence," said Kintyre in his driest voice.

She had regained her balance. She reached for a compact and began repairing her makeup. "Bob," she said, "for an intelligent man you can make some of the stupidest remarks on record."

Kintyre smiled. "At least I riled you out of a tailspin." He wandered across the room to the coffee table. An empty cup and an ashtray overflowing with lipsticked butts rested by the long cardboard boxes where Bruce had kept his letters. They were open, and one of the sheets lay out.