Chapter IV: Part 4

Margery came over and took his arm. "I was going through it," she said, suddenly anxious for the everyday. "Mostly it was business correspondence, official papers, that sort of thing. But there's one file in Italian. Maybe you can tell me what it means." The phone buzzed. "Shut up, God damn it!"

Kintyre sat down, taking out a cigarette for himself. He did not quite like reading a dead man's mail. But doubtless it had to be done. "I'll make some more coffee," said Margery. She went out to the kitchen; his eyes shifted in her direction and he felt the animal pleasure of watching her walk. It was possible--once more, after a decent interval?

Then he realized that the lilt within him was because he would be seeing Corinna.

He bent his attention to the file. Sloppy in many other respects, Bruce had been meticulous here. If it was likely to have any future value at all, he typed his own letter, making a carbon for himself, and kept the reply, folded. The section indexed _Luigi Lombardi_ held at least a year's worth of mail.

Luigi. Oh, yes, the uncle in the secret service, amateur scholar--hoy, there! L. L., of course. Kintyre felt chagrined. So much for that mystery. Bruce had only been noting those sections where he would be making an acknowledgment of his uncle's help.

Kintyre began leafing through. No point in reading every word about Aunt Sofia's arthritis or Cousin Giovanni's marriage. But there were pages, where Luigi described exactly what he had looked into for Bruce, that had not yet been transcribed. Those should be preserved, they were essential to the completion of the thesis.

Nothing else had occurred to Kintyre than that it would be finished and published, under Bruce's name.

Yes. Here was that reference to the Milanese archives. It concluded: "... would like to look through the libraries and store-rooms of the older aristocratic homes in this neighborhood. Quite possibly a contemporary reference exists, in a letter or diary. But the time and the introductions are not available to a poor policeman. Why do you not ask your rich American friend Clayton to have it done?"

Bruce's reply was grateful, but forebore to answer that faintly sarcastic question. Uncle Luigi took it up next time. Kintyre remembered the man, how he tried hard to be fair but was unable to refrain from cracks about Americans. It was only natural, if you were the patriot of a poor country: a form of self-defense.

"... Not another Medici. Do you seriously believe he cares about these old books? It is his particular camouflage, to get him among people of breeding who can be useful. His real friends are a coarser sort, if indeed he has any friends except his bank accounts."

Bruce protested: "... He had to make his own way in a world of fists. I think he has done very well, not only as a financier but as a human being. You cannot safely compare him with your own postwar newly-rich. From what I hear, many of them are crasser than any American parvenu ever dared to be. But let us not exchange ritual insults."

Uncle Luigi answered a query about the Sicilian terrain and twisted it around to his particular obsession: "... if you believe his standardized success story. Use your reason, my nephew. Clayton was an Army officer in this country during the last two years of the war. After his discharge, he came right back here. It is uncertain what he did in the next couple of years. Out of a slightly malicious curiosity I checked with the appropriate bureau, and he was registered only as a visitor, who went in and out of our borders. Then suddenly, in 1949, he applied for his business permits. He had obtained the American agency for that new line of motor scooters. Since then, his rise has been somewhat swifter than can be accounted for merely by pyramiding profits. What follows from this, Bruce? (And again I ask why your father had to become so American that he visited that name upon you.) Why, since he had only his military pay during the war, and on his civilian return had no source of income within Italy for two years--he must have been drawing on a considerable capital in America! Our records show him obtaining most of his lire for Swiss francs. Evidently he deposits his dollars in Switzerland, which you know has a free money market, converts them to other currencies as needed, buys goods, and ships those to America to earn more dollars. Therefore all this story he has told you (what is your phrase, from rags to Algernon?) is so much pretentious hokum. Clayton started as a rich man."

Margery came in with coffee. "What are you finding out?" she asked.

"Mostly gossip," said Kintyre. He repeated the gist to her.

"Oh, I remember that. It was several months ago." She sat down on the couch beside him. "Bruce was furious. He thought the world of Clayton. He wrote to Indianapolis and Des Moines and so on. It took him weeks to check everything, through local newspaper offices, old friends, that kind of reference. It's perfectly true, though. I doubt if Clayton had a thousand dollars left to his name when he joined the Army.

"Bruce hadn't gotten around to it yet, but he was going to assemble the facts, with clippings and personal correspondence, and send it all to Luigi in one devastating package. Especially after the last couple of letters he got. Luigi said there was no evidence Clayton had floated a loan to get his start, and wondered if he mightn't have done some currency black marketing. Bruce really blew his top at that."

"Oh?" said Kintyre. He should be on his way soon, he thought, and use the short time until then to be good to Margery. But a certain sense of the chase was on him. Trained to scan reading matter, he found the passage he wanted in a few minutes. Bruce's anger spoke through a cage of civilized words:

"... I am not one of our radical rightists, but I too resent this eternal meddling which is the modern idea of government. It would not surprise me if Clayton profited originally on the free exchange, when the postwar official rates were so ludicrously unreal. Who didn't, in those days? But if so, I say he did you all a service! I swear you could double your production over there simply by abolishing those medieval frontiers and restrictions, and putting the customs men to useful jobs!"

Luigi, after the inevitable reference to American tariffs, wrote: "The problem is more serious and urgent than you understand. One hears less about it than about your similar troubles, but we in the old countries are having our own postwar crime wave. And some of these syndicates are--not mere black markets, not mere smugglers of an occasional perfume bottle--but dealers in narcotics, prostitution, gun-running, extortion, blackmail, counterfeiting, corruption, and murder.

"Yes, I blame your government in part. We watch the criminals they deport to us, but we cannot forbid everyone to come talk to them. There is influence, there is advice. From the Communists these syndicates have also learned much, including the cell type of organization. We can arrest a man here and a man there, but he can only lead us to a few others. Sometimes we think we have identified an organizing brain, but it does not always follow that he can be seized. Not even in this country, where the police have a latitude that I am sure your Anglo-Saxon mind would be shocked by. I name no names, but now and again something rises to the surface, a scandal, the corpse of a young woman who belonged to a proud family, a member of the parliament seen in dubious places--and nothing comes of it. The newspapers are forbidden to follow the story to its end; everywhere protecting hands are reached out.

"Give us time, we will settle with these latter-day _condottieri_. Meanwhile, I could wish your Clayton were more circumspect in his choice of friends. He associates somewhat (not very much, to be sure, and there are business reasons) with a dealer named Dolce. And Dolce is a hard man from the slums of Naples. One of _his_ associates is the deported Italian-American criminal chief named--"

Bruce's reply to this was a single explosive line: "And you used to wring your hands at me about Senator McCarthy!"

Kintyre put the box aside. He had been translating as he read, in a rapid mutter. "That's the end," he said. "Bruce wrote that two weeks ago, and I guess the uncle hasn't replied yet."

"Clayton," said Margery on a note of horror. "Do you think maybe--?"

"That he's a crook? No. I don't know much about it, but I should certainly imagine that anybody who wanted to keep an import license would have to keep his nose pretty clean. If Clayton started hanging around with, oh, say Chicago gunmen, the FBI would be on his tail in a matter of weeks."

"But couldn't he--"

"Forget Clayton. He's alibied for every minute of that weekend. As for hiring professionals, look, pony, suppose you wanted such a job done. How would you find the pros?"

"Why--" She hesitated, lifting a small hand to her chin. "I don't know."

"You're a law-abiding citizen, so you don't know. Clayton is also reasonably law-abiding. He's got to be. The Italian police might conceivably not be aware of it if Clayton were doing something illicit. Over there, he could operate internationally. But the United States is another proposition. We talk about our free enterprise, but the plain fact is that an American businessman is required to operate in a goldfish bowl, under innumerable petti-fogging regulations. So, I repeat, Clayton must be more or less straight. Even if the US government was unable to indict him for anything, they could rescind his various licenses, virtually by fiat.

"How, then, would he get in touch with an assassin? Walk into a tough bar and ask? Large laugh." Kintyre threw away his cigarette stub. "Oh, sure, given enough time, you or I or anyone could locate a murderer. But this job must have been done on short notice. There was nothing in Bruce's previous life to bring it on. You know how burblesome he was; could he have kept from you, for weeks, the fact that he knew something big? Of course not. Nor from me, or any of his associates. Ergo, it was something he blundered onto lately, probably without even realizing its significance. The person who was threatened by this had to react fast: find his killers and get them here, or do the job himself, within days. That lets Clayton out."

Margery nodded, a trifle overwhelmed. "I'm glad," she said. "I like him, the little I've seen."

"Yeh." Kintyre thought a couple of hours back. "Me too."

She smiled. "But there's still something that he isn't telling. I'm curious to know what."

"You may have your chance to find out tonight," said Kintyre. "I saw him and he mentioned he would call up and ask for a dinner date."

"Oh!" She looked at him, round-eyed. "And I haven't been answering!"

Kintyre laughed. "Turn up that phone bell right away, gal."

She shook her head. The blue eyes darkened with pain. "Only so I could say no in a nice way."

"Huh?"

"I'm not interested. Not yet." For an instant, there was a brightening across her face. "Unless you, Bob--"

"Sorry, kid. I'm tied up tonight." He checked his watch. "In fact, I should have left already."

"Oh," she said listlessly.

"Look here," he said. He took her by the shoulders and forced her to turn around and meet his gaze. "This can only go on so long, then they put you in the foundry. Bruce is dead. We're still alive. Start acting like it."

"It's only been--two days? Three?" She twisted away from him. "Give me time to get used to it."

"You never will, at this rate. I know you."

"You should," she said with a flick of anger. "Your castoff mistress."

"Castoff, hellfire! We terminated an association which--"

"Yes, yes. I've heard that line too. You warned me and so on. Go ahead, call yourself a gentleman."

"_Maròn!_" He sprang to his feet and paced the floor. She leaned back and watched him, breathing hard.

Eventually his temper cooled. "Margery," he said, "I think I know what Bruce meant to you. Besides being someone you cared for, I mean. He was your chance at emotional security, wasn't he? A home, children. Why don't you admit it, you'll always be the little girl from Ohio, and what's wrong with that? The average man will breed the unaverage one again, someday when the human race gets back its health. He has before. But these hipster types are a biological and cultural dead end.

"I can't build your house in Ohio for you. Forget me. Bruce was not your last chance, but if you sit on your tocus feeling sorry for yourself, he will have been. Get the devil out of this hole!"

"Thanks for the counsel," she said. It fell flatly on his ears. The rising fury tinted her and tensed her; she spoke through jaws held stiff. "So much cheaper than help, isn't it? But it happens I choose to stay home tonight. Alone. Starting at once."

Kintyre stopped in midstride. "I'm sorry," he said. "I'm not sure what I did wrong just now, but I'm sorry."

She slumped. "Please go away," she said without tone. "Call me tomorrow if you want, but please go away now."

"All right," he said.

She didn't stir as he went out the door.

He walked fast, being late. Anger changed to concern, and then that faded too, when he had Corinna to think about. Margery would be feeling better tomorrow, he could make friends again. At the moment, he needed a bath and a shave and a change of clothes.

Headlines on a news rack caught his eye, an extra edition. Peter and Eugene Michaelis had been arrested on suspicion of murder.

12

Corinna had an apartment on a quiet street not far from Golden Gate Park. Kintyre had been told by Bruce that she worked on the staff of a small art museum, belonged to a little theater group, owned a light target rifle, and made most of her own clothes. He had seen for himself that she spoke Italian. That was all. He felt ridiculously like a schoolboy on his first date.

She opened her door and smiled him in. High heels put her almost on a level with him. She wore black, which set off her pale hair, but the sleeves flared and the skirt swirled: it was not mourning.

"I'm nearly ready, Dr. Kintyre. Won't you sit down? Watch out for the cat, she bites."

Kintyre enjoyed cats; he would have kept one himself if he had wanted to assume obligations. This was that loveliest of the tribe, a blue-point Siamese, white as new snow and markings like twilight. She flowed up toward his extended fist as he settled in a chair. "What's the name?" he asked.

"Taffimai Metallumai," said Corinna, returning to her bedroom. "If you remember your Kipling, that means Small-Person-Without-Any-Manners-Who-Ought-To-Be-Spanked. But she lives under the name of Tipsy. Gold letters over her door, and so on."

He looked around. This room was individualistically decorated, she must have done it herself, in reds and blues and a couple of delicate Chinese paintings. Her books ran toward poetry, drama, and art; but one shelf held the popular works of Gamow, Russell, Ley, and company. There was a medium-fi and a lot of good records.

Taffimai Metallumai levitated up onto his lap, gave him a sleepy turquoise look, and ordered him to scratch her beneath the chin. She was pure hard muscle under the virginal fur; she must weigh twice as much as any peasant cat her size.

Kintyre took his attention from the corner where a small worktable held an unfinished papier-maché mask. Corinna was coming back in. "That was quick," he said, rising.

"Oh, don't! You're catted! Oh, dear!"

He looked at his gashed thumb. Tipsy told him in a few well chosen words that he had no business upsetting her without warning.

Corinna's eyes were green distress. "People never do believe my warning," she said, "and then Snow Leopard j.g. makes a lunch off them and--Can I tell you how sorry I am?"

"Occupational hazard if you like cats," Kintyre answered. "And I do. We might put on some stickum, just for appearances."

She regarded him closely. "I believe you mean that," she said. "Thank you." She led him to the bathroom. The route gave him a glimpse of her kitchen and a crammed shelf of herbs and spices.

"Instead of going out," he said as he repaired the damage, "I could probably get a better dinner here."

"Why, I hadn't prepared anything, but--"

"Nonsense. Maybe you'll give me a rain check. Let's go."

Tipsy assured him that she bore no hard feelings, and he stroked her with real pleasure. It occurred to him that there was something pathetic about Margery's little caged parakeet, set beside this beautiful killing engine.

"You're quite a scientist," he remarked, nodding at the books.

"Only as a spectator," said Corinna. "I would have liked to get a degree in math, but we hadn't the money and I was needed to help in the restaurant." Her explanation was unresentful.

He helped her into her coat and they went down to his car. "Where are we going?" she asked.

"I know a Dutch place near Russian Hill," he told her. "Ever been there? No? Good. Dutch cuisine is badly underrated. It's fully comparable to the French, in its own way."

She fell silent. He stole a look at the Egyptian profile; it was grave again.

"Forgive me if I'm tactless," he said.

"You aren't. You're very kind to come and--What good would we do Bruce, sitting around with our faces dragging on the floor?"

"I thought as much myself," he ventured. "But then, I was only a friend."

"Bruce never had a better one. I rather imagine you knew him more intimately than any of his kin. He grew away from us, toward something of his own. As was right, of course."

Kintyre had no reply.

"And then," she said in a matter-of-fact tone, "he was good. Not holy, but good. I don't think he will be too long in Purgatory."

Kintyre, for whom the soul was a metaphor, had to think over every aspect of her remark until he could understand that, quite simply, she believed it. That was not a consolation he wished to take from her.

"But damn," she whispered, "I'll miss him!"

They drove on in silence. At last she said, more awkwardly than the average modern woman: "I have to ask you about one thing. I saw a newspaper today. This girl he--he knew--"

"Yes," said Kintyre, focusing intently on the traffic. "I know her. They were living together. She's an altogether fine person who would have made him a wonderful wife. Bruce was very much in love with her and wanted to get married. She hesitated only because she--was afraid she might hurt him--she would have changed her mind soon. They were happy."

Corinna sighed. He could almost feel how she relaxed. "Thank you," she said. "I have a lot to thank you for, haven't I? We needn't say any more about this except--if the girl would like to see me, or have me visit her, I'd be more than glad to."

"I think so," said Kintyre. "In a few more days."

At once he damned himself for an idiot. He had spoken truth; but it gave Margery the chance to relate a few truths of her own, if she chose, and what might come of that?

They spoke little for the remainder of the drive. It was, somehow, a restful quietness.

It was broken when they stepped from the car. Another news rack faced them, with ARREST FATHER, SON FOR LOMBARDI MURDER staggering across the page.

Corinna drew a gasp. She snatched Kintyre's hand with fingers that were suddenly cold. "_Santa Maria_," she mumbled.

He steadied her. "Easy, there," he said.

"I knew it." Her voice came saw-toothed. "I knew it was them. What does it say?"

He bent over the page. "Not much more than that. Picked up this afternoon on suspicion, father and son. No details."

"It'll be out tomorrow. Everything. And then the trial."

"I thought you were all for this," he said. "You were convinced of their guilt and--"

"I wasn't thinking. I was only hurt, and tired. No, I don't want it to be this way." Slowly, she stiffened herself. "But so be it, then. Can I have a drink?"

"You can have more than that." He steered her along the sidewalk. She still moved a little unsurely. "You can have the news I mainly came to give you."

"What?"

"The Michaelises are not guilty."

A bar stood by their path. He led her inside, to a booth. The drab routine of checking Corinna's age seemed to help calm her. She asked for straight Irish whisky, he took beer.

Only then did she challenge him: "How do you know?"

"It's a long story," he said, "and frankly, I'm not certain how much of it you should hear. So suppose you begin by telling me why you think they did it."

"The police--"

"Uh-huh. They paid a little more attention to your ideas than you thought. They checked and found Gene had dropped out of sight over the weekend. He and his father refused to cooperate, doubtless being very surly about it, so now they're in the calaboose. But what could their motive have been in the first place?"

Her fingers twisted together. "Oh, all that business years ago, when their boat rammed Dad's."

"What more? It's something to do with you, isn't it?"

"Yes. Nothing disgraceful, I suppose. But ugly. A million people sniggering over this new revelation about our family--isn't there going to be end to it, ever?"

The drinks came. She tossed hers off recklessly and asked for another. While she waited, and he worked on his beer, she looked squarely across the table at him and said:

"Gene came back from the Navy last summer. He looked up Bruce in Berkeley. Bruce took him home to our parents for dinner; I happened to be there too. Gene gave me quite a play. He could be very charming. We had a number of dates." The color crept into her face, but she went on: "Yes, he did his best to seduce me. When that didn't work, he asked me to marry him. Every time we went out, it would end up with a proposal--and a wrestling match. I liked him, though. And he'd moved back to San Francisco from the Eastbay, taken a different job, just to be near me. Who wouldn't be flattered, and touched? But I finally had to lay down the law. It was a fight, physically, to make him behave. I caught a taxi home."

The waitress came back. Corinna picked up her second glass and sipped slowly. "He apologized the next day," she said, "but I told him I couldn't go out with him any more. He seemed to take it pretty well, said he would go back to Chicago--he'd spent a lot of time there once--but he asked for some kind of send-off. I--I spoke to Bruce. Gene had always been an admirer of Bruce. Odd, that big, husky, world-tramping fellow, admiring Bruce. We couldn't just drop him like that. We arranged a double date for a weekend early in December, a trip down to Carmel. I knew Bruce was in love, he couldn't hide that, but I asked him to take a friend of mine from the theater. It would make the atmosphere different. Safer, I thought."

Corinna stared into her drink. "We got a couple of hotel rooms down there," she said flatly. "We did a little drinking. Gene did more than a little. He made several open passes at me. I was afraid of a fight, but this girl and I got to bed at last. Back in their room, Gene's and Bruce's, Gene kept on drinking. He urged Bruce to come with him, into our room. Well, what would you expect? Bruce lost his temper and threw a punch at him. It couldn't have hurt--outside--but I wonder what it did to Gene, really. He started screaming about how we were all against him. I could hear him through the wall. We'd come down in his car. He said we could all find our own way home, he staggered out to his car and drove back along the highway--drunk."

Corinna brought her voice under control again. "That's all. We heard of the accident after we got home next day on the bus. We went to see him in the hospital as soon as we could. How he cursed us! Bruce was crying too, when we left."

"I know," said Kintyre. "I saw him a day or so later." And, briefly, he told her what Margery had done.

She seemed to thaw before his eyes. "If there could be such a thing as a blessed sin--"

"Now let's return to business," said Kintyre. "I want to get the nightmare off your back. _Imprimis_, how sorry are you for Gene? Actually?"

She hesitated. At last: "That's impossible to answer."

"He got what he asked for. It's pure luck the man in the other car wasn't killed."

"I suppose so." Hardness grew along her jawline. "And if he murdered my brother--how does the saying go? God may forgive him, but I never can."

"Good. However, _secundus_: He was not involved in Bruce's death."

"What makes you so certain?" she demanded, almost belligerently.

"Let me tell you what happened last night." _Was it only last night?_

He related it in a few words. She looked at him so strangely that he was puzzled, until it came to him that not many college professors enter waterfront tenements and throw people around.

"I hope you don't think I asked for the brawl," he finished. "I'm ashamed of it. But it gave me the proof I needed."

Her hand stole out, toward the plaster on his forehead. "Is that how you got hurt?" she asked softly.

"No." He continued hastily: "A strong possibility is that Bruce was killed by professionals. Imported murderers are likeliest, since the police will be seining all local toughs."

"Gene lived in Chicago," she murmured through tightened lips.

"Gene and his father are stonkering poor. Even if Gene has a murderer friend, such a job would not be done just as a favor."

"Then they could have done it themselves, father and son."

"Look, we had a minor scrap, the three of us. Those walls are like paper. Half the building heard it and came pounding on the door. Bruce could not have been--hurt, as he was--in that place. It would have to be somewhere else. Consider all the practical difficulties, finding an abandoned warehouse or whatever. Getting an automobile, for heaven's sake! Where would paupers like those two find the money to rent a car, even for a day?

"Oh, well, if we stretch our reasoning all out of shape, we can say they _might_ have done all that. But one thing they could never have managed, and that was to capture Bruce in the first place. He would have tied them in bowknots."

"Bruce?" She was openly bewildered.

"Yes. Stop thinking of him as a mere bookworm. Bruce and I were going to pack into Kings Canyon, which is still pretty wild. And he was taking up judo, and doing quite well. A gun could have taken him prisoner, of course, but the Michaelises don't have a gun; they'd have gone for it last night if one were on the premises. So Bruce would have had to be slugged from behind. But there was no mark of a club on his body, no anesthetic--I have that from the police. Weaponless, neither Gene nor his father could have held Bruce for ten seconds. They're both strong, but they fall over themselves. I threw them with baby techniques."

"That's right," she said, "you do go in for judo, don't you? But Bruce said you were an expert."

"I only wear a brown belt so far. Bruce, of course, was a white. He could not have coped with one or two men who knew how to handle themselves--not necessarily judo men, just experienced fighters." _Consider Terry Larkin._ "However, he could certainly have thrown two unarmed Michaelises. Take my word for it. I know."

"Oh."

She studied her hands for a while.

"They'll be released in a few days at the outside," said Kintyre. "The most elementary procedures will show they're innocent. I can think of a dozen lines of proof myself. To be sure, you may be subjected to some publicity before that happens, but it will never get as far as a grand jury. Believe me."

"Thank you." When she smiled, he could see no other thing in all that dingy building. "I always seem to be thanking you."

"Which I find pleasant enough," he bowed.

"Why don't we go down to the station and explain it right now?" she asked hesitantly. "You're not afraid of being arrested for the fight, are you? That wasn't your fault."

"Oh, no. But my testimony and my reasoning aren't legally conclusive," he evaded.

"It would help a lot. It might get them out, tip the scales. I feel so sorry for them now. That poor old man!"

Kintyre looked straight into the green eyes. "Will you trust me a little bit?" he said. "Will you take my word that we can't do it immediately?"

_Because the police would inquire further. Did I indeed hurt my arm and my head in that fracas? No, say the Michaelises. Where, then? I do not think their search would end short of Guido, your brother._

She bit her lip. "I hate to think of them locked up for something they haven't done."

"At the present time," he said, "my story would compromise someone else whom I also know to be innocent."

_Like hell I do._

She sighed. "All right. That's good enough for me." And then, with the morning of her smile upon him again: "You've done enough for one day's knight errantry. Let's go eat."

13

The restaurant was small and quiet. Corinna and Kintyre had a corner table, where the light fell gently.

"By rights we should have a Genever apéritif," he said, "but I'm convinced Dutch gin is distilled from frogs. On the other hand, Dutch beer compares to Hof, Rothausbräu, or Kronenbourg."

"You've traveled a lot, haven't you?" she said. "I envy you that. Never got farther than the Sierras myself."

A little embarrassed--he had not been trying to play the cosmopolite--he fell silent while she glanced at her menu. "Will you order for me?" she asked finally. "You know your way around these dishes."

He made his selections, pleased by the compliment. When the beer came, in conical half-liter glasses, he raised his: "_Prosit._"

"_Salute._" She drank slowly. "Wonderful. But this may not be wise on top of two whiskies."

"It's all right if you go easy. Take the word of a hardened bowser." He searched out an inward weariness on the strong broad face. "You could use a little anesthesia."

"Well--" She set her glass down. "Bear with me. I promise not to blubber, but I may get sentimental. Or maybe even hilarious, I don't know. I've never lost anyone close to me before now."

"I understand," said Kintyre.

"And please help me steer clear of myself," she added. "I would like to talk about Bruce, and otherwise about wholly neutral things." She managed a smile. "I've been meaning to ask you something. You're the Machiavelli specialist. Our theater did _Mandragola_ last year. Tell me, how could the same man write that and _Il Principe_?"

"Actually," said Kintyre, "I would be surprised if the author of _The Prince_--or, rather, the _Discourses on Livy_, since _The Prince_ is really just a pamphlet--I'd be surprised if he had not done sheer amusement equally well. One of the more damnable heresies of this era is its notion that a man can only be good at one thing. That versatility is not the inborn human norm."

"I've often thought the same," she said. "I suppose you know Bruce changed his major to history because of you. He took one of your classes as a freshman. Now I see why."

"Well," he stalled, and hoisted his beer.

She shifted the conversation with a tact he appreciated: "But how did you happen to get interested in it, in the Italian Renaissance yet, with a name like yours?"

"I served time in one of those private schools back East," he said. "The Romance languages master got me enthusiastic."

He paused, then continued slowly: "I entered Harvard, but Pearl Harbor happened in my sophomore year. I was in the Navy the whole war, the Pacific; fell in love with the Bay Area on my shore leaves, which is why I came here to live afterward. But during the war I had a lot of time to read and try to think where this world was going. To the wolves, I decided--like Machiavelli's world--I suppose that's why I feel so close to him. He was also studying the problem of how the decent man can survive. He spoke the truth as he saw it, because he didn't think that civilization should be encumbered with nice-nellyisms that the barbarians had already discarded. Wherefore he became the original Old Nick, and the very people--us, the free people, whom he could warn--won't listen, because we think he speaks for the enemy!"

He braked. "Sorry. I didn't mean to orate at you."

"I wish more men had convictions," she said. "Even when I don't agree. Everybody respects everybody else's sensibilities so much these days, there's nothing left to talk about but football scores."

"You're very kind," he said. "Ah, here come the appetizers. Pay special attention to the characteristically Dutch delicacy, Russian eggs, but don't ask me how they came by that name."

* * * * *

Later, after much talk, some of it with enough laughter to tell him she was a merry soul in better days:

A ruby spark lay in their glasses of Cherry Heering. "This isn't Dutch either," said Kintyre. "However."

"Do you know," she said, "I begin to understand the old idea of a wake. Getting the clan together and having one fine brawling celebration. It's more an act of love, really, than drawing the parlor curtains and talking in hushed voices."

"That's the Latin who speaks," he said. "We Protestant races are cursed with the tradition that misery is a virtue."

"But you, you Bostonian Scot or whatever you are--I hear a trace of accent--_you_ approve."

"I left Boston for the Pacific at the arthritic age of nine."

"What was the reason for that?"

"My father was a marine architect. He was laid off in, uh, 1930. Being an imaginative man, he spent his savings on a schooner, hired a Mexican crew, and we all lit out for the South Seas. For seven years we lived on that schooner."

"Bruce told me you were a sailor." Her eyes were very bright upon him. "But how did you make it pay?"

"Miscellaneously. Sometimes we carried cargo and passengers between islands. The passengers were usually Kanakas, and those who didn't have money would pay us in food and hospitality when we got where we were going. Father wasn't after riches anyway. His main enterprise was to gather and prepare marine specimens, for museums and colleges and so on. Toward the end, he was making a name for himself. Well, we never saw much cash money, but we never needed a lot either."

Kintyre held his glass to the light, tossed it off and followed it with a scalding sip of coffee. Why was he speaking of this? He had barely mentioned his youth to anyone else, except Trig, who was the friend of a dozen years. Trig had led him into the dojo, hoping that its discipline of mind as well as body would strangle the horror. But Corinna had the story out of him in a matter of hours, not even knowing what she did.

He had taken her for Morna last night.

"What happened?" she asked. Her tone said that he needn't answer unless he wanted to.

"A typhoon and a lee shore," he said. "I was the only survivor."

He took out a cigarette. She folded her hands and waited, in case he should want to say more.

"That was in the Gilbert Islands," he continued after the smoke was curling down his tongue. "The British authorities shipped me home. The guardianship was wished onto a cousin of my mother's. So I went to the boarding school I spoke of, and summers I worked at a seaside resort. Don't feel sorry for me, it was quite a good life."

"But a lonely one," she said.

He grinned with a single corner of his mouth. "'_He travels the fastest who travels alone._'"

"I understand a great deal now." She held her cup so lightly that he grew aware he was in danger of breaking his. Tendon by tendon, he eased his fingers. "Yes," she said after a moment. "Bruce was always puzzled by you. As I imagine most people are. You don't seem to belong anywhere, to anything or anyone. And yet you do. You belong to a world that foundered in the ocean."

It jarred him. Not given to self-analysis, he had imagined he lived a logical, well adapted round of days.

"Sometime you'll build it again," she said. "Oh, not the physical ship, you've more important things on hand, but a personal world."

And again it was a blow, to be shown himself as alien as a castaway from Mars.

"Please," he said, more roughly than he had intended. "I don't find my personality the most interesting object on earth."

She nodded, as if to herself. The long hair swept her flat high-boned cheeks. "Of course. You wouldn't."

"Perhaps I'd better take you home now," he said, without noticeable enthusiasm. "Are you working tomorrow?"

"Only if I feel like it, my boss told me. I'd planned to, but--Are you in any hurry?"

"Contrariwise." _I don't think I would sleep much._

"Then could we go somewhere and talk? I'd like to ask you some things."

"I'd love to be asked. I know a place."

* * * * *

It was small, dark, and masculine, undegraded by jukebox or television. Kintyre led Corinna into a booth at the rear.

"They serve steam beer," he said. "The only really good beer made in this country."

"Oof! I couldn't. Another Irish, if I may. I promise to go slow." Her tone was not as light as the words.

Nonetheless, he needed a little while to sense the trouble in her.

After much time she met his eyes, obviously forcing his own. "Dr. Kintyre," she began.

He was about to ask her to use his given name; and then he thought how little intimacy could be achieved in this American cult of first-name familiarity with all the universe. "Yes?" he said.

"I would--I would have thanked you for a wonderful time, which helped me more than you know. And then I would have gone home. But--"

He waited.

"I don't know how to say it," she stumbled. "I knew you were Bruce's--Bruce's brother, the one he should have had. But only tonight could I _feel_ it." She searched for a phrase. Finally: "I don't believe I could hurt myself by being serious with you."

"I hope not," he said, as grave as she. "I can't promise it."

"Why did you go to the Michaelises last night?"

"I'm not quite sure."

"You want to discover who killed Bruce? Isn't that it?"

"I am not a self-appointed detective. The police can do that job infinitely better than I. But I have been thinking."

"What do you think?" she persisted.

"I certainly wouldn't go accusing someone who--"

"Can you realize what Bruce meant to me?" She asked it quietly, as a meaningful request for truth. "We were more than siblings. We were friends, all our lives, in a way they haven't made words for."

"I do know," he said, and he would have told it to few other creatures that lived. "I had a younger sister myself."

"Even after he left home--can you imagine the way he continued to watch over me? How often he stepped in and used a word or two to straighten out a lonesome, confused, unhappy girl whom nobody else liked; how he steered me toward the kind of people I can feel at home with; how he healed the breach with my parents, when I _had_ to get away and they didn't understand; how he got me out of a wretched business office and into the museum, where I can like what I'm doing and believe it has some value. You knew Bruce, did you know that side of him?"

"No," said Kintyre. "He wouldn't have talked about it. Still, yes, I can imagine."

"And he was lured somewhere, and tortured, and murdered," she said. The lacquered fingernails stood white where she caught the table edge.

Kintyre didn't touch her himself, but he held out his hand. She gripped it for a while. Her face was lowered. When she let go and looked up again, he saw tears.

"I'm sorry," she gulped. "I promised not to bawl, and then--"

Kintyre let her have it out. It didn't take long, nor was it noisy.

She said at last, in a wire-thin voice: "Why was it done? Who would do it, to him of all people in the world?"

"I don't know," said Kintyre. "I just don't know."

"But you can guess, can't you? You know everyone concerned. That writer he was having the fight with. That businessman who owns the thesis manuscript. Gene Michaelis. You could be wrong! Even his girl, God help me for saying it. Who?"

"Why must you know?" he asked.

"Why?" It took her aback. "To know! To understand--"

"Do you want to be reassured the murderer won't strike at you next? I hardly think you need fear that."

"Of course not!" she flared. "I want to know so the world can make some sense again."

"That's too metaphysical to be true," he said.

Briefly, she shivered with tension. Then, leaning back, she picked up her whisky glass and sipped of it and asked coldly:

"Where did you go last night after you left the Michaelis place?"

"Home," he said.

"Guido was badly shaken today. He hadn't slept at all, I could see that in the morning. He stayed around the apartment like a hurt animal. I know him, he's terrified." Corinna spat as if at an enemy: "What did you do to him?"

"Nothing!" said Kintyre.

Her lip caught her teeth.

"I didn't think of it till just now," she breathed. "But it all fits. You do know something. In God's name, tell me!"

He said, with an overpowering compassion: "I see. You're afraid Guido is involved."

"Yes," she said dully.

"Why should he be?"

"Oh--I don't know--jealousy? Who can tell? Guido always seemed like the wild, reckless one and Bruce a mama's boy. Yet it was Bruce who left home and Guido never has."

"Let's have no half-digested psychological theory," he said, purposely astringent. "Stick to facts. What leads you to suspect your brother is involved?"

"I might as well tell you," she sighed. "Last week he was dropping all kinds of dark hints about a big job which would take him out of town over the weekend. He's like that, has to sound important, mostly there's no harm in it. But he came back Monday evening with a good deal of money. I knew he was broke before. He had even been forced to sell his car. He came in loaded with expensive presents for all of us, and had a fat roll in his wallet. Of course, when we told him about Bruce, that more or less made us forget it. But then today, how frightened he was--

"What happened last night?"

Kintyre took out a cigarette. "Excuse me while I think," he said. He made a ceremony of lighting it.

"Guido is in trouble," he admitted. "I don't know how closely related to the murder it is."

"Don't misunderstand me." Her face could have been modeled in chalk. "I never thought Guido would--would dream of--no! But he could have been drawn into something. And what would the police think?"

"Uh-huh. The same notion occurred to me."

"What happened, then?"

He told her.

"Oh, no." Her eyes closed.

"You see my dilemma," he said wearily. "I'll protect Guido if my conscience will let me, even though it's already led me into lawbreaking. But I don't know, I can't tell--"

She opened her eyes again. They blazed.

"Thank You," she said, not to Kintyre.

His scalp crawled. "What are you thinking of?"

"I know Guido," she answered. "I can get the truth out of him."

"You can try."

She stood up. "I'll take a cab," she said.

"What?" He rose himself. "You're not going there now?"

"When else? I'm sorry, it's a shabby way to treat you, but do you think something like this can wait?"

"A murderer is hanging around that place," he said. "You can see Guido tomorrow at your parents', but tonight I won't have it."

She grinned. There was even a little humor in the expression. "What do you plan to do?"

"Call the police!" he rapped.

She said like a sword: "By the time you've explained all the ins and outs to them, I'll have taken him elsewhere. And you needn't bother speaking to either of us again."

He took her by the wrist. "Let me go," she said, almost casually.

"Wait a second." Again he knew the night feeling, that he must go, and that that would happen which another force than he had willed. But somehow, crazily, this time he was glad of it.

"Just wait for me," he finished.

14

The doorkeeper-bouncer was the first obstacle. Kintyre wished he had worn a hat. Nothing disguised him except a gray suit; the square of bandage at his hairline felt like a searchlight.

"Follow my lead," whispered Corinna as they went down the stairs.

It was dark in the doorway, and narrow. She contrived to get herself squeezed between Kintyre and the other man; and as she slithered by she threw him such a look that he would have let a rhinoceros enter unnoticed beside her.

The Alley Cat was full tonight. Mostly the cool crowd, Kintyre judged, drawn by the rumors of last night's affair. He could not help himself, but whispered to Corinna: "Where in the hell did you learn to put five thousand volts of raw sex into three motions and one sidelong glance?"

"Theater." Even at this moment, when she saw through a harsh blue haze her brother who might be a murderer singing a dirty ballad, she could have been a female Puck. "Also, it helps to live with a cat."

They threaded their way along the wall until they found a table in shadow. "We can see him at the intermission," he proposed. She nodded. The waitress who lit their candle--Kintyre snuffed it again when she had left--and brought them a demi of burgundy, paid them no special attention. Well, it was long established that an excited eyewitness has no value. Those who saw the fight had not really seen the fighters.

Corinna fell silent, resting her cheek on one fist. She didn't drink at all. Kintyre tried to read the way she was looking at Guido, but understood only a troubled tenderness.

"Mind if I join you?"

Kintyre looked up, startled, into Trygve Yamamura's flat face. "Oh," he said stupidly. "Sit down. Miss Lombardi, this is--" He explained in detail.

"I'm glad to know you," she said. Her eyes added: _Maybe. It will depend on what comes next._ Guido's guitar twanged and capered. His voice overrode the room, as full of satyr laughter as if it had never known anything else. "With his whack-fol-de-diddle-di-day--"

"Were we that conspicuous coming in?" whispered Kintyre.

"Lay off the stage hiss," Yamamura told him. "A low speaking voice draws less attention. No, you pulled it off okay. It was only that I was making it my business to see everyone who comes in. Still am." His eyes remained in motion as he sat holding his beer; the rest of him was nearly limp, taking its ease until a muscle should be needed.

"Been here long?" asked Kintyre.

"Couple hours, since the act went on," said Yamamura. "I tailed Guido from his place. Before then, though, I assumed he wouldn't leave his four safe walls, so I found plenty to do elsewhere."

Corinna exclaimed: "You learned something?"

"Uh-huh. I came right over this morning after Bob saw me. No grass grows where I have been, I mean no grass grows under my feet." Yamamura took a pipe from his maroon sports jacket. "The best way to get a line on your friend Larkin seemed to be to check Guido's recent movements. I started at the other end--his call on Clayton, a week ago last Monday. You know, when he and Bruce went around to see about a job. Clayton himself isn't in the City today, but I went to that swank apartment hotel he inhabits and jollied the staff."

Having filled his pipe, he took his time lighting it. "I gather Clayton gave Guido and Bruce a rather long interview," he went on. "Or, rather, Bruce. Guido left about an hour before his brother did."

"He never mentioned that!" said Corinna.

"Why should he?" countered Yamamura. "Not good for his pride, is it? But what did Bruce and Clayton find to talk about?"

"And how much of it did Guido hear?" murmured Kintyre.

Corinna flushed. "Please don't," she said in a hard voice.

"I'm sorry," he answered, torn. "But if Bruce had to tell Clayton something important, even worth killing about--they'd shoo Guido out first. But Guido might have gotten enough hints to make some deductions and--No, wait, let me finish! Maybe Guido blabbed to someone else, not realizing himself what it signified."

She gave him a shaky little smile. "Thanks for trying," she said.

"Ah, this is probably of no significance at all," said Yamamura. "Bruce could just as well have been giving Clayton the latest information about the mildew on page 77 of that book." He attempted a smoke ring and failed. "Or could he? Depends on how you interpret this tidbit: Clayton telephoned Genoa, Italy, that same night."

"Who did he call?" asked Kintyre.

"The switchboard girl doesn't remember. All she heard was a lot of Italian: they started gabbling right away, before she could take herself out of the circuit. Clayton stayed home for several hours next day. The Italian called again. Now none of this would be worth retailing, I guess, except for one more oddity about Mr. Clayton. He had the bellhop bring him several dollars in change. Then he went out and was gone for some hours."

Corinna raised her thick dark brows in puzzlement. Kintyre nodded. "Yes. Long-distance, though not transatlantic, calls from a public booth," he said. "No chance of being eavesdropped on."

"It may not mean a damn relevant thing," said Yamamura. "The most legitimate businesses have their secrets. But I'll admit to being curious. Did Bruce steer him onto something big? And did a business rival then strike at Bruce? That doesn't sound likely. Maybe Clayton himself--no, hardly that. In my line of work I'd have heard it if he weren't straight, or if he associated with thugs."

Kintyre jammed his fists into knots. An intake of air hissed between his teeth.

"What is it?" Corinna's alarm seemed to come from far away.

"Nothing. Or possibly something. Never mind. Go on, Trig."

Only part of him heard the detective continue. The rest said through thunder: _One more suspect. I had been sure Clayton, of all people, must be innocent. For the Federal government would have assured itself he knows no assassins--Trig, perhaps more reliably, tells me the same--and he could not have found any on short notice, and it is impossible he could have done the crime personally._

_But Guido might have such connections!_

_Did Clayton see Guido again?_

"Then I went around and chivvied the cops," said Yamamura. "They were just hauling in the Michaelis family, and hadn't much time for any other ideas. However, they are going to check house rentals over the weekend. You see, what was done--I'm sorry, Miss Lombardi--the deed would require an isolated spot. An entire house, at least. For the noise."

"Has anything come of that?" asked Corinna with a great steadiness.

"Not yet. These things take time. Well, then I had some supper and came here. Wasn't open yet, but they were making ready. Someone will have to meet my expense account, twenty-five good dollars to grease my way in and learn something."

"I can," said Corinna.