Murder in Black Letter by Poul William Anderson (classic novels to read txt) 📕

"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.

"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