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

off behind him. He crouched low, zigzagging a little. A pistol is not a very accurate weapon. When he felt sand under his feet again, he looked back. Nothing but fog. He heard Clayton and Silenio calling to each other.

He glanced down at his wounded arm. It bled merrily. He flexed the fingers, tested their resistance to pressure: good, nothing had been severed which a few stitches wouldn't heal. But until he got the stitches, if ever, he had an arm and a half at best.

And Clayton and Silenio were still holding Corinna. It wouldn't take them long to think of making a hostage of her.

Kintyre hurried to the base of the cliff and went along it as quietly as he could. A weapon, how about throwing stones, no, they all seemed too large or too small. Bare hands were limited by the reach of an arm. Passing a log, he stopped to feel after clubs. He found a broken-off branch, four feet long and not very crooked. It had a narrow end, almost a point. Salt water and weather had turned it bone-white, iron-hard.

Kintyre followed the cliff. When he heard them talking again, he went with his back flat against it. Total silence would be his one chance, when he got into seeing range; they mightn't look his way.

They sat behind a log, a yard or two from the precipice. Clayton was huddled into a topcoat, hands in pockets, squatting wretchedly on a flat boulder. Silenio stood up, sentrylike, the gun in his hand.

Corinna sat facing Clayton. Her arms were free; a rope lashed her ankles. The long hair was heavy with dampness. She didn't seem to have been injured yet, except for that one short episode—

"It could only have been Kintyre," Clayton was saying. "And alone. Otherwise this beach would be solid with police."

"He may have the whole force on its way here," grumbled Silenio.

"That's possible. I think we had better get going. But remember, it's a single man. If you can nail him, we're safe."

Clayton stooped and began to untie Corinna. "I'm sorry about this," he said.

"Like hell you are!" she spat. Even now, Kintyre must grin at her rage, it was so much Corinna.

"As you like," shrugged Clayton.

"Why are you doing this?" she asked, almost with wonder.

Sudden pain sharpened Clayton's voice: "I've got three children. They'd be dragged down with me. The mud would stick to them all their lives. No!"

Kintyre glided forward. Corinna spied him over Clayton's shoulder. Through the watery air he saw her lips part. She cocked her head and looked out at sea. "What was that?" she exclaimed.

Clayton and Silenio turned wholly from Kintyre. He made the last few yards in a rush.

Silenio whipped around. Kintyre was almost upon him. He raised the gun. Kintyre thrust with his stick. It was ill-balanced, but he had fenced for many years. He got Silenio's hand and knocked it around. The gun went off with a crack; stone and lead spurted. Kintyre jabbed Silenio in the stomach. Silenio fell to his knees. He still had the gun. Kintyre snapped the point of his stick to the back of his enemy's hand and bore down. Bones parted; the stick went through, into the sand.

Silenio howled and tried to pull it loose. From the edge of his eye, Kintyre glimpsed Clayton's bulky frame launched at him. He let go the stick and caught an extended arm. He heaved Clayton over his shoulder and onto the rocks.

Silenio freed himself and scrabbled for the automatic. Kintyre put his foot on it. Silenio rose and threw himself at his opponent. The weight struck Kintyre's left biceps. Agony went like lightning. He staggered back, holding the arm.

The man from Chicago laughed. He picked up the gun, awkwardly left-handed, and fired.

And missed. Kintyre recovered himself, moving in again. Another shot went off nearly in his face. Another miss. There wouldn't be a third, he knew. He snatched up the stick. Silenio backed off, grinning with hatred. He steadied his left hand with the wounded right and took careful aim.

Kintyre lunged. It was a swordsman's movement, more leap than stride, with all his mass behind it. He took Silenio in the throat.

Silenio dropped the gun, clawed at the stick, and began to fold up. He tried to call out, but could only say blood. He sat down in a dazed way, plucked at his neck, and bled to death.

Kintyre had no time to notice it. He saw Clayton coming back. It did not seem possible Clayton could still move; the left side of his face was one giant bruise, the cheek flayed. Kintyre groped after the gun. Where was it?

Clayton advanced with a rush. He fell the last six feet. Raising his head and his arm, he showed metal in the hand. "Got it!" he said.

Kintyre pounced on him. They rolled over, kneeing and gouging. Clayton hammered a fist on Kintyre's hurt. The grasp on him loosened. Clayton writhed free, got up and ran. The fog whirled him from sight.

Kintyre pulled himself to hands and knees. Blood dripped from his wounds, bright little puddles formed on the ice-gray stones. His head tolled.

Hands fell gently upon him. He sat back, leaning into the circle of her arms. Her hair brushed his face. "You came," she said.

"Are you hurt?" he asked.

"No. There wasn't time. Oh, your poor arm!"

"Can you make some kind of bandage for it? My tee shirt will do."

"It isn't sterile. No, there are antibiotics these days, thank God for that." She pulled the garment over his head, sawed the seams across on an edged stone, and ripped it up. He noticed that her dress was gray. When she looked directly at him, her eyes and blonde hair were the only color in his world.

"Thank God for you," she added.

Her hands were deft, fashioning a compress and binding it in place. He kept his head toward the sea, listening. "What is it?" she asked.

"Clayton. Where did he go?"

"Wouldn't he try to escape?"

"If so, fine. I sabotaged his car. Or even if he gets it going, he'll never make it out of this state. But I'm afraid he realizes as much himself."

She knelt behind him, where he sat on the ground regaining his breath, and laid a hand in his hair. She asked steadily: "What will he do?"

"In his place," said Kintyre, "I'd come back and kill us. He should have done that when he broke free of me, he had the gun. But of course he was half stunned. Now that he's had a little time to think the situation over—yes. If he got rid of us, there'd be no witnesses to prove he hadn't also been kidnaped and was the single fortunate survivor. The kind of lawyers he can afford would have at least a chance to brazen out that yarn."

He stood up. "Fade back along the cliff, away from the path," he said. "Find yourself a sheltered spot and hunker down in it. If you need help, scream."

"You?" For the first time he heard fear. She stood up, and trembled.

"As I said, he has a gun and he will probably be stalking us, if he hasn't started yet," Kintyre answered. "I'd better forestall that."

She considered him with a somehow old look.

"All right," she said. "There is no other way. Christ guard you."

She reached up and kissed him, a brief light contact, and walked away.

Kintyre stood thinking of a certain letter. It had been written by Machiavelli from the farm at San Casciano, after he had gone there disgraced, tortured, and exiled, with all his work fallen, to dust. He wrote a friend:

"All my life I have behaved as I chose in love affairs. I let love do as it likes with me, I have followed it over hill and over vale, through fields, through woods, and after all I think I have done better than if I had avoided it."

You needed a certain courage to be happy.

Kintyre turned and went toward the path. It was a starting point for his search; Clayton's instinct would have been to bolt. He made no effort to be still. A snap shot in the fog wouldn't hit him, except by chance, and his racket would draw attention from Corinna.

Nevertheless, when the fire came, it was shocking. From the sea!

Kintyre whirled and padded toward the water. Clayton must have thought to circumvent him, wade out and around till he struck the cliff. Or perhaps he figured to hide among the rocks and—No matter. It was necessary to get him.

The tide was coming in heavily now. Kintyre saw how the sand gleamed, even in this sunless air, and then how it was whelmed in foam. Spray beat his face; he heard a hollow sucking roar among the stones. Where was Clayton?

Out in the surf, it tongued flame. He saw the beach furrowed beside him. So—crouched on a rock, approachable only through the water! Kintyre ran along the shore, trying to get out of visual range before a bullet smote him. The pursuing shots had a muffled sound.

He entered the water. It was savagely cold. It pulled at his ankles, sand shifted under the tidal drag. How deep was it where Clayton laired? Not over a man's height: Clayton was planning to get Corinna also, he'd have to come back ashore without wetting his gun too much. Not that a brief soak would disable a well-oiled automatic. But he would first lure Kintyre to him, if he could. A man struggling through chest-deep turbulence ought to make an easy target.

Kintyre strained eyes into the fog. He could just see the fortress rock as a shadow, fifteen feet high at the peak, forty feet long, Gibraltar-shaped. Breakers hurled against its seaward flank. This was a rapidly sloping bottom. The depth on Clayton's side was hardly over four feet, but it might be ten at the western end of the rock.

Kintyre waded straight out until a wave hit him in the face. He kicked off his shoes and swam.

His bad arm gave him saw-toothed pain and reddened the water. He used his right, a side stroke. The undertow grabbed him and yanked him outward. He wrestled to stay afloat. A comber went over him. Briefly he was in a remembered darkness.

He drank salt fear, threshed to the wave's top, and spun down into the trough behind it. A chill seething had him. It bawled in his ears. He knew himself empty of strength and hope.

The sea battered itself upon the earth, recoiled, laughed, and reared back to gallop in again. It was like the beating of a maul. A ship, a man, a girl could be crunched between wave and stone until ribs broke across. Kintyre strangled in a noisy wild night. He was spewed up again for a moment, scornfully. Spray sheeted in his face. The cold drained him, he could feel how warmth ran out. The sea rolled him over and toned in his skull.

Somehow you could swim, he thought. It was only to keep going. Though all the world were smashed on a reef, you could keep going. And there could be victory.

He saw the rock face shine before him. The waves pounded him against its roughness. Fog smoked in his eyes. He let the sea upbear him, and took its anger, while he fumbled about. His fingers closed on something, a handhold. His toes sought beneath the surface.

He pulled himself out.

For a little while he lay on the sloping stone back. The tide covered his feet. Life returned in some measure. He sighed and began to climb.

At the peak he looked over. Clayton sat on a small ledge, four sheer yards below him. The ruddy hair hung dark, there was blood matting one side of the long narrow head. Clayton's gun wove about in a seeking fashion, aimed toward shore and then down again. Once he jerked, making an odd little whimper like a lost child, and fired. The sound was flat, nearly lost among rumbling