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

out of Liguria, long before Cesare Borgia was as much as a gleam in his daddy's apostolic eye. Therefore Owens' letters must be spurious. Either Owens had them cooked, or Owens was taken for a sucker himself.

"When he established this, some time back, Bruce wrote to the man. That was Bruce, of course. Give the poor chap a chance to back out gracefully, before publishing the evidence that will smear him over the landscape. Owens replied politely enough, asking for personal discussions. And so he arrived Sunday a week ago, en route to Hollywood from New York, and here he's been ever since."

"I shouldn't think he could keep the producer waiting like that," said Clayton.

"He has no firm commitment yet: only an invitation to come out and talk things over. A Piltdown-type scandal might cause the studio to back off. After all, if they want to do a life of Borgia, it's in the public domain. They don't have to pay Owens a nickel—unless, of course, they use the witch-cult material, in which case they'll doubtless pay him a fat sum and engage him as technical adviser to boot."

"Uh-huh." Clayton's eyes paled with thought.

"I keep getting sidetracked," complained Kintyre. "Also hoarse. I do want that beer now."

"In a minute, Bob. Let's continue this session first. You say Bruce took these letters home Tuesday night."

"Yes. I gathered he saw Owens again on Wednesday and returned them with the remark that he saw no reason to change his mind. There must have been quite an argument. I was at the dojo that evening, didn't see him till Thursday night, as a matter of fact. Then, of course, you had him and me and some of our colleagues—and Owens—up here for that stag party."

"I collect scholars," grinned Clayton.

Kintyre wondered if it might not literally be true. In the upper levels of the European business world, where Clayton spent half his time, a man was not respected for his money alone; he would get further if he could show some solid intellectual achievement. Clayton was hardly a social climber, but he must know the practical value of such kudos.

Any rich oaf of an American could buy paintings. Clayton was a bit more imaginative: he took up incunabula. And he invited specialists in, gave them liquor and sandwiches, turned them loose on each other, and sat around picking up the lingo.

And what's wrong with that? thought Kintyre. Any Renaissance dignitary patronized artists and scholars in much the same way, for much the same reasons. So the Renaissance had its Leonardo, Rafael, Michelangelo—We throw our creative people out into the market place to peddle themselves to the general public. What do we have? Rock 'n' Roll.

He jerked back to awareness. The other man was speaking: "—chemical tests. Owens said he wasn't going to let priceless relics be destroyed. It sounded phony to me."

"That was a real dogfight those two had." Kintyre shook his head admiringly.

"Never mind that now. Have you any information on Bruce's later movements?"

"Why, Friday he and I were both working hard. Saturday too he must have been. Yes, Friday afternoon was the last time I saw Bruce alive. We only said hello in passing. Margery Towne tells me he was home that evening and Saturday afternoon, otherwise apparently at the University."

"And that's all we can find out?" Clayton grimaced. "Not a hell of a lot, is it? Unless Miss Towne can tell—"

"One more thing," said Kintyre. "It may not be relevant. But her apartment was burgled last night."

The cigar dropped from Clayton's mouth. He bent over to pick it up, jerkily. His movements smoothed as Kintyre watched; when he raised himself and ground out the butt, his craggy face was under control.

"Surprised?" murmured Kintyre.

"Yes. Of course. What happened? What was taken?"

"That's the odd part. Nothing she knew of. Someone had broken in and made a hooraw's nest; but he, she, or it hadn't taken any silverware or jewelry, nothing."

"Uh." Clayton looked at his hands, folded in his lap, then back again, sharply. "How about papers?"

"We thought of that. The desks and drawers had been rooted through, all right, but nothing seemed to be missing."

"Would she know all about Bruce's papers?" Clayton fired the query like a policeman. "Don't stall, you damned Edwardian. I know she was his mistress."

"I don't happen to like that word in that particular connection," said Kintyre gently. "However—she hadn't seen all of Bruce's letters and notes. He kept them in a couple of cardboard filing boxes. They didn't seem even to have been opened, though."

"Did you look in to make sure?"

"No. Should we have?"

"I guess not." Clayton rubbed his chin. "No, I wouldn't bother. Because the burglar was evidently looking for something he thought might be in the apartment, but which wasn't. Something that might be in a desk or a bureau drawer, but was too large to fit into a filing box or a—any such thing."

"As what?" challenged Kintyre.

He had already guessed the answer: "The Book of Witches is a fairly big volume."

Kintyre nodded. He was on the point of repeating what Margery had said to him, when they stood in the ruins after the police had gone.

She poured herself a drink with shaking hands. A sunbeam splashed pale copper in her still tousled hair. She said: "That bastard. That crawling bastard. Why didn't I tell the cops?"

"Who?"

"Owens, of course! Who d'you think would come sneaking in here? What might we have of any use to anybody, except that old book Bruce was studying—the one that could torpedo Owens and his big movie sale and his precious reputation. Owens came in here to try and find that book and take it and burn it!"

She tossed off her drink neat, poured another and glared at Kintyre. "Well?" she snarled.

"Well, it's a serious accusation to make," he replied.

"Serious my left buttock! You know what that snake already tried to do? He tried to bribe Bruce! Bruce told me about it. Friday after that stag party, Owens came to his office and talked all around the subject and—oh, he was pious-sounding enough about it, he knows his euphemisms. But he offered Bruce five thousand dollars to suppress his findings about witches in Italy. Five thousand bucks—Christ, the movies can pay him a quarter of a million!"

"I take it, then, you're insulted by the size of the bribe."

The attempt to jolly her didn't come off. She said viciously: "Bruce boiled over. He was still boiling when he came home. He told Owens to his face, he'd write an article about his research the minute he returned from your pack trip—he'd inform the newspapers, so the whole public could know the truth—Bob!"

It was a scream in her throat.

"What is it?" he cried, turning toward her in alarm.

"Bob—do you think.... Oh, no, Bob!"

"What's the matter?" asked Clayton.

Kintyre shook himself. "Nothing. The manuscript is still with us, naturally," he said in a flat voice. "Bruce kept it in his office. I stopped by today and locked it in a safe."

"Owens—"

"Look here," said Kintyre angrily, "I went through this once before, with Miss Towne. I don't hold with talebearing. The police are competent, and have the essential facts already. Unless more evidence turns up to change my mind, I see no reason to run to them with any sordid little story of academic intrigue which can't even be proved."

However, his brain continued, while I'm in no position to pay fees, Trig isn't very busy these days. He may enjoy looking into the recent movements of a murder suspect.

There was a knock on the door and a bellboy wheeled in lunch.

4

Not until evening was Kintyre free to cross the bridge into San Francisco. He had spent hours on Bruce's uncorrected papers, and talked with Yamamura, who said he would sniff around, and he had called Margery on the phone to see if she was all right.

"Come over and take potluck, Bob," she said. He sensed loneliness. But—hell's boiling pots, she made him feel cluttered!

"I'm afraid I can't," he evaded. "Commitments. But take it easy, huh? Go visit someone, go have a cup of espresso, don't sit home and nest on your troubles. I'll see you soon."

He poured himself a small drink after hanging up and tossed it off. Then he changed into his darkest suit and got the car rolling. Personally, he would not have placarded a loss on his clothes, but Bruce's parents were from the Old World.

As he hummed along the freeway and over the great double span of the bridge (Bruce must have been carried dead in the opposite direction, wedged in a corner so the tollgate guard would think him merely asleep; doubtless the police were checking the memories of all night shift men) Kintyre rehearsed the career of the Lombardis. Bruce was the only one he had really known, though he had been over there for dinner a few times. The parents had been very respectful, innocently happy that their son should be friends with a Doctor of Philosophy. His mother made good pasta....

There wasn't much to remember. Angelo Lombardi was a Genoese sailor. Chronic hard times were not improved when his son Guido came along. Nor did he see much of his young wife. (Did Maria's years of being mostly alone in a dingy tenement, with nobody to love but one little boy, account for what Guido had become?) In 1930 the family arrived as immigrants at San Francisco. Here Angelo worked in the commercial fishing fleet; here Bruce and the daughter were born; here he saved enough money to buy his own boat; here he lost it again in a collision—by God, yes, it had been a collision with Peter Michaelis' single craft. Feeling the years upon him, Angelo used the insurance money to start a restaurant. It had neither failed nor greatly prospered: it gave him a living and little more.

Yet Angelo Lombardi had remained a man with hope.

Kintyre turned off at the first ramp, twisted through the downtown area, and got onto Columbus Avenue and so to North Beach. Hm, let's see—a minor street near the Chinatown fringe—uh-huh.

The sky was just turning purple when he stopped in front of the place: Genoa Café set in a two-story frame building perpetrated, with bays and turrets, right after the 1906 fire. It was flanked by a Chinese grocery store, full of leathery fragrances, and a Portuguese Baptist mission. A sign on the door said closed. Well, the old people would be in no mood for discussing the various types of pizza tonight.

Yellow light spilled from the upper windows. Kintyre found the door to the upstairs apartment and rang the bell.

A street lamp blinked to life, a car went by, a grimy urchin watched him impassively from a doorway across the road. He felt much alone.

He heard feet coming down the stairs, a woman's light quick tread. Expecting Maria Lombardi, he took off his hat and bowed in Continental style when the door opened. He stopped halfway through the gesture and remained staring.

Morna, he thought, and he stood on the schooner's deck as it heeled to the wind, and she was grasping the mainmast shrouds with one hand, crouched on the rail and shading her eyes across an ocean that glittered. Her yellow hair blew back into his face, it smelled of summer.

"Yes?"

Kintyre shook himself, like a dog come out of a deep hurried river. "I'm sorry," he stammered. "I'm sorry. You startled me, looked like someone I used to—" He pulled the chilly twilight air into his lungs, until he could almost feel them stretch. One by one, his muscles relaxed.

"Miss Lombardi, isn't it?" he tried again. "I haven't seen you for a couple of years, and you wore your hair differently then. I'm Robert Kintyre."

"Oh, yes. I remember you well," she said. Her mouth turned a little upward, its tautness gentling. "Bruce's professor. He spoke of you so often. It's very kind of you to come."

She stood aside to let him precede her. His