Harries leaned over the desk, politely concerned. "I'm sorry to put you to a strain like this. If you want to rest a while--" "No." Kintyre mustered a degree of steadiness. "I was a bit shaken, but--Go ahead. If Bruce really was murdered, I certainly want to give you any help I can finding who did it." The inspector regarded him thoughtfully. "You and he were pretty close, weren't you?" "In a way. He was almost eleven years younger than I, and had lived a--limited life. Not sheltered in the usual sense, his family being poor, but limited. And he was such a peaceful fellow, and his life since entering college had been mostly books. It made him seem even younger." Kintyre sighed. "We got to be about as friendly as one can get under such circumstances," he finished. "Maybe I looked on him as a son. Not being married, I can't be sure of that." "Did he ever say anything which led you to believe that he might be in serious trouble?" "No. Absolutely not. That is, I knew his older brother hung--hangs around with a dubious crowd over in San Francisco, and it distressed him, but he never implied anything really bad was involved." "Let's see." Harries looked at some notes. "I gather he left his, uh, girl friend's place about six P.M. Saturday, telling her he had business over in the City and she shouldn't wait up. She got worried and checked with you Sunday evening. And he was found by a patrol car this morning, at daybreak, on the bank of the old frontage road, near the Ashby Avenue turnoff." "You've worked fast," said Kintyre. _Or did I tell you all this?_ he wondered. _There are a few minutes which I remember only hazily. I was so busy fighting myself._ "What did you do over the weekend?" asked Harries in a casual tone. "Oh, let's see--Saturday morning I puttered around down at the yacht harbor, doing some work on my boat. I went home in the afternoon, graded papers and so on, went out at night and had a few beers with a friend--Dr. Levinson of the physiology department. Sunday morning I took a sail on the Bay, and later finished my paperwork. Shortly after Miss Towne had called me, I was invited over to Gerald Clayton's suite at the Fairhill. We had some drinks and talked till quite late. This morning I turned in my last reports to the University, came home, and was horsing around with Trig Yamamura when your man arrived." "You seem pretty well alibied," smiled Harries. "Not that we suspect anyone on this side of the Bay." "Why not?" Harries' mouth tightened. "Dr. Kintyre, you'll undoubtedly be asked a great many more questions in the next several days. Get the worst over with now. Then go out with some friends and have a lot more drinks. That's my advice." They shook hands, feeling it was a somehow theatrical gesture, and thus being embarrassed without knowing how to avoid it. Moffat drove Kintyre through miles of city, down to that place in Oakland where the dead man was kept.