He looked up (was his color a shade more rubicund?) and said, "Hullo, there. I'm glad you came by. I'm leaving tonight." The voice was level. Perhaps too level. Kintyre closed the door and said: "I thought you were going to come and see me in my office." "Well, I was," said Owens. "I wanted to get my packing out of the way first." He felt in the suitcase and brought out a pocket flask. "Care for a drop?" "No," said Kintyre. He leaned in the doorway, watching. But he saw only that Owens stood neatly attired, calm of face, steady of hands, putting up a linen suit. "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.