While the detective made breakfast in the cottage, Kintyre took a
shower. Then a shave, clean clothes, tee shirt, khaki pants, tennis
shoes, brought him physically closer to humanness.
Inside, he was afraid, and he did not know why.
Guido appeared in the kitchen as Kintyre re-entered. He looked at the
others with deer shyness. "Good morning," he ventured.
"Hello," said Yamamura. "Pull up an egg and sit down."
Guido perched on a chair's edge. No one spoke until coffee and food
were within them. Somehow, the blue and green planet beyond the windows
had become alien; they sat in a private darkness.
"I--" began Guido. He stopped.
"Go ahead," said Yamamura. Kintyre listened with a fractional ear.
Mostly he was inside his own skull, shouting for something which did
not answer.
"I'd like to say thanks, is all," offered Guido.
"It's okay," said Yamamura.
"Look, are you sitting and worrying about me?"
"In a way. The trouble is, you see, if we take your story at face
value, we have no plausible suspects left. But two more killers and
their chief are loose, probably arranging another murder. If it hasn't
already been done."
"Whose?" whispered Guido.
"If we knew that," said Yamamura gloomily, "we could get a police
guard for him. But until we've identified the chief, there's no way of
figuring who the next victim might be."
"No," said Kintyre.
He sat up straight, feeling how cold his hands were. It came to him,
through a great hollowness--each instant he seemed more remote from
himself--that he could have found his enemy before now. He had enough
facts to reason on. He was still feeling his way a step at a time, but
he felt there would be an end to his journey.
And he felt, without yet knowing why, that the horror waited for him
there.
He said, sensing a resonance within his head, as if his voice formed
echoes:
"It has to be someone who knew Bruce at least fairly well. He went
to that house because of a telephone call. He didn't own a car and
wouldn't borrow Margery's. That's a long awkward trip, by street
train and bus. He wouldn't make it casually. He'd want to know why he
was being asked to come to this address he'd never heard of before,
_without telling anyone_. The person who called (and could have been
right in Berkeley, of course) had to be somebody who could give Bruce a
strong, convincing reason. What it was, I don't know. It doesn't matter
now, it was surely a lie. But a lie he would accept! From a person he
trusted."
He stopped. Guido said with a certain boy-eagerness: "Who knew him
best? His girl friend!"
Kintyre shook his head, violently, uncertain why the idea should smite
him so.
"Nope," said Yamamura. "Too much lets her out; hell, the simple fact
that she doesn't speak Italian. That she hasn't the money, or the
connections, or anything."
"I haven't the money either," said Guido defensively.
"For all I know, you could have ten million dollars hoarded," said
Yamamura.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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