Kintyre

“ It was refreshing to know an unfrantic businessman; but then, Clayton had acquired a lot of European traits.
The importer asked suddenly: "Have you seen Miss Towne?"
"Not today," said Kintyre, surprised.
"Were you planning to?"
"Why—yes. I thought I'd drop around this afternoon. She told me she didn't feel up to working for the rest of this week."
"It might be better if she did," said Clayton. "She'll sit at home and grieve, or go out and laugh more than she means. Drinking too much in either case."
"You seem to know her pretty well," said Kintyre. He felt a bit annoyed, he didn't know why. ”

“ She leaned far over to set down a bottle of soda and two glasses of ice, so Kintyre could have a good look down her dress.
"Man," said Guido when she had oscillated off again, "Laura's got ants tonight. If you don't help yourself to that, I will."
"Why offer me the chance in the first place?" asked Kintyre. He ignored the proffered glass, sticking to his beer.
"I was going out on the town when I finished here. Know some places, they cost but they're worth it." Guido slugged his own glass full, added a dash of mix, and drank heartily. "They'll keep till tomorrow, though." ”

“ A little puzzled and annoyed, Kintyre said: "You protest too much."
Clayton opened his door. "I'm sorry," he answered. "I was trying to lighten my own mood, and it came out sounding as if I were trying to be funny. Bruce was a good kid."
He called room service. Kintyre's gaze strayed idly around the suite. Actually, Clayton's Bay Area interests centered in San Francisco. For the past several months he had kept an apartment there, while he went through the preliminary maneuvers of establishing a local branch of his import house. ”

“ 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." ”

“ A country teacher in Kintyre, with a roll of eight, said to me: "We have had only one marriage in the district during the last year, and the bridegroom was aged three score and fifteen. I wonder what education is coming to: there is little or no patriotism about Kintyre or my roll would be higher. I wish I could get the people to think more imperially than they do at present."
[23] A striking object-lesson on the instability of mortal life is permanently given to the Loch Ranza pupils by the proximity of the churchyard, which is just over the wall from the school. ”

“ Kintyre could have killed him with no trouble.
Kintyre had no wish to. Anyone could be driven berserk, given enough low-grade alcohol on top of enough wretchedness. He waited again, until the fisherman's fist came about in a round-house swing. There was time enough for a judo man to get out of the way, catch that arm, spin the opponent halfway around, and send him on his way. It would have been more scientific to throttle him unconscious, but that would have taken a few seconds and Gene was crawling back to his feet. ”

“ It isn't for nothing."
He stood up, not as tall as Owens, but broader and smoothly moving. "Let me therefore have that manuscript back," he finished.
His enemy kept a half smile; but as he neared, Kintyre saw how cheeks and forehead began to glisten. The pupils that stared at him widened until they were two wells of dark.
"What are you talking about?" said Owens shrilly.
"You know bloody damn well what I mean. You took the Book of Witches. Give it back and we'll say no more. Otherwise—"
Kintyre was almost upon the writer. Owens backed away, holding up his cigarette like a futile sword. ”

“ Guido regarded Kintyre for a moment or so.
"Does it help you to feel superior, cat?" he asked quietly.
Kintyre's head jerked up. After a few seconds:
"Okay. I'll just phone in to let the police know we're going."
They left the cottage and Guido took the wheel of Kintyre's old black sedan. "Any special route, Doc?" he inquired.
"Oh, I don't know. The coast highway, southbound."
"State One? It's a bastardly slow drive beyond the freeway."
"What have we to hurry for?"
Guido slid the car into smooth motion. One-handed, he lit a fresh cigarette. "My solitary trick," he said wryly. ”

“ I warn you, it isn't pretty."
"I've seen dead men before," said Kintyre. "Come on." He started toward the street.
"Your clothes," said Moffat gently.
"Oh, yes. Yes. Thanks." Kintyre fumbled at his equipment. He threw it on the grass. "Put this junk away for me, will you, Trig?" His voice was uncertain. "I'll call you later."
"Sure," said Yamamura in a low tone. "Call me anytime."
Kintyre followed Moffat to the police car. It nosed off the shabby-genteel residential street and into southbound traffic. Moffat, at the wheel, pointed to the cigarette lighter. ”

“ Then, for the sake of their sons, Peter and Angelo made a grudging peace.
What had happened lately must have brought all the old bitterness back, with a dozen years' interest added.
"Shut up," said Gene. He was drunk too, Kintyre saw, but cold drunk, in control of everything except his emotions. "Shut up, Pete. It was an accident. Why should he ruin his own business?"
"He got him a restaurant out of it," mumbled Michaelis. "What have we got?"
"Look here," said Kintyre, not very truthfully. "I'm a neutral party. ”

“ Anyhow, enough for today."
"You're not doing so badly, Trig," Kintyre told him. "And I have some revenge due for all those times you've had me cartwheeling through the air, down at the dojo."
Trygve Yamamura clicked his tongue. He stood over six feet tall, lanky, the Oriental half of him showing mostly in narrow black eyes and smoked-amber skin. "You would use sabers, wouldn't you?" he said.
Robert Kintyre shrugged. "A foil is for women and I'm not fast enough for an épée. Also, there's professional interest. A saber is a wee bit closer to the Renaissance weapon." ”

“ He groped toward the teaching of the dojo, the judo school. Judo is only in part a sport; it is also a philosophy, the Gentle Way, with many aspects, and the first thing to learn is to relax utterly. The passive man is prepared for anything, for he can himself become anything.
But it was an unreal attempt. Kintyre's interest in judo was a superficial growth of a few years; his roots lay in the West. He understood with sudden bleakness why Bruce's death had so clamped on him: once again someone he cared for was gone, and the horror he had borne for two decades stirred toward awakening. ”

“ I haven't seen Larkin or O'Hearn since, and what're they thinking I said?"
Kintyre didn't look at Corinna, he didn't believe it would be decent for a minute or two. He asked Guido: "What other jobs did you do for these men? Rent a house for them?"
"No—nothing. I turned the car back to the rental agency on Monday, that's all. They'd advanced some of my expenses. They still owe me—"
"You're not likely to collect," said Yamamura. He nodded to Kintyre. "I see what you're driving at. ”

“ Kintyre remembered not to sit on the couch; he found a chair. "I wonder if the world may not have lost even more than you and I, Marge."
"I don't give a four-lettering damn about the world," she told him. She crossed the room and snapped the light switch. The sudden radiance was harsh to them, they both squinted. "I'd settle for having Bruce back."
"So would I. Naturally." He accepted the drink she offered and took a long swallow. It was heavy on the whisky and light on the soda. "And yet he was a scholar of unusual gifts. ”

“ At last she said, more awkwardly than the average modern woman: "I have to ask you about one thing. I saw a newspaper today. This girl he—he knew—"
"Yes," said Kintyre, focusing intently on the traffic. "I know her. They were living together. She's an altogether fine person who would have made him a wonderful wife. Bruce was very much in love with her and wanted to get married. She hesitated only because she—was afraid she might hurt him—she would have changed her mind soon. They were happy."
Corinna sighed. ”

“ She'll never make it alone."
Against his own principles of respect for privacy, Kintyre found himself speculating. Where had Clayton picked up such intuitions? His first wife, whom he had loved, seemed by his few chance remarks and his Who's Who biography to have been the conventional helpmeet of a conventional young man in the thirties: grocery clerk, salesman, pitchforked down by the Depression, up again via WPA to construction foreman to warehouse foreman to minor executive. Finally she got tuberculosis, with complications, and took a couple of years to die. ”

“ This was about five years ago. I was an assistant bucking for an instructorship, he was a freshman with a major in my department—history, did I tell you? There was some kind of scholastic tea or something—semiformal—you know. He showed up in a secondhand tweed jacket and an old pair of khaki wash pants. He honestly thought they were suitable for—Never mind. It seemed funny at the time."
Kintyre stubbed out his cigarette (the fifth, sixth, twentieth?) and took a deep breath. He was letting this run away with him, he thought. He was yattering like an old woman, shaken into brainlessness. ”

“ You wouldn't."
"Perhaps I'd better take you home now," he said, without noticeable enthusiasm. "Are you working tomorrow?"
"Only if I feel like it, my boss told me. I'd planned to, but—Are you in any hurry?"
"Contrariwise." I don't think I would sleep much.
"Then could we go somewhere and talk? I'd like to ask you some things."
"I'd love to be asked. I know a place."
It was small, dark, and masculine, undegraded by jukebox or television. Kintyre led Corinna into a booth at the rear.
"They serve steam beer," he said. "The only really good beer made in this country." ”

“ Father wasn't after riches anyway. His main enterprise was to gather and prepare marine specimens, for museums and colleges and so on. Toward the end, he was making a name for himself. Well, we never saw much cash money, but we never needed a lot either."
Kintyre held his glass to the light, tossed it off and followed it with a scalding sip of coffee. Why was he speaking of this? He had barely mentioned his youth to anyone else, except Trig, who was the friend of a dozen years. Trig had led him into the dojo, hoping that its discipline of mind as well as body would strangle the horror. ”

“ But give me thy solemn pledge, Lord Kintail, that I shall suffer no skaith, and then thou shalt see my face.”
“I swear to thee before this goodly assemblage,” said Kintail, “that whoever thou mayest be, or whatever enemies of thine may be amongst us, thou shalt be skaith-less. Nay, more; for thy brave bearing thou shalt have free assoilzieing from outlawry and all other penalties, be thou whom thou mayest, with one exception alone.”
“Whom dost thou except?” demanded the stranger, eagerly advancing his body, but without unveiling his face.
“Glengarry himself,” said Lord Kintail. ”

“ I think I am the happiest girl in the world. But I have so much to say to you. It is the oddest thing that Count Kinsky should be in England just now. I don't suppose you know, but he is one of the heads of the Haute Police, as it is called in Russia, and the chief of the section that guards the persons of the Royal House. Even I do not know what is the nature of his mission to England. He is anxious to have a talk with you later in the evening. ”

“ Kinsty halted and stared at Knight thoughtfully. Then he announced:
“’Low you’re all right and are the man you say you be. But at the first I had a sneaking notion you might be Greeby.”
“The monster who lives with Indians from choice and kills his own people?” exclaimed Knight in a horrified tone. For the renegade’s infamous acts had been rehearsed at the Big Sandy station although the man seldom ventured that far up river.
“Now I know you’re all right,” chuckled Kinsty. “Only a man who’s all right could speak in that way. ”

“ There was silence for a moment.
"I can only say I am very sorry for you, Count Kinsky; your case is apparently a bad one; but do not despair yet, until complete investigation is made. It is all incomprehensible; but come, come at once."
Kinsky turned and grasped my hand.
"You know, Elphinstone, what this means to me? I allude to—Isabel."
I returned the pressure.
"Gold help you!" I muttered. "But I am thankful you have Nevares on your side. Trust him." ”

“ Sometimes he has followed a fire-engine and helped people from a fire-escape, or he has pulled the shield off a policeman, or at the bar of the Hotel Knickerbocker has made friends with a stranger, who turns out to be no less than a nobleman or an actor. And women, especially beautiful women, are always pursuing Kinney in taxicabs and calling upon him for assistance. Just to look at Kinney, without knowing how clever he is at getting people out of their difficulties, he does not appear to be a man to whom you would turn in time of trouble. ”

“ The Prince approaches, and in company.
Enter Rupert and Cinthio.
Rupert. Ah! do you jest with Scipio? Know him, friends,
A fellow of a right good stinging wit;
Who will not spare a king for sordid ends,
But utter all his mind whoe'er he hit.
This shepherd here is of a different sort;
His present speech will certify you so.—
Cinthio, my mistress is the sole resort,
And temple of the graces; in her grow
A spring of beauties; and Pandora's dower
By heritage she wears even at this hour.
Cinthio. I am a lowly youth, and love a maid
More high than I am low, and oh, so fair! ”