[19]
The Phone buzzed. Kintyre snatched it up. "Well?" he cried.
"Trig. Headquarters has just gotten word from San Francisco. Miss Lombardi isn't home. They checked inside with the superintendent's passkey. No trace of a ruckus. Couldn't she simply have gone out?"
"Look," said Kintyre. His vocal chords felt stiff. "This concerned her own family, herself—and O'Hearn, whom she had been forced to slug. I'd promised to call with the latest news. Would you have stepped out, even for a minute?"
"No. Of course, they queried her neighbors, parents, employer, and so forth. At last reports they were still getting nulls."
"Another thing," said Kintyre. "Clayton knew she saw me last night. I mentioned it to him yesterday afternoon!"
It whistled in his receiver. Then: "So you think he picked her up in the hope of finding out exactly where you are and what you know. Isn't that taking quite a risk?"
"For him, it's a greater risk to remain passive," said Kintyre. "Didn't we agree that if necessary he can probably buy a witness to account for a day or so absence? Though if Bruce, Guido, C-c-corinna, and I—Margery—if we've simply been found murdered, he might not even need that. There'll be no evidence to convict him."
"But why should he gamble his own precious hide? Let Silenio and Larkin do this job too."
"No. For one thing, Corinna might have been under protection already—God, if we'd had the brains to request it!"