"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.
They entered a chill room. Kintyre took the lead, compulsively. He went to the sheeted thing and uncovered it.