Drunken sot! No decent girl would marry him! Even through his liquor-soaked brain, Reynolds realized that the words rang true; but their very truth was like the red rag fluttered before the bull.
“You’re a liar!” he rasped. And he sprang toward the manager, one fist lunging forward as he leaped. Though heavily built, Kineally was quick on his feet. Swiftly he side-stepped and parried the blow. Reynolds whirled about and rushed a second time. Again and again his fists struck out, and Kineally took blow after blow on his hands and arms, turning them all aside. Obsessed by his whisky-stimulated wrath, Reynolds forgot all his knowledge of boxing. His one thought was to beat down the big man before him, who so steadily blocked the punches, and kept forcing him backward without striking a blow.
Back, step by step, they went, until Reynolds stumbled. Instantly the manager closed in, grasping the pitcher’s wrists and endeavoring to force him down into a chair. Back and forth they struggled, reeling about the room, until, with a crash, they brought up against the bureau. With a sudden twist, Reynolds wrenched one hand free from the manager’s viselike grip. The pitcher reached behind him and groped over the bureau top; and an instant afterward something flashed through the air, thudding dully against the manager’s head.
Reynolds heard a gasp, and the fingers about his wrist relaxed. The manager’s knees buckled forward, and he crumpled backward on the rug—a motionless heap.
Breathing heavily, Reynolds stood above the inert form, a heavy brass ash tray still grasped in his fist. Particles of blood dotted its edge. For a moment, brute satisfaction was reflected from his face. Then his expression changed to that of alarm. Why did Kineally lie so still? Why was the fallen man’s face so pale? Dropping to his knees, Reynolds pressed a hand against the manager’s shirt front. The pitcher’s hand was trembling, and his own heart pounding furiously, as he fumbled anxiously about on the manager’s breast. He could feel no action, and a crimson stain, like red ink on a sheet of blotting paper, was spreading, with ragged circumference, upon the manager’s hair.
The pitcher grasped the manager’s shoulders and shook the deathlike form.
“Kineally! Kineally! Owen Kineally!” he cried.
He jumped to his feet and seized the water pitcher, pouring all of the stale fluid it contained over the manager’s face; but the eyes remained closed; the form still.
Slowly Reynolds backed away from the prostrate man.
“Heavens!” he whispered. “He—he’s dead! I’m a murderer!”