Delicate Ape

by Dorothy B. Hughes

  Gordon spoke with a tremor. “You looked at him.”

  Piers swallowed the rye neat. “It happened he was in my car coming up from Washington.” He lit a cigarette from his crumpled package. “It isn’t often that you see a second time someone you halfway notice in a restaurant or on a train. It’s casual.” He pushed his glass again to the barman.

  Gordon said, “I don’t have your nerves, Piers. I’d be home in bed after an encounter like that.” He smiled his particular smile. “Hoping the Clootie hadn’t followed.”

  Piers met his smile. “He looked like a commercial traveler. Nothing important. He didn’t look at all the sort of man who was traveling in Samarra.”

  Gordon put down his glass unevenly.

  “Someone in the crowd said a man was chasing him. But he got away. Another drink?”

  Gordon touched a white linen handkerchief to his mustache. “Sorry. I’m with a party. I shouldn’t have taken this long.” He folded the handkerchief away. “It can’t be that anything’s happened to the old man. There’ve been no unaccounted plane accidents reported. He must have stopped over somewhere.”

  “Not without telling us,” Piers said.

  “There’s not a week before the conclave opens.”

  “What will happen if he doesn’t come by then?”

  Gordon spoke thoughtfully. “The President will appoint an acting secretary.”

  “One of us.”

  “Yes.” His face was grave. “One of us.” He had no doubt as to which one it would be.

  Neither had Piers. He paid the check, started away from the bar.

  Gordon halted him. “Where can I reach you? Where are you stopping?”

  “The Plaza. I’ll ring you in the morning.”

  They separated; he continued to the door. If Gordon tried to reach him there, he’d insist he’d said Savoy-Plaza. At the door, he paused, turning to allow the woman in iridescent feathers to pass him. Standing there he could watch Gordon rejoin his table. It was set where it commanded the door and the corridor outside. For the moment his heart was constricted. And then his eyes cleared and he saw it wasn’t she whom he feared it was. It was a young girl with hair pale lavender in this light, dark purple eyes and a shimmering violet dress.

  There were also at the table two quite ordinary young men. Disbelieving in the normal, he concentrated in that brief moment on the men. Neither looked as if he would recognize the jaundiced commercial traveler as a part of the human race. Each wore the face of Princeton or Yale, handsome, sure, protected. Gordon must have looked that way when he was young, during the war when he was at a desk in Washington, aide-de-camp to an important—socially and politically—Major General. Gordon hadn’t lived in the land of death. He had never known the descent to hell, the stench of human decay in his nostrils, the rivers of blood lapping his boots.

  He was watching Piers from the table. Piers moved as soon as the feathered one’s attendants had passed him and he turned outside the door as if he were seeking the 44th street exit. He waited for a moment in that corridor but no one came after him, and, avoiding the bar doorway, he made his way by the back corridor to the desk.

  The sleek-haired clerk with the scent of dark carnation said, “No messages, Mr. Pierce.” He passed across the key.

  Piers scowled at it on his hand. He didn’t want the clerk to identify face with name; this was the first evening that it had happened. He took the papers from the newsstand, added a pack of cigarettes, and went to the elevators. No one was standing on watch; the activity of the hotel, intensified as curtain time grew nearer, was centered in the front lobby. Piers waited until the elevator cage was shut before he spoke the number. “Six.”

  They didn’t know he was stopping at the Astor. They did know he visited the bar. Gordon couldn’t have been there by accident. Someone wiser than he had suggested this particular bar. Someone, a pale lavender girl, two young men cut from a stereotyped pattern? And a slinking shadow frightened to death.

  Piers left the elevator without good night. His room, front and center, was near. He opened his door, locked it after him. He didn’t make a light, the lights of Broadway shone gaudily. As they shadowed, he crossed to the windows, opened them wide to the sound and the brightness of maelstrom below.

  He stood, a frail reed, between this light and the darkness. He would not be eliminated. Not by a rat-like man with a scant yellow beard, not by the experts of European intrigue. Nor, he smiled, by the ambitions of Gordon and his sure, steady perfection. De Witt Gordon to succeed the Secretary? No. It must be he, Piers Hunt.

  He alone knew where the Secretary was. He alone knew the two unmarked graves in the African sand. Gordon was eaten with anxiety. Piers knew that Secretary Anstruther was dead.

  II

  PIERS HAD THE MORNING papers sent to his room with breakfast. They were featuring the imminent International Peace Conclave as if nothing untoward had happened. Perhaps the secret had been kept; perhaps the press didn’t know that Anstruther was missing.

  Brecklein had arrived and—his nostrils narrowed—the dirty Schern. That arrogant sentimentalist, Dessaye, was here. The French again would toady to the stronger nations. Once France had been a strong nation. That was before his time, a part of history. She would assuage her fears anew with another loan. Lord Evanhurst arrived today; with him Watkins. Piers could count on Watkins, but Watkins, like himself, was only an undersecretary. Evanhurst was believed to be one of the chief proponents of the withdrawal.

  The Dominions were against it but they wouldn’t fight the mother country, not if she were lined up with the United States. He didn’t know about the Russians. China would vote with the States; South America with the majority. South Africa was for withdrawal; they were too far away to fear, and there was German blood. North Africa would follow Britain. As for Equatorial Africa, Black Africa, the important new province—it was an unknown quantity. It would go as Fabian willed. And Fabian’s will was more unknown than the territory he represented. Piers feared its expression.

  He searched the papers for news of Fabian but there was none. Perhaps the New York reporters didn’t know the importance of the Secretary of Equatorial Africa. Few of the conference did. If he could get to Fabian, talk with him, person to person, he might possibly make him see, understand. Fabian might well hold the balance of power in the voting. Most of Asia, even Asia Minor, would listen to what Fabian had to say. It was possible that South America would be swayed by him; there had been portents in regional meetings that the mass of the people of South America considered themselves allied with the dark continent.

  If he could find Fabian he could at least learn his reactions to the border incidents. He could demand an explanation of the telegram and its aftermath. He would know from the answer or the evasion if Brecklein had got to the African leader first.

  The most important thing now was that he himself not die. Last night had proved he wasn’t safe. The man who had followed him hadn’t been the killer but he had been the first messenger from Death. Piers wasn’t certain why he was being hunted. The most valid reason was because of his determination to block the withdrawal of the international military from Germany. But no one had knowledge of that. There were a few, yes, Watkins, Nickerson, Abrahmsky, Australia’s Sandys, the young Czech delegate, all undersecretaries, all unimportant, who knew his convictions. But they knew as well—or thought they did—his inability to act on these. They believed his hands were tied as were their own.

  It was improbable that this was the reason behind his being followed. The more unimportant causes were the more probable. Conceivably some of the schemers might believe that the Secretary of Peace was purposely remaining out of sight until the opening of the conclave in order that he might face it without the insinuating propaganda of the various legations. Granting this premise, Piers could be followed to lead to Secretary Anstruther’s place of retirement. This premise did not carry the threat of death.

  But this one did: If the intriguers knew
that the Secretary would not appear a Deus ex machina at the opening of the conclave, it could be believed that Piers carried his final instructions. Careful as he had been, it could be known that he had the Secretary’s papers. If certain nations did not wish these voiced, and they did not, Piers would need to be eliminated. This theory carried promise of sudden death, death within five days’ time.

  He didn’t want to die. This was his world. He liked work, fair fight, and the blue hills of adventure. He liked the stimulus of books. He liked long thoughts, and man, and some men. He liked earth in its greenness and in its barrenness; he liked the machine and the elements and the stars. Like was a poor word for it. Life was of him. It was he. He savored it and he gulped it. He didn’t want to die until he had been filled to saturation.

  He had spent four years during the Last War, that Second World War, in daily combat with death. He hadn’t wanted to die then but he hadn’t been afraid. Now he was afraid to die. The fear had nothing to do with fear of losing his identity. He didn’t believe in oblivion. Death would be the new adventure. Nor had his fear to do with giving up this life. That brought resentment but not fear. He feared because if he died there was no one to fight for peace. There were multitudes who wanted peace, who blossomed in the peace of these past twelve years, who clung to the promise of everlasting peace. There were many who had forgotten war and some who had never known it, who believed therefore that peace was inevitable. Even Watkins and Sandys could not fight for peace. It wasn’t that they lacked courage or will; it was that they were not yet appointed. His was the appointment.

  He stood from the bed and crumpled the papers. Anstruther’s death should not be without purpose. The old man had been good; he had had the simplicity of goodness. This was not enough when the apes stirred man to bestiality again. The good could not stop the depredation. Only man who had risen from brute man, who recognized the evil gropings, could do that. Piers could and would do it. He was not traveling to Samarra this season.

  He crossed to the window and stood there, unseen, looking down at Broadway below. Morning Broadway was a different street from that of night. It was almost quiet now; there were few walkers; the policeman at the intersection was unharried. The police force was for the protection of honest citizens. What would the Commissioner do if Broadway demanded the police be removed from its environs? The idea was too ludicrous for consideration. The same idea for a different street should be laughed out of the peace conclave. It wouldn’t be.

  He wished he knew where to find Fabian. A plane whirred overhead. No one below looked up, no one burrowed for shelter, the old Broadway trolley continued to bump along the tracks, the leisurely spring morning was unchanged. That was peace. There was a time when the sound of a plane had brought the terrible silence of fear.

  He stretched his lean body and went towards the shower. He wasn’t going to die. It would help, however, if he knew for certain who wanted him to die. It could be Gordon. Gordon intended to step into the old man’s shoes. He had directed his career carefully towards that achievement. But Gordon didn’t know that Anstruther was dead. Only Piers knew that. And it would never occur to Gordon that Piers might be a contender for the post.

  It must be Brecklein. Brecklein knew or sensed something. The exquisite German espionage system wouldn’t be blotted out by twelve or twice twelve years. It would if anything be more perceptive by its enforced quiet. The presence of Schern as an envoy of appeal to the court wasn’t by accident. Schern had been the key man in their intelligence during the Last War. The inner key. Piers knew that well.

  He scrubbed himself happily. He wasn’t afraid of Brecklein or of his associates. He knew exactly how their minds would function; the traveling salesman was an example. He needn’t be afraid of quick death at their hands. Theirs would not be a shot in the dark; their passion to know would insist that they first probe his motives and intentions.

  And now he wasn’t afraid of failure either. The depression he’d brought home with him last night from Washington, result of a day of lethargy and of being shunted from one minor bureaucrat to another, had lifted. He didn’t like the prospect of the inactive days ahead—the conclave would not open until Sunday, four days to wait—but it was an essential part of the plan. To remain in the background, to wait, until the time was ripe for striking. He could wait.

  The phone rang as he was brushing his dust-colored hair. He scowled. There was no reason for it to ring. No one knew a Mr. Pierce stopping at the Astor. No one but the clerk could call. Reflectively Piers moved to answer but his hand remained pressed down on the instrument. He turned away, finished dressing to the punctuation of its ringing. It had stopped before he left the room.

  He didn’t take his room key to the desk. The night clerk had put a name to him last night; it was possible the day clerk also would recognize him. Later he would inquire, after the seeker, if there were one, had gone. He went out the side door onto 45th street. He walked over to Broadway, stood for a moment in the doorway of the Walgreen’s drugstore on the corner. On impulse he cut into the street up to the traffic officer. He waited until the patrolman blew his whistle and lifted his white gloved hand for traffic change.

  Piers stood equal in height if not in breadth to the officer. Assignment in Africa had worn him thin. He asked with the right careless curiosity, “Hear about the accident up the street last night?”

  “Yeah. I wasn’t on duty.” He continued manipulating traffic as he spoke. “Did you witness it?”

  “Not exactly. Not till it was over.” Piers spoke with clear conscience and candid eyes. “Had my back to it. Who was the fellow?”

  “Don’t know. If you were there last night you ought to report in to the Precinct. It’s the Eighteenth, up on Fifty-fourth street. Captain Devlin is trying to round up all the witnesses.”

  “He must have been someone important,” Piers said carelessly. “But I didn’t see anything in the papers.”

  The policeman held traffic for two women and a little girl with dyed yellow curls and white tassels topping her boots. One of the women examined Piers. When they reached the curb, the cop blew his whistle. “Wasn’t that. Only some of the witnesses say the guy was being chased. Some of them say he was pushed.”

  “Sorry I can’t help out. I was just too late.” Piers moved on, lounging across to the east side of Broadway.

  The officer didn’t look after him. Doubtless took him for one of the unemployed actors who emerged at the late morning hour. The officer hadn’t been suspicious.

  There was risk in it but he wanted to visit the precinct where the accident had been reported. Wisely he had changed to protective coloring today. The sand-brown gabardine, the panama, wouldn’t fit a description of a dark suit and hat. No spectator could have described his face; it was any face, thin, tanned, no distinguishing marks.

  He walked on uptown. It was worth the chance for the possibility of finding out the fellow’s name. A lost article. A briefcase. Lost in the excitement over the accident. A good enough excuse. He strode north the nine blocks, turned west on 54th, to the severe gray stone of number 306. He didn’t hesitate at the door; he pushed in.

  The sergeant at the desk was big and red. A tuft of saffron gray hair grew over each ear. He sucked his pen and exhaled, “What’s yours?”

  Piers stated without preamble, “I lost my briefcase last night. By any chance has it been turned in here?”

  The sergeant had a list of questions, routine for lost and found.

  Piers avoided name and address, describing, “Alligator, brown. Papers in it.”

  “What kind of papers?”

  He smiled, deciding to hold his imagination to a guise which would fit. “Plays. Manuscript plays, that is.”

  The sergeant’s nose didn’t consider that of much importance.

  “It was a good briefcase,” Piers insisted. “Good alligator.” A good alligator is a dead alligator. He continued answering the queries. “It was somewhere in the Paramount block. I think i
t must have been knocked from my hand when the accident occurred.”

  When he spoke the word “accident” the watery blue eyes with the yellowed pupils, the disinterested eyes, suddenly became crisp as china.

  “You mean the accident—you mean the guy that jumped in front of a taxi?”

  “Fell or jumped or was pushed,” Piers said. He said it blithely, as if he’d taken part in a sidewalk session after its occurrence.

  “You want to see Captain Devlin,” the sergeant nodded. He got to his feet as if they pained him and he padded to an inner door.

  Piers let his voice follow eagerly. “Does he know about my briefcase?” He lighted a cigarette after the officer disappeared. This was better than he had expected, a first-hand talk with the captain. He wasn’t apprehensive; he couldn’t be connected with the accident; he had not come here to speak of it but to inquire for lost property. He was curious as to whether the police had discovered the dead man to be important or whether this was normal procedure for the many like accidents which must occur in the city. If the latter, the police were to be respected for their careful regard for death.

  The old sergeant stuck his head through the door. “You, there. Come on in. Captain says he wants to see you.”

  “Certainly.”

  Piers followed the man down a corridor into a drab box of a room. It was furnished with a too large desk, an old wooden bench and chair, a calendar portraying an Indian girl stepping into a birch canoe, and a large brass cuspidor. The man behind the desk was large, gray-haired, ruddy-faced. He wore his hat on the back of his head.

  “I’m Captain Devlin. Sit down, Mister … Sit down, O’Leary.”

  The sergeant sat on the chair. Piers lounged easily on the old bench.

  “Your name?” Captain Devlin asked. He had a green pencil with a large brass clip on it pointed at a paper. His desk was assorted with papers.

  “George Henderson.” Piers didn’t hesitate. He’d been Thompson in Washington, he was Pierce at the Astor, but Henderson came easily to his lips. He knew these names well, always he used ordinary names, nothing too common or too unusual to attract suspicion. “I lost my briefcase—it’s of brown alligator.”