Delicate Ape

by Dorothy B. Hughes

  “There is,” Piers stated. “A man has followed me all afternoon. He is here now. I don’t like it.” He paused and his eye fixed the clerk. “I’d prefer that your house detective handle it. But if he doesn’t, I will.”

  The clerk mouthed quickly, “Yes, sir. Certainly, sir.” He didn’t seem to know quite how to cope with this. He tinkled a bell and spoke hushed to the answering boy. “Will you find Mr. Sarachon at once?” His voice broke. “At once.” He took his wine-colored handkerchief from his pocket and touched his forehead. “You should speak to the police, sir.”

  “I have,” Piers replied. “Not two hours ago. Evidently the man was released with a warning. Evidently he knew where to find me.”

  Mr. Sarachon was dressed for the evening, impeccable, thinning hair, polished nails, soft black hat. A piece of Broadway, the aristocracy of Broadway. He didn’t resemble his profession.

  The clerk said, “Mr. Sarachon, this is Mr. Pierce. A guest of the hotel.” He didn’t know how to continue.

  Piers took over. “There’s a man who has been following me. Despite police intervention he has followed me here. I’d rather like it if you could get rid of him.”

  Mr. Sarachon asked as had the cop, “Why is he following you?”

  “I don’t know,” Piers said wearily. “I’ve conducted government business all over Europe and Africa without ever having been followed.” That wasn’t quite true. “Now I’m on vacation, in my own country. I don’t know why he’s following me. I don’t like it.”

  Mr. Sarachon said smoothly, “I’ll do what I can, Mr. Pierce. I can’t exactly toss him out”—he showed his teeth and twitched his immaculate tie—“but in such cases a warning is usually sufficient. If you’ll point him out.”

  Piers pointed. “The unpressed fellow over there.”

  Mr. Sarachon’s eyelids drooped. He looked Piers over carefully before he walked towards the man, his steps brisk, assured. Piers leaned against the newsstand, took up a handful of evening papers, more cigarettes. He waited. He couldn’t see Sarachon’s face, only his mobile shoulders. The heavy jowls were shadowed by the crumpled hat. Piers waited. Sarachon’s return was hesitant. He studied Piers obliquely.

  “Well?” Piers demanded.

  Sarachon rubbed the shine of his right hand fingers against his tuxedo coat sleeve. He said, “I’m afraid I can do nothing for you, Mr. Hunt. That man is Jake Cassidy. Detective first grade of the New York police force.”

  Piers took it slowly. He asked finally, “You knew who he was before you spoke to him, didn’t you?”

  “I knew he was Cassidy,” the house detective admitted. “I thought he might be off the force, in private work, in which case I could have done something. However, he’s still active, he showed me his card. I’m sorry. And the New York force—”

  “I understand,” Piers said. “Thanks just the same.” He walked away to the elevators, leaving behind Sarachon’s disturbed polish, the clerk’s snide face, Cassidy’s imperturbable stance. Cassidy knew who the man was that he was following. The house detective had addressed him as Mr. Hunt only after he spoke with the heavy man.

  Safe in his room he closed the door, leaving the room unlighted save by Broadway flares. He drew a chair to the window, sat there looking out and seeing nothing. He was being followed by a New York detective. Why? The question blinked with the lighted sign—why—why—why. Was it in connection with Johann Schmidt’s death? Was it for some more important reason? If he knew for certain when Cassidy had picked up his trail, the answer would come clear. He had suspected a shadow after he left the precinct house. He had been certain of it after he parted with Gordon at the Chatham. If Cassidy had picked up the earlier trail, the visit to the police hadn’t been as successful as he had thought.

  Even so he could not regret the geste. Having his suspicion of Brecklein’s delegation confirmed was worth whatever difficulties might now ensue. At least he could label the enemy. If, however, it had been Captain Devlin who in suspicion had set Cassidy on his trail, how had the detective learned the name was Piers Hunt, not George Henderson?

  If his trail had been taken up later, with Gordon, it was easier to understand how he had been identified. Gordon had spoken over the office phone. Had the detective learned that and followed Gordon, he could pick up his quarry. This did not explain why the New York detective department should be interested in Piers Hunt. Unless Johann Schmidt had not died immediately, had existed long enough to exhale a man’s name. There was no other possible connection between Cassidy and Brecklein.

  If his own path were straight he could welcome Cassidy’s supervision. God knows he needed protection. He couldn’t afford its luxury as yet. He didn’t dare come out in the open; he must continue to move secretly, to hide his real motives from all, even from his own associates. He could trust no one; no matter what dangers he was led into, he must walk alone. The end was more important than he.

  The small face of the girl with lavender hair kept glimmering in the shade of his room. He had known that Anstruther had a daughter; he conceived of her as a little girl. It was a simple enough mistake. The Secretary had referred to her always as his little girl. He had mentioned schools: “I must be in New York before my daughter’s vacation begins.” “I must be home before my little girl returns from the country.” Little girls grew up, a father didn’t realize. Nor did a father’s business associate. Piers hadn’t realized that Bianca was a young woman. He regretted it; he wanted no women; the business was ticklish enough without this complication. His sympathy for her couldn’t even be hinted. She would not forgive him for prolonging her anxiety, postponing her grief. It didn’t matter save that she was Anstruther’s daughter. After this was over he should like to help her.

  He was tired. Another day gone but four yet to pass before he dared move. If he could be sure of success, the game would be worth its candle. He couldn’t be. Not without Evanhurst or Fabian. There seemed little hope of Evanhurst. He moved from his chair, made a light and stretched himself on the bed. He went over the newspapers he had bought, rapidly, thoroughly. The delegation from Equatorial Africa wasn’t mentioned. There was only one item worth attention, a noted Washington columnist, one whose comments were above question, had written: “Secretary Anstruther remains in retirement pending the opening of the International Peace Conclave on Sunday.”

  Piers pushed away the papers. If the commentator would look into Bianca’s eyes his belief in his infallibility would be shattered. He flung away the newssheets; he might as well go out into the dinner and theater crowds. Dinner wasn’t important but the theater would black out memory for a too brief number of hours. First a shower and change of clothes.

  He pulled out the uppermost bureau drawer. He stood there, his hand tightening on the knob. The drawer had been searched. He opened each of the others in turn. They too had felt intrusive fingers. It was not that the contents were tumbled. It was rather the small disarrangement. Had not years of fending for himself in limited space given him an inordinate taste for order as against the time-wasting uselessness of disorder, he might not have noticed the intrusion.

  He went without haste to the clothes closet. The suits as well. The spacing was different. He pulled out his two suitcases, large and small, opened each in turn. The linings were intact. He hadn’t expected the consideration. Whoever had searched may have used a detector to make certain nothing was hidden. Yet a finger touch could have told that no papers were secreted. Whoever had searched was after papers, the papers of Secretary Anstruther. His lips curled away from his teeth. They could have spared themselves the deed. There were no papers here.

  It amused rather than angered him that his room had been searched. There was a bribe—if access had been result of bribery—wasted. Entrance might have been by a passkey, easy enough for one of the Smiths to make one. He bathed, dressed leisurely. He put on the dark suit again. It didn’t matter its repetition, not with his detective escort. Captain Devlin could lay hands on him without tr
ouble of search. He pocketed his key, went out and walked the few steps to the elevator. There was no life visible, no sound here nor in the dim corridors stretching left and right. It was as silent as if it were a dwelling place on the Nubian desert. He touched the button again and he backed to the wall where he might be safe from surprise attack. The enemy had had access to this floor at some time today. They could return.

  The drop to the lobby was into a different world, a world of cacophony and light. It was reassuring. It even seemed safe. For a moment he hesitated, washed by its disinterested safeness. He could remain here; he didn’t have to wander tonight. It was absurd to be ridden by the hounds of fear on Broadway. Absurd that he dreaded to emerge from his fox’s hole, absurd to fear the street because of an accident pattern that must not be uncommon.

  He had hungered for years to return to this garish and, to him, precious sector of the universe. Crossing he had believed that here he could forget the ordeal ahead, a week of losing himself on Broadway would give the necessary therapeutic advantage he needed before the hour of reckoning. He should have belonged to the theater world. His mother had been a Piers, yes, but she had been Cornelia Piers’ own daughter. Not only had she married Horace Hunt, the leading character actor of his generation; she had not imported him into her world where he had no wish to be; she had joined his. Piers had been figuratively born in a trunk. That the trunk had been a luxurious one proved only that Horace Hunt had been a laborer worthy of his highly appraised hire.

  Piers had been ten years old when he moved to Cornelia’s. That was after his mother died. He didn’t remember her well; he remembered rather Cornelia’s portraits of her. Of what she had been there was for memory only the scent of red roses, laughter, the feel of silk. And the roses had been blighted long ago.

  His father had died in the Last War. An airplane crash while he was touring the camps as entertainer. Piers and his father had remained good friends always; separated sometimes for years by Horace Hunt’s moving-picture commitments, separated by a sequence of young and younger stepmothers, their friendship hadn’t faltered. He had wanted to follow his father on the boards. He’d been studying, had even done summer stock and a Broadway walk-on before the war came. After the war it had been too late. It hadn’t been important enough.

  Only one thing had been important after that war, to work for peace. Luck had brought him to Samuel Anstruther who needed young men with militant belief in peace to counteract the too many who passively accepted peace as their heritage. For twelve years he had been Secretary Anstruther’s personal representative in Europe and Africa; Gordon had held the all-important Washington post. There were good men at the helm in the other districts but the under-leadership was divided between Gordon and himself. He was the man in the field, the trouble shooter called in before trouble could brew. There had been more trouble in the formative years, in those years before belief in peace, total peace, had been accepted. The past five years had been more or less uneventful. Man, even man in Government, wanted peace. Given assurance that he might have it, he had been eager to cooperate in its furtherance, far more determined than he had been in the past to cooperate in the cyclic necessity for war.

  Until these border incidents had begun. The government of South Africa had reported them in March. It was undeniable that they had been fomented; the territory they spotted was too widespread for a mere local squabble. The instigators were held by Europeans to be of Equatorial Africa. That was the expected. What was not expected, what came in nature of a shock, was that Piers’ independent investigating proved that only Germans had reported trouble. It was the sinister echo, out of the not too long ago past, of German voices howling of persecution.

  He had waited for Fabian to speak, to report his finding to the commission. And Fabian had not spoken. That Piers could not understand. With charges made against his people, Fabian had blanketed Equatorial Africa in immutable silence. Piers’ request for discussion with Fabian had been swallowed up in that silence. It was then, a fresh incident of purported butchery for stimulus, that Piers had secretly sent word to Secretary Anstruther asking him to confer with him in Africa. If any man could reach Fabian, it was Anstruther. If any man could see through the manipulations against peace, it was Anstruther. It was in the midst of this secret conference that the wire from Fabian had come. And Anstruther had gone to meet death.

  With first report of the trouble had descended this enveloping depression. Piers knew history too well not to realize that war had more than once started from just such seemingly unimportant friction. Far more frightening was the presumptive evidence that the incidents were no more than smokescreen for the dread events shaping behind them, that there were deliberate plans for laying waste the world again in a holocaust of destruction.

  It must be prevented no matter how many heads fell. He put away his dark thoughts. The heat of his mind must cool, give him respite in order to give him strength. He would go out, join Broadway. He started to the doors but seeing the ungainly bulk of Cassidy slouched against the same pillar, Piers diverted his steps.

  He stood before the man. “Come along. We’re going to do a spot of theater.”

  The little blue eyes sharpened. “What you talking about?”

  Piers said, “I thought you might as well know. Dinner and the theater. You’re coming, aren’t you?”

  Cassidy shifted his feet. “It’s none of your business where I go, is it? Or is it?”

  “You are following me,” Piers smiled. “I’m just making it easy for you. I might get lost in the crowd, you know.”

  “Suits me.” Cassidy studied his thumb.

  “And me,” Piers laughed.

  “If you get lost,” he put the side of his thumbnail between his teeth, “I’ll find you again. New York isn’t so big.”

  “I know,” Piers admitted. “But there are hiding places.”

  “You’d come out by Sunday.” Cassidy wasn’t interested but he knew something he shouldn’t know, that no one here should know.

  Piers erased his sudden frown, spoke easily. “Can I stand you a drink before we start out—separately, if you prefer?”

  Cassidy would have refused. He should have refused. Suspicion narrowed his eyes and he shifted again. But he’d had a long vigil and his feet must have hurt. There were no chairs here. The bar was near with sweet and acrid odors of stimulants and soporifics.

  He said finally, reluctantly, “I could use a beer.”

  “That’s better,” Piers approved.

  The man lagged behind him as if still following the letter of his orders. The bar was a little less crowded now, the dinner hour. There was no sign of Bianca Anstruther and her party. Cassidy pulled out a chair at a small table, sighed into it. “Bottle of Budweiser,” he said.

  “You won’t mind if mine’s an aperitif, Mr. Cassidy? I haven’t dined.” He directed the waiter.

  “How do you know my name?” Cassidy wasn’t at ease.

  “I made inquiries.” Piers laid his package of cigarettes across the table.

  Cassidy struggled with deep thought. “That damn Sarachon. Used to play the drums in a band here.”

  “Perhaps.” Piers held across a light. “I don’t suppose you’d tell me why you’re following me?”

  “Who said I was following you?”

  Piers’ look was level and ironic. “I can’t believe your private tastes are as catholic as the greensward of the park and the bar of the Astor.”

  Cassidy’s knobbed hand cooled on the bottle of beer. He relaxed after he tasted.

  Piers said, “I’ve followed men myself in my time. Perhaps that gives one a sixth sense.” He sighed. “I presume now that I’ve spotted you there’ll be a new man put on me.”

  “That don’t make no difference,” Cassidy said.

  Piers sipped. “It surprises me that you should be the shadow.”

  “Why’s that?” The demand was belligerent.

  “I should say that the New York detective force wo
uld not be interested in my itinerary.” He glanced at his watch. “Time for another beer before I push along.” He beckoned the waiter, repeated the order. “As far back as mind serves, quite a way back that is—I was born in New York—I’ve never caused any trouble in this city. Not even a filched banana or a slug in a gum-vending machine. Yet I’m of interest.” He softened his voice. “Or is it for my protection?”

  “You need protection?” Cassidy watched the foam rise in his glass.

  “My room was searched today. Is that part of the service?”

  The detective grunted, “I don’t know nothing about that.” He didn’t; surprise had quickened his face.

  “I didn’t think you did.” Piers let his hand flat on the table. “It wouldn’t surprise me if we were both being followed, Mr. Cassidy.”

  “Who’d be doing that?” the detective scowled.

  Piers stabbed out lightly. “There might be others interested in Secretary Anstruther’s whereabouts.”

  Cassidy pulled himself up in the chair. The mask was pushed from his face. Behind it was revealed a man of brain, a hunter of strength, stubbornness.

  “I can tell you you’re wasting your time.” Piers matched the coldness. “I do not know where the Secretary”—he recalled caution—“is in retirement.”

  Cassidy belched. “I’m not looking for the Secretary.” His little eyes peered from under his hat. “I’m looking for a briefcase.” He began to laugh, choking with it.

  Piers echoed, “A briefcase.” Bewilderment must have shown on his face for Cassidy wheezed until a globule fell from each eye.

  But there wasn’t a briefcase. He’d invented it for Captain Devlin. And Devlin, accepting George Henderson, had set this watchdog on Piers Hunt. It didn’t add up. In order to recover a briefcase Devlin wouldn’t set a watch on the man who lost it. The answer must lie in Johann Schmidt. Piers repeated now, shaking his head, “A briefcase?” And he frowned. “Whose briefcase?”

  The laughter was shut off like that. The little eyes were again chips of stone. “The briefcase of Secretary Anstruther.”