Delicate Ape

by Dorothy B. Hughes

  Gordon had been afraid too, afraid he would give away too much.

  “And that therefore, with additional precaution, the case was entrusted to me who wouldn’t be suspected of carrying it. Mind you I’m not saying this is the reason. It’s merely my fancy on the matter.”

  “You asked if I had it?” Gordon queried.

  “If Anstruther entrusted it to someone it must be either you or I, Gordon. It isn’t I. It must be you.”

  “I don’t have it.”

  “I’m sorry.” He looked straight at Morgen. “It would have helped if you had. I could have said, Go chase De Witt Gordon. He’s your quarry.”

  The anger raged again in her but she said nothing.

  Gordon said, “What makes you think there are people after the Secretary’s briefcase?”

  “I’ve been followed.”

  He frowned. “That sounds melodramatic, Piers.”

  “Piers is melodramatic,” Morgen said lightly.

  He shrugged. “There’s a nice problem there. Is a man melodramatic because of accident of birth as he is sanguine or phlegmatic, blue-eyed or square-jawed? Or is a man melodramatic because he is too often confronted with the situations of melodrama?”

  She interrupted, catching Witt’s hand. Impatience bubbled to her lips. “Let’s go. Piers’ father was an actor, you know. Sometimes that accident of birth is uppermost in him.”

  Gordon was caught between their rapiers. He didn’t know but he understood a little. The shell of social intercourse had been cracked. He said, “I want to go into this more thoroughly, Piers. Can you give me a ring at the office tomorrow when you’re free? Any time. I’ll shift appointments. You know that you’ve been followed?”

  “Definitely.”

  “And that your followers are after Anstruther’s dispatch case?” His credulity was strained.

  “That too.” Piers grinned at Morgen. “I asked.”

  Gordon shook his head. There was something wrong, terribly wrong, but he couldn’t discuss it now, not before Brecklein’s wife. He wasn’t that completely lost—or he didn’t want Piers to realize it. He murmured, “Of course Anstruther wouldn’t let the case out of his hands. I don’t know why it should be thought that you—”

  She said it then, what she’d wanted to say since she had come but which Piers had deferred by keeping her at bay. “Because it was seen in Piers’ hands after Anstruther left the airport.”

  Gordon turned his amazement first on her, that she too should know of the case, then upon Piers and suspicion went with it.

  Piers spaced his hands. “You mean one of such proportions, in alligator?” Both were measuring him. “That was mine. Very like Anstruther’s. A hired observer might have made the mistake.” He smiled a little. “In fact, two hired observers seem to have made the mistake.”

  “Where is that one now?” she demanded.

  Piers spoke gently to Gordon. “My room has been searched. I didn’t mention that. Expertly.” He flicked Morgen with his eyes. “I left it in Berne, with Nickerson. And its contents. I’m on vacation.”

  She didn’t believe a word of his lies but she couldn’t make an open issue, not with Gordon here.

  Gordon, the fool, said, “I never knew you to carry a briefcase, Piers.”

  He answered easily, “It’s an acquisition since your last trip to the continent.” He dismissed them then. “I’ll ring in the morning. If you can squeeze me in—”

  “I’ll arrange it.” Gordon’s face was somber. He had touched Morgen’s arm but he did not feel the flesh and bone, his mind was divided at this moment into too many other compartments. He wasn’t lost completely then, his disinterest in women as interference in his career was still present. It wasn’t the way a man should touch this woman. She would change it when she was alone with him, at the moment, strangely enough, she too didn’t know. It wasn’t like Morgen von Eynar to be unconscious of the attitude of one of her victims. She didn’t know because it was Piers she watched, her mouth parted, but she withheld the words. She remembered at last who she was, what she must be. She laid her fingers on Gordon’s wrist, her voice was right, careless enough, eager enough. “Can’t we meet soon, Piers? There’s so much to say.”

  He opened the door wide. He said, “I’m afraid I have no time, Morgen. And nothing more to say.”

  He shut them out. Let her explain that to Gordon. Let her explain away his rudeness and the look on her fine face in the teeth of it. She would. And Gordon would accept her explanation. Before they reached the Persian Room she’d have him convinced that Piers was in possession of Anstruther’s case. He didn’t care. He wasn’t. He’d destroyed it. And the photostatic copies of the Anstruther papers were safe until he was ready to make use of them.

  He undressed and he lay in the darkness without sleep, without hope of sleep. The sickness for her ate into him. Any fool would believe that twelve years was a long enough time for forgetting. Twelve years had been as nothing. She stood before him, he saw her, heard her speak; he smelled and touched her, tasted her.

  And the sickness for her ate into him like decay. Why had she come? Not for this, not to unman him. Not even Hugo could believe after what had happened that Piers could again be witched by her. No one should know that the years between were nothing, that he could now—were it not for the hatred in him—grovel to her. She would not know that. That she had stirred his senses, that she would realize, for that was her trick in trade. But with the knowledge would be awareness of the revulsion she had aroused in him. She would never know that he lay here in the dark, parched with the wanting of her. There were other women. Women of beauty and pride and tenderness. For him there was Morgen.

  Why had she come now? He walked to the window and he sat there in the chair that had held her. He needed all his strength for what lay ahead. He needed his full mind, uncluttered thought, wit and iron nerve, and nervelessness. He didn’t need a woman. He didn’t need the memory of a woman who burned the soul out of a man and shucked away his carcass. He didn’t need the memory of a woman who lied with her mouth and the turn of her wrist and the movement of her bones. She could never do to him what once she had done. He knew her treachery and her barrenness. Knowing, why must he suck at memory to assuage his terrible want of her? Why had she come? Why had she come? Why hadn’t she died twelve years ago in those last merciless bombings of Berlin?

  He had loved her. After her he could not know love of woman again. He was lost because his love was for evil; he could not be satisfied with good. But he was too sane to return to evil, too proud for self-destruction. He would avoid seeing her again. It shouldn’t be difficult. The Germans didn’t want him in on the preliminary conferences. They might, with Gordon’s words corroborating his, give up the idea that he was in possession of the briefcase. They would certainly, after she carried back his message, be more careful in their surveillance with the surveillance known to him. They were too wily to take any chances at this time on alienating even an unimportant member of the Peace Department of the United States of America.

  He wouldn’t think of her again. He’d eliminated her from conscious memory for twelve years; he could do it again. He sat there at the window until the city was silent beyond in the dark. Until the hunger in him for Morgen von Eynar was exhausted, and exhaustion emptied him of all but choice.

  V

  AN APE GROOMING HIS tail. Evanhurst in a dressing-gown striped of purple and red and golden satin playing with his morning cup of tea, his reed-like Virginia cigarette a finger between his lips. It wouldn’t be difficult to get rid of Evanhurst, a pellet in his tea, a doctored cigarette. Schern wouldn’t hesitate if he wanted Watkins to take over.

  Piers folded his napkin in his hand. He said, “I was there. I know the border incidents are incidents, no more. There is no need to send the International Force in.”

  Evanhurst mulled, “It is a beginning. Minor yes, but unless it is watched, each flicker stamped out—” He turned the cup in his fingers.


  Piers said, “There will not be war.”

  “No, by Gad.” The old man’s head rattled. “There will not be war. We will not permit war again.” His eyes were canny. “We are able to prevent it. We will send in our International troops. We will watch as we have watched in Germany these years.” For him, the armed supervision of Germany was already in the past.

  Piers spoke out in desperation. “Have you noticed what is behind these incidents?”

  “I know,” Evanhurst stated, omnipotent. “Those niggers ain’t content with their Equatorial State. I knew they wouldn’t be, I warned Anstruther. They want all of Africa. Africa for Africans. You’ve heard it? It strikes the memory, doesn’t it? Years ago it was Asia for Asiatics. Do you remember or were you too young, my boy?”

  “I was a combatant in the Last War.”

  “You do remember. They’re driving now. These incidents, episodes if you like. Driving against South Africa. Infiltration can’t work; you can spot a nigger. A war—that’s better. There’s more of them. The white birth rate falls, the niggers breed like germs, and since we’ve given them our medical science, nature doesn’t take care of it the way it used to. Lebensraum. That’s what they’re after, the whole damn black continent.” He fixed a wily eye. “We’re too strong in the north for them, so they’re heading south. But after they take the south—” He believed it. His brain had been diseased by Schern. It wasn’t a man for a man; it was three men for Evanhurst, titular leader of peace if Anstruther were gone. And Anstruther was gone.

  “The Germans are gentlemen like ourselves.” That was Hugo von Eynar. Schern to whisper the poison, “After they take the south, the north. What price British prestige then?” Brecklein for vested interest. “We can build the planes you want if allowed, better planes. We have the knowledge, the material. We can assemble them, ship them, and they’ll cost you less. There is money to be made.” Three men for Evanhurst, none needed for Gordon, the woman had him. With Anstruther gone, no one else was important. The Germans knew that Anstruther was dead.

  Piers said, without hope, “Have you noticed the names of those against whom the incidents have been said to occur? German all, Boer if you like or they claim Belgium, Holland. But German source.”

  A smile narrowed Evanhurst’s mouth. “You saw that. Yes, it hasn’t escaped me. Didn’t think the International would care if they carved up a few Germans. Sly devils.”

  Even that contingency had been figured. The double cross doubled. The redouble. And what matter if a few German farm colonists were, as Evanhurst expressed it, carved up? The human sacrifice for the Fatherland. The old, old glory. Without knowledge or permission of the sacrificed, the end without consideration of the means. The evil wisdom of Schern again rampant.

  “They’ll learn,” the London secretary said and there was no humor on his face. “They’ll learn, by Gad, a white man is a white man. No matter what his name.”

  “There is no color problem in International Peace,” Piers quoted.

  “If those bloody blacks choose to make one, they’ll learn.”

  With lost hope, Piers asked, “Have you talked with Fabian?”

  Evanhurst put the reed between his lips. “I’ve read his lying report. That’s enough.”

  Piers said it then. “Secretary Anstruther has believed in Fabian.”

  Evanhurst’s lips were tight over the cigarette. When he spoke it was as if he spoke of a man quite dead. “Anstruther wanted to believe in lasting peace. Belief tempered his judgment, Piers. You understand? A good man, Anstruther, perhaps too good for our realities.”

  Piers cried out, “Will you talk with Fabian?”

  Evanhurst did not smile. “There is no reason to talk with Fabian.”

  Piers looked long at the old man, the ape. Determined that apedom should not be threatened. How could he be blind to Germany? She hadn’t even bothered to change tactics in the years, the same scheme schemed over and again. She had not changed the names of these leaders. Schern, Brecklein, von Eynar. What good would it do to point out that Brecklein had been a high official in German production before and during the Last War? That Schern had been one of Nicolai’s key men, of the inner secret circle? That Hugo von Eynar had commanded an air force over England, that Morgen von Eynar had been a spy?

  They had answered this long ago to Evanhurst’s complete satisfaction. Brecklein had worked with the Nazis, certainly; it was his only way to hold a segment of the capital class intact while awaiting deliverance from revolution. Schern had been a leader in espionage, yes; he had paid, five years’ imprisonment. The book he wrote in prison, The Blind Shall See, the story of his regeneration, had been swallowed by wiser than this gullible ape. Von Eynar, who could deny any youth of those days being filled with patriotism for the defense of his country? A man who did not fight for his country then was less than a man. It was the Fatherland for which he had fought, not National Socialism. It was easy to forgive Hugo. Furthermore he was so gentleman, so tall, so fair, so charming.

  And Morgen? Who would bother in peace to find excuses for Morgen after once looking upon her? Only a fool. Who knew she had been a spy save Piers Hunt? The others who had known were dead. Those who kissed did not live to tell. Accident alone that Piers lived.

  Even if Evanhurst did not in his skeptical soul believe the disavowals of these men, he did not fear. This time Britain could handle Germany before she got out of hand. Piers asked, a young man deferring to an old, an undersecretary deferring to the second most important man in the Conclave; asked humbly knowing the answer, “What will be your vote, Lord Evanhurst? On the German matter.”

  The old man could smile now, on a protégé, on the grandson of an old and equal friend. “I shall vote for withdrawal. With a recommendation that the militia be sent into Equatorial Africa to observe matters there.”

  There was no need to remain longer. It was said. Piers left the apartment and returned to his room. He looked out at the city without seeing the towers, the spring burgeoning. He ticked them off. Anstruther, Gordon, Evanhurst. Germany was certain. She could afford arrogance to an undersecretary who dared raise his piping against entrenched power. The hopelessness in him was a goad. There could still be hope. If he could reach Fabian. He knew now he must reach Fabian. The black man must be made to see his personal peril, the peril to his land and race, if not the peril in which the world lay. No matter what lies Germany had fed Fabian, he, Piers, could expose them. Because he had Hugo’s letters to back up his personal knowledge of the incidents.

  He sat at the desk and he scrawled words, crossing out, emending. He read the satisfactory text: “David. Imperative. Will tell all of desert. Come again. Same place.” He put no signature to it. A signature would give away what the salutation and message would not. If David saw it, or Fabian, they would understand. He copied it legibly in duplicate, addressed one envelope to The New York Times, another to the Herald Tribune. He enclosed money and a note. The personal was to run until Sunday. He signed his name, George Thompson. He took then the Hugo letters. They must not be risked until Fabian had seen them. He sealed them within an envelope, addressed it to safe-keeping. He dropped the envelopes into the mail chute before descending to the lobby.

  He didn’t notice Cassidy until he was outside the hotel, his hand lifted for a cab. He beckoned, “You might as well join me.”

  “Might as well,” Cassidy said. He followed Piers into the cab, spoke, “Fifty-fourth street precinct house, Bud.”

  Piers said, “I’m on my way to the Peace offices.”

  “Captain Devlin wants to talk to you.”

  Piers put a cigarette in his mouth. It didn’t matter. Nothing mattered in this moment of bitterness, nothing but reaching Fabian in time. He could give Devlin some story, it wasn’t important. He struck a match. “Did Captain Devlin put you on me?”

  Cassidy rested his shapeless hat against the seat.

  Piers vented some of his anger. “Don’t tell me you’re still keeping up the old gag that
I’m not being tailed.”

  “You’re being tailed all right,” Cassidy agreed. “But Devlin would never have heard of it if that numbskull hadn’t lost you last night. He was supposed to report to me but he got so rattled he went to his own precinct.” He sighed heavily. “Then they get me out of bed and drag me down and we sort of get together on that briefcase. The one you lost.”

  The cab drew up at headquarters. Cassidy climbed out. “Do I pay for my own Maria?” Piers asked.

  “Your cab, isn’t it?”

  Piers paid. None of this was Cassidy’s fault. The guy hadn’t even had his twenty-four hours’ rest. Piers said, “For the record, your man didn’t lose me. I stayed all night at the Plaza.”

  “With Lord Evanhurst?”

  “Yeah,” Piers said. Let him have the honor. Everything went back to Evanhurst, even Cassidy’s lost sleep. He walked on past the old sergeant into the office. Devlin’s face wasn’t pleasant today. Piers sat down without suggestion. He started it, he himself wasn’t pleasant, not now. “What do you want with me?”

  “Just a little talk.” The captain’s heavy irony wasn’t amusing. Devlin didn’t know how unamusing he could be after Evanhurst. That was the amusing boy. Like that Italian in the long forgotten war Italy had waged on Ethiopia, giggling while he dropped his bombs. They were only niggers to him, too; funny how they scattered when destruction dived out of the sky. Funny, yes.

  “About that briefcase you lost when you were Mr.—Henderson, wasn’t it?” Devlin had the report under his hand, referred to it without need.

  “What about it?” Piers demanded.

  “Made of the best alligator—about so big, wasn’t it? With play manuscripts in it.” His voice was heavy. “Play manuscripts, yet.” He spoke out hard now, “Where did you get that briefcase?”