Presidential Mission

by Sinclair, Upton;

  “Could anybody say no to that?”

  “You remember his assistant, Dr. Braunschweig? He is kept up to date on the details and will tell you to what extent we are still in the dark about the Germans and their progress on the subject.”

  “You forget, Professor, a man doesn’t just drop in and say to an atomic physicist: ‘Tell me the most precious secrets of this war!’”

  “I’m not forgetting. I’ll make arrangements for you, and you phone and make a date before you go. It needn’t be until you are ready to return to Europe. The old formula is reversed now, and a day may be as a thousand years. Good luck to you, Lanny, and see you in London!”

  XI

  Hartley phoned at the agreed hour, and Lanny made an appointment to meet him at once and brief him for the evening. They kept the car in movement while they laid out their plan of campaign. Lanny went into details about this old Knickerbocker lady who made no concessions to modern customs but lived as she had lived since girlhood, hating all the forces of change.

  “Don’t forget your glad rags,” said the son of Budd-Erling, and the other said he had them. When Hartley showed up in front of the old mansion which remained stubbornly in a district of tall office buildings, he was in every way en règle.

  Lanny had often wondered, did Miss van Zandt have one long black silk dress, carefully preserved through the decades, or did she have rows of them, and upon what system did she choose one each time? The cords in her thin neck were partly hidden by an old-fashioned “dog-collar” studded with diamonds; in addition she wore one string of pearls and a small tiara in her white hair. Her features were severe and pale—she scorned the use of rouge. She received her guests with stately courtesy. She served no cocktails, only a variety of wines at dinner. Hartley, forewarned, had got himself a drink or two in advance.

  Whatever he was, he played the English gentleman acceptably. Lanny could understand Laurel’s saying that she might have found him plausible if she had met him under normal circumstances. Hartley fully convinced his hostess that he was a person of conservative tastes, who had lived among the old “county families” and shared their ideas. When he turned loose upon the “Red peril” he became really eloquent and displayed a fund of knowledge which surprised his sponsor.

  Yes, indeed, the world was in a desperate way, and unless it was going entirely to pot at the end of this war, America must be prepared to take a firm stand against the Reds both at home and abroad. The public must be awakened to the peril in advance, and Hartley was the Englishman who knew how to do it. Before he was through, he had the Jewish clothing workers, who walked up and down in front of Miss van Zandt’s mansion every weekday noon, exchanging their cheese sandwiches and pickles for revolvers and hand grenades; and there was Hartley himself, standing on the steps in shining armor, holding aloft the banner of the American Christian Union and sweeping back the floods of blood and terror. The mixed metaphors were Hartley’s own, and no more confused than the state of mind of an economic-royalist spinster born half a century too late. The outcome of the dinner party was that she wrote a check for five thousand dollars to promote this righteous cause, but she wrote it to the order of Lanning P. Budd-and said in her royally firm way: “I am doing so because I have known Mr. Budd longer and wish him to have the handling of the money. I am sure that you, Mr. Hartley, will understand this decision.”

  “Certainly, certainly, Miss van Zandt,” said the Englishman cordially. “Mr. Budd is my friend, and we are entirely in unison. I am impressed by your clear insight and splendid courage in this matter.” Lanny wondered if the old lady’s reason was that she had noted the promptness with which Hartley had emptied his wine glass.

  When they were outside, Lanny said: “I hope you understand, I didn’t have any idea the old bird would drop this thing into my lap.”

  “I take your word,” replied the other. “But we don’t have to take her orders seriously, do we?”

  “I promise to see that you get the better of every deal,” was Lanny’s response. Which wasn’t quite the same as saying: “I’ll turn the money over to you.”

  XII

  It was late, and Lanny suggested that they should meet in the morning and work out the details of their plan. But Hartley wanted to know if they couldn’t take a drive now and settle the question of money. He was obviously uneasy, having every reason to assume that Lanny might be another such as himself. So they motored up to Central Park and along its winding drives, all the way around, since Lanny had to keep the man satisfied. He would surely not give him the money, knowing that he might bolt with both it and the diamonds.

  “You must understand, Hartley,” said the P.A., “the last thing I was looking for was to get a business on my hands. But until we have raised more money I carry the responsibility for this check. Will it be satisfactory to you if I allow you three hundred a month out of it?”

  “And how much will you take?”

  “I’ll be satisfied with two hundred at the start,” Lanny said. He had to take something, because he was supposed to be hard up. “You should have more, Hartley, because you will be doing more work than I. You know more about the subject, and besides, I have to do some traveling to keep my art business going.”

  “That sounds fair,” admitted the other, showing his relief.

  “We shall have to pay office rent, and we must find an office with a telephone, because, as you know, new phones are practically unobtainable. Also, we must have a secretary, and I should think a business manager, since I don’t suppose you want to bother with the details of getting literature printed and distributed.”

  “It seems to me,” objected Hartley, “you’ll be getting rid of the money in a very short time and leaving us on the rocks.”

  “We’re only getting started, man. I’m going to introduce you to other people, and you’ll raise a quarter of a million before you finish. Moreover, I have in mind a man who will work without salary, at least until we get going. It’s quite likely that he’ll put in a hunk of money when he sees what fine work we’re doing.”

  Lanny told the wonderful story of his friend Tom Cartier, who hated this stupid war and had used his family influence to keep out of it. He was looking round for something to do that would satisfy his conscience, and he was ready to take Lanny’s word for it that the American Christian Union represented the most worthy cause. Hartley, well fortified with wine, swallowed every word of it and exclaimed: “Righto! If you can produce a piece of magic like that, O.K.”

  Lanny said he could produce that magic the first thing in the morning. The agreeable young Virginian had a grandmother who owned the better part of a county down there, and she was much the same sort of person as Miss van Zandt; they might visit her before long and get another check. Also, Cartier had an uncle who owned a lot of real estate in New York and might be persuaded to rent them an office with a telephone, a treasure almost beyond price at the present moment. In short, Aladdin’s lamp was at work and Lanny said: “Notice that everything has happened as I promised you!”

  XIII

  Next morning the pair met by appointment, and they picked up Cartier and drove into the park again. They stopped at a quiet place by the side of a drive, where they could talk for hours without interruption. Cartier surprised Lanny in much the same way that Hartley had done on the previous evening. Cartier had been studying the Communists; he had attended their meetings and even one of their conventions, and he said that they were planning the after-the-war conquest of the world. He had read a volume of Lenin and could quote verbatim what the master Bolshevik had said on the subject of revolutionary versus bourgeois morality: how the Communists must always think of themselves as soldiers in a war, using all the devices which soldiers use against enemies. “When there is need of it, we must know how to employ trickery, deceit, lawbreaking, withholding and concealing truths.”

  In short, the lively young Virginian was a perfect model of a crusader on behalf of the American system of private enterprise, s
landerously called “capitalism” by the “Commies.” He was as ready for a fight as they were, and wasn’t going to be fooled by any of their camouflage. Hartley, who might or might not have believed what he said to Miss van Zandt, could hardly refuse to believe what Cartier said to him, and his rosy English complexion shone with pleasure when Cartier announced that he had already talked with his uncle, who would let them have a suite of three office rooms at the ceiling price and with no secret rake-off because of the two telephones.

  Later on they went to inspect the place, which was everything the most fastidious propagandist could have desired. One of the rooms was to be Hartley’s private office, and Lanny wondered, could it really be, as Post had told him, that the disk of the dictaphone was so hidden in the desk that nobody could find it without taking the desk apart, and the wires so wound in with the telephone wires that only an expert could have detected them, and then only by cutting into the wires. The dictaphone was legal, while telephone tapping was not. However, this was wartime, and against the enemies of the nation the F.B.I. would probably do what it pleased. Whether Branscome alias Hartley would be so indiscreet as to make appointments with his diamond smugglers over that phone, or to invite them into that office, were questions which only time could answer. Cartier felt quite certain that the blondined young lady whom he introduced as stenographer and secretary would be able to keep the susceptible Englishman busy at dinnertime whenever the government men desired to make another search of his apartment.

  10

  Man Is Born to Trouble

  I

  There came a call from Washington, and when Lanny called back it was Baker, telling him that an engagement had been made for him to meet Dr. Braunschweig in Princeton early the following afternoon. The day after that he would drive to the small town of Thurmont in the western part of Maryland, where he would find Baker and be taken to another appointment. “Both are for Mr. Prescott,” said the President’s man, and Lanny didn’t have to ask for an explanation.

  The much-traveled P.A. packed his bags again and said to his forewarned wife: “It’s a Number One matter, darling, so forgive me.” She answered that she had a Number One matter, too, and he teased her, pretending not to know whether it was the baby or the book. She thought she was a feminist, but after all she was a woman in love. Millions of women were sending their men off to war, but they weren’t enjoying it.

  He had told her about developments in the Hartley matter, because that might fairly be considered hers; but he wasn’t free to mention the awful subject of atom splitting, nor the town in the Catoctin Mountains, which he guessed contained the President’s hideout. F.D.R. had dropped a hint that he had such a place, since the Secret Service and the Navy combined had refused to let him enjoy his former recreation of yachting. Not even Chesapeake Bay could be considered safe in these days of triumphant submarines.

  Lanny took a bite of lunch early and set out. His route was the same as he had taken to Washington, and he had learned that you couldn’t count upon making speed on Highway Number 1. He had been told to go to the Institute of Advanced Study, and just a few minutes before the hour specified he parked his car down the street from this new Gothic building. He announced himself as Mr. Prescott to see Dr. Braunschweig, and in a minute or two he was seated in the modest study of the learned scientist. He was perhaps ten years younger than Lanny, but what he knew about the universe was appalling to a mere art expert, Over a period of two months in the previous summer he had tutored Lanny for an hour or two every day, and most of the time Lanny had had to learn words and formulas like a parrot, without being able to understand at all what they meant. He had come away with the feeling that this dark-eyed, rather frail, and extremely serious young physicist possessed a brain of a type wholly beyond the imagining of the ordinary man. Sir James Jeans had written that “the universe appears to have been designed by a mathematician,” and that sentence had stayed in Lanny’s mind.

  This time the tutoring wouldn’t take so long, because Lanny would be free to make notes and carry them away with him. Alston had said that would be all right, provided he kept them pinned up in an inside pocket and destroyed them before he left the country. Dr. Braunschweig had a list of data which had come in during the past ten months concerning German progress in atomic research, and what particular details might be useful to the Americans. It was pleasant to hear him say that they believed the Germans were far behind, mainly because the Führer didn’t believe in the possibility of atomic fission and had put his top physicists at other tasks. Lanny might have said: “He is concentrating on jet propulsion,” but he didn’t.

  He listened with all the faculties he possessed, and when he did not understand he asked questions. He was embarrassed because he had forgotten so much of what he had previously learned. The physicist comforted him by saying that it was not to be expected that a man should remember so many details wholly outside the range of his own interests. Lanny had it all to do over again, but he didn’t mind because he could tell himself that it was the most important subject in the world at this time. If he could gather the smallest mite of knowledge and have it passed on to the men who were working day and night in his country’s laboratories—that might be the best contribution he had ever made to the cause of freedom.

  II

  This “advanced study” continued without interruption for a matter of four hours. Then the teacher said: “We will resume at eight o’clock, if that is agreeable.” Lanny went out and telephoned his friend Alonzo Curtice, who had fed and sheltered him during the previous sojourn here. The art expert—so he was known here—explained that he was passing through and had a couple of hours. It meant inviting himself to dinner, but they had fed him something like a hundred and eighty times, and he was sure they wouldn’t mind once more. He drove to the estate of this Wall Street investment banker and was welcomed by the owner and his wife. The story of his trip around the world was enough for anybody’s dinnertime, and the couple could feel repaid for their hospitality.

  Back to the advanced study, and time passed quickly, as it does when one is too busy to think about it. At about half-past ten there came a gentle tap on the study door, and there entered what to Lanny was a vision of delight—although entirely different from the one to which the poet Wordsworth had referred. It was a gentleman in his middle sixties, short and well filled out, with a rounded cherubic face, a small gray mustache, and a floating mist of uncontrollable white hair. He came in with that mischievous smile and two hands outstretched, and then appeared to change his mind and put his arms around the visitor and patted him on the back with both hands. “Willkommen, Herr Budd! It is good to see you still alive!”—which showed that somebody had told him about the accident. Then he turned to Dr. Braunschweig. “You are cheating me! You promised me time enough for three sonatas!”

  The young assistant, who lacked a sense of humor, appeared flustered. “I am sorry, Dr. Einstein.”

  “I forgive you, but no more tonight! You must not cram this easygoing gentleman!” Then to the visitor: “You have a little time in the morning, nicht wahr? You can spend the night at my house, and we can play.”

  “That suits me fine,” said Lanny, for he loved this warmhearted great man, one of the simplest and most genuine people he had ever met. Albert Einstein was comically out of place in this elegant university town, whose freedom and informality were of a conventional English sort. The wives of the faculty members must have had a hard time deciding how to deal with a German-Jewish scientist who forgot to keep his hair cut and went about the streets clad in a white shirt open at the throat, a pair of baggy pants, sandals and no hat. In cold weather, when he had to be more warmly glad, he put on a celluloid collar, just about the most plebeian article of apparel that an academic hostess could imagine.

  The two friends strolled over in the moonlight to the old and entirely unpretentious frame house which sheltered the discoverer of formulas which had changed the thinking and destiny of the human race.
A wistaria vine, now loaded with blossoms, covered the front porch and filled the night air with scent. Apparently the door wasn’t locked; the master just walked in and turned into the parlor, which had a piano and a good music stand, also a table and several chairs. “Any room will do to think in,” he had told Lanny, and apparently any room would do to play the music of Mozart and Bach. The professor picked out the violin and piano scores of Mozart’s sonatas and set the former on the music stand and the latter on the piano rack. He got out his fiddle, tuned it, and said: “Also! We played the first three. Shall we start with four?”

  Lanny thought to himself: “My God! The greatest mathematician in the world has room in his head for the numbers we played nearly a year ago!”

  They played Number Four, which is delightful, and then they played Number Five, which is also delightful. The old gentleman apparently knew the scores by heart, for he played with his eyes cast upward most of the time and an expression of heavenly bliss on the rounded, cherubic face. He played well, for this had been his form of recreation since early childhood. He had been very poor and had had a hard struggle to get along in the world and to win an education; he had been slaving for seven years as a clerk in the Swiss patent office when he had evolved the physical formulas which had revised the Newtonian conception of the universe.

  They played the proper allowance of three sonatas; more would have been a dissipation—so the learned professor had said the first time and he repeated it. They sat for a while and talked about the bad state of the world, and then the Professor raided his pantry and made two cheese sandwiches, which they washed down with a pint bottle of beer divided between them. “Friendship is a delightful sentiment, and lends a glow to the most ordinary actions of life,” thus spoke the author of The General and the Special Theory of Relativity as he escorted his friend upstairs to a modest chamber. In the morning, or rather, later the same morning, he fed the guest a light breakfast and then said: “It will be better if you walk alone to the office, for it happens, unfortunately, that I am an object of some curiosity. It is as if people came to see the giant panda”—this with his shy twinkle.