Delicate Ape (12 page)

“That’s a fine speech.”

“It wasn’t prepared.” He lit a cigarette. His hands were shaking.

“You admit your hatred of Germany.”

He said, “I’m afraid you didn’t listen attentively. I hate the Hitlerian remnants who still believe he was a great man, a genius who failed only because he was mentally unbalanced.”

“There are no Hitlerian remnants, Piers.” Her look was honest but he knew the lies her honesty could cover. “There is no one who is fool enough to believe that.”

His eyes slanted in mirth. “You should have heard Herr
General
Brecklein and Herr
General
Schern—and your beloved Hugo a few hours ago.”

“You’re lying.” There was a grave anger on her mouth.

“I only wish I were,” he said.

She held out her hand. “I would like a cigarette.”

He extended the package at arm’s length. With the light he came no nearer to her than was necessary. It was too near. He remembered the scent of crushed roses, the petal touch of her flesh. He saw again the curve of her throat, the dark ivory between her breasts. He shook the match from his scorched fingers and he turned his back on her, returning to stand at the door.

The smoke curled from her lips. “There is little doubt that you refuse to allow Germany to hold up her head among nations again. You will oppose the freeing of Germany from bondage.”

“What bondage?” he demanded. “What has she to complain of? She can eat, sleep, build, create—in short she can do everything save manufacture instruments of war. Is that bondage? If she had been treated like Japan—or would you free Japan from bondage as well?”

She shrugged. “That is different. An island of aborigines.”

“The Japanese might argue differently. But we need not worry about their protesting. The Asiatics are wiser than we. They have made certain Japan will not foment another war. What has Germany to complain of? She’s better off physically and economically and spiritually, yes, than she’s ever been. Why is she so determined to rid herself of the International Protectorate if she has no ulterior motives?”

“The humiliation.”

He laughed once, short, scornful. “A nation must know humility to be humiliated. I’m afraid that argument doesn’t talk.”

She watched the pale blue of smoke. “There is nothing could change your opinion?”

He was silent a moment. His mouth was cruel when he spoke. “Why not? Perhaps your husband’s permission to return to my bed.”

She rose and her mouth was rimmed with whiteness. “I should have known what you would be. You alone never sought me when you were in Berlin after the war. You couldn’t forget the fortunes of war.”

A knock sounded behind him. He ignored it. He said, “I thought love was stronger than war.” The knock was more peremptory. He twisted a smile. “But then, I thought it was love.” He swung open the door silencing her pale fury.

Gordon said, “I wondered what was keeping you, Morn.”

One look at him and Piers knew how they’d got Gordon. The man might have planned to marry the Anstruther girl. He might once have had devotion for Bianca. But he was lost, hopelessly lost in Morgen von Eynar. He was, there in the doorway, ravaged by jealousy of Piers’ presence in the room. The moment passed as he touched his cuffs, his tie. He saw the imperfection of Piers, his shapeless hair, his undershirt. He saw Morgen’s perfection.

“I was just coming down, Witt.” Her mouth was tender, and her eyes. “Piers refuses utterly to join us.”

Gordon, reassured by her mask, turned to Piers. “I didn’t know until tonight that you knew Morn in the past, Piers.”

“No?”

Gordon was lost, lost in her expertness, in her changeling delights of love. As Bianca was lost in Hugo. Two innocents, for they were that despite their modern sophistication, no more than innocents in the hands of the von Eynars. He could no more warn Gordon than he could Bianca. Both would have to suffer experience. Perhaps it would give both more tolerance if not more wisdom.

“She wouldn’t let me mention her name on the phone. She wanted to surprise you; she’s just in from Washington. You were surprised?” He turned to her. “We’re going over to Sherman’s for a nightcap. You’re certain you won’t join us, Piers?” He didn’t want Piers to accept. He wanted nothing but Morgen. It explained his haste to leave a conference of important men tonight, his reluctance to come upstairs to confer with Piers. It hadn’t been Bianca. It explained his proselytizing for the side of Germany. Echo mourned: Lost, lost.

“No. But I thought you were coming up to talk over the briefcase business with me.”

Morgen laid one lovely thigh over the arm of the chair. “I didn’t know there was business, Witt. I shouldn’t have delayed you by talking old times.”

“It can wait,” Gordon began.

“But no.” She was gentle and immovable. “Hugo taught me early never to come between a man and his business. He would not forgive me if I forgot a lesson. I will be quiet with my cigarette.”

Gordon frowned at Piers. “It can wait till morning, can’t it?”

“It won’t take a minute now,” Piers said and he wondered with self-scorn if his insistence was to keep her here longer in his sight. He couldn’t talk to Gordon in her presence as he could alone. More probably his reason for delaying their departure was to watch Gordon squirm, to watch another man eaten by desire of one woman among all.

He thrust his hands into his pockets. “There seem to be certain elements in this city who believe that Anstruther entrusted his dispatch case to me.” He relished the apprehension swift on her face. She believed he was going to give her away to Gordon. “Why, I don’t know. The Secretary never lets it out of his hands. You know that. Perhaps, however, their reasoning runs that Piers Hunt wouldn’t be here without a purpose. The most likely purpose would be to carry some messages for Secretary Anstruther. Going beyond that to the fact that it would profit a good many of the powers to know in advance what the Secretary will have to say in the Conclave.”

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.

A
N 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.