Delicate Ape (6 page)

“A German, Gundar Abersohn, with a good flying record. He’d been in the Luftwaffe during the Last War.”

She finished her cocktail and the glass trembled as she set it down. She said, “I think he’s dead.”

Piers was silent.

“Witt thinks he’s dead. He won’t say it, but he thinks so.”

“He is disturbed,” Piers admitted.

“What do you think?” she demanded suddenly.

Piers spread his hands. “I don’t know. I don’t think. But as I suggested to Witt, there have been plane disappearances before now.”

“An accident. But there are always traces.”

“Not always. And I don’t even mean that. I mean disappearance without traces.”

She shivered. “That isn’t normal.”

“No, it isn’t. Nor is your father’s disappearance normal.”

She insisted, “You think he’s dead too.”

“I wouldn’t say it,” he said. “Gordon won’t say it. You should be careful not to let anyone read your thoughts. It could do untold harm. Anyone.”

She said, “I’m careful. I’m always careful. I told you that.”

Not careful in her friends, however. What was she doing in the company of Hugo von Eynar? How had she met him? Through Gordon, perhaps. That could mean that Gordon was definitely committed to act with Evanhurst. He wouldn’t waste Anstruther’s daughter on someone unimportant. But she could have met Hugo in other ways. If the German envoys believed the Secretary would return, they could set Hugo to charm the daughter.

He said, “You don’t realize. You give your perturbation away. It haunts your eyes. And you’ve talked too long with me. Your friends are restless. What will you tell them?”

She smiled with her small mouth. It lighted her face for that moment, gave her the look she should have worn with her youth. “I’ll tell them you are of the Secretary’s office. That will excite them. They have a great admiration for my father.” She added as she stood from the table, “They’re both with Peace departments, English and German. I’ll tell them all about you and they won’t talk of my father.”

He smiled down at her, asking, “Do you know anything about me?”

She nodded, solemn again. “I know more about you than you think, Mr. Hunt.”

She was gone. He watched her go. And he watched the blond German rise, conquering, as she reached her chair.

T
HERE WAS NOTHING HE
could do for Bianca Anstruther. Not even warn her that her choice of companions, one in particular, was dangerous. He left the bar, went directly to the desk. The same carnationed clerk said, “Good evening, Mr. Pierce,” and turned.

Piers said, “I have my key. Any messages?”

The man pried into the box. “None.”

“My phone was ringing this morning, just after I left my room. I hadn’t time to return.”

The clerk said, “I’ll ask the operator. She might have a record.” He returned after a moment. “There was a call to your room but no name. I’m sorry, Mr. Pierce.”

He said, “It couldn’t have been important,” and turned away to the newsstand. He saw the burly man then. He was standing against a pillar, his hands dragging in his pockets. He was incongruous in this sleek Broadway lobby. Piers turned back to the clerk. “I’d like to see the house detective.”

The veneered mask cracked for a moment before it recovered obsequiousness. “Is there anything wrong, sir?”

“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 trouble 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.