Presidential Mission

by Upton Sinclair

  Laurel said: “The most amazing thing is that my subconscious mind should be full of such fragments of human personality of whom my conscious mind never can get direct knowledge, and that they should use my voice without my ever hearing it. If it is Otto Kahn really, why can he not speak to me when I am awake?”

  “Ask him,” said Lanny, half seriously.

  The wife replied: “All right.” Then, after a moment’s pause: “Mr. Kahn, won’t you kindly use my voice now? I’ll keep perfectly still and not interfere.”

  There followed a long silence; no sound whatever, and Laurel felt no power tugging at her vocal cords. No, she would have to go back into that other kind of sleep, which she knew was different, although she could not say in what the difference consisted or how she managed to turn the switch that brought one kind instead of the other. “I suppose it’s a suggestion,” she said, “but how I give it I could not say.”

  “Do you know how you tell your muscles to lift you up from your bed or to let you down again? You don’t know that, and the wisest scientist in the world cannot tell you how a desire, or an act of will, can cause one of your muscles to contract.”

  XII

  There was another aspect of this subject pressing upon her mind. “Lanny dear,” she began, “there is something we ought to have an understanding about. You are going away, and I might never see you again.”

  “I am really not going into any danger, darling.”

  “I know you have to tell me that, but I don’t want to fool myself. There isn’t any safe place in Europe now, and everything will get worse before it gets better. What I want you to know is that if you should die, I won’t be thinking about anything but trying to find you. Psychic research is just a curiosity now, but then it would become my life. Promise me you will try your best to come back to me!”

  “Of course, Laurel!”

  “I will go into a trance every night. Let us agree, exactly eight o’clock by New York time. You won’t forget that?”

  “Surely not.”

  “I will have Agnes sit by and tell me if you come. And if I don’t hear from you that way, I’ll go to other mediums and try. Don’t tell me now, but think of things about yourself that I don’t know, and tell them to me in the trance, so that later I can get Robbie or Beauty or others to verify them.”

  “Be sure that I’ll think up plenty of evidence,” he assured her, not without a smile. “Apparently I won’t have much else to do. I can’t find that the ‘spirits’ ever seem to have any work.”

  “It’s curious; they appear to be wandering about in a void, lost and bewildered. What little they do, they don’t seem to know how they do it. Let’s promise that, if we ever find ourselves in that world, we shan’t rest until we find each other.”

  “What else could interest us?”

  “And when we do, we’ll get busy with some medium and devise a way to convince our friends on earth that it really is Lanny and Laurel and not just ‘that old telepathy.’”

  “It’s a bargain!” he said. “But I’m afraid it wouldn’t do much good. Whatever the evidence might be, it would be embodied in one of the volumes of the Society for Psychical Research and gather dust on the library shelves.” He had become discouraged about trying to interest people in another world. It would have to wait until this world was a more decent place to live in.

  XIII

  In the morning Lanny went to call at the F.B.I. offices. He found his reticent friend Mr. Post in a state bordering on complacency. “We have four men and one woman inside the trap at this moment and all we have to do is to shut the door. We are waiting for their chief, who is expected in the city tomorrow morning. Then we are ready to go into action.”

  “Good work!” said the P.A.

  “Incidentally we have a story for the newspapers that will completely cover you and lead them off the track.”

  “I have been thinking that over,” Lanny said. “I have a suggestion, if you don’t mind.”

  “Surely not.”

  “Imagine this for the moment. As soon as you give me the signal tomorrow that everything is ready, I rush into the League office very much excited. I tell Hartley I have just learned from the janitor of my apartment building that Federal agents have been there and ransacked the rooms in my absence; that they have had my telephone wires tapped for weeks and have been getting the contents of my trash basket. I tell Hartley that I’m going to bolt, and he had better do the same. I give him half of what is left of the money—or a little more. When he comes out of the building, your men nab him at the street door. Wouldn’t that leave me in the clear?”

  “The trouble is, Mr. Budd, he wouldn’t bolt until he had telephoned at least one of his gang and told that one to warn the others.”

  “I have thought of that, too. You might have the telephone wires cut, but that would excite suspicion. I am wondering if it might not be possible to have his wire diverted in the exchange, or perhaps on the roof of the office building, and have a woman answer his calls; and when he gives a number, sound the busy signal. That would make him try several different numbers, and it might be important for you, because it might provide fresh clues.”

  “Let me think about that, Mr. Budd.” There was silence in the room for several minutes; then the man said: “I can’t see any flaw in that, and, as you say, it might bring us something new. But suppose you didn’t find Hartley in the office tomorrow morning?”

  “I have promised him a check today, and I can phone him and say that I am very much rushed and will see him the first thing in the morning.”

  “What hour will suit you?”

  “The earlier the better; I am taking the Clipper for England at noon. What time do you expect the man whom you call the chief to arrive?”

  “He is not going to arrive in the city; we are going to take him off the train at a near-by stop, for fear that he may be intending to get off before he reaches the city and transfer his valuable baggage to somebody else. We can be ready for action at ten tomorrow, if that is agreeable to you.”

  “Exactly right,” Lanny said. “I’ll be packed and have my bags in the car.”

  “I will phone you at nine if all goes well. I will say your name three times—Budd, Budd, Budd. That will mean that arrangements are complete and that you are to proceed to the League office and carry out your part. If there is a delay, I won’t phone; just wait at your place until I do.”

  “Don’t make it too late,” Lanny replied. “I have a really important mission and I can’t afford to miss that Clipper.”

  “Don’t worry,” said the other. “In case of emergency I could call the airport and arrange to have the Clipper wait for you.”

  Lanny chuckled. “I have thought myself important sometimes, but never that much!”

  XIV

  The P.A. went home and from there telephoned Hartley. “I have good news for you,” he said, “also some money. I’ve been out of town, and I’m crowded today, but I’ll see you at the office in the morning without fail.” That was that, and he set about writing letters to his clients and making business arrangements for his trip.

  In the evening he took Laurel for a drive and told her what was in the wind. It was a relief to be able to tell her something, and this was an achievement in which she had a part. It seemed to her the height of melodrama—and so indeed was everything connected with this war. She was so excited that she wondered if she could sleep, so he took her to a roof garden and they had supper. They were spending every moment together that they could. When they came home, and she was undressed and ready for bed, she suggested: “Let’s try one more séance.”

  She lay down and closed her eyes, and Lanny sat by the bedside, waiting for any voice that might speak. But there came no voice, only the sound of gentle breathing, and after a while he realized that his tired wife had made the wrong mental connection, had got aboard the wrong train. He lay beside her, speculating over the question of how this had happened and what it meant. Had there bee
n spirits waiting to communicate, and were they now disappointed? Would they wake her up, or would they come to her in her dreams? Here was the thing called sleep, just ordinary sleep, and yet what a strange thing! In it his wife went off into a world of her own, often a completely crazy world of fears and adventures in which she was apart from her husband, in the company of fugitive and fantastic beings, “the fickle pensioners of Morpheus’ train.” Lanny was possessed by the thought of how little man knows of himself and his own mind.

  XV

  In the morning the P.A. finished his packing, and sat reading the papers, full of disturbing news which he could not think about consecutively. His wife’s nerves were also on edge, for she had had bad dreams, she told him; she was becoming what the world called superstitious. The phone rang; it was Robbie to say good-by, and Lanny had to excuse himself: “I am expecting a call about an urgent matter. I’ll call back before I leave.”

  Then silence again, and more waiting; until at last came another ring, and the voice of Post, giving the signal: “Budd, Budd, Budd.” Lanny answered with “Roger,” which was part of the lingo of the war. “Start now,” said the voice.

  His car was at the door, and he took his bags down. Laurel followed. She was going with him to the airport and would drive the car back to the garage. A girl from Robbie’s office would come and get it there. Robbie had offered to leave the car, but Laurel didn’t want it; she said that taxis were easier in big-city traffic.

  Lanny drove to the neighborhood of the League office and managed to find a parking space on a side street some distance away. He walked to the office quickly, so that he might have color in his cheeks. Once, years ago, when his friend Rick had been writing and staging plays, he had watched an actor behind the scenes working up excitement preparatory to bursting in upon the stage. Now Lanny did the same, and found no great difficulty, for he really was nervous, having thought of so many things that might go wrong.

  There was Hartley, waiting, and the little drama was played through convincingly enough. When Lanny told the bad news the Englishman leaped up, exclaiming “Good God!”—this, it appeared, was the standard exclamation for the English gentleman. He wanted to get out of there instantly; but then he thought of his confederates and said: “Wait a moment!” and took up the telephone, just as Post had predicted. He gave a number, and Lanny, standing near, could hear the busy signal. “Oh, hell!” the man exclaimed, and gave another number.

  Lanny said: “I can’t wait,” and planked a roll of bills down on the table. “This will keep you going.” And then: “When things have settled down you can write me in care of my father. Mark it personal.” He turned and bolted out of the room.

  And that was all there was to it. Lanny observed a dapper young man standing in the hallway, and two more down at the entrance of the building. He hoped they wouldn’t mistake him for Hartley, and they didn’t. He hurried to the car and drove to one of the East River bridges, and so to the airport, where the great seaplane was resting in the water basin. On the way he told his wife about what had happened, and when they reached the airport he called up his friend Post and said: “This is the man whose name is pronounced three times.” The answer was: “Everything is jake, and we are everlastingly obliged to you.” Lanny added: “If ever I want to take up a stage career, I’ll come to you for a recommendation.”

  XVI

  There was time to spare, so he showed his wife what a luxurious vehicle he was going to travel in. She did her best to pretend that it comforted her, but she had learned that he was flying north, by much the same route on which he had been wrecked before. Now and then her lips would tremble, but she said very bravely that she didn’t want to make it hard for him and would go on and do her work, and learn to pray, after the fashion of his esteemed stepfather. He took her back to the solid concrete, and they strolled up and down until the last call came. Then he gave her a long kiss, and with tears running down her cheeks she said: “Don’t forget, if anything goes wrong, I’ll still be waiting for you.”

  “Eight P.M. on the dot,” he answered, and forced a smile, because it is embarrassing to a man to have to wipe his eyes in public.

  He went aboard, and the great seabird glided out into the Sound and rose into the air and away. It was a warm and quiet July day, and all the prognostications were favorable. Lanny had plenty of things to read, and a good appetite—he told himself that he had helped with an important job and might help with others, and he couldn’t do any good to the Allied cause by worrying about it.

  No voyage could have been pleasanter. He was flown to Newfoundland, this time to the seaplane base of Botwood on a clear blue sound. From there on to the ancient island of Iceland, with its many glaciers and boiling springs; now many Yanks were there—or “G.I.’s,” as they were calling themselves, playing with the idea that they were “government issued,” like everything else they touched. The Icelanders hadn’t invited them and were making the best of a trying situation. Lanny saw few of them, for the plane paused only to refuel; it sped on through the unbroken daylight, and set its passengers down in the harbor of Prestwick in western Scotland, now a great airport. When he presented his credentials he was concerned lest the P.M.’s secretary might have overlooked the little matter of having a name taken off the blacklist; but evidently it had been done. The official, speaking with a strong Scottish burr, bade him welcome to the United Kingdom.

  The first thing Lanny did was to borrow one of those little sheets, made up of four half-size pages, which passed for a newspaper in a nation under siege. There, under a modest headline and a New York dateline, he read a dispatch revealing that the Federal Bureau of Investigation had just arrested a group of five men and one woman charged with purchasing diamonds in America and smuggling them to Sweden, from there to be taken into Germany. Names of the gang were not given, but there was a dramatic story as to how the discovery of this conspiracy had happened to be made.

  It was narrated that a man walking on Broadway had been observed to draw his handkerchief from his pocket, and from it had dropped a rough diamond. The man who saw the incident chanced to be himself a “diamond man,” and he picked up the stone, intending to return it to the owner; but first it occurred to him to walk ahead and look at the man’s face. Diamond men are a small group and rather clannish, and they know one another; but this man was a stranger. Realizing that it was wartime, and that diamonds were among the most important of war materials, the man had followed the stranger to his hotel, observed him get his key and go to his room, and then had called the F.B.I. There had followed a patient and careful job of detective work, continuing for several weeks. Lanny chuckled to himself as he reread the story; he didn’t begrudge the hard-working agents the credit they had taken—he surely didn’t want any share of it for the son of Budd-Erling. He thought that the story put him “in the clear.”

  BOOK FOUR

  Still Point of the Turning World

  11

  Mother of the Free

  I

  Lanny’s first thought in England was of his little daughter. He had cabled Irma, and as soon as he reached London he telephoned the Castle to ask if it would be agreeable for him to call. It always had been, but he never neglected the formality. The relationship of a man to his ex-wife and her new husband is a difficult one at best, and the pair were trying to show what good manners could achieve in that field. Irma said: “Frances has asked about you every day for more than a year.” Lanny might have made some joking remark about how trying that must have been; but he knew that a sense of humor was not Lady Wickthorpe’s strong point, so he replied: “I appreciate your patience.”

  Gone were the good old days when Lanny had been able to step into his car and, run out to Wickthorpe Castle in less than a couple of hours. Now he had to look up a timetable, and get to Paddington station on time, and be jostled by crowds that never failed to be there in spite of the government’s efforts to reduce travel. When he stepped off the train he found that the child had
come to meet him, driving her pony-cart, with a groom riding behind. Fourteen months had passed, and he was amazed when he saw her—this tall, long-legged girl! But when she flung her arms about him and kissed him, it was the same Frances, more demonstrative than her mother, more like her father in temperament, and having to be continually repressed. “Oh, Father, why did you take so long?” None of the business of calling her parents by their first names, of which Irma had always disapproved.

  The groom touched his hat, and tucked two suitcases under his feet and the typewriter on his lap, and the pony trotted off—a properly trained English pony who knew that the right side of the road was the wrong side and that the left side was the right side. And while the well-trimmed hedges of an English village glided silently past them, Frances plied this wonderful, rarely seen father with questions about where he had been and what had happened to him. Presently he told her that he would make a bedtime story of it; now she should tell him about herself and what she was studying and how the family was. So the floodgates were opened, and he learned the latest news about a castle which dated back to the time of Shakespeare and Sir Francis Drake, and which was an important factor in the life of this blessed isle, controlling the destinies of something like a thousand people.

  The estate couldn’t have been kept going if it hadn’t been for the money which Irma Barnes had inherited from J. Paramount Barnes of Chicago, a disciple of Sir Francis Drake who had operated in the field of street-railway finance instead of on the high seas. The people of the estate knew all about her ladyship’s fortune; the men all touched their hats and the women smiled and bowed to the little girl, and to her father, whom they knew at least by sight, for he had lived in a residence known as the Lodge years ago when he was still Irma’s husband. These proper villagers tried their best not to think of this as a scandal, but as something exotic, characteristic of the wild and woolly West, which they took Chicago to be. After all, Britain was an empire, and might receive a visit from the King of Dahomey, or the Akhoond of Swat, bringing not one extra wife but four, the limit permitted to Mohammedans.