Delicate Ape

by Dorothy B. Hughes

  “Breakfast then,” he said. “Here?”

  “You wouldn’t like to stay on a bit if you aren’t dancing? Brecklein’s giving us some figures on Germany’s progress. Gad, what they’ve accomplished! Fascinating. Even under the protectorate.”

  Evanhurst was committed. The international protectorate was a barrier to a world he once had known, expanding trade. Hope of opening his eyes was dim. But there was still the hope. “Rather not,” Piers said. “I’m not official. Watkins in town?”

  “Washington.” Evanhurst tittered. “Handling the heavy work.” He didn’t care much for Watkins, a plodder, without rank. “Breakfast then.”

  Piers said, “Good night, sir.” To the others he spoke a general farewell. A frieze of faces, expressionless, dangling in time, waiting his departure to come to life again in their separate evil and innocence. None wise, not wise enough to realize that it was not Piers who was in danger; it was they and for what they stood.

  3.

  The corridor outside was empty. Below a man with an unknown face would continue to wait. It didn’t matter, the man had nothing else to do. In the dark jungle outside other men with unknown faces skulked. Nor did they matter. This night he was not prowling into the arrows of danger.

  He hadn’t lost his nerve. It had been unshaken by Johann Schmidt; it remained steady after the encounter with the fat-faced Uncle Schmidt last night. Facing Schern with the corpselike hands, watching Brecklein’s cruel mouth tighten at him didn’t disturb him. He knew too well how much they had at stake. He knew as well that he alone had both the means and the will to thwart their plans. And because they sensed this, they had marked him to die. They would have no ethical hesitation about murdering him. The end, no matter how blood-crusted, justified the means in furthering German interests.

  Basically it was that belief which had started the Last War. It would be a variation of the same which, were they successful, would precipitate the world into the throes of death. A next war would be a war of extinction. The refined details of mass destruction had improved in twelve years, and in the Last War extermination had been plausible if not effected. Germany must be held supine until her warrior breed had been eradicated by age. He could see no other promise for a world of peace.

  The corridor below was empty of shadows. He turned the key and opened the door. The room was strange; it was as if he had wandered into Cornelia’s servant wing by error. With the light on, he examined the clothes closet, the bathrobe, bed slippers. In the bureau drawers were the pajamas and other essentials. He must remember to leave a bill for the valet. He opened the window wide. There was no bright spectacle of Broadway outside, only the dark distances of the park. He turned from it. It was too dear; it betrayed the years of his insistence on forgetting all things quiet and kind and at peace.

  He flung himself down on the bed. Not by peace was peace to be attained as yet. A man must still draw his sword before peace could follow. They were determined. They were so damn clever. The way they’d instigated these border squabbles. An incident could be integral, but a series of incidents spotted laterally across the border of South and Equatorial Africa was not. And their dirty hands were covered. But with those letters, he had the proof. It must be presented to the Conclave; he must have a voice in the Conclave to proffer them.

  Fabian could know the truth. If David had but come as friend, Piers could have given him the letters last night. But he dared not mention them. David would have taken the letters by force had he known; they could disappear to suit the aims of the powers. Even as Anstruther’s final memoranda would disappear if it could be found.

  The fear was in him anew that the Germans had reached Fabian; only they could have set him after the dispatch case. Clever, cold, ruthless, above all clever. Three men. One the smart business man, one the sly diplomat, one the social ornament. A man for each man at the conference. For all but one man, the man of peace. And Anstruther was dead.

  Fight cleverness with more cleverness. Yes. But Piers wasn’t clever; he wasn’t versed in wile. Fight cleverness with violence. Yes. Fight with the men of peace, the incorruptible faces and words exorcising the lemans of bestiality. Where were those men? A night watchman, a taxi driver, Piers. He was without power. This was Gordon’s territory. Anstruther could not speak again for him.

  Anstruther’s living voice was never to be stilled. Piers would see that Anstruther spoke from the grave.

  The telephone jarred him. He reached to the bed table, lifted it and held it for a long moment to his ear before he spoke.

  Gordon’s warm voice came over the wire. “Why don’t you come down, Piers? Join us. Everyone’s asking for you.”

  “I’m certain Bianca is,” he said dryly.

  Gordon was soothing. “She’s just a child, Piers. And she’s wrought up. No word, you know. He always kept in touch with her, a cable every Sunday when he was away. When it didn’t come last week, she began brooding.”

  “She blames me.”

  “Because you saw him off, the last man to see him. I shouldn’t have told her that, I suppose,” he apologized quickly. “I thought it might help her if she could talk with you. You could tell her he wasn’t in any danger.”

  Piers interrupted. “Do you have his papers?”

  “What’s that?”

  “His papers. His dispatch case of papers.”

  “Do I? Good God, Piers, are you drunk? How could—He always carried it with him.”

  “I just wondered,” Piers said. “There are a good many who seem to think I have it.” He broke off. “I don’t want to talk this over the phone. I won’t join your party but when you can make an excuse, come up.”

  There was hesitation. Bianca was Gordon’s fiancée but she worshiped Hugo. Gordon couldn’t clear out. And he, Piers, was a witless one to believe that further discussion with Gordon might be of value. Gordon was saying—Piers could see the handsome frown, the indecision in his bitten lip—“I’ll go back to the table and see what I can do. If it’s possible, I’ll be up.”

  Piers spoke the number. “Turn right.” He replaced the phone. He ran his hand through his hair, down his narrow cheek. There could be no harm in letting Gordon know some of what had happened since his arrival. He might yet have to call on the Peace offices for protection. Even if that were not necessary, words spoken might well be carried where they would increase in power. The enemy could know that he was not blind to their attentions. Exposure could not dissipate these; it could force a change of means and in so doing deflect the aim.

  He hung his jacket over the back of a chair, pulled off his tie and shirt and flung them there. He wouldn’t take any chance on Gordon persuading him to come downstairs. He told himself it was that he didn’t want to face Bianca’s hostility again tonight but he knew the truth. He couldn’t stomach Hugo’s smile, and the knowledge of the past in that smile.

  The knock sounded on the door and he swung it open. He stood there, his hand tightening on the knob, not moving. The expectation had drained from his face, leaving it parched under the protective brown coloring.

  He said bitterly, “I’ve been expecting you.”

  She was fair as remembered. The veins in him ran warm as wine even as his hatred of this warmth clenched his guts. Her good height, her fine long bones, her heart face and the smooth cap of ochre hair, her eyes blue as a child’s, wise as those of a witch. She looked as if the wind blew through her, clear and honest and sharp. Honesty had no place in her. She had been learned in the use of every inch of her loveliness when first he knew her. The years had enriched her wisdom. And yet she was changeless.

  She said, “And I thought I would surprise you, Piers.” Her voice was crystal. It was as deliberate a part of her as the golden lashes she lifted, as the way the room quivered when she crossed to the windows, graced the hotel chair.

  He was wooden watching her, remembering her and hating the betrayal of his memory. She kept her eyes on him until he jerked the door shut with a vehemence that
would have closed her out instead of in.

  She said, “You wouldn’t come to me.” Her hands moved. “I have come to you.”

  He said again, “I expected you. When I saw Hugo, when I knew Schern was here.” His mouth twisted. “You’re still his … ”

  “I am Frau General Brecklein.”

  He murmured, “Congratulations,” and he said, “You forget that military titles are no longer in vogue, Morgen.” His frown narrowed. “Or has Germany adopted them in advance of a Conclave decision?”

  There was anger, a flush in her throat. “I do not know what you are talking about.”

  “Don’t you?” He wouldn’t sit down. He dared not rest on the edge of the bed lest remembrance overpower his senses. He walked back and forward, as far from her as possible, near the door, the escape. “Don’t you?” His voice raised in spite of himself. “Which one sent you to me?”

  “Sent me?” There was a quiescence about her, her hands motionless on the fragile white lace of her skirt. “No one sent me, Piers. I came because I wanted to see you.”

  His voice struck at her. “And why did you want to see me?”

  “Because I loved you once,” she said simply.

  His knuckles were white. “You don’t know what it means to love.”

  “I loved you once,” she repeated.

  “You think love is something to sell. To the highest bidder. And the bid was high, wasn’t it? Congratulations, Frau General Brecklein.” He had propelled himself blindly to her, almost without knowing it and certainly without willing it. His fingers burned into her shoulders. She didn’t move. “God knows it must have been high when Brecklein could win over Schern.” His fingers tightened as he pulled her out of the chair against him, his mouth on hers. His revulsion flung her from him. She swayed slightly. There was a spot of blood on her under lip.

  His voice came thickly. “You have what you came for. Now get out.”

  She put her smallest finger to her mouth, touched it, and looked at the dull smear. Her words were muted. “I haven’t what I came for.”

  He was without emotion now. “I suppose it’s the dispatch case.”

  She sat down again. “Why do you battle against the inevitable, Piers? As always.”

  He said, “Because I do not intend to foster the inevitability of a next war.”

  “You think that Germany would foster war? How can you be so dense? After what has happened to her in the past, she of all the nations fears any incident, no matter how slight, that could bring again such conditions.”

  He looked at her dispassionately. “You think I might believe those words because they come from your mouth.”

  Her hands moved on the white lace. “Hasn’t Germany endured enough? Hasn’t she been ground into the dust? Terms—”

  “Don’t bring up the Versailles Treaty.” It wasn’t laughter in his throat, it was something raw, ugly. “If there’d been realists instead of Fauntleroys at that peace table, we’d never have had to endure the Last War. This time we’ve done better, if it isn’t undone.”

  “You are unfair.” She turned her round blue eyes up to him and he stiffened. “Your hatred of Germany is because you identify the country with me.”

  “That isn’t true.” He spoke as softly as she now and as directly. “What was between you and me was between you and me. I have never confused its privacy with the affairs of nations, believe me, Morgen. I haven’t that mania of the ego. What is behind what you call my hatred of Germany is between Germany and my generation. And believe me it isn’t a hatred of what a simple German must see when he thinks Germany. Not of her little homes, her streets and her villages, the beauty of the banks of the Rhine and the different beauty of Berlin. It is, I believe—I haven’t analyzed it before—a hatred of her men to whom those things mean nothing, a hatred of those who have not blood but greed in their veins, who have ambition rather than spirit. A hatred of those who see Germany only as a sword to conquer, to crush smaller nations and greater, to whom Germany is a latent octopus whose tentacles, if fed, could encompass all of Europe. I have a hatred of German warriors, Morgen, those who mourn Hitler’s death because they haven’t yet discovered another pawn to take his place. And when they discover another—”

  “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.”