Delicate Ape

by Dorothy B. Hughes

  Piers rubbed the stubble on his chin, met his tired eyes in the scrap of mirror. He must find some place today to bathe and shave, to have his clothes pressed. He wondered wearily what tale Hugo had told, if now he himself was wanted for murder other than presumptive. It didn’t matter. If he won peace, his truth would be good. If he lost it, nothing mattered.

  He combed back his hair, straightened his tie. “If you know a quick place and a safe one, we’ll have coffee before we go downtown.”

  Bull cleared his throat gruffly. “You guys don’t need some help, do you?”

  “Thanks again.” Piers took his hand. “We’ll get along.” He wouldn’t involve anyone else in what might be violence. Willie at the wheel of the cab should be out of the line of danger. “Just be sure not to miss the Conclave today.”

  “I wouldn’t miss it.” It was a threat.

  The cab was inside the storage garage. Piers got in the back seat; it would be safer for the driver in case—

  “We going to be followed today?” Willie turned on the ignition.

  “I hope not.” He mustn’t be followed this morning.

  “Hold on to your hat then.”

  The cab shot out of the garage. Piers slumped in the seat holding the strap clenched to his right hand. He didn’t know the neighborhood where they stopped for coffee. He only knew the taste was good. They started off again, carving a curling path through the city. Seventh Avenue was quiet on this early morning, this Sunday spring morning. Piers asked as they neared the Pennsylvania station, “Anyone following?”

  “Not as I can see.” Willie wasn’t so certain now. “You got me so jittery I thought I seen a cab after we left the Coffee Cup. That’s why I cut over to the river.”

  “I want to pick up my mail.” Piers spoke hushedly as if here in the rolling cab someone might overhear.

  “It’s Sunday.”

  “I have a box.” His heart had begun to thud. This was the moment, the act that must be kept inviolate. From the rear window he could see no approaching car. He said, “You stay in the cab. Keep the engine running.”

  “If that fat Heinie turns up?”

  He hesitated too long. He couldn’t say, Call the police; he would be no better off in the hands of the law than in the hands of Germany. Not with Gordon directing the law. Perhaps the way to the end would be less cruel but the end of both was defeat, ultimate destruction. He ordered, “If there’s trouble, run for it.”

  “What you think I am—a yellow-belly?”

  “Run for it,” Piers’ voice rang. “And go to the Conclave. Demand peace. Make them give you peace.”

  He slipped from the cab door and vanished into the postoffice. He moved quickly, selecting the key from its safe hiding place among the many on his key ring, opening the box, taking out the two harmless-looking envelopes. He could hear men walking on the pavement outside, not many, casual steps. He thrust the envelopes into his inner pocket, took a breath before he stepped out to the pavement again and started to the cab.

  There was no sound of a shot. The bullet stopped him. Anger rushed into him. His meeting in Samarra might have waited a few more hours. To be this close to achievement. His eyes seared. He heard Willie’s shout as he tried to force himself forward to the cab. Willie wasn’t at the wheel. Willie was running across the street, shouting. There were many voices shouting and he was falling, falling from a great height into an abyss.

  He heard the soft speech. “It’s my boss, Mister. He’s been sick. I got the car right over there.”

  He opened his eyes. Sight was blurred but not beyond recognition of the dark face bending over him. He tried to cry out but no sound would come. The silken voice spoke on while the words faded out. The voice was the voice of David. The irony of it smote him. Now he would be taken to Fabian.

  VIII

  HE WASN’T DEAD. IN death he wouldn’t be lying in a clean bed; he wouldn’t be fired by pain; he wouldn’t see the inscrutable face of David watching from the chair.

  Piers said, “Well, you’ve won.” His voice sounded far away.

  The face awoke. “You are conscious. That is good. Don’t try to rise. You have lost much blood from the two wounds. The second shot was near the lung. But if you are careful—”

  Piers didn’t try to move. The effort of speech was trial enough. “You have the papers?”

  “Yes. The photostatic copies of Secretary Anstruther’s. The letters of Hugo von Eynar.”

  He said bitterly, “You didn’t give up, did you? You kept following, following, all those days and nights.”

  “I knew you must retrieve the papers before the Conclave opened. You sent them to yourself, to a post box?”

  “You know I did.”

  “Wise. You didn’t go near the box until it was essential.”

  Piers remembered suddenly and he started to rise up. Pain wrenched him and he again lay quiet. “What is today?”

  “Sunday. The same Sunday. It is noon.”

  Noon to sundown. And he a prisoner. He asked, “Will you let me see Fabian now?”

  The man answered simply, “I am Fabian.”

  Piers turned his head on the pillow.

  “I am David and I am Fabian. Fabian is the man of state. My people need me among them, one of them, and I am also David.”

  “But Fabian—Fabian is big, a giant of a man. I’ve seen him in Conclave. You are smaller, older—”

  The man smiled. “You know theater, Piers Hunt. A robe—a headdress—the illusion of grandeur. I have always been grateful to Lord Evanhurst for his design for the robe of the Peace Commissioners.”

  Piers closed his eyes. “I wanted to talk with you. As a friend. In peace. You came with a gun. Today you used the gun. Why?”

  Fabian was unsmiling. “I did not shoot you. It was the German.”

  “You didn’t shoot?”

  Fabian said with righteous anger, “I am a man of peace. True, I carried a gun the night I came to you. Because I believed you had killed my friend. My people found him there in the unmarked grave. I took him to a better place, he and the unknown, that no one would know his defeat and shame. I knew you had followed his plane. I believed you were working with the Germans. I could not afford to die. My people cannot go forward as yet without me. With Anstruther gone I must help maintain peace. I have learned since you did not kill him.”

  “I didn’t kill him,” Piers said. “But I did send him to his death.”

  “You cannot blame yourself.”

  “I let him go on the summons of that telegram—a telegram I distrusted. I should have made inquiries before I let him go.”

  “Could you stop him? He knew I would not call on him but in need. They who sent the telegram knew that.”

  “After he flew out I saw the Arab with Anstruther’s case. I took it. I thought he’d stolen it. I should have known then he wasn’t a sneak thief.”

  A sneak thief would have dropped it and fled. He wouldn’t have fought to hold onto it, looking wildly for help which did not dare materialize.

  “I took off in a borrowed monoplane at once. To follow. I knew the Secretary would need the African reports I had gathered for him. My plane was faster than the one he’d taken. I could overtake him when his stopped to refuel.”

  He had overtaken it before then, grounded in the desert. And Anstruther dead, laid on the sand. The grave had already been dug.

  “I don’t think he knew. The shot was in the back. They must have rigged up the gun to fire at a particular moment. The pilot wouldn’t have had time to dig the grave. The body was still warm. He’d taken the Secretary’s watch and ring.”

  To carry back to Schern, the pelt, to prove that the Secretary was dead. With his bare hands, Piers killed the German, Gundar Abersohn. He had dug the second grave, fired the plane with the substitute case inside. He had stood there and watched the memorial pyre burn for a man of peace destroyed by violence.

  He had waited until there were only black shards to show where a plane had
lighted. It wasn’t until later in the night, alone in his despair, knowing that peace on earth had again been banished, that he realized he alone knew Anstruther was dead. No one could know that until he told.

  “I alone held the secret,” he said to Fabian. “The Germans planned his death but until Abersohn reported to them that the deed was accomplished, they couldn’t know. And Abersohn could never tell. It was then I photographed Anstruther’s papers. The Germans would be looking for a bulky package, not a small envelope. I destroyed the originals. I destroyed the briefcase. I sent the envelope to George Thompson, general delivery, New York. I flew to Berne, made arrangements for my work to be taken over. When I reached New York I rented the box under the Thompson name, sent instructions to forward my mail from general delivery to the number. Later I sent the von Eynar papers to the same box. I didn’t know I was to be followed, but if I were, the hiding place of the papers would not be given away. I didn’t once go to it.”

  “You were followed but no one, not even I, knew soon enough that you were in New York. It was not known until Gordon learned through Berne.”

  “But today—no one could have followed today.”

  “From the garage? I did. I waited all night. And I knew where you must go.”

  He didn’t understand. “How could you know?”

  “Your papers must have been in a lock box. The banks are not open on Sunday. It must be a postoffice. There were only two to watch. I had a man at the Lexington Avenue one but I myself chanced the Pennsylvania. It is the main one and it was the more convenient for you.”

  And the Germans did the same; or they knew with their precise research methods. Knowing, they couldn’t take the material; they had to wait for him; the mails were safe. They had waited. He asked, “Who fired the shot?”

  “The fat one. The one you knocked down last night. His orders today must have been to kill; he didn’t attempt to take the papers. You are fortunate that he was across the street, a bit too far for perfect marksmanship.”

  Yes, to kill. Because Morgen was dead. Because there was no longer time for treaties. Piers must be dead before the conference began.

  “Your cabman caught him, held him for the police.”

  He remembered. “How did you get me away from the police?”

  “Before they came I took you away. I told the onlookers I was your serving-man. They did not know you were wounded. I made them believe that it was a fight between the cabbie and the gunman. That you were an innocent bystander.”

  His bloody room at the Astor. He didn’t know how to say it. “Am I wanted—have you seen the papers—is there a murder charge—”

  “It is being silenced until after the Conclave closes. I have no doubt you will be arrested for the murder of Secretary Anstruther when you are found.”

  Morgen’s death was yet unknown. Silenced by Hugo for his own purposes. “The Conclave.” Again he tried to lift up. “I must be there.”

  “Lie quietly if you please. You are not out of danger.”

  “That doesn’t matter. I must be there. Don’t you understand? The overture to war will be played today.”

  “I understand.” His voice was deep as the sound of a gong and as sad. “All are against us. The east in courtesy will not rule contrary to the will of the west. They do not see. I have pleaded with them. I have told them: It is my land that first will be stricken. The black man will again be put on all fours. They promise they will come to my assistance if we are attacked. That will mean global war anew.”

  The war of extermination. The end of the world.

  “They will not counter the will of Secretary Anstruther. What is decided by America will be their decision.”

  And they will believe that Gordon speaks with the voice of Anstruther. That had been arranged.

  “I have even gone to Lord Evanhurst. He scoffs at the idea of attack. He too promises help in case. Even if the promise is kept, it means war.”

  “Yes. And Gordon?”

  Fabian said, “I did not go to Gordon.”

  “He could not help you.” Piers understood. Gordon believed the unholy German three too well.

  Fabian was speaking. “I could not beg from the murderer of my friend.”

  Piers looked into his eyes. “Gordon?”

  “Only three men knew that the Secretary would come to you in North Africa. You who sent for him, himself, and his home secretary, Gordon.”

  “Gordon could have given the information away.” The secret information.

  “It was Gordon who ordered the telegram sent to Anstruther; it was Gordon who paid for the plane, who hired the German from a list supplied by Schern.”

  He tried to understand. Not the German hands guiding Gordon; Gordon behind the Germans. And yet behind Gordon the Germans again. Without their wish, he could not have been motivated. It was as a curve in time; all were together. He cried from the depths, “Why?”

  “Ambition is a greedy god.”

  “But why didn’t you tell me this—that night you came to my room?”

  “I did not know. Only after you told me of the telegram did I send my men to seek the truth. By the time they discovered these things, it was too late. It was a matter of too little time. Your President had already named Gordon to succeed the Secretary.”

  “And you did nothing,” Piers accused.

  Fabian said, “What chance had I? Fabian of Equatorial Africa, suspect and accused of border troubles, to discredit the President of the United States of America? I have lived a long time, Piers Hunt, long enough to know that the will and the wish are not enough, behind them must be the power.”

  “You are afraid.” Piers spoke from despair. “You as all the others are afraid to speak. Maybe you have lived too long under the apes. You have lost faith in man.” He cried out, “Maybe I haven’t lived long enough to be afraid—or maybe my little span has been so long that I have gone beyond caring for fear. I only know that I’m not afraid to speak for peace, to fight for peace. Too late? It can’t be too late.”

  It hurt to breathe.

  “You ask what I can do? I’ll tell you. I am going before the Conclave today. Don’t shake your head. Call in your doctors. They can give me something to put me on my feet long enough for that.”

  “I didn’t shake my head for that, Piers Hunt. I’ve seen wounded men accomplish the superhuman before. I was a doctor in the Last War. I shook my head because there will be hundreds of police detectives and government officers waiting for you. They will expect you to try to attend the conference. You will be arrested before you can enter the hall.”

  Piers twisted a smile. “That’s your part, Fabian. You will get me into the hall. You know the theater? The ceremonial robes—the headdress. My face won’t be seen. No one will look for my face there.”

  Light lifted Fabian’s eyes, the light of hope.

  “Once inside I will go to the galleries, among the men. The men who aren’t afraid, who will fight with me for peace.”

  Fabian said, “No. There can be a better way. The robes, the headdress, yes. But I am to speak this afternoon. It is the sop to Cerberus, flung by Lord Evanhurst. I speak in memory of my absent friend, Secretary Anstruther. I will offer in my stead a man of my peace commission. I will give you to them. They will not dare demean the dignity of the Conclave by moving against you while you are speaking. They will not dare insult me by moving against my man. The law will wait. You will speak what you wish to say, without fear.”

  It wasn’t words; now he wasn’t afraid. It was for this he had endured, to speak with the voice of Anstruther. Fabian said with sadness, “I do not know how much a heart can endure. I do not answer for your tomorrow.”

  “I am not going to die.” No fear, no trepidation. “If I should, it wouldn’t matter. Peace alone matters now.” Not man, nor woman; not life, nor death.

  Fabian handed him a glass. “Drink this and rest. I will come for you in time.”

  Piers gulped the draught.

  Fabi
an went to the door. “I have been afraid,” he said. “My faith was small. I thought that Anstruther’s death meant the torch had been extinguished. I did not know a hand would grasp it as it fell.”

  2.

  The International Halls of Peace rose tall and white on the Palisades. As the great windows flamed with the setting sun, the delegates gathered in the circular chamber. They could never come together here without remembering Anstruther. The poet in him had planned the majesty of the gathering, the hour of sunset; the blue flag of peace, marked with the white winged dove, the sturdy olive tree, blowing triumphantly. The room was filled with sound and majesty. The blue robes of America, the royal purple of Britain, the red of Russia, the gold of China, all the spectrum represented in all the nations of the world. The great four were in their predominant places. Gordon, handsome in his dress despite the tension lines about his mouth. The Germans had entered. Brecklein’s face was heavy, Schern’s head darted like an adder. Hugo’s bruises were cosmetized but no one had painted a smile on his face.

  Piers had passed unnoticed into the hall at Fabian’s side. The scarlet robe he wore, the envoy’s hood, made his face of no importance as he had planned. His tan was deeper color than some of Fabian’s other men.

  The open galleries were massed with the faces of men. Without the grounds were massed with those for whom there was no room within, waiting to hear without seeing, waiting to know the fate of the world, of peace. There was no fright on their faces; there was curiosity and beneath it decision. Piers turned his eyes upward seeking faces with names, Willie, Bull, Jack, Sammy, Nick Pulaski, even Cassidy. They were there. They must be there. Tonight peace would be on earth.

  He had no weakness at the moment. When there was no consciousness of body there could be no pain. The fire of strength that inflamed him overcame all else. He waited tensed and sure, as sure as Gordon had been a few sundowns ago.

  The bells of the Conclave rang out. The invocation was spoken, the words echoed in the hall, “Peace be with thee, And with thy spirit.”