Tiger Milk

by David Garth

  Lucian appeared after she had completed her interview and the Department of Justice agents withdrew at his request to permit him to see her alone for a few minutes. She was sitting up very straight on the edge of her chair, a balled-up handkerchief in her hands, her face still noticeably pale.

  “It’s been tough for you,” he said deeply. “But you carried through, Berkeley. Carried through wonderfully.” He laughed. “Funny, in a way, how you beat Linda at her own game, turning her own music motif back on her by way of Dr. Bittner. You really did, you know.”

  She was not interested in that. “How did you get to the Mayhew Foundation?” she asked. “How did you know?”

  “It was the musical aspect that first started me thinking about Linda,” he explained. “That code ‘Second Movement of the New Concerto.’ I was convinced that the person I sought had been on that Clipper. To tell the truth, I felt that it was Courtney. I expected to spot Courtney at Octave’s.

  “Then there was your experience with that little ivory tiger in Horta. What had been the motive in springing that on you? Who stood to gain? Driving back from Washington that night I attacked it from the angle of Linda Baker. What earthly reason would there be for her to show you that little ivory image?”

  “But how could she have done it?” said the girl strenuously.

  “It was put there while we were out walking together—”

  “No,” he corrected. “That was only what you were supposed to think. But it would have been easy for her to put it out in plain view after you had returned from your walk—while you were hanging up your coat, any little thing like that. And Linda could have taken it back in any number of ways. Perhaps, while you were talking with me in that little plaza, she could have slipped back to the hotel. No, it wasn’t the ‘How,’ but the ‘Why.’

  “Why was that ivory tiger shown to you? And finally it boiled down to one possible reason—to get a reaction, to see if it had any significance to you. That way it could be determined whether you had been told anything at Valleron that might be dangerous to know. And when you were so start! That cinched it. You did know something! Linda Baker did not have time to find out how much you knew, but she was taking no chances.”

  He looked past her pensively. “Tampering with your drink during a bridge game on the plane was not thorough enough for her. She knew how little you ever drank. That only silenced you long enough for her to send a fake Department of Justice agent to your home and not only discover exactly what you knew, but cork it tightly right there. It was the psychological moment for a Department agent—you accepted him without question because you were so glad to see one.”

  “Please,” said Berkeley in a low voice, “come back to yourself.”

  His black eyes again rested on her. “When I returned home and found that you had been abducted I knew I had to put all my chips on that line of reasoning. It had to be Linda Baker, hard as it was to realize. I drove like fury to Baltimore and chartered a plane to Philadelphia. You remember how when we were flying from Mobile and we were talking about Courtney and Linda and little Rennie Carver and the rest of that Valleron crowd on the Clipper you spoke of Linda teaching at the Mayhew Foundation? I didn’t know where the Mayhew Foundation was, but Linda’s background seemed to have been established as Philadelphia and I hoped that was where the Foundation would be, too. The moment I found out that was so, I notified the regional headquarters of the F.B.I. and then whipped over ahead to see if my guess was right.”

  He smiled slightly. “I tried to get a line on the place by posing as a city building inspector, but they had me spotted.” Berkeley drew a breath. “You took a terrible chance—they might have done away with you instantly!”

  Lucian shrugged. “Sixty-forty in my favor,” he observed. “You see, I had something they wanted. I rather thought Linda would make a try for that first. She did. Besides,” he said with that slow, attractive smile, “it was important to know if I was on the right track. After all, finding you was the thing.”

  “You’ll never know what it meant to see you arrive in that studio,” she said, with a little laugh.

  “You’ll never know what it meant to find you there,” he said abruptly.

  She found herself waiting for him to go on, this tall man who had been a stranger so long, who had followed a dangerous solo trail and carried on the tradition of that great dueling family of his.

  “Berkeley,” he said, and his voice had changed to a more leisurely and deliberate manner, “I have to be brief. I’m wanted for questioning in Washington. I’m talking to you on borrowed time, as it were. But before I say good-bye to you I just want you to know that what you’ve done has been a bright and glorious thing. You deserve so much,” he said slowly, “so very much—that good life I so impulsively described to you that night in Horta.”

  “Thank you,” said Berkeley evenly. “And now are you actually standing there and telling me you are wanted on some criminal charge?”

  “They are going to ask questions that I can’t answer,” he said. “You and I know that Lucian Rhodes is alive. But officially he is dead and that is the way he is going to stay. Oh, it doesn’t matter, Berkeley,” he went on rapidly. “I’m a rare bird—good old Fortune’s fool, to the life. We’ve had a defensive partnership and now it’s over. I’ll always remember it.”

  Yes, that was the way it had been from the beginning. A lean, loose-knit figure swinging along in the moonlight of a Spanish plaza, materializing out of the shadows, to be plunged into a defensive partnership in the space of an impulsive thought. And now he was swinging out again, the same reticent, self-sufficient specimen he had always been.

  Lucian Rhodes looked at his wrist watch.

  “Time and the law of averages wait for no man,” he murmured.

  “Isn’t there anything I can do to help you?” she asked.

  Lucian again regarded her long and intently. Her patrician face was turned toward him, those dark-lashed eyes of deep Mediterranean blue resting on him curiously.

  “There’s nothing, Berkeley,” he said quietly. “I’ve helped to trap a great agent, that’s true, but I’ve a row to hoe for myself. I asked for it and I can see it through. I know what’s best for me and if I can arrange it I’ll be on my way back to Europe. The F.B.I. might give me that break—in view of circumstances.”

  He took her hand in both of his, held her slim cool fingers tightly, and smiled at her.

  “Well, I’ll be running. Mustn’t keep a governmental department waiting. I’ll say hello to Aunt Melissa for you. She thinks you’re wonderful. Why not? You are—”

  The last words were like a breath, like the faint ray of light between shuttered blinds.

  “Good-by—” Her lips barely formulated the word.

  He nodded and turned toward the door at the sound of a soft knock. A Department of Justice agent was waiting out in the hall. Lucian joined him, closing the door behind them.

  CHAPTER 24

  It was the next day before Lucian was called for questioning and then, in a small sunny conference room, he waited with the F.B.I. men who had been with him ever since he had surrendered in Philadelphia.

  Lucian did not have anything to say. He stood at the window and gazed down on the Washington street swept by the chilly autumn wind and found himself wondering what Berkeley would do first. Go back to her Connecticut home for a while and then fly west to join her family, probably. It should not be too hard for her to pick up where she had left off. Six weeks of residence in some beautiful western spot should provide just the tranquil lull necessary not only to restore her freedom, but to be the transition between what she had gone through and the resumption of her normal life. Some day she would try this marriage business again. This time, it would be right—church and inspiring music, flowers, trousseau and honeymoon—although he could not conceive the kind of man she would marry. Somebody like Courtney, maybe. Well, maybe. But he would have to be quite a man, whoever it was.

  He heard somebody
say, “Robert Luce?” and turned to find that a spare, straight man had entered the conference room.

  “Yes,” said Lucian.

  The newcomer spoke just a few low words to the F.B.I. men and they nodded and left the room. Alone, the other introduced himself as Major Barnes of the Military Intelligence.

  “We have been working in cooperation with the F.B.I. on certain angles of this Mayhew Foundation matter,” he said. “I asked to speak to you before the Department of Justice quizzes you. Shall we sit down?”

  Lucian moved over to the small conference table and seated himself opposite Major Barnes. He bent forward involuntarily as the Intelligence officer placed on the table that familiar folio of the New Concerto.

  “This has been fully photostated and decoded,” said Barnes. “The decoding was simple, thanks to the key and music sheet of the so-called ‘Second Movement’ you sent registered mail to the Department. It was you, of course, wasn’t it?”

  “Yes,” said Lucian. “I had my aunt—I had it mailed.”

  The alert officer looked at him a moment, then turned to the folio and opened it. There seemed to be quite a few of those music sheets there, all with their notes fully apparent, all movements of the New Concerto.

  “Do you realize just what this is?” said Barnes. “It’s a set of blueprints for the building of a deadly and subtle internal offensive. Years of groundwork and study had gone into a list of possible contacts of great strategic value.”

  He turned the decoded pages of the ominous score slowly. “Men who had their price, men who might be used, men who might be led by some motive against the best interests of their country. Carney and Buckthorne you know about—”

  He shook his head. “Hatred of England, the secret motivation swinging a great industrial state. Lobo, the labor boss, wanted personal control of all West Coast labor and did not care who supported him to that end. Here’s another one—Hemming, who edited a German-American paper in the Southwest somewhere. He was being financed in buying into a whole string of farm and rural papers straight through the West. A subversive voice that would have reached millions of Americans.” He still was slowly turning those dynamite-charged music sheets of the New Concerto.

  “Possible contacts in all kinds of strategic fields—railroading, banking, radio, industrial plants with secret tie-ups abroad—all the way down from key figures to strategically placed telephone operators, housemaids, night watchmen.”

  He raised his eyes to Lucian Rhodes.

  “This, in general, is the groundwork that was prepared for the great key agent sent here. It was that agent’s task to direct its development and coordination. Hers was a delicate task. She had to be unerring in her choice of contacts and her approach to them. She had to put her fingers intuitively on the exact motive by which they might be had. Hers was the chilling mission to sow a crop of Quislings.”

  Lucian nodded. “I know,” he said. “I recognized the technique. I was in Europe long enough.”

  Barnes again shook his head. “Of course, Linda Baker had not had time to finish her work. If she had ever entirely fulfilled these blueprints, God help us all. But even what she had done was dangerous. I believe, personally,” he said soberly, “that if she had escaped from the Mayhew Foundation two days ago we would have been involved in war. The broad strokes of history are in this New Concerto—the destruction of lifelines, and the prizes of rich world areas like the East Indies, and secret treaties waiting to be put into active force. And then they both were silent. The broad strokes of history in the key area of a reckless world gamble. And yet Lucian found himself thinking of the genius in psychology and during who was to have drawn those strokes. He could visualize her, an American with a genuine desire to become a great concert pianist. Perhaps she had been studying in Munich when something in the philosophy generated in that hotbed of a new world movement had lighted a flame within her, blasted the veneer of her Americanization with a drum call to her German blood, awakened a latent streak of fanaticism. The devotion to her music she had transferred lock, stock, and barrel to the barbaric rhythm of ruthless conquest.

  Major Barnes drummed on the table with restless finger:

  “It makes you afraid—a little—” he said in a musing voice, as if he were speaking to himself.

  Lucian glanced up swiftly. “It would,” he said, “if there wasn’t an answer. There is an answer—a fierce, uncompromising love of country. I feel sure about this country now… I’ve seen recently how a normal American acts—a girl, in this instance. Those hard-bitten fighters who built and defended this country before aren’t a vanished race. They’re latent in millions of us—persons like Berkeley Britton.”

  Major Barnes studied him, a little smile on his lips.

  “And how about this man down on an emergency passport as Robert Luce?” He drew himself up closer to the table. “We’ve examined your papers. They are forged, of course. Robert Luce would appear to be in this country illegally.”

  “Yes,” said Lucian Rhodes. “A forged emergency passport furnished to me through the Nazi Propaganda Ministry.”

  Major Barnes rubbed his chin thoughtfully.

  “There must be an answer to that,” he said quietly.

  “Oh, yes,” said Lucian. “Just as there is an answer to everything. But it is not in my power to give.”

  “You mean you refuse to explain it?”

  Lucian Rhodes’ black eyes rested on him unemotionally. “Yes,” he said. “I refuse, Major Barnes.”

  “And may I ask how you expect to be treated? Surely not as a traitor?”

  “No,” said Lucian, frowning. “Certainly not. In view of circumstances, I expect to be regarded as a man who loves his country. At the same time, I do not expect that my illegal entrance into this country under Nazi sponsorship can be overlooked without due explanation. So shall I tell you how I think I should be treated?”

  Major Barnes looked interested. “Please do,” he urged.

  “I expect to be allowed to leave the country and return to Europe. Perhaps you don’t know it, but there’s a deep movement among some of those captive peoples for liberation for the freedom and entity they have lost. I know of an underground organization of Czechs, for example, that is working steadily to keep the spirit of freedom alive, to ready their countrymen for action at the first possible opportunity. There are people like that in France and Holland and Norway, too. I want to join then, if possible, as a liaison officer of the British Intelligence, but, if not that way, entirely on my own. I can help them. And it’s a good, great fight.”

  He looked eagerly at the officer. Major Barnes said nothing for a full minute. He smoked leisurely and looked at the lean, terse man meditatively through a swirl of blue smoke.

  “Let me tell you why I arranged to see you before the F.B.I. passes upon you officially,” he said. “It is because I have been interested in the case of a foreign correspondent named Lucian Rhodes. I know your aunt—beg pardon, his aunt. I interviewed her once recently because of the possibility that Rhodes might have passed on vital information before his untimely death. Miss Rhodes could not help us, but I pursued the matter by instructing our sources and contacts abroad to look into the matter. You see,” he added idly, “I was trying to unearth every last little thing to trace a powerful foreign agent we had reason to believe was in this country.

  “Until recently there were no results. And then a few days ago a startling new light was cast on Lucian Rhodes. It was established that he had dealings with Karl Klaeber of the Propaganda Ministry who was executed about ten days ago. Now—”

  Major Barnes stopped, for Lucian Rhodes was rigidly gripping the arms of his chair.

  “What?” he said fiercely. “Karl Klaeber who was—what?”

  “Executed,” repeated Major Barnes. “Shot by the Reich.” Lucian continued to stare at him, then abruptly rose and walked over to the window.

  “So they caught up to Karl,” he said. His voice sounded strange, as though it took an
effort to get the words out. “They don’t last long, Major.”

  Slowly he walked back to the table and stood there, his hand resting on the back of a chair. “If Klaeber is dead,” he said quietly, “there is no reason to refuse to answer your questions. Fire away, Major Barnes.”

  The officer made a surprised little exclamation. “You mean the execution of Klaeber makes that much difference?”

  “Karl Klaeber was an important figure in the Nazi inner circle,” said Lucian. “He joined the Nazis in the early days. Not one of those faceless men, but somebody who had believed the party to be the best agency for the rebuilding of Germany. I came in contact with him while I was working out of a Central European news bureau.

  “But when Hitler showed his real hand in seizing Prague, Klaeber’s growing disillusionment reached a climax. He had a Czech stepmother, for one thing, to whom he had been devoted; and, secondly, he saw that the Nazi regime was making the German nation a world outlaw. It was only by chance and a hunch that I came to learn that Klaeber had secretly turned against the Nazis. He was sent to Prague as the Propaganda Ministry’s representative on the military governor’s council and no one had any idea that he was not a zealous and efficient party worker—certainly not the Nazis.”

  “And you worked with him?” questioned the officer.

  Lucian smiled thinly. “That’s right,” he said. “I came to know him well. It was through him that I got the startling tip that a sizable fund of seized Czech gold was being earmarked for the use of a key agent who was to be sent to the States. From then on I worked to get more facts about that. It was risky work. Klaeber’s usefulness and safety depended on absolute secrecy.

  “I was very close to something vital to my country. I had nothing definite in the way of facts, names, and details, but I was on their track. Gradually, delicately, I began to assemble more facts. There was to be a twelve-million-dollar gold shipment by a yacht converted into an armed merchantman to the Nazi-dominated port of Mecupan in Mexico. And the agent, from what Klaeber could determine, was one of their act; a shrewd and deadly operative whose work in Poland and France had been of inestimable value in the collapse of those countries.” His voice was low, unemotional. “Well, the first thing was to hook into the Czech money. Working with friends in the Czech underground, we did hijack two million of it, the private fortune of a noble Czech family that had been liquidated and placed in a private banking house in Athens for safekeeping. It had been spotted by the Nazis and formed part of that seized fund t be used in America. And because we knew that the Nazis would secure it one way or another, I was prevailed upon to place in my name and have it transferred to the States.