Free Delicate Ape by Dorothy B. Hughes Page A

up—my kid could see through them. Expense for the United Nations—what do they care? And that one about their pride being hurt! Ain’t that too bad? After what they done in the Last War.” He shook his head.
    “You were in it?”
    “Three years. I know what war’s like. Maybe you don’t know—”
    “I had four years of it.”
    “You do know.” The man’s eyes met his. “I can’t see these big shots arguing we ought to withdraw the army. I can’t see it. Anybody with the brain of a little duck would know what’s behind it.”
    Piers said, “I wish you were a delegate.”
    “I wish I was too. I’d tell them.”
    “Yes.” His thoughts were long. If it were only possible for the men to be there, the men who had evolved from war. He shook out of it. “I’d better find those reports.”
    “Yeah. Gimme a ring when you want out.” The elevator door slid silently shut, the whine of its descent diminuendoed.
    He was alone on the 19th floor, alone in shadows flung by the night light. His steps on the marble corridor echoed as he approached the door. The key should admit him both to the office at large and to the private offices. It was Anstruther’s key. It turned and he felt for the light before entering the austere anteroom. Light flooded. He knew then there was no one here; the room had the smell of emptiness. But it wouldn’t be wise to tarry too long. It was entirely possible that there would be watchers to report an unexpected light in the Peace office at this hour. And there was always the coincidental approach of Gordon in his mind.
    Gordon’s door was lettered, not locked. He left it in darkness until he had closed the Venetian blinds, then turned on the desk lamp. The desk itself was locked; the files were open. He pulled the drawer E. Standing there, he read the Evanhurst correspondence, rapidly, photographically. There was no doubt that Evanhurst was committed to the policy of releasing Germany from supervision. There was little doubt that Gordon concurred.
    He went quickly to B, Brecklein. There were the same arguments Anstruther had voiced, that the guard had stated. Withdraw—save expense to the United Nations. Withdraw—we have proved ourselves peaceful in these twelve years, why humiliate us longer? Withdraw—we can become self-supporting, valuable in trade channels if we are allowed freedom of production again.
    Anstruther had hinted this. Why force Germany to ship out her metals when her factories could so easily manufacture at home? Under the international laws, of course, the laws of peace. Brecklein even dared mention the building of planes, quoting the superiority of the Luftwaffe in the Last War. The guard downstairs had said it. “Even my kid could see through it.” But the kid wouldn’t be blinded by personal ambition, by worship of the ape, by wish fathering the thought.
    He should leave now; he’d found out enough to know where Gordon stood, enough to know it was wisdom to steer clear of Gordon’s aid. But he went rapidly to the Schern file. Little here. The silent partner. He turned from the files. And then he forced himself to return to them, to open the file on von Eynar.
    Surprisingly enough, what he had wanted was here. The border incidents. There was no doubt about Germany’s part in them. For a moment he doubted the letters as genuine; this danger in an open file. But he realized, in themselves they were nothing. It was only by adding them to his own information that their treachery was fact.
    He took the three most damning. It meant time, and the sweat stood cold on his flesh while he sat at the typewriter and copied the three. He traced a signature, Hugo von E. It would pass casual inspection. He put the copies into the file. He would never again hear the sound of a typewriter without remembering its unholy percussion in a deserted building at night.
    The originals he put into his inner pocket. He turned off the lamp, opened the blinds, went through the anteroom