Free Rex Stout by The President Vanishes

stopped. Questions came at him. What emerged was again the quiet voice of Lewis Wardell:
    “Ten o’clock was five hours ago, Mr. Brownell. The responsibility you welcome is a heavy one.”
    The secretary nodded. “Of course. The President was to go to the Capitol at noon. Up till that hour we thought we had reason to suppose that he would appear there. When he did not, for two hours we pursued another line. At half-past two I telephoned you gentlemen.”
    Oliver, Secretary of War, put in, “You had reason to suppose he would appear at the Capitol? What does that mean?”
    “It means …” Brownell started, and stopped. He took a step forward and resumed sharply: “Gentlemen, we’re wasting time. To you, this group as a whole, I offer no explanations and no details. I shall answer for my conduct to the proper person at the proper time and place: namely, thePresident of the United States when he is back where he belongs. Yes, I waited five hours to tell you; and I have not reported to the Chief of the Secret Service or the police or anyone else. Why not? Because I don’t trust them. I trust no one! You know Washington and you are acquainted with the present crisis, but I doubt if all of you together know as much as I do of what has gone on here for the past two months: the crescendo of fear and greed, of demands and appeals noble and ignoble, of hatred and avarice, of threats veiled and open. I know, for instance, what happened in the President’s study last Friday evening, when one of you gentlemen now present sat not disapproving while three of your brother statesmen in elective offices told him that if he did not come out for war within a week he would be impeached. I trust no one! I suppose the Cabinet has—”
    The interruption came from Lewis Wardell. “Mr. Brownell. You might save the oration for later. If the President has been kidnapped, let’s find him.”
    “Yes, sir. I was saying, I suppose the Cabinet has the legal authority. If you will delegate that authority to one of your number who can be depended upon for loyal, prompt and aggressive action, I am ready to tell him all I know and suspect. Otherwise I tell only what I must, and I take whatever action I think necessary on my own responsibility if you don’t lock me up. To act as a group would be too cumbersome anyway. Will you name a man?”
    Oliver muttered something to his neighbor Liggett. Billings admonished the secretary: “Take it easy, Harry, we don’t fancy pushing.” Theodore Schick, the fat and shrewd Secretary of Commerce, with his eyes half shut, spoke between a squeak and a growl: “In the absence of the President … I presume … the Vice-President …”
    Two or three heads were seen to shake negatively. Molleson almost stuttered: “N-no, Theodore. Not me, boys.” He controlled himself to a judicial tone. “It is not a constitutional absence.”
    A heavy silence. The eyes of the members of the Cabinet looked uneasily around, each at his colleagues, and there was suspicion in all of them. Mrs. Stanley rose from her chair and left the room.

WEDNESDAY—CONFUSION

1
    At nine o’clock Wednesday morning the District of Columbia was under martial law. All rights of citizens were suspended; to walk on a sidewalk or drive a motor car or buy an ice-cream soda was no longer a right but a privilege and might or might not be rudely interrupted. Soldiers were seen on the streets of Washington, but not in numbers; they were on post at intervals throughout the city and merely stood, armed, as much onlookers as the passers-by who stared at them. The search for the President of the United States was being carried on by others, city police and detectives and the Secret Service; that is to say, the official search. Unofficially a hundred thousand citizens joined in the hunt, or a million—there was no telling. The Washington
Record
, the newspaper owned and published by Hartley Grinnell, son-in-law of George Milton, which had been