Fred la Mothe was giving a party; not a large party, but one which Fred
promised himself should be memorable. It was a dual celebration.
"I'm pulling a party at the Tuller to-night," he told Potter Waite over
the telephone. "Double-barreled. To celebrate my birthday and my election
as secretary of dad's concern. Dad admits I've come of age; says nobody
comes of age until he's twenty-eight, no matter what the statute in that
case made and provided believes. He's giving me a wad of stock and making
me go to work. I guess I'm going to. So this is a farewell performance.
Just a dozen of the fellows. You'll be there?"
"What's the use?" Potter said. "I'm cold sober these days."
"Come and watch the rest of us.... Sort us out when it's time to go home
and see that we don't bust in on the wrong families. There'll be a taxi
for every man.... And I'm planning to shoot off a cabaret stunt that will
make Broadway look like a country lane."
"Nothing doing, Fred."
"Now look here, you and I have played together since we were kids. This is
my big night and it won't be worth a damn if you aren't there. Forget your
infernal motors for a couple of hours and be a regular fellow again....
I'm asking it as a favor."
"Well," said Potter, after a pause, "I'll drop in for a while to watch the
menagerie, but don't count on my yowling with the rest of the animals."
"You can be a keeper with a steel prod."
"O'Mera be there? I hear he's going to fly."
"Goes to the ground school next week.... We'll miss Kraemer and Randall.
Kraemer's here with a brand-new uniform and a commission, but lips that
touch liquor can't touch his'n while he wears it."
"All right. I'll show up."
Potter hung up the receiver and arose from his desk to walk out into the
shop. His office was not where it had been, in the administration wing,
but occupied a corner of the shop itself. He had kept his promise to the
men, and worked side by side with them, surrounded by shafting and belts,
by lathes and planers and shapers, and the scraping, clanking, grinding
roar of machines that turned out daily more and more work for the
government. He glanced about him and was proud. Everywhere were units of
motors, parts in all degrees of completion. At last production had
commenced on such a scale as he had dreamed of, and now only weeks must
elapse before he was turning over to the government a steady flow of
motors that would continue day in and day out so long as the war demanded
them. It was accomplishment.
From the day he had spoken to the men from the platform of a gray-painted
army truck the work had seemed to leap ahead. The men had put in as their
share something more than mere wage-earning labor. They had added to it
enthusiasm. The spirit with which they worked day after day was splendid,
and Potter made it no small part of his duty to see that it did not die
out.
There were still annoyances, delays, petty mishaps. The campaign of
sabotage had not ceased, but it had been checked, for Potter had now to
depend upon an army of watchful, eager eyes, the eyes of every honest
working-man, and not the few guardians set by the Signal Corps.... But
Potter was not satisfied nor at rest. His foreboding grew as his efforts
to lay hands upon the source of the trouble proved futile. He believed
something was in preparation, that some blasting catastrophe was being
planned and made ready ... which he seemed helpless to avert.
Like all his other days, this one passed too quickly. There were many
times when he would have wished to be a Joshua. The machinery went to
rest, the army of men filed out noisily, and Potter closed his door for
the night. He drove home through the coolly pleasant December air and
dressed. At seven o'clock he entered the lobby of the Tuller, where La
Mothe stepped forward to greet him.
"The gang's here," he said. "Let's make for the scene of the slaughter."
There were twelve of them, young men all, not one of whom but carried a
name which stood for wealth achieved or personal success. But it was a
dozen which could be duplicated more than once in highflying Detroit. They
moved in holiday spirit to the private dining-room to which La Mothe
directed them, and found their places around a long, flower-laden table.
The flowers heaped upon that linen had taken from La Mothe's pocketbook a
sum which would have kept a large family in comfort for a month.
A skilfully set table is a beautiful sight. There is something about the
combination of white linen, flowers, silver, and glass which touches a
chord in the masculine heart.... Perhaps this bears out the boyish belief
that the Chinese place the seat of the emotions in the stomach. Potter's
eye took note of the number and variety of the glasses. Michigan would be
afflicted by drought in May, but the drought had not arrived; here was
promised a deluge.
The party seated themselves, and as each man lifted his napkin he found
under it a cigarette-case of gold, engraved with his monogram.... Such
cases, Potter knew, could not be had for a ten-dollar bill; indeed, he
doubted if ten such bills would be sufficient. This night La Mothe was not
flying near the ground. Financial worries did not seem to hover in his
neighborhood. Those cigarette-cases, Potter said to himself, would have
maintained a soldier in the field for twelve months.
With the cocktail started the entertainment of which Fred had boasted. A
miniature stage with curtain and scenery had been erected at one end of
the room, and upon it a performance went forward throughout the dinner. It
was there. One might watch it if he chose, or might disregard it for
conversation with his neighbor. It was an incident, but not an inexpensive
incident. Fred's idea of a proper cabaret seemed to consist in such sights
as the safety of the performers would not permit in a cold room. There was
nothing gross. Fred was possessed of too much of the esthetic for that;
all was artistically done, skilfully done by performers of no mean
grade.... The more perfect the art the less necessary the apparel--that
seemed to be the basic rule.
Eldredge sat next Potter; across from him and lower down the table sat
O'Mera and Cantor, side by side. Potter had not expected to see Cantor
there.... Potter glanced about. There was not a young man present who
could not have afforded to give this entertainment or who was amazed at
the luxury of it.... He did not glance at Cantor. The sight of the man was
hateful to him; the surge of hatred which welled up from his heart held
him tense, forgetful of his surroundings, and he sat staring moodily at
the table before him. La Mothe perceived his mood and called, jovially:
"Come out of it, Potter. The mourners aren't due yet. Wait till we have a
little poker."
Potter smiled back, forced himself to cast off the mood, compelled his
mind away from Cantor. It was a thing not easy to accomplish. Every time
he headed his thoughts away from the man they dodged around and approached
from a new angle. He set his teeth and plunged into conversation with
Eldredge. It was not an intelligent conversation, and more than once, when
Potter gave vague replies or forgot to reply at all, Jack wondered what
had gotten into his friend.... He was thinking now of Hildegarde von
Essen--thinking bitter, unsavory thoughts. He refused even the lightest of
wines, not because he was afraid of the exaltation, but because he knew
himself, knew his rash impulsiveness, knew the difficulty he had, sober,
to hold himself in hand. Inflamed by stimulant, he could not answer for
his conduct, and it would be an ill thing to interrupt La Mothe's party by
flying at Cantor's throat.
The others were not so cautious. Glasses were filled and emptied. Waiters
seemed to fear some calamity if a man were left with an empty glass before
him. The party, like all masculine affairs, had been sedate, a trifle
strained at the beginning. It was easier now. It was no drunken revel, no
orgy, but tongues were set free, wits were kindled, the whole tone was
lifted a key, and the signature was never in flats--always sharps.
The time had been when such a party would have revolved around Potter
Waite, when he would have given it its tempo--and the others would have
found it not easy to follow his time. His presence was always desired, yet
it was welcomed with a certain apprehension, for limits known to others
did not bound him. Even now the young men in his immediate neighborhood
felt a premonition that something reckless would happen. They were doomed
to disappointment. The gaiety went on without him, in spite of him. He was
not enjoying himself; indeed, he felt out of place and was rather piqued
with himself that he should feel out of place. The truth was that in one
year he had grown beyond such things; had graduated from that school, and
its curriculum had nothing to offer him. Frankly, he was bored when he
tried to enter into the spirit of the evening.
But his efforts were not long continued. He sat gravely listening, or
covertly watching Cantor and thinking of Hildegarde. It seemed impossible,
monstrous, that he should sit peaceable at the same table with that man
and restrain his fingers from the man's throat.
Suddenly he leaned forward and listened. He could not have told why, but
the word "aeroplane" had touched his ear. It was a charm to command his
attention; it had called to his subconscious self.
"Yes," O'Mera was saying, "I'm going to have a try at it next week."
"You've picked the only branch worth a man's while," Cantor said, and
Potter was conscious of wonder at the enthusiasm that flamed an instant in
the man's voice. He had known Cantor well. Cantor had been about his
hangar, yet the man had never shown an especial interest in aviation.
"They've loaded me up with the notion that I've got to work," O'Mera said.
"Maybe so, but I don't see why it shouldn't be about as easy to drive a
'plane as it is a car."
Potter glanced sidewise at Cantor, saw his eyes were extraordinarily
bright, his usually colorless cheeks were tinged with red. The wine was
exhilarating him, stirring his blood to quickened movement and unleashing
his tongue. Usually there was an air of reserve, the appearance of
weighing each utterance, about him. It was not evident now. Potter set
himself to listen.
"You'll find enough to learn," Cantor said, and plunged into an
explanation of what must be learned and how it must be gone about--an
explanation that was thorough, interesting, full of expert information.
Potter was astonished. He was something more than astonished, he was
filled with a thrilling excitement, the excitement that comes to a man
when he feels he is standing at the gate of some climax.
Cantor was explaining such erudite matters as the tail-spin, the
nose-dive, looping the loop, and how one gave his machine the spurious
appearance of fluttering downward out of control--so to deceive an unwary
adversary. He was very clear, very positive. No man, thought Potter, could
talk like that who was not a master of the air, who had not been a
super-skilled pilot.... What did it mean? Where had Cantor flown? Why had
he concealed this ability?
"They tell me," O'Mera said, "that we'll get the final touches in France
or Italy or Egypt. I hope I go to France. Somehow flying in northern
Italy, with Alps sticking up under one, doesn't sound attractive."
"It's not bad," said Cantor, confidentially, "not really bad. Just fly
high enough. What's the difference what's under you?"
"You talk as if you flew over the Alps every morning before breakfast,"
said O'Mera, with a laugh. "I didn't know you had even been off the
ground."
"Did I say I had been, eh?" Cantor said, a trifle tipsily. "Did I say I
was a flyer? Tell me that? No, I just told you _how_ to fly. Very
different thing. Everybody knows _how_ to fly. Books are full of it. I
could read it out of books, couldn't I?"
"I suppose you could," said O'Mera, a bit belligerently, "but you didn't
say that you did. What you said sounded as if you knew--like it was first
hand."
"Maybe it was, and maybe it wasn't. What's the difference, anyhow?" He
drained his glass and looked about for the waiter. "You wanted to be told,
and I told you. And I told you _right_.... Who said I was ever up in the
air?"
O'Mera shrugged his shoulders. His Irish head was hard, and liquor had a
way of battering against it futilely.
"And who said I wasn't?" Cantor wanted to know.
"Search me," said O'Mera.
"Well, let me tell you something, O'Mera, something about the Alps....
They can be flown over--because they _have_ been flown over. Yes, sir,
right from one side to the other.... And who was the first man that did
it? Tell me that."
"I haven't the least idea. Ask yourself the answer."
"What difference does it make--so long as somebody was the first to do it?
Somebody had to be first, before there could be a second. First comes
first--second comes second." He emptied another glass and set a cigarette
unsteadily in his lips. All the while he peered at O'Mera with
supercilious and sardonic humor. "That's _fact_--isn't it?"
"Sounds logical."
"Over the top--from the plains on one side to the plains on the other....
Who was the first man that did it? You'd like to know." He lowered his
voice confidentially and said in a stage whisper, "You'll have to ask
somebody else."
Potter knew who was the first man to fly over the Alps. There was little
about the history and development of the aeroplane that he did not know.
He remembered how the newspapers had heralded that feat and the name of
the man who had accomplished it. The man had been a German, an officer; he
had been decorated for it by the Kaiser himself. The name of the aviator
was Lieutenant Adolf von Arnheim.
Potter was excited. Was it a discovery? His suspicions of Cantor were
reawakened, made vivid. He fancied he now had real basis for suspicion,
for if his intelligence were not at fault the man had intimated in his
tipsy way that _he_ had topped the Alps in an aeroplane, had even seemed
to verge upon the boast that it was he who had first accomplished that
feat. Potter reviewed the conversation, weighed and valued each word. Did
his desire to believe the thing make it appear to be true?... He thought
not. He believed he had put a warranted conclusion upon what he had heard,
and that Cantor in his bibulous state had been upon the verge of making a
revelation.... From that point reasoning walked in a straight path. Either
Cantor was lying boastfully or he _was_ the first man to surmount the
Alps. If he were the first, then his name was not Cantor, but Adolf von
Arnheim, and he was an officer in the Imperial German army!
Potter argued with himself, presented the evidence to himself again and
again, and scrutinized with what fairness and calmness was possible.
Clearly Cantor had an unusual knowledge of aeronautics, the knowledge
which only experience could have given--experience of the most profound
and particular study. Cantor did not seem a man likely to gain such
knowledge from poring over a text-book.... If, then, Potter accepted the
conclusion that Cantor was an aviator, the other conclusion was not so
grotesquely remote. It crystallized his suspicion into certainty--a
certainty that Cantor deserved scrutiny.
Either the man was a boastful, tipsy liar or he was Lieutenant Adolf von
Arnheim, whose tight lips had been betrayed by the fumes of wine.... If he
were von Arnheim, then he was a German, an officer--and a spy!
Here were such suspicions as must be put to the test, such conclusions as
did not admit of delay in their verification.
The matter spread out before Potter with sinister ramifications. Fact
fitted into fact. One of the facts was young Matthews's vanished
aeroplane. Granting that Cantor was a spy and one of Germany's most
skilful men of the air, then the aeroplane would be in his thoughts as a
means to bring about his campaign of destruction. In the hands of such a
man an aeroplane would be frightfully effective.... Potter's mind leaped
past the basis for his deductions. If Cantor were von Arnheim, then Cantor
had stolen Matthews's aeroplane, and Cantor intended to use it to
Germany's advantage. Germany had sent him there for the purpose.
But suspicion, individual certainty, were futile. Potter had to know. He
must identify Cantor as von Arnheim past all dispute, and he must do so
quickly, without arousing Cantor's suspicion.... Cantor unsuspicious was a
menace; Cantor with suspicions aroused would be swift-striking lightning.
He might not be ready to launch his catastrophe, but let him suspect that
he was watched or under investigation and he would act swiftly, terribly.
The last course had been served, the entertainment on the miniature stage
was reaching a climax of unclothed vivacity, the room was as full of smoke
as the heads of La Mothe's guests were with the lilting voices of the
wine. Excitement had been aroused and demanded to be satisfied. To those
young men excitement wore two faces, girls and gambling, and gambling drew
the vote.
"Who said poker?" Eldredge called.
"Clear out these tables.... Bring cards and chips and card tables," La
Mothe directed.
"Two tables, six to a table," Fred said.
Potter made his way to his host. "I'm off, Fred," he said. "I'm a
laboring-man. It's close to midnight.... Somehow I don't fit in as well as
I used to."
"Oh, stick to the finish. I'll guarantee there'll be a finish."
"I've lost my taste for them," Potter said. "I'm sober, and you fellows
have a sheet to the wind. No.... I'm off."
La Mothe shrugged his shoulders. "Sorry," he said. "Good night."
Potter went out quietly, leaving behind a party that would not break up
until daylight, a party who would play for the joy of play, with the blue
sky as their limit.... The dinner with entertainment and favors had cost
La Mothe in the neighborhood of three thousand dollars. As matters turned
out, it was not such a bad venture in highflying, for when he cashed his
chips at five o'clock in the morning he found he had paid for his
celebration and had eight hundred dollars surplus to set down on the right
side of the ledger.