"Yes." Her eyes widened. "Oh, yes, he hated it. Dad was a good man, Tom.
He believed with all his heart that the people of the world wanted
peace, and that they were being dragged to war because they couldn't
find any purpose to keep them from it. He believed that if the people of
the world had a cause, a purpose, a driving force, that there wouldn't
be any more wars. Some men fought him for preaching peace, but he
wouldn't be swayed. Especially he hated the pure-profit lobbies, the
patriotic drum-beaters who stood to get rich in a war. But dad had to
die, and there aren't many men like him left now, I guess."
"I know." Shandor fell silent, stirring his coffee glumly. "Tell me," he
said, "did your father have anything to do with a man named Mariel?"
Ann's eyes narrowed. "Frank Mariel? He was the newspaper man. Yes, dad
had plenty to do with him. He hated dad's guts, because dad fought his
writing so much. Mariel was one of the 'fight now and get rich' school
that were continually plaguing dad."
"Would you say that they were enemies?"
She bit her lip, wrinkling her brow in thought. "Not at first. More like
a big dog with a little flea, at first. Mariel pestered dad, and dad
tried to scratch him away. But Mariel got into PIB, and then I suppose
you could call them enemies--"
Shandor sat back, frowning, his face dark with fatigue. He stared at the
table top for a long moment, and when he looked up at the girl his eyes
were troubled. "There's something wrong with this," he said softly. "I
can't quite make it out, but it just doesn't look right. Those newspaper
stories I read--pure bushwa, from beginning to end. I'm dead certain of
it. And yet--" he paused, searching for words. "Look. It's like I'm
looking at a jigsaw puzzle that _looks_ like it's all completed and
lying out on the table. But there's something that tells me I'm being
foxed, that it isn't a complete puzzle at all, just an illusion, yet
somehow I can't even tell for sure where pieces are missing--"
The girl leaned over the table, her grey eyes deep with concern. "Tom,"
she said, almost in a whisper. "Suppose there _is_ something, Tom.
Something big, what's it going to do to _you_, Tom? You can't fight
anything as powerful as PIB, and these men that hated dad could break
you."
Tom grinned tiredly, his eyes far away. "I know," he said softly. "But a
man can only swallow so much. Somewhere, I guess, I've still got a
conscience--it's a nuisance, but it's still there." He looked closely at
the lovely girl across from him. "Maybe it's just that I'm tired of
being sick of myself. I'd like to _like_ myself for a change. I haven't
liked myself for years." He looked straight at her, his voice very small
in the still booth. "I'd like some other people to like me, too. So I've
got to keep going--"
Her hand was in his, then, grasping his fingers tightly, and her voice
was trembling. "I didn't think there was anybody left like that," she
said. "Tom, you aren't by yourself--remember that. No matter what
happens, I'm with you all the way. I'm--I'm afraid, but I'm with you."
He looked up at her then, and his voice was tight. "Listen, Ann. Your
father planned to go to Berlin before he died. What was he going to _do_
if he went to the Berlin Conference?"
She shrugged helplessly. "The usual diplomatic fol-de-rol, I suppose. He
always--"
"No, no--that's not right. He wanted to go so badly that he died when he
wasn't allowed to, Ann. He must have had something in mind, something
concrete, something tremendous. Something that would have changed the
picture a great deal."
And then she was staring at Shandor, her face white, grey eyes wide. "Of
course he had something," she exclaimed. "He _must_ have--oh, I don't
know what, he wouldn't say what was in his mind, but when he came home
after that meeting with the President he was furious-- I've never seen
him so furious, Tom, he was almost out of his mind with anger, and he
paced the floor, and, swore and nearly tore the room apart. He wouldn't
speak to anyone, just stamped around and threw things. And then we heard
him cry out, and when we got to him he was unconscious on the floor, and
he was dead when the doctor came--" She set her glass down with
trembling fingers. "He had something big, Tom, I'm sure of it. He had
some information that he planned to drop on the conference table with
such a bang it would stop the whole world cold. _He knew something_
that the conference doesn't know--"
Tom Shandor stood up, trembling, and took the briefcase. "It should be
here," he said. "If not the whole story, at least the missing pieces."
He started for the booth door. "Go home," he said. "I'm going where I
can examine these files without any interference. Then I'll call you."
And then he was out the door, shouldering his way through the crowded
restaurant, frantically weaving his way to the street. He didn't hear
Ann's voice as she called after him to stop, didn't see her stop at the
booth door, watch in a confusion of fear and tenderness, and collapse
into the booth, sobbing as if her heart would break. Because a crazy,
twisted, impossible idea was in his mind, an idea that had plagued him
since he had started reading that morning, an idea with an answer, an
acid test, folded in the briefcase under his arm. He bumped into a fat
man at the bar, grunted angrily, and finally reached the street,
whistled at the cab that lingered nearby.
The car swung up before him, the door springing open automatically. He
had one foot on the running board before he saw the trap, saw the tight
yellowish face and the glittering eyes inside the cab. Suddenly there
was an explosion of bright purple brilliance, and he was screaming,
twisting and screaming and reeling backward onto the sidewalk, doubled
over with the agonizing fire that burned through his side and down one
leg, forcing scream after scream from his throat as he blindly staggered
to the wall of the building, pounded it with his fists for relief from
the searing pain. And then he was on his side on the sidewalk, sobbing,
blubbering incoherently to the uniformed policeman who was dragging him
gently to his feet, seeing through burning eyes the group of curious
people gathering around. Suddenly realization dawned through the pain,
and he let out a cry of anger and bolted for the curb, knocking the
policeman aside, his eyes wild, searching the receding stream of traffic
for the cab, a picture of the occupant burned indelibly into his mind, a
face he had seen, recognized. The cab was gone, he knew, gone like a
breath of wind. The briefcase was also gone--
* * * * *
He gave the address of the Essex University Hospital to the cabby, and
settled back in the seat, gripping the hand-guard tightly to fight down
the returning pain in his side and leg. His mind was whirling, fighting
in a welter of confusion, trying to find some avenue of approach, some
way to make sense of the mess. The face in the cab recurred again and
again before his eyes, the gaunt, putty-colored cheeks, the sharp
glittering eyes. His acquaintance with Frank Mariel had been brief and
unpleasant, in the past, but that was a face he would never forget. But
how could Mariel have known where he would be, and when? There was
precision in that attack, far too smooth precision ever to have been
left to chance, or even to independent planning. His mind skirted the
obvious a dozen times, and each time rejected it angrily. Finally he
knew he could no longer reject the thought, the only possible answer.
Mariel had known where he would be, and at what time. Therefore, someone
must have told him.
He stiffened in the seat, the pain momentarily forgotten. Only one
person could have told Mariel. Only one person knew where the file was,
and where it would be after he left the restaurant--he felt cold
bitterness creep down his spine. She had known, and sat there making
eyes at him, and telling him how wonderful he was, how she was with him
no matter what happened--and she'd already sold him down the river. He
shook his head angrily, trying to keep his thoughts on a rational plane.
_Why?_ Why had she strung him along, why had she even started to help
him? And why, above all, turn against her own father?
The Hospital driveway crunched under the cab, and he hopped out, wincing
with every step, and walked into a phone booth off the lobby. He gave a
name, and in a moment heard the P.A. system echoing it: "Dr. Prex;
calling Dr. Prex." In a moment he heard a receiver click off, and a
familiar voice said, "Prex speaking."
"Prex, this is Shandor. Got a minute?"