Philip Wylie - The Smuggled Atom Bomb

He tore open a new package of cigarettes, saw how his hand shook and forced himself to be calm again. By and by, it grew faintly light. He realized he had dozed a little when the thwack of the morning paper on the porch made him start. He went downstairs in stocking feet. It was light enough by then to read the headlines:

Orange Bowl Queen Vanishes

Police Search for Miss Eleanor

Yates

Kidnaping Feared

Crank Suspected

Duff couldn’t wait any longer. He dialed Higgins’ number, got a sleepy “Yeah?” and began to talk excitedly. Fifteen minutes later he hung up. He knew that he was close to tears, but only when he heard himself sniffle did he realize that fatigue, humiliation and a sense of incompetence had actually brought tears into his eyes.

About the particles on the warehouse floor, Higgins had said, “Hunh! Interesting! I’ll pass it on to New York.”

But about the idea that Harry Ellings’ entire life had been planned, the G-man was brief and cutting, “Good Lord! We’ve assumed it was that way for weeks!”

A similar response greeted his theory about the huge man. “Did that just occur to you? We’ve been on the lookout for anybody of any size for a hell of a while!”

Duff said wretchedly, “I shouldn’t have phoned.”

“Oh, sure. That warehouse hunch is solid. And my alarm will let go in less than an hour, anyhow.”

Nevertheless, Duff felt disappointed; he felt as he had ever since the beginning, foolish. The FBI and the police knew. They could and did think and act. And he chimed in afterward with his half-baked hunches. Bitterly, he started toward the porch, but he heard Mrs. Yates crying softly, and he went in to try to comfort her.

Cars surrounded the Yates home, parked in the drive and on the lawns — police cars, press and radio cars, Orange Bowl officials’ cars and the cars of friends, neighbors, curious strangers. They had accumulated all day.

Mrs. Yates and Duff were obliged to keep telling people that they had no idea where Eleanor might have gone, with whom or whether she could have been kidnaped. Because of the numbers “of people, the shock and the confusion, they had sent Marian and Charles to stay with friends.

Some time after lunch Duff observed that Mrs. Yates was not strong enough to bear both her anxiety and the thronging people. He arranged with the police to get her moved to the home of the friend who had already taken in the youngsters. The police saw to it that neither the reporters nor the merely curious followed the Yates station wagon, and when Duff returned to the house, the crowd was thinning.

Toward late afternoon he was alone. As far as he knew, not even the police or the FBI were keeping watch. The Yates place had served its final purpose where Ellings’ colleagues were concerned. And if Eleanor should happen to come back home somehow, he was there.

He believed she was dead. So, he was sure, did the FBI. But Duff knew he would not give up hope until it was certain.

He went upstairs and lay down exhaustedly. By and by he realized it was the afternoon of Harry’s funeral. They had all forgotten. No matter. He slept because a time comes when no one, whatever his anxiety, can stay awake longer. When he woke up, the sun was setting. He realized he had been dreaming about the events of the past weeks and remembered vaguely a jumble of faces, including the face of Indigo Stacey. He lay thinking about her, and it occurred to him that she represented another of the anomalies he’d sought the night before. Scotty had once said that Indigo had wanted to meet Duff even before their first date. Duff wondered why, as he had wondered at other times. He wasn’t the type for whom glamour girls fell on sight. Still, Indigo wasn’t an ordinary glamour girl. A White Russian — or at least her parents were that.

He thought now about their history. Had Indigo’s father and her father’s brother necessarily been loyal to the Czar? Necessarily fled the Bolshevik revolution? Was it possible that a conspiracy against America could have been forming back in the days of Lenin and Trotsky? Could Indigo Stacey have had a special reason, related to everything else, for wanting to meet him? Had her “large passion” been an unsuccessful attempt to find out what he knew? Who — and where— was her uncle? Apparently, according to Mrs. Yates, her now-deceased father and her uncle had become successful businessmen.

He phoned the house where the Yateses were staying. He said there was no news, but that he would like to ask Mrs. Yates a question. Her answers were tremulous.

“Uncle?” she repeated perplexedly. “Why, no, Duff. He didn’t like Stacey for a name.

He’s Stanton — a very important person in Miami. On directorates and owns businesses. As a matter of fact, he is a director of the trucking company Harry used to work for.”

The telephone directory listed an Ivan L. Stanton, 4300 River Vista Drive, Miami Beach.

Duff walked about in the darkening house. He thought of calling Higgins again and cast the thought aside. Stanton was too well known to be made a sudden object of suspicion.

A connection between a young lady’s interest in a graduate student and the possibility that a leading businessman was also a criminal syndicalist would probably make Higgins believe Duff had lost the last of his senses. Besides, Eleanor would hardly be anywhere near the Stanton place, even if Stanton was connected with her disappearance and even if she was still alive. An immense underground organization could take the girl to any of a hundred places.

And in that moment Duff had the last of his new ideas. He and the FBI had assumed they were dealing with many members of a secret society — scores, perhaps hundreds. That very assumption had made Higgins marvel that no trace of such a group had been uncovered.

Why, Duff abruptly asked himself, would it take many people? A few could accomplish all that Duff suspected had been done, if they had time enough. At least one would have to be an engineer. But the fewer they were, the better their chance of undiscovered activity. And if one of them owned part of a trucking concern—

Duff went to the barn garage. He backed out the Yates station wagon. There was nothing more he could do at the Yates house. The theory on which he was operating was tenuous, all but incredible, yet he had no other.

Before driving away, he had a protective impulse. He returned to the house and wrote a note which he left on the dining-room table.

Flagler Street was still Yuletide-gaudy in the twilight. Its red and green decorations made a gay tent. When he stopped for a traffic light, a newsboy intoned, “No trace of missing Bowl Queen! Read all about it!” He drove on. Down Biscayne Boulevard, across the Causeway.

The inland passage gleamed with lights from big houses and the lights of Christmas trees. Many homes were strung with colored lights and many palms wore crowns of lights.

Boats were tied up at private wharves — speedboats, luxury fishing cruisers, houseboats, yachts. He passed No. 4300, a Spanish residence set back from the street, with a seagoing yacht of its own, brightly lighted trees in its yard and a wall all around.

Duff turned into a side street and went back on foot, furtively. There were no pedestrians. For a moment, as he peered around the ornamental coral entrance posts at the big house, Duff had a feeling of hopelessness. The estate looked civilized, secure, and so remote from what tormented him that Duff considered turning back. Then, in the first real confirmation of his frantic weeks, he saw it: a little square of whiteness, of almost luminous whiteness, in the shadow. He made as sure as he could that he was not seen, crossed the drive and picked up a woman’s folded handkerchief, not dropped on the walk, but tossed, it seemed, toward the entrance post. His fingers shook as he saw the initials: E. Y.