Пользователь - WORLD'S END

"You might have guessed that he would have told the truth," said the father.

"I wasn't that clever. What I did was to fish around, until they told me Lanny had confessed that he was a Red - "

"What?" cried Lanny, shocked.

"The commissaire said that himself; so I knew they were bluffing and that Lanny hadn't talked. I told them my story and they held me a couple of hours while they 'investigated.' What they did, I assume, was to phone to Colonel House. Of course they consider that most everybody in the Crillon is a Red, but they can't afford any publicity about it. That's why they turned us loose with a warning."

Robbie turned to his son. "Lanny, is this story true?"

The next few moments were uncomfortable for the younger man. He had never lied to his father in his life. Was he going to do it now? Or was he going to "throw down" his Uncle Jesse, who had come to his rescue at real danger to himself - and who had invented such a beautiful story? There is an old saying that what you don't know won't hurt you; but Lanny had been taught a different moral code - that you mustn't ever lie except when you are selling munitions.

Great was the youth's relief when his uncle saved him from this predicament. "One moment, Robbie," he put in. "I didn't say that story was true."

"Oh, you didn't?"

"I said I would tell you what I told the com m issaire."

The father frowned angrily. "I am in no mood for jokes!" he exclaimed. "Am I to know about this business, or am I not? Lanny, will you kindly tell me?"

"Yes, Robbie," replied the youth. "The truth is "

"The fault is entirely mine," broke in Uncle Jesse. "I brought Lanny those papers for a purpose of my own."

"He is going to try to take the blame on himself," objected Lanny. "I assure you - "

"He can't tell you the real story, because he doesn't know it!" argued the painter.

"Nobody really knows it but me," retorted Lanny. "Uncle Jesse only thinks he knows it."

Robbie's sense of humor wasn't operating just then. "Will you two please agree which is going to talk?"

Said Lanny, quickly: "I think we'd all three better wait until we get back to the hotel." He made a motion of the ringer toward the taxi driver in front of them. To be sure, they were speaking English - but then the driver might have been a waiter at Mouquin's on Sixth Avenue before the war. The two men fell silent; and Lanny remarked: "Well, I heard the guns. Has the treaty really been signed?"

V

When they were safely locked in their suite, Robbie got out his whisky bottle, which the flics hadn't taken. He had been under a severe strain, and took a nip without waiting for the soda and ice; so did the painter. Lanny had been under a longer strain than either of them, but he waited for the ginger beer, for he wasn't yet of age, and moreover he thought that his father was drinking too much, and was anxious not to encourage him. Meanwhile the youth strolled casually about the suite, looking into the bathroom and the closets and under the beds; he didn't know just how a dictograph worked, but he looked everywhere for any wires. After the bellboy had departed, the ex-prisoner opened the door and looked out. He was in a melodramatic mood.

At last they were settled, and the father said: "Now, please, may I have the honor of knowing about this affair?"

"First," said Lanny, with a grin, "let me shut Uncle Jesse up. Uncle Jesse, you remember the Christmas before the war, I paid a visit to Germany?"

"I heard something about it."

"I was staying with a friend of mine. Better not to use names. That friend was in Paris until recently, and he was the man who came to call on you at midnight."

"Oh, so that's it!" exclaimed the painter.

"I gave him my word never to tell anybody. But I'm sure he won't mind your knowing, because you're likely to become his brother-in-law before long - you may be it now. Beauty and he are lovers, and that's why she's gone to Spain."

"Oh, my God!" exclaimed Jesse. And then again: "Oh, my God!" He was speaking English, in which these words carry far more weight than in French.

"I told Robbie about it," Lanny continued, "because he has a right to know about Beauty. But I didn't tell him about you, because that was your secret. May I tell him now?"

"Evidently he's not going to be happy till he hears it."

Lanny turned to his father. "I put my friend in touch with Uncle Jesse, and my friend brought money to help him stir up the workers against the blockade. I thought that was a worthy cause and I still think so."

"You knew you were risking your life?" demanded the shocked father.

"I've seen people risking their lives for so long, it has sort of lost meaning. But you can imagine that I felt pretty uncomfortable this afternoon. Also, you can see what a risk Uncle Jesse took when he walked into that place."

Robbie made no response. He had poured out the drinks for the red sheep of his former mistress's family, but not an inch farther did he mean to go.

"You see how it was," continued Lanny. "When my friend stopped coming, Uncle Jesse wanted to know why; he brought me some literature so that this friend might see what he had been doing. He asked me to pass it on if I got a chance, and I said I would. He suggested that I didn't need to read it. I didn't say I wouldn't - I just said that I understood. Uncle Jesse has really been playing fair with you, Robbie. It was my friend and I who planned this whole scheme and brought it to him."

"I hope you don't feel too proud of it," said the father, grimly.

"I'm not defending myself, I'm trying to set you straight about Uncle Jesse. If I've picked up ideas that you don't like, it hasn't been from him, for he's avoided talking to me, and even told me I couldn't understand his ideas if I tried. I'm a parasite, a member of the wasting classes, all that sort of thing. What I've had explained has been by Alston, and Herron, and Steffens - "

"Whom you met in Jesse's room, I believe!"

"Well, he could hardly refuse to introduce me to his friend when I walked in. As a matter of fact I'd have met Steffens anyway, because Alston's friends talked a lot about his visit to Russia, and he was at the dinner where they decided to resign. So whatever I've done that was wrong, you must blame me and not Uncle Jesse. I don't know whether he hasn't any use for me, or whether he just pretends that he hasn't, but anyhow that's the way things have been between us."

Said Robbie, coldly: "Nothing alters the fact that he came to this hotel and brought a swarm of hornets down on both of us. Look at my room!" Robbie pointed to his effects strewn here and there. "And my business papers taken by the police, and copies made, no doubt - and sold by some crook to my business rivals!" Robbie knew how such things were done, having done them.

"You are perfectly right," said the painter. "It is my fault, and I am sorry as can be."

"All that I want to know is that I don't have to look forward to such things for the rest of my life. You are Beauty's brother, and if you decide to behave yourself as a decent human being, I'm ready to treat you that way. But if you choose to identify yourself with the scum of the earth, with the most dangerous criminals alive - all right, that's your privilege, but then I have to say: 'Keep away from me and mine.' "

"You are within your rights." Uncle Jesse spoke in the same cold tones as his not quite brother-in-law. "If you will arrange it with your son to keep away from me, you may be sure that I will never again invade his life, or yours."

VI

That was a fair demand and a fair assent; if only those two could have let it rest there! But they were like two stags in the forest, which might turn away and walk off in opposite directions - but they don't! Instead they stand and stare, paw the ground, and cannot get each other out of their minds.