Which reminded him: Where were they? He hadn’t seen them for an hour or more, not since shortly after the reception got underway. Looking around, he saw Eugene White, Audrey’s father, chatting with a couple of Boston Wellingtons, and he headed in that direction to ask if Eugene had seen the young marrieds recently. (This reception was properly Eugene’s responsibility anyway, as father of the bride, but Holt’s place in Philadelphia was both more centrally located for the wide-ranging family members and more adapted to the entertaining of a large gathering than the Whites’ small apartment in Washington, so Eugene had furnished the caterers and Holt had furnished the locale, and between them they were serving more or less as co-hosts of the affair.)
Coming closer, Holt could hear that the two Wellington ladies were giving Eugene a bad time about American Asian policy, and he looked as though he could badly use rescuing. Most of the family knew he was an Asian affairs expert with the State Department, so he tended to have trouble at social occasions with people too long frustrated by faceless government. Eugene’s handsome mustached face bore a pained smile as he listened to what America should do about China — give it a good spanking, appeared to be the gist of the ladies’ approach — and his diplomat’s façade cracked enough to show his relief now when Holt arrived and said, “Gene, I’m sorry to interrupt, but I need your help. If you ladies won’t mind?”
Not at all, they said, though they didn’t mean it. Eugene said something vague to them about continuing this interesting discussion soon, and then he and Holt moved away again, Eugene saying sotto voce, “I owe you my life.”
“You did look as though you were going down for the third time. Have you seen Greg or Audrey anywhere?”
“No, I haven’t.” He sounded surprised, and lifted on tiptoe to look over the heads of the crowd. “Do you suppose they’ve skipped?”
“Without saying goodbye?”
Eugene rocked down off his toes again and looked at Holt, grinning sidelong. “That son of yours,” he said, “is devious for a Navy man.”
“He really left,” Holt said. He couldn’t get over it.
“And I don’t blame him,” Eugene said. “He can see all the relatives he wants at funerals. Would you stick around, Joe, if it was your wedding day?”
Holt grinned back and said, “I suppose not. I just had a check for him, that’s all. They were faster than I’d anticipated.”
“He’ll appreciate it even more after the honeymoon,” Eugene said, and Evelyn Canby came up from the other side. Eugene nodded at her: “Hello, Evelyn.”
“Hello, Eugene.” The girl looked troubled; she said, “Uncle Joe, when you have a minute could I talk with you?”
Holt saw Eugene give him a guarded look of sympathy, and he knew they were both having the same thought. If Eugene had his Asia kooks, Holt had his hypochondriacs.
Which wasn’t fair to Evelyn, of course, since the girl fretted not about herself but about Bradford, and she was undoubtedly right to do so. But did she have to come around long-faced in the middle of a wedding reception, when Holt’s only child was celebrating his only — God willing — marriage?
Eugene said, “Well, I’ll talk to you a little later, Joe,” and walked off, with a meaningful look at Holt, to let him know the rescue operation would be paid back very soon.
Holt said to Evelyn, “Is this important?”
“Yes, it is.”
“Brad again? Another attack?”
“Not exactly. Could we talk in private?”
That would make it more difficult for Eugene to disentangle him, but the girl looked so damned worried... He nodded. “Of course,” he said, trying not to let his reluctance show. “Come on.”
They started for the house, and Robert Pratt joined them, Holt surprised to hear Evelyn say to him, “I’m glad you’re here to help.”
Help? Help what? With the sinking feeling that his day was about to be spoiled for good, Holt led the way through the French doors and across the dining room and down the hall to a small room he’d had fixed up as an office, but which he almost never used.
Feeling vaguely hostlike, he said, “Would you like to sit down?”
Evelyn shook her head. “I’m too nervous to sit.”
So they stood. Holt shut the door and said, “All right. What is it?”
The girl looked helpless, and made a vague movement with her hands. “I really don’t know how to say it.”
Annoyance crept into Holt’s voice. “In one simple declarative sentence, if possible.”
Evelyn looked for assistance to Robert Pratt, who nodded and said, “All right.” He looked at Holt. “Bradford,” he said, “wants to defect to Red China.”
ii
THEY WERE JUST FINISHING their story when a knock sounded at the door. Holt looked up in annoyance — they were all seated now, he at the desk and they in the naugahyde chairs opposite — and called, “What is it?”
Eugene White stuck his head in. “Oh, there you are, Joe. We could use you out—”
“Come in, Gene,” Holt snapped. “Never mind that.”
Baffled, Eugene said, “Uh — we could—”
“Come in,” Holt said impatiently. “Come in and shut the door, this is serious. And you’re exactly the man to talk to.”
Evelyn half rose from her chair, saying, “Uncle Joe, this was supposed to be private!”
Robert Pratt said, “Doctor, we’ve been sitting on this thing for a week. We don’t want it broadcast to the world.”
“Neither do I,” Holt told them. “But you don’t want a doctor for this, you want Gene.”
Eugene, looking like a man suspecting a really atrocious practical joke, had come cautiously into the room and shut the door behind him. “All right,” he said guardedly, “what’s going on?”
Holt said to Evelyn, “Tell him.”
Evelyn half-turned in her seat and studied Eugene. Then she nodded and said, “All right. Bradford wants to defect to Red China.”
A doubtful smile touched Eugene’s lips. He glanced uncertainly at Holt for guidance, and it was obvious he thought the situation was either (a) the practical joke he’d been braced for, or (b) an unfortunately loony girl who had to be humored.
But then Robert Pratt said, “It’s true. I’ve talked with him, and it’s true.”
Eugene frowned at all of them, and looked to Holt for solid ground, saying, “This is on the level?”
“On the level,” Holt promised him. “Bradford Lockridge intends to sneak out of this country and go live in Red China.”
“Bradford Lockridge.”
“For the best motives in the world,” Robert Pratt said.
Holt nodded. “That’s what’s so bad about it. Sit down, Gene, let Evelyn tell you the story.”
There was a wooden-armed chair with a blue-cushioned seat just to the left of the door, into which Eugene sank with a stunned look on his face. “Yes,” he said. “Tell me.”
Evelyn told him, with interpolations from Robert Pratt, and Holt, listening carefully to this second recitation of the facts and Bradford’s stated motivations, saw how smoothly it all came together, so that young Pratt’s attempt to dissuade Bradford had to fail because he was trying to find the entry to a completely closed system.
When the two of them were finished, Eugene said, “And he’s been in correspondence with these people?”
Evelyn nodded. “But I don’t know how.”
“But you did see the Chinese when they delivered the first message.”
“Yes. Two men in the back of a Mercedes. With a chauffeur, also Chinese.”
“Did you notice the license plate?”
Evelyn turned to Robert Pratt, who said, “I’m sorry, no, we didn’t.”