Holt looked across at Robert, and saw the discomfort in the young man’s face. Which was understandable; Robert was unknown to several people in this room, not a member of the family at all, and the announcement he had to make was going to be a shocker. Still, Eugene was right; Robert was the best qualified to make the announcement.
Which he did as bluntly as possible: “At this moment, Bradford is making plans to defect to Communist China.”
Holt, looking at them, saw nothing but frowning disbelief, but no one responded for a few seconds, until BJ — Bradford, Jr., the only man present in a military uniform — suddenly blurted, “That’s a lie!”
“It’s true,” Eugene said quietly.
BJ sprang to his feet. “It’s a damn lie! Who is this man anyway, I’ve never seen him before in my life.”
Softly, Sterling said, “He works for me, BJ. He’s a teacher at the university.”
“Then what’s he going round telling lies for?”
“I think we ought to listen to him,” Sterling said, “and make up our minds when he’s done.”
BJ frowned. “I’ll listen,” he said ominously. He sat down again, tensely, on the edge of the chair. “But I know right now it’s lies and foolishness.”
“I wish it was,” Robert Pratt said, and told them of Evelyn coming to see him a week ago, and why it was him she’d chosen to talk to, and what she’d said, and of his own conversation with Bradford.
When he was finished Harrison said, “Gene, do you have any corroboration for this? Or is it just Evelyn? I’m not saying anything against the girl, but it’s well-known there are kinds of hysteria that strike—”
Robert said, “I talked with Bradford myself.”
“Excuse me,” Harrison said, “but I don’t know you. It could be your motives are the best in the world, but I don’t personally—”
Eugene said, “Harrison, the film we saw is corroboration.”
Holt said, “And from what Evelyn told us, Bradford’s treatment of you last summer was also corroboration. Didn’t he have some wild scheme about a pipeline?”
“He was just making me sweat,” Harrison said. “That was never serious. And Evelyn shouldn’t be telling my business, that was no concern—”
Holt said, “Herbert thought it was serious.”
Harrison looked at him, startled, and said, “That’s private business. That’s nothing to bring up here.”
“I think it is,” Holt said, and told the table at large, “Herbert Jarvis killed himself because Bradford wouldn’t come up—”
“He did no such thing!” Harrison was on his feet, wild-eyed. “Just what do you think you’re doing, Joe?”
“I think I’m taking a serious problem seriously, Harrison. I think we can’t afford self-protective lies at this point. And Bradford was serious about a visionary impractical scheme to build a city in a desert, with a four-hundred-mile pipeline to bring in water. He was serious about it and wouldn’t think of any other possibility until after Herbert killed himself.”
“You read Herbert’s death certificate,” Harrison shouted. “God damn it, you can’t go shooting off—”
“I wrote Herbert’s death certificate,” Holt reminded him. “I lied on it, to cover up. And now there’s something else to be covered up, and you’re just wasting everybody’s time.”
Sterling said, gently, “Relax, Harrison. We’re all family here, nobody’s going to run to the papers with the truth about Herbert.”
“There was no need for him to bring it up,” Harrison said angrily, gesturing at Holt. He was still standing, leaning one hand forward on the table.
“I only brought it up,” Holt said, “because you wouldn’t acknowledge that Bradford was serious about the pipeline.”
“All right, he was.” Harrison spread his hands, as though to demonstrate the unimportance of the admission. “What does that prove? Nothing. What does it have to do with Communist China? Nothing.” He sat down.
“An impractical unrealistic plan for the betterment of mankind,” Holt said. “He worked one out for you, and now he’s worked one out for himself.”
Howard said, “That’s The Final Glory, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” George said. “I asked Evelyn about that, and she said he told her so specifically.”
Meredith Fanshaw had his note-bespattered legal pad out in front of him, and now he said, frowning at his notes, “That’s the title he mentioned in the interview, isn’t it?”
BJ said, in his parade-ground voice, “You’re all treating this as though it was real!”
“It is real,” Holt told him.
“It’s a joke,” BJ said, with total assurance. “I guarantee you, it’s a joke. He was pulling Evelyn’s leg. My father wouldn’t give aid and comfort to the enemies of this country, not for a second.”
“He would,” Eugene said, “if he thought he was helping world peace in the process.”
“He wouldn’t think such a thing,” BJ insisted. “He’s not a crazy man, he knows what can work and what can’t.”
“Like the pipeline?” Holt asked.
George said, “How about that interview? Does that sound like a smart politician?”
“There’s another explanation,” BJ said, loud and sure. “My father wouldn’t even consider these things, any of these things. There’s another explanation. Why, he’d have to be out of his mind before he’d—” He faltered, and stopped, and a look of uncertainty, painful and frightening, crossed his face. Then he shook his head violently and said, “No. My father’s too strong a man for that.”
Holt said to him, “Strong? What do you mean, strong?”
“I mean his mind is strong, God damn it, he’s too strong-minded for anything like this.”
“Nobody is too strong-minded for a mental breakdown,” Holt told him. “It just isn’t medically possible. Any brain, any brain, can malfunction.”
“Not my father,” BJ said stubbornly.
“Then he isn’t human,” Holt told him, impatient with BJ’s childishness. “He isn’t human, he’s God, and there’s nothing more to be said.”
Sterling said, “Joe, have you examined him? Do you have any medical reason to believe it’s mental?”
“I haven’t given him a thorough examination since before he went to France, back in June. I intend to examine him as soon as I can do so without alerting him as to what I’m up to. The fact of the matter is, I do have medical reasons to suspect a malfunction of the brain.” And he went on to describe Bradford’s recent medical history, the little strokes and the potential for a major stroke.
Harrison said, suddenly, “Are you talking about that faint he had when he was out in California last winter?”
“That was the first of the small-scale attacks, yes. The first we know about.”
“That was nothing more than a faint,” Harrison said. “Because of the sun, he wasn’t used to it.”
Holt said, “Did you have a doctor look at him?”
“No, why should we? It was a faint.”
“I looked at him when he got back,” Holt said. “I hate to pull rank on you, Harrison, but the reason they gave me a medical degree was because I had the schooling. What happened to Bradford in California was what we call a transient ischemic attack. A little stroke.”
Eugene said, “I think we ought to let the diagnosis go until after Joe’s had a chance to examine Bradford again. Right now, I think we ought to just face the facts and decide what we want to do about them.”
“Well, we want to stop him from going,” Fanshaw said. “That’s obvious.”