“So I’m told,” the other man said. Their eyes met, and neither said what he knew about the other, though each was aware of the other’s knowledge.
Wellington said, “He set this up because that’s his style. He organized a Little League team once, even though he doesn’t have a son.”
“Anything there?”
“No. He just has a compulsion toward organization. And he was one of the first involved in this thing, so it was natural for him to be the one to set it up. How did he happen to pick that conference room?”
“His course was determined for him,” the other man said.
“Anybody else bugging it?”
“The Navy, believe it or not. We smeared their tape.”
“Why the Navy?”
“We may never know. What about Dr. Joseph Holt? He was Lockridge’s physician in the White House, wasn’t he?”
“And still is.”
“Does that make him family?”
“His brother married my sister. It was his son that just married Eugene White’s daughter.”
The other man smiled, thinly. “It becomes funny after a while,” he said.
“Possibly. We don’t think about it, we’re used to it.”
“I know.” The smile disappeared. “Tell me about Holt.”
“Average man, average ability, average ambitions, average everything. Thrust into the bigtime because he became the nephew-in-law of the President. Nervous about it ever since, full of feelings of unworthiness. Joins good causes.”
“Anything on our list?”
“Not for several years. A few fringe things in the sixties, when that was popular.”
“Any trouble now?”
“No. He’d love to consecrate himself to a cause. He sees Bradford as it. He could be made to see other things.”
“Another happy family?”
“Yes.”
“Robert Pratt.”
“I don’t know him,” Wellington said. “I intend to find out about him. He seems to be involved with Bradford’s granddaughter, Evelyn.”
“Yes, we’ll get to her.” He looked down at his pad. “Meredith Fanshaw I know. He wouldn’t cause trouble. George Holt.” He looked up.
Wellington said, “Hen-pecked, nervous, ambitious, insecure. Cowardly.”
“Good.” The other man looked down again. “Harrison Lockridge. I know him, too. Sterling Lockridge and Howard Lockridge.” He looked up. “Is that where our trouble lies?”
“Yes.” Wellington turned his head suddenly, and blinked at the prints on the side wall.
“Wellington?”
He faced the other man again. “A son must be forgiven moments of weakness,” he said.
“Of course. And there’s no reason things can’t be worked out.”
“That would be best,” Wellington agreed. “Easiest to live with.”
“But tell me about Sterling and Howard just the same.”
Wellington nodded. “Father and son,” he said, his voice still emotionless. “Sterling is the most solid man I know, bar none. Bradford has always been theatrical, which was good for politics but bad as a character trait. We see where it’s led.”
“Sterling doesn’t have that?”
“He has Bradford’s strength without the theatricality. He also has position and prestige. I doubt he could be intimidated, and I know he couldn’t be bought. I don’t know how we’d handle him.”
“Persuasion?”
“Unlikely. He doesn’t have our priorities. None of them have. You heard the way they reacted to my hypothetical case.”
“Sterling pretended he hadn’t heard it.”
“He didn’t want to think ill of his nephew.”
“You?”
“Me.”
The other man made a note. “We’d better do some prying,” he said. “Just to be on the safe side. What about the son?
“Howard is a belligerent liberal. He has the theatricality, but less strength. You know, Bradford and Sterling are a tough act to follow. We’ve all been affected by it, from their younger brother Harrison through my cousins Howard and Edward to BJ and me. We’ve all kept our sights low, one way and another.”
“Edward?” He frowned at his notes. “Sterling’s son Edward? He wasn’t there, was he?”
“He’s with our embassy in Paris. You know him, his son, Edward Jr., is with that expatriate radical group over there.”
“The high school boy?”
“That’s the one.”
He smiled bleakly. “The theatricality keeps cropping up, doesn’t it?”
“It does.”
“Let’s return to Howard. He’d be a hothead, would he?”
“Yes.”
“Which makes him less troublesome than his father. A hothead can always be made a fool of.” His pencil moved again on the paper. “One more person,” he said. “The granddaughter, Evelyn. Evelyn Canby, is it?”
“Yes.”
“Tell me about her. She’s the key to this whole thing, you know.”
“I know. She’s a widow, late twenties, one small daughter. Her husband was with the Army, killed in Asia.”
“Unfortunate.”
“Yes,” said Wellington. Voice still flat, he said, “She might be unwilling to make another sacrifice for the nation.”
“That’s what I was thinking.”
“I know.”
Their eyes met, and unspoken hostility and resentment arced between them for just an instant. But it seemed to be no more than a repetition of an old moment, as though they had long ago understood that the feelings would never burst out into the light. The other man looked away first, glancing down at his notes again as he said, “Tell me about Evelyn Canby.”
“I’m not sure about her. Women are harder to read, they have less individual life styles. In her youth she was an ordinary cheerful girl. Her parents were killed in an air crash, and then her husband died. She lives alone with her grandfather, and she’s very quiet. I’m not sure sometimes if she’s dull all the way through, or if she’s bright inside with a dull surface. She dislikes me, I’m not entirely sure why. With all the deaths around her, she’s very protective of her grandfather.”
“More trouble.”
“But a woman. And a young woman. Sterling is still the main concern.”
“I disagree,” the other man said. “Evelyn Canby is the only one in Bradford Lockridge’s confidence. She’s emotional and over-protective, and in the last analysis she’s running the show.”
“I wouldn’t say she was running the show.”
“I would. I did. You people at that meeting today, you can’t make any decision at all without clearing it with Evelyn Canby. You know that, Wellington.”
“She has to be consulted, yes, but—”
“She has veto power.”
Wellington considered. “I suppose she does,” he said. He sounded faintly surprised.
“And if she smelled anything in the wind at all,” the other man said, “she’d warn Lockridge. Sterling wouldn’t, he’d wait to be sure, so would any of the others, but Evelyn Canby would blow at the first sign.”
Wellington nodded reluctantly. “Yes,” he said. “You’re right.”
“Is there any chance at all of getting her out of there, replacing her with some other family member?”
“None.”
“I didn’t suppose there was. All right, she’s the key. We’ve got to know what she’s doing and what she’s thinking every minute.”
“I don’t believe you’ll find her complex.”
“What about this man Pratt? How close are they?”
“I don’t know. It’s a fairly recent relationship, though.”
“We’ll have to find out. He might even be sympathetic, if approached properly.” He made a note. “Is there anything else? Anybody else I should know about?”
“Not so far. There may be.”
“We’re taking a chance, you know. He could pop any time.”