Chapter 21

Now the winds keened from the mountains, and snow fell. Abednego Danner, the magnificent Abednego Danner, was carried to his last resting-place, the laboratory of nature herself. His wife and his son followed the bier; the dirge was intoned, the meaningless cadence of ritual was spoken to the cold ground; a ghostly obelisk was lifted up over his meagre remains. Hugo had a wish to go to the hills and roll down some gigantic chunk of living rock to mark that place until the coming of a glacier, but he forbore and followed all the dark conventions of disintegration.

The will was read and the bulk of Hugo’s sorry gains was thrust back into his keeping. He went into the attic and opened the black trunk where the six small notebooks lay in oilpaper. He took them out and unwrapped them. The first two books were a maze of numbered experiments. In the third a more vigorous calligraphy, a quivering tracery of excitement, marked the repressed beginning of a new earth.

He bought a bag and some clothes and packed; the false contralto of his mother’s hymns as she went about the house filled him with such despair that he left after the minimum interval allowed by filial decency. She was a grim old woman still, one to whom the coming of the kingdom to Africa was a passion, the polishing of the coal stove a duty, and the presence of her unfamiliar son a burden.

When he said good-by, he kissed her, which left her standing on the station platform looking at the train with a flat, uncomprehending expression. Hugo knew where he was going and why: he was on his way to Washington. The great crusade was to begin. He had no plans, only ideals, which are plans of a sort. He had told his father he was making the world a better place, and the idea had taken hold of him. He would grapple the world, his world, at its source; he would no longer attempt to rise from a lowly place; he would exert his power in the highest places; government, politics, law, were malleable to the force of one man.

Most of his illusion was gone. As he had said so glibly to his father, there were good men and corrupt in the important situations in the world; to the good he would lend his strength, to the corrupt he would exhibit his embattled antipathy. He would be not one impotent person seeking to dominate, but the agent of uplift. He would be what he perceived life had meant him to be: an instrument. He could not be a leader, but he could create a leader.

Such was his intention; he had seen a new way to reform the world, and if his inspiration was clouded occasionally with doubt, he disavowed the doubts as a Christian disavows temptation. This was to be his magnificent gesture; he closed his eyes to the inferences made by his past.

He never thought of himself as pathetic or quixotic; his ability to measure up to external requirements was infinite; his disappointment lay always (he thought) in his spirit and his intelligence. He went to Washington: the world was pivoting there.

His first few weeks were dull. He installed himself in a pleasant house and hired two servants. The use to which he was putting his funds compensated for their origin. It was men like Shayne who would suffer from his mission. And such a man came into view before very long.

Hugo interested himself in politics and the appearance of politics. He read the Congressional Record, he talked with everyone he met, he went daily to the Capitol and listened to the amazing pattern of harangue from the lips of innumerable statesmen. In looking for a cause his eye fell naturally on the problem of disarmament. Hugo saw at once that it was a great cause and that it was bogged in the greed of individuals. It is not difficult to become politically partisan in the Capitol of any nation. It was patent to Hugo that disarmament meant a removal of the chance for war; Hugo hated war. He moved hither and thither, making friends, learning, entertaining, never exposing his plan--which his new friends thought to be lobbying for some impending legislation.

He picked out an individual readily enough. Some of the men he had come to know were in the Senate, others in the House of Representatives, others were diplomats, newspaper reporters, attachés. Each alliance had been cemented with care and purpose. His knowledge of an enemy came by whisperings, by hints, by plain statements.

Congressman Hatten, who argued so eloquently for laying down arms and picking up the cause of humanity, was a guest of Hugo’s.

“Danner,” he said, after a third highball, “you’re a sensible chap. But you don’t quite get us. I’m fighting for disarmament--”

“And making a grand fight--”

The Congressman waved his hand. “Sure. That’s what I mean. You really want this thing for itself. But, between you and me, I don’t give a rap about ships and guns. My district is a farm district. We aren’t interested in paying millions in taxes to the bosses and owners in a coal and iron community. So I’m against it. Dead against it--with my constituency behind me. Nobody really wants to spend the money except the shipbuilders and steel men. Maybe they don’t, theoretically. But the money in it is too big. That’s why I fight.”

“And your speeches?”

“Pap, Danner, pure pap. Even the yokels in my home towns realize that.”

“It doesn’t seem like pap to me.”

“That’s politics. In a way it isn’t. Two boys I was fond of are lying over there in France. I don’t want to make any more shells. But I have to think of something else first. If I came from some other district, the case would be reversed. I’d like to change the tariff. But the industrials oppose me in that. So we compromise. Or we don’t. I think I could put across a decent arms-limitation bill right now, for example, if I could get Willard Melcher out of town for a month.”

“Melcher?”

“You know him, of course--at least, who he is. He spends the steel money here in Washington--to keep the building program going on. Simple thing to do. The Navy helps him. Tell the public about the Japanese menace, the English menace, all the other menaces, and the public coughs up for bigger guns and better ships. Run ‘em till they rust and nobody ever really knows what good they could do.”

“And Melcher does that?”

The Congressman chuckled. “His pay-roll would make your eyes bulge. But you can’t touch him.”

Hugo nodded thoughtfully. “Don’t you think anyone around here works purely for an idea?”

“How’s that? Oh--I understand. Sure. The cranks!” And his laughter ended the discussion.

Hugo began. He walked up the brick steps of Melcher’s residence and pulled the glittering brass knob. A servant came to the door.

“Mr. Danner to see Mr. Melcher. Just a moment.”

A wait in the hall. The servant returned. “Sorry, but he’s not in.”

Hugo’s mouth was firm. “Please tell him that I saw him come in.”

“I’m sorry, sir, but he is going right out.”

“Tell him--that he will see me.”

The servant raised his voice. “Harry!” A heavy person with a flattened nose and cauliflower ears stepped into the hall. “This gentleman wishes to see Mr. Melcher, and Mr. Melcher is not in--to him. Take care of him, Harry.” The servant withdrew.

“Run along, fellow.”

Hugo smiled. “Mr. Melcher keeps a bouncer?”

An evil light flickered in the other’s eyes. “Yeah, fellow. And I came up from the Pennsy mines. I’m a tough guy, so beat it.”

“Not so tough your ears and nose aren’t a sight,” Hugo said lightly.

The man advanced. His voice was throaty. “Git!”

“You go to the devil. I came here to see Melcher and I’m going to see him.”

“Yeah?”

The tough one drew back his fist, but he never understood afterwards what had taken place. He came to in the kitchen an hour later. Mr. Melcher heard him rumble to the floor and emerged from the library. He was a huge man, bigger than his bouncer; his face was hard and sinister and it lighted with an unpleasant smile when he saw the unconscious thug and measured the size of Hugo. “Pulled a fast one on Harry, eh?”

“I came to see you, Melcher.”

“Well, might as well come in now. I worked up from the mines myself, and I’m a hard egg. If you got funny with me, you’d get killed. Wha’ daya want?”

Hugo sat down in a leather chair and lit a cigarette. He was comparatively without emotion. This was his appointed task and he would make short shrift of it. “I came here, Melcher,” he began, “to talk about your part in the arms conferences. It happens that I disagree with you and your propaganda. It happens that I have a method of enforcing my opinion. Disarmament is a great thing for the world, and putting the idea across is the first step toward even bigger things. I know the relative truths of what you say about America’s peril and what you get from saying it. Am I clear?”

Melcher had reddened. He nodded. “Perfectly.”

“I have nothing to add. Get out of town.”

Melcher’s eyes narrowed. “Do you really believe that sending me out of town would do any good? Do you have the conceit to think that one nutty shrimp like you can buck the will and ideas of millions of people?”

Hugo did not permit his convictions to be shaken. “There happen to be extenuating circumstances, Melcher.”

“Really? You surprise me.” The broad sarcasm was shaken like a weapon. “And do you honestly think you could chase me--me--out of here?”

“I am sure of it.”

“How?”

Hugo extinguished his cigarette. “I happen to be more than a man. I am--” he hesitated, seeking words--”let us say, a devil, or an angel, or a scourge. I detest you and what you stand for. If you do not leave--I can ruin your house and destroy you. And I will.” He finished his words almost gently.

Melcher appeared to hesitate. “All right. I’ll go. Immediately. This afternoon.”

Hugo was astonished. “You will go?”

“I promise. Good afternoon, Mr. Danner.”

Hugo rose and walked toward the door. He was seething with surprise and suspicion. Had he actually intimidated Melcher so easily? His hand touched the knob. At that instant Melcher hit him on the head with a chair. It broke in pieces. Hugo turned around slowly.

“I understand. You mistook me for a dangerous lunatic. I was puzzled for a moment. Now--”

Melcher’s jaw sagged in amazement when Hugo did not fall. An instant later he threw himself forward, arms out, head drawn between his shoulders. With one hand Hugo imprisoned his wrists. He lifted Melcher from the floor and shook him. “I meant it, Melcher. And I will give you a sign. Rotten politics, graft, bad government, are doomed.” Melcher watched with staring eyes while Hugo, with his free hand, rapidly demolished the room. He picked up the great desk and smashed it, he tore the stone mantelpiece from its roots; he kicked the fireplace apart; he burst a hole in the brick wall--dragging the bulk of a man behind him as he moved. “Remember that, Melcher. No one else on earth is like me--and I will get you if you fail to stop. I’ll come for you if you squeal about this--and I leave it to you to imagine what will happen.”

Hugo walked into the hall. “You’re all done for--you cheap swindlers. And I am doom.” The door banged.

Melcher swayed on his feet, swallowed hard, and ran upstairs. “Pack,” he said to his valet.

He had gone; Hugo had removed the first of the public enemies. Yet Hugo was not satisfied. His approach to Melcher had been dramatic, terrifying, effective. There were rumours of that violent morning. The rumours said that Melcher had been attacked, that he had been bought out for bigger money, that something peculiar was occurring in Washington. If ten, twenty men left and those rumours multiplied by geometrical progression, sheer intimidation would work a vast good.

But other facts disconcerted Hugo. In the first place, his mind kept reverting to Melcher’s words: “Do you have the conceit to think that one person can buck the will of millions?” No matter how powerful that person, his logic added. Millions of dollars or people? the same logic questioned. After all, did it matter? People could be perjured by subtler influences than gold. Secondly, the parley over arms continued to be an impasse despite the absence of Melcher. Perhaps, he argued, he had not removed Melcher soon enough. A more carefully focused consideration showed that, in spite of what Hatten had said. It was not individuals against whom the struggle was made, but mass stupidity, gigantic bulwarks of human incertitude. And a new man came in Melcher’s place--a man who employed different tactics. Hugo could not exorcise the world.