Delicate Ape Read Online Free

and some who had never known it, who believed therefore that peace was inevitable. Even Watkins and Sandys could not fight for peace. It wasn’t that they lacked courage or will; it was that they were not yet appointed. His was the appointment.
    He stood from the bed and crumpled the papers. Anstruther’s death should not be without purpose. The old man had been good; he had had the simplicity of goodness. This was not enough when the apes stirred man to bestiality again. The good could not stop the depredation. Only man who had risen from brute man, who recognized the evil gropings, could do that. Piers could and would do it. He was not traveling to Samarra this season.
    He crossed to the window and stood there, unseen, looking down at Broadway below. Morning Broadway was a different street from that of night. It was almost quiet now; there were few walkers; the policeman at the intersection was unharried. The police force was for the protection of honest citizens. What would the Commissioner do if Broadway demanded the police be removed from its environs? The idea was too ludicrous for consideration. The same idea for a different street should be laughed out of the peace conclave. It wouldn’t be.
    He wished he knew where to find Fabian. A plane whirred overhead. No one below looked up, no one burrowed for shelter, the old Broadway trolley continued to bump along the tracks, the leisurely spring morning was unchanged. That was peace. There was a time when the sound of a plane had brought the terrible silence of fear.
    He stretched his lean body and went towards the shower. He wasn’t going to die. It would help, however, if he knew for certain who wanted him to die. It could be Gordon. Gordon intended to step into the old man’s shoes. He had directed his career carefully towards that achievement. But Gordon didn’t know that Anstruther was dead. Only Piers knew that. And it would never occur to Gordon that Piers might be a contender for the post.
    It must be Brecklein. Brecklein knew or sensed something. The exquisite German espionage system wouldn’t be blotted out by twelve or twice twelve years. It would if anything be more perceptive by its enforced quiet. The presence of Schern as an envoy of appeal to the court wasn’t by accident. Schern had been the key man in their intelligence during the Last War. The inner key. Piers knew that well.
    He scrubbed himself happily. He wasn’t afraid of Brecklein or of his associates. He knew exactly how their minds would function; the traveling salesman was an example. He needn’t be afraid of quick death at their hands. Theirs would not be a shot in the dark; their passion to know would insist that they first probe his motives and intentions.
    And now he wasn’t afraid of failure either. The depression he’d brought home with him last night from Washington, result of a day of lethargy and of being shunted from one minor bureaucrat to another, had lifted. He didn’t like the prospect of the inactive days ahead—the conclave would not open until Sunday, four days to wait—but it was an essential part of the plan. To remain in the background, to wait, until the time was ripe for striking. He could wait.
    The phone rang as he was brushing his dust-colored hair. He scowled. There was no reason for it to ring. No one knew a Mr. Pierce stopping at the Astor. No one but the clerk could call. Reflectively Piers moved to answer but his hand remained pressed down on the instrument. He turned away, finished dressing to the punctuation of its ringing. It had stopped before he left the room.
    He didn’t take his room key to the desk. The night clerk had put a name to him last night; it was possible the day clerk also would recognize him. Later he would inquire, after the seeker, if there were one, had gone. He went out the side door onto 45th street. He walked over to Broadway, stood for a moment in the doorway of the Walgreen’s drugstore on the corner. On impulse he cut into