Wolf in Man’s Clothing

“M’m,” said Nugent, which was not illuminating. With me the thought of time was uppermost. Time and Drue. I said, “By the time you investigate those checks and, if luck is with you, identify and locate Frederic Miller-well, anything could happen. You can’t do it in a day.”

“No,” said Nugent slowly. “But almost in a day. The F.B.I. are always ready to help with anything like this, and they have a vast system of records.”

“What’s in your mind, Nugent?” asked Craig suddenly.

“I’m not sure that anything is there,” said Nugent. His words were candid but his look evasive. Craig said, “Do you think this Miller has got involved with the law at some time?”

“It’s always possible,” said Nugent.

“But…” began Craig and then stopped, and Nugent said, “What were you going to say, Brent?”

“Well, it’s-it’s nothing really. Except I’ve had all night to think about it, you see, and to wonder why those particular checks were removed from the others, yet not destroyed. And why they were found just there. If Alexia knows, she may tell and she may not tell. I don’t see how she could help knowing that they were there; it’s possible that she put them there. But why?”

“Exactly. Why? I’ll talk to her. But in the meantime, there’s something you want to say, Brent. Isn’t there? Better get it out.”

“All right,” said Craig slowly. “It’s not very pleasant. But it was only a-a prejudice on his part. It didn’t last long. It’s comprehensible. And I know that after the war began he had an abrupt change of heart. He still didn’t-well, didn’t really want me to go into the air force; that is, he used my wish to do so as a lever for something else he wanted…”Craig glanced briefly at me, and Nugent said nothing. Craig went on, “But the fact is for-oh, for years he has been-or rather had been-well…”

“Germanic in sympathy,” said Nugent quietly.

“Yes,” said Craig as quietly. “How did you know?”

“Obvious,” said Nugent. “Coat of arms in his study was of early German origin. I looked it up in a history of Heraldry. There are numerous books about genealogy in his study, too. I questioned the servants in detail. He was very proud of his family line and of his descent.”

“Yes,” said Craig, “but it didn’t mean anything, really. It was only a kind of hobby with him. He read German history, you know; loved it when some early robber baron, or later statesman, or title was connected with his family. He was always like that. During the First World War though, he swerved instantly around; he was all on the side of the Allies and against Germany. I knew he would do the same thing when this war came and he did.”

“But in the interstice?” said Nugent.

“In the interstice,” said Craig, “he lined up with Germany again. It was mere theory on his part. Merely a hobby. He was very proud of family, you see. And, as I say, had made a kind of study of German history and legend. When Hitler began his rise to power, my father was very taken with the ideas of encouraging the youth movements, bringing back the old German ideas of family life, that kind of thing. It was purely theoretical on my father’s part. He had no faint idea of the real brutality and ruthlessness which lay behind all their talk. He wouldn’t believe it for a time, even when it was increasingly evident to everybody else in the world. He was like that, you know; once he took a stand he-well, he clung to it. Blindly.”

Nugent said nothing; I thought of my early impression of Conrad Brent and the obstinacy I had suspected resulted from an inner and ashamed weakness. Craig said, “He had changed. Believe me, Nugent. As soon as the war began he knew where his real sympathies lay. The other was merely a notion; nothing that really meant anything to him. He was patriotic and sincere. It was. only that it was hard for my father to retreat publicly from a stand he had taken.”

“Do you mean,” said Nugent, “that these checks were somehow connected with sabotage or anything of the kind?”

“Good God, no,” cried Craig. “He’d never have done that.”

“What then?”

“I tell you I don’t know. But that night-the night he died-you remember the clipping.”

“The clipping that was in his desk and that Mrs. Brent went and got for him, during the bridge game? Certainly. It”-Nugent’s eyes were bright, dark slits-“it was about, the arrest of some Bund members.”

“Right,” said Craig looking very tired. “Alexia might know where the clipping is now. What happened to it, I mean.”

“Your idea then, briefly, is that before the war began your father may have donated this money to some branch of the Bund, here in the United States.”

“I don’t know,” said Craig. “But it would have been like him. He had money; he was curiously idealistic and curiously blind to reality until something happened to-well, give him a jolt. Make him see the truth. I don’t know whether that actually happened or not. But I don’t know of anybody by the name of Frederic Miller. I can’t think of any reason for my father to give anybody such substantial sums of money. It seems to me that it must have been quite outside his business affairs.”

“You must have some definite reason for connecting the checks with the Bund.”

“No,” said Craig. “I don’t have. I knew nothing of it. I can’t remember hearing him talk of the Bund-in any special way, I mean. Everybody at some time or other has commented pretty strongly and adversely about it. It was only the existence of that clipping and the mystery of these checks that started me thinking and putting them together with my father’s previous-and lately altogether changed-views. The dates on the checks, too, would have corresponded with the period during which my father was theoretically favorable to the announced German plan. That was the year before the war; he never believed there would be a war. He swallowed everything the Germans then claimed, false though their claims were. It was when war actually began that abruptly again he came out in his true colors. He was honestly patriotic; the sympathy he thought he had for Germany was a completely unreal and assumed sympathy. When it came to the pinch he realized it himself.”

“But you think that before the war he gave these checks to the Bund and that Frederic Miller was a Bund member.”

“I don’t know,” said Craig. “I was only trying to think of some explanation for the checks. There may be a completely different explanation. I may be shooting very wide of the mark. But the clipping had some special interest for him. He wouldn’t have kept it otherwise. And somebody said-I think Pete told me-that it was about the arrest of some Bund members.”

“That’s all you know?” said Nugent.

“I don’t know that,” said Craig. “It’s only a guess.”

“It’s one I can easily check up,” said Nugent. “I’ll get on the telephone right away. And I’ll send these checks in for investigation right away, too. And since it’s fairly safe to assume that somebody in the household removed these checks from the desk, the next thing to do is to inquire about that. If you’re right in your theory, Brent.

“It’s not a theory exactly,” interposed Craig. “It’s just the only thing I could think of to account for them.”

“So you said. If you are right, then someone in the household knew of it. And blackmail is the answer to that. Could your father have been blackmailed in that way?”

“I’m not sure. Yes, I think he could have been. If most men had made a mistake like that, they’d have no compunction about it later. I mean they would be ashamed of it, and probably wouldn’t want it known. Still, they wouldn’t permit themselves to be blackmailed on the strength of it; they’d prefer making a clean breast of it, and trying to make amends for their mistake. But not my father. He was very proud. Yes,” said Craig slowly, “I think he might have let himself be blackmailed. Up to a point, that is.”

“A point that stopped short of murder?” asked Nugent.

“Certainly,” said Craig. “But it was my father who was murdered. So that doesn’t square with the blackmail theory. I mean, he was of no value to a blackmailer dead. That’s the brutal truth of it.”

“M’m,” said Nugent aggravatingly. And just then in the corridor outside I heard heavy, quick footsteps and knew it was another report and, as always that dreadful day when someone came to speak to Nugent, my heart got up into my throat. Craig’s did, too, I think, for his head jerked toward the door. But again it was only a trooper to say they were searching the north meadow and there was nothing to report except a rifle.

“Rifle?”

“Yes, sir.” It was an old rifle which had belonged to the handyman; he’d used it now and then for shooting squirrels or rats, but he hadn’t used it for over a year, he’d told them, and he’d left it, he was sure, in the old loft over the garage. It had been found in some brush in the meadow, as if it had been tossed there. There were no