The Plot by Irving Wallace

Author:Irving Wallace [Wallace, Irving]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

AS BRENNAN PLACED the thick binder of transcripts on the coffee table in the sitting room of Earnshaw’s Hotel Lancaster suite, and settled into the downy sofa, he could hear the former President saying, “I—I’m sorry I can’t give you any more than—uh—a few minutes, Mr. Brennan, but after all, your visit was unexpected. I—uh—it’s a busy day—Mr. Doyle is coming up shortly, so that I can dictate my column—then, uh, other matters. If you had called for an appointment first—”

“If I’d called first,” said Brennan, trying to keep his tone light, “you might not have seen me at all.”

Earnshaw scratched at a pointed eyebrow, and protested. “Come now, Mr. Brennan. If you had good cause to see me—

“I don’t know if I have good cause,” said Brennan. “I only know I have a problem, one that involves you, and you’re the remaining person who might help me solve it.”

“Well, in that case…” Earnshaw’s voice had trailed off, and he gripped a wing chair near him for support and eased himself down into it.

Observing him, Brennan was surprised at how gray, aged, enfeebled the former President appeared. Only three days before, when they had encountered one another in the main hall of the Palais Rose, Brennan had thought Earnshaw remarkably well preserved and energetic. This afternoon, he was an old man, as frail and brittle as the hundred-year-old Civil War veteran and GAR survivor whom Brennan used to see in his youth, a dribbling relic in a rocking chair on a wooden front porch that the gang always passed on the way to the ice-cream shop. Brennan wondered what could possibly have happened to Earnshaw in three days to inflict this transformation, and then he ceased to speculate on geriatrics, since it might soften his approach.

“I know my walking in on you like this, unannounced, is rude,” said Brennan, “and that my being here probably makes you uncomfortable. I wouldn’t have done it, believe me, if it weren’t necessary.”

Earnshaw’s fingers drummed nervously on the arm of his chair. “You are mistaken, Mr. Brennan. I’ve nothing against you personally.”

“Well, perhaps you still feel that I failed you in that whole Varney business, and that the sight of me symbolizes the one bad mark against your Administration. So be it. You needn’t answer. Let me put it this way. Whatever happened in the past, whatever you’ve felt about me or I’ve felt about you, there is one judgment I’ve had about you that has remained unchanged. I’ve always felt you were a man of goodwill and decency. I still feel that way. Otherwise, I wouldn’t dare to be here right now.”

Earnshaw’s grave blue eyes wavered. Slowly, he rubbed his cleft chin. He waited for what was next.

“As you probably recall,” said Brennan, “when I testified under oath before Senator Dexter’s Joint Committee on Internal Security, I explained that you and Simon Madlock had insisted that Professor Varney accompany those of us who were going to the Zurich Parley. Then I testified about a private meeting I’d had with Madlock.

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