“Be careful how you say it, Jerry,” warned his friend. “There really are Bolos, you know, and they're working in our army.”
“Well, tell those old fellows at the Crillon to hurry up and settle it and send us home, or my outfit will turn Bolo without anybody having to do any work at all.”
VII
Next morning Lanny had his light French breakfast and went to Alston's, office. He was standing by the latter's desk, going over their schedule for the day, when in came Professor Davisson; the big, stout man was hurrying, greatly excited. “Clemenceau's been shot!”
“What?” exclaimed Alston, starting up.
“Anarchist got him as he was on his way here to see House.”
“Is he dead?”
“Badly hurt, they say.”
Others of the staff came in; the building was like an ants' nest when something upsets it. Everybody's plans were bowled over; for what was the use of holding conferences and making reports, when the whole thing would have to be done over? If the Tiger died, Poincaré would take his place; and the professors who had been scolding Clemenceau now had a sickening realization that he was a man of genius and a statesman compared with his probable successor, a dull pasty-faced lawyer who came from Lorraine, and therefore had drunk in hatred of Germany with his mother's milk. If Poincaré got the reins of power in his hands there would be no more talk of compromises, but a straight-out campaign to cripple Germany forever.
Clemenceau had been driving from his home, and as his limousine turned into the Avenue du Trocadéro, a young worker wearing corduroy clothing had stepped from behind a kiosk and fired eight or ten shots at him. Two had struck the elderly premier, one in the shoulder and one in the chest; it was believed that a lung had been penetrated, and there seemed little chance of life for a man of seventy-eight, a diabetic, weakened by four years of terrific strain.
“Well, that's the end of peace-making,” said Alston. The staff agreed that it would mean a wave of reaction in France and the suppression of left-wing opinion.
But the old man didn't die; he behaved in amazing fashion — with a bullet hole in his lung he didn't want even to be sick. Reports came in every few minutes; the doctors were having a hard time persuading him to lie down; he could hardly speak, and a bloody foam came out of his mouth, but he wanted to go on holding conferences. The Tiger indeed; a hard beast to kill! Of course he became the hero of France and people waited hour by hour for bulletins as to his fate.
A messenger brought in newspapers with accounts of the affair. The assassin had been seized by the crowd, which mauled him and tried to kill him; the papers gave pictures of him being held by a couple of gendarmes who had protected and saved him. His name was Cottin, and he was said to be a known anarchist; the photographs showed a frail, disheveled, frightened-looking young fellow. Lanny studied them, and a strange feeling began to stir in him. “Where have I seen that face?” As in a lightning flash it came to him: the youth whom he had watched in the salle while Jesse Blackless was making his speech! No doubt about it, for Lanny had watched the face off and on for an hour, taking it as a symbol of the inflamed and rebellious masses.
Lanny's last glimpse of the young worker had been on the platform, with Uncle Jesse patting him on the back. Lanny had wondered then, and wondered now with greater intensity, did that mean that he was a friend of the painter, or merely an admirer, a. stranger moved by his speech? Was this attempted killing the kind of political warfare that Uncle Jesse favored, whether publicly or secretly? Lanny remembered what his father had said, that syndicalism was for practical purposes the same as anarchism. Now Uncle Jesse had said that he had adopted the theories of the Bolsheviks. Did this by any chance include taking pot-shots at one's opponents on the street?
Decidedly a serious question for a youth getting launched upon a diplomatic career! To be sure, his chief had told him to go to the meeting and report; but nobody had told him to go secretly to the home of a syndicalist-Bolshevik conspirator and arrange for him to receive ten thousand francs of German money to be used in stirring up the workers of Paris to commit assassinations. Of course nobody at the meeting had directly advised the killing off of unsatisfactory statesmen, but it was an inference readily drawn from the furious denunciations poured upon the statesmen's heads. The orators might disclaim responsibility, but certainly they must know the probable result of such speeches.
Lanny's thought moved on from his uncle to his intimate friend. How much had Kurt known, and how far was he responsible for what had happened? It had become clear to Lanny that Kurt's money was being used for a lot more than the lifting of the blockade of Germany. Uncle Jesse had explained by saying that the police wouldn't allow a meeting on behalf of Germans, so the subject had to be brought in under camouflage. Lanny hadn't thought about the matter long before realizing that he had been extremely naive. The obvious way to relieve French pressure on Germany was to frighten France with the same kind of Bolshevist disturbances that were taking place throughout Central Europe. Kurt and his group were here for that, and they were using camouflage just as Uncle Jesse was.
VIII
A lot of complications to occupy the thoughts of a secretary supposed to be marking for his chief's attention a dozen conflicting reports on the proper boundary between the city of Fiume, inhabited by tumultuous Italians, and its suburb Susak, on the other side of a creek, inhabited by intransigent Yugoslavs! Lanny sat with a stack of documents before him: American, British, and French recommendations, and translations of Italian charges and Yugoslav countercharges. He sat with wrinkled brows, but it wasn't over these problems. He was saying to himself: “What does Kurt think about assassination of statesmen as a means of influencing national decisions? And would he be willing to use me for such a purpose?” Lanny's sense of fair play compelled him to add that Kurt had given him warning. Kurt had said: “Forgive me if I am not a friend at present. My time is not my own, nor my life.”
Of course the attempt on Clemenceau would rouse the French police and military to vigorous action. They would begin a round-up of the associates of the anarchist youth; they would subject them to inquisition, trying to find out if there had been a conspiracy, and if there was danger to other statesmen. No doubt they had spies in Uncle Jesse's movement and must know of his sudden appearance with a large sum of money. Perhaps they had him already and were questioning him about the source of those funds! Lanny was sure that his uncle wouldn't “give him away”; but still, he got a sudden realization how close to a powder magazine he had been walking. Yes, modern society was something dangerous and insecure, and a youth who strolled blandly along, feeling safe because he was well dressed and his father was rich — such a youth might see the earth open up in front of him and masses of searing flame shoot out into his face. Lanny decided that for the present he would repress his curiosity as to the relationship between his uncle and the anarchist Cottin; also that if he should meet his friend Kurt Meissner again he would be extremely reserved and cautious.