第 75 页

After breakfast he went to his study. His desk was piled with every important

newspaper, book and magazine received that morning from all over the country. He

worked alone at his desk for three hours, reading and making brief notes with a

large blue pencil across the printed pages. The notes looked like a spy’s

shorthand; nobody could decipher them except the dry, middle-aged secretary who

entered the study when Wynand left it. He had not heard her voice in five years,

but no communication between them was necessary. When he returned to his study

in the evening, the secretary and the pile of papers were gone; on his desk he

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found neatly typed pages containing the things he had wished to be recorded from

his morning’s work.

At ten o’clock he arrived at the Banner Building, a plain, grimy structure in an

undistinguished neighborhood of lower Manhattan. When he walked through the

narrow halls of the building, the employees he met wished him a good morning.

The greeting was correct and he answered courteously; but his passage had the

effect of a death ray that stopped the motor of living organisms.

Among the many hard rules imposed upon the employees of all Wynand enterprises,

the hardest was the one demanding that no man pause in his work if Mr. Wynand

entered the room, or notice his entrance. Nobody could predict what department

he would choose to visit or when. He could appear at any moment in any part of

the building--and his presence was as unobtrusive as an electric shock. The

employees tried to obey the rule as best they could; but they preferred three

hours of overtime to ten minutes of working under his silent observation.

This morning, in his office, he went over the proofs of the Banner’s Sunday

editorials. He slashed blue lines across the spreads he wished eliminated. He

did not sign his initials; everybody knew that only Gail Wynand could make quite

that kind of blue slashes, lines that seemed to rip the authors of the copy out

of existence.

He finished the proofs, then asked to be connected with the editor of the Wynand

Herald, in Springville, Kansas. When he telephoned his provinces, Wynand’s name

was never announced to the victim. He expected his voice to be known to every

key citizen of his empire.

"Good morning, Cummings," he said when the editor answered.

"My God!" gasped the editor. "It isn’t..."

"It is," said Wynand. "Listen, Cummings. One more piece of crap like yesterday’s

yarn on the Last Rose of Summer and you can go back to the high school Bugle."

"Yes, Mr. Wynand."

Wynand hung up. He asked to be connected with an eminent Senator in Washington.

"Good morning, Senator," he said when the gentleman came on the wire within two

minutes. "It is so kind of you to answer this call. I appreciate it. I do not

wish to impose on your time. But I felt I owed you an expression of my deepest

gratitude. I called to thank you for your work in passing the Hayes-Langston

Bill."

"But...Mr. Wynand!" The Senator’s voice seemed to squirm. "It’s so nice of you,

but...the Bill hasn’t been passed."

"Oh, that’s right. My mistake. It will be passed tomorrow." A meeting of the

board of directors of the Wynand Enterprises, Inc., had been scheduled for

eleven-thirty that morning. The Wynand Enterprises consisted of twenty-two

newspapers, seven magazines, three news services and two newsreels. Wynand owned

seventy-five percent of the stock. The directors were not certain of their

functions or purpose. Wynand had ordered meetings of the board always to start

on time, whether he was present or not. Today he entered the board room at

twelve twenty-five. A distinguished old gentleman was making a speech. The

directors were not allowed to stop or notice Wynand’s presence. He walked to the

empty chair at the head of the long mahogany table and sat down. No one turned

to him; it was as if the chair had just been occupied by a ghost whose existence

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they dared not admit. He listened silently for fifteen minutes. He got up in the

middle of a sentence and left the room as he had entered.

On a large table in his office he spread out maps of Stoneridge, his new

real-estate venture, and spent half an hour discussing it with two of his

agents. He had purchased a vast tract of land on Long Island, which was to be

converted into the Stoneridge Development, a new community of small home owners,

every curbstone, street and house to be built by Gail Wynand. The few people who

knew of his real-estate activities had told him that he was crazy. It was a year

when no one thought of building. But Gail Wynand had made his fortune on

decisions which people called crazy.

The architect to design Stoneridge had not been chosen. News of the project had

seeped into the starved profession. For weeks Wynand had refused to read letters

or answer calls from the best architects of the country and their friends. He

refused once more when, at the end of his conference, his secretary informed him

that Mr. Ralston Holcombe most urgently requested two minutes of his time on the

telephone.

When the agents were gone, Wynand pressed a button on his desk, summoning Alvah

Scarret. Scarret entered the office, smiling happily. He always answered that

buzzer with the flattered eagerness of an office boy.

"Alvah, what in hell is the Gallant Gallstone?"

Scarret laughed. "Oh, that? It’s the title of a novel. By Lois Cook."

"What kind of a novel?"

"Oh, just a lot of drivel. It’s supposed to be a sort of prose poem. It’s all

about a gallstone that thinks that it’s an independent entity, a sort of a

rugged individualist of the gall bladder, if you see what I mean, and then the

man takes a big dose of castor oil--there’s a graphic description of the

consequences--I’m not sure it’s correct medically, but anyway that’s the end of

the Gallant Gallstone. It’s all supposed to prove that there’s no such thing as

free will."

"How many copies has it sold?"

"I don’t know. Not very many, I think. Just among the intelligentsia. But I hear

it’s picked up some, lately, and..."

"Precisely. What’s going on around here, Alvah?"

"What? Oh, you mean you noticed the few mentions which..."

"I mean I’ve noticed it all over the Banner in the last few weeks. Very nicely

done, too, if it took me that long to discover that it wasn’t accidental."

"What do you mean?"

"What do you think I mean? Why should that particular title appear continuously,

in the most inappropriate places? One day it’s in a police story about the

execution of some murderer who ’died bravely like the Gallant Gallstone.’ Two

days later it’s on page sixteen, in a state yarn from Albany. ’Senator Hazleton

thinks he’s an independent entity, but it might turn out that he’s only a

Gallant Gallstone.’ Then it’s in the obituaries. Yesterday it was on the women’s

page. Today, it’s in the comics. Snooxy calls his rich landlord a Gallant

Gallstone."

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Scarret chortled peacefully. "Yes, isn’t it silly?"

"I thought it was silly. At first. Now I don’t."

"But what the hell, Gail! It’s not as if it were a major issue and our by-liners

plugged it. It’s just the small fry, the forty-dollar-a-week ones."

"That’s the point. One of them. The other is that the book’s not a famous

bestseller. If it were, I could understand the title popping into their heads

automatically. But it isn’t. So someone’s doing the popping. Why?"

"Oh, come, Gail! Why would anyone want to bother? And what do we care? If it

were a political issue...But hell, who can get any gravy out of plugging for

free will or against free will?"

"Did anyone consult you about this plugging?"

"No. I tell you, nobody’s behind it. It’s just spontaneous. Just a lot of people

who thought it was a funny gag."

"Who was the first one that you heard it from?"

"I don’t know....Let me see....It was...yes, I think it was Ellsworth Toohey."

"Have it stopped. Be sure to tell Mr. Toohey."

"Okay, if you say so. But it’s really nothing. Just a lot of people amusing

themselves."

"I don’t like to have anyone amusing himself on my paper."

"Yes, Gail."

At two o’clock Wynand arrived, as guest of honor, at a luncheon given by a

National Convention of Women’s Clubs. He sat at the right of the chairwoman in

an echoing banquet hall filled with the odors of corsages--gardenias and sweet

peas--and of fried chicken. After luncheon Wynand spoke. The Convention

advocated careers for married women; the Wynand papers had fought against the

employment of married women for many years. Wynand spoke for twenty minutes and

said nothing at all; but he conveyed the impression that he supported every

sentiment expressed at the meeting. Nobody had ever been able to explain the

effect of Gail Wynand on an audience, particularly an audience of women. He did

nothing spectacular; his voice was low, metallic, inclined to sound monotonous;

he was too correct, in a manner that was almost deliberate satire on

correctness. Yet he conquered all listeners. People said it was his subtle,

enormous virility; it made the courteous voice speaking about school, home and

family sound as if he were making love to every old hag present.

Returning to his office, Wynand stopped in the city room. Standing at a tall

desk, a big blue pencil in his hand, he wrote on a huge sheet of plain print

stock, in letters an inch high, a brilliant, ruthless editorial denouncing all

advocates of careers for women. The GW at the end stood like a streak of blue

flame. He did not read the piece over--he never needed to--but threw it on the

desk of the first editor in sight and walked out of the room. Late in the

afternoon, when Wynand was ready to leave his office, his secretary announced

that Ellsworth Toohey requested the privilege of seeing him. "Let him in," said

Wynand.

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Toohey entered, a cautious half-smile on his face, a smile mocking himself and

his boss, but with a delicate sense of balance, sixty percent of the mockery

directed at himself. He knew that Wynand did not want to see him, and being

received was not in his favor.

Wynand sat behind his desk, his face courteously blank. Two diagonal ridges

stood out faintly on his forehead, parallel with his slanting eyebrows. It was a

disconcerting peculiarity which his face assumed at times; it gave the effect of

a double exposure, an ominous emphasis.

"Sit down, Mr. Toohey. Of what service can I be to you?"

"Oh, I’m much more presumptuous than that, Mr. Wynand," said Toohey gaily. "I

didn’t come to ask for your services, but to offer you mine."

"In what matter?"

"Stoneridge."

The diagonal lines stood out sharper on Wynand’s forehead.

"Of what use can a newspaper columnist be to Stoneridge?"

"A newspaper columnist--none, Mr. Wynand. But an architectural expert..." Toohey

let his voice trail into a mocking question mark.

If Toohey’s eyes had not been fixed insolently on Wynand’s, he would have been

ordered out of the office at once. But the glance told Wynand that Toohey knew

to what extent he had been plagued by people recommending architects and how

hard he had tried to avoid them; and that Toohey had outwitted him by obtaining

this interview for a purpose Wynand had not expected. The impertinence of it

amused Wynand, as Toohey had known it would.

"All right, Mr. Toohey. Whom are you selling?"

"Peter Keating."

"Well?"

"I beg your pardon?"

"Well, sell him to me."

Toohey was stopped, then shrugged brightly and plunged in:

"You understand, of course, that I’m not connected with Mr. Keating in any way.

I’m acting only as his friend--and yours." The voice sounded pleasantly

informal, but it had lost some of its certainty. "Honestly, I know it does sound

trite, but what else can I say? It just happens to be the truth." Wynand would

not help him out. "I presumed to come here because I felt it was my duty to give

you my opinion. No, not a moral duty. Call it an esthetic one. I know that you

demand the best in anything you do. For a project of the size you have in mind

there’s not another architect living who can equal Peter Keating in efficiency,

taste, originality, imagination. That, Mr. Wynand, is my sincere opinion."

"I quite believe you."

"You do?"

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"Of course. But, Mr. Toohey, why should I consider your opinion?"

"Well, after all, I am your architectural expert!" He could not keep the edge of

anger out of his voice.

"My dear, Mr. Toohey, don’t confuse me with my readers." After a moment, Toohey

leaned back and spread his hands out in laughing helplessness.

"Frankly, Mr. Wynand, I didn’t think my word would carry much weight with you.

So I didn’t intend trying to sell you Peter Keating."

"No? What did you intend?"

"Only to ask that you give half an hour of your time to someone who can convince

you of Peter Keating’s ability much better than I can."

"Who is that?"

"Mrs. Peter Keating."

"Why should I wish to discuss this matter with Mrs. Peter Keating?"

"Because she is an exceedingly beautiful woman and an extremely difficult one."

Wynand threw his head back and laughed aloud.

"Good God, Toohey, am I as obvious as that?"

Toohey, blinked, unprepared.

"Really, Mr. Toohey, I owe you an apology, if, by allowing my tastes to become

so well known, I caused you to be so crude. But I had no idea that among your

many other humanitarian activities you were also a pimp."