A short time after Hardegen came to the bank he asked Margaret out and they dated several times. Hardegen wanted the relationship to continue but Margaret did not. She quietly terminated it but still saw Walker regularly at parties and they remained friends. Six months later she met Peter and fell in love. Hardegen was beside himself. One evening at the Copacabana, a little drunk and very jealous, he cornered Margaret and begged her to see him again. When she refused he grabbed her too roughly by the shoulder and shook her. By the icy look on her face, Margaret made it clear she would destroy his career if he did not end his childish behavior.
The incident remained their secret. Even Peter didn't know. Hardegen rose quickly through the ranks and became Bratton's most trusted senior officer. Margaret sensed there was an unspoken tension between Hardegen and Peter, a natural competitiveness. Both were young, handsome, intelligent, and successful. The situation had worsened earlier that summer, when Peter discovered Hardegen was opposed to lending the money for his engineering firm.
"I'm not one who usually goes in for Wagner, especially in the current climate," Hardegen said, pausing to sip his chilled white wine while everyone chuckled at his remark. "But you really must see Herbert Janssen in Tannhaser at the Metropolitan. It's marvelous."
"I've heard such good things about it," Dorothy said.
She loved to discuss the opera, theater, and new books and films. Hardegen, who managed to see and read everything despite an immense workload at the bank, indulged her. The arts were safe topics, unlike family matters and gossip, which Dorothy deplored.
"We did see Ethel Merman in the new Cole Porter musical," Dorothy said, as the first course, a cold shrimp salad, was served. "The title slips my mind."
"Dubarry Was a Lady," Hardegen put in. "I loved it."
Hardegen continued talking. He had gone to Forest Hills yesterday afternoon and watched Bobby Riggs win his match. He thought Riggs was a sure thing to win the Open this year. Margaret watched her mother, who was watching Hardegen. Dorothy adored Hardegen, practically treating him like a member of the family. She had made it clear that she preferred Hardegen to Peter. Hardegen was from a wealthy, conservative family in Maine, not as rich as the Lauterbachs but close enough for comfort. Peter came from a lower-middle-class Irish family and grew up on the West Side of Manhattan. He might be a brilliant engineer, but he would never be one of us. The dispute threatened to destroy Margaret's relationship with her mother. It was ended by Bratton, who would tolerate no objections to his daughter's choice of a husband. Margaret had married Peter in a storybook wedding at St. James's Episcopal Church in June 1935. Hardegen was among the six hundred invited guests. He danced with Margaret during the reception and behaved like a perfect gentleman. He even stayed to see the couple off on their two-month honeymoon in Europe. It was as if the incident at the Copa never happened.
The servants brought the main course--chilled poached salmon--and the conversation inevitably shifted to the looming war in Europe.
Bratton said, "Is there any way of stopping Hitler now, or is Poland about to become the easternmost province of the Third Reich?"
Hardegen, a lawyer as well as a shrewd investor, had been placed in charge of disentangling the bank from its German and other risky European investments. Inside the bank he was affectionately referred to as Our In-House Nazi because of his name, his perfect German, and his frequent trips to Berlin. He also maintained a network of excellent contacts in Washington and served as the bank's chief intelligence officer.
"I spoke to a friend of mine this morning--he's on Henry Stimson's staff at the War Department," Hardegen said. "When Roosevelt returned to Washington from his cruise on the Tuscaloosa, Stimson met him at Union Station and rode with him to the White House. When Roosevelt asked him about the situation in Europe, Stimson replied that the days of peace could now be counted on the fingers of both hands."
"Roosevelt returned to Washington a week ago," Margaret said.
"That's right. Do the math yourself. And I think Stimson was being optimistic. I think war could be hours away."
"But what about this communication I read about this morning in the Times?" Peter asked. Hitler had sent a message to Britain the previous night, and the Times suggested it might pave the way for a negotiated settlement of the Polish crisis.
"I think he's stalling," Hardegen said. "The Germans have sixty divisions along the Polish border waiting for the word to move."
"So what's Hitler waiting for?" Margaret asked.
"An excuse."
"Certainly the Poles aren't going to give him an excuse to invade."
"No, of course not. But that won't stop Hitler."
"What are you suggesting, Walker?" Bratton asked.
"Hitler will invent a reason to attack, a provocation that will allow him to invade without a declaration of war."
"What about the British and the French?" Peter asked. "Will they live up to their commitments to declare war on Germany if Poland is attacked?"
"I believe so."
"They didn't stop Hitler at the Rhineland, or Austria, or Czechoslovakia," Peter said.
"Yes, but Poland is different. Britain and France now realize Hitler must be dealt with."
"What about us?" Margaret asked. "Can we stay out?"
"Roosevelt insists he wants to stay on the sidelines," Bratton said, "but I don't trust him. If the whole of Europe slides into war, I doubt if we'll be able to stay out of it for long."
"And the bank?" Margaret asked.
"We're terminating all our deals with German interests," Hardegen replied. "If there is a war there will be plenty of other opportunities for investment. This war may be just what we need to finally pull the country out of the Depression."
"Ah, nothing like earning a profit from death and destruction," Jane said.
Margaret frowned at her younger sister and thought, Typical Jane. She liked to portray herself as an iconoclast, a dark, brooding intellectual, critical of her class and everything it represented. At the same time she socialized relentlessly and spent her father's money as if the well were about to run dry. At thirty, she had no means of support and no prospects for marriage.
"Oh, Jane, have you been reading Marx again?" Margaret asked playfully.
"Margaret, please," Dorothy said.
"Jane spent time in England a few years ago," Margaret continued, as though she had not heard her mother's plea for peace. "She became quite a Communist then, didn't you, Jane?"
"I'm entitled to an opinion, Margaret!" Jane snapped. "Hitler's not running this house."
"I think I'd like to become a Communist too," Margaret said. "The summer has been rather dull, with all this talk of war. Converting to communism would be a nice change of pace. The Huttons are throwing a costume party next weekend. We could go as Lenin and Stalin. After the party we'll go out to the North Fork and collectivize all the farms. It will be great fun."
Bratton, Peter, and Hardegen burst into laughter.
"Thank you, Margaret," Dorothy said sternly. "You've entertained us all quite enough for one day."
The talk of war had gone on long enough. Dorothy reached out and touched Hardegen's arm.
"Walker, I'm so sorry you couldn't come to our party last night. It was wonderful. Let me tell you all about it."
The lavish apartment on Fifth Avenue overlooking Central Park had been a wedding present from Bratton Lauterbach. At seven o'clock that evening, Peter Jordan stood at the window. A thunderstorm had moved in over the city. Lightning flashed over the deep green treetops of the park. The wind drove rain against the glass. Peter had driven back into the city alone because Dorothy had insisted that Margaret attend a garden party at Edith Blakemore's. Margaret was being driven back into the city by Wiggins, the Lauterbachs' chauffeur. And now they were going to be caught in the bad weather.
Peter shoved out his arm and glanced at his watch for the fifth time in five minutes. He was supposed to meet the head of the Pennsylvania road and bridge comm
ission at the Stork Club for dinner at seven thirty. Pennsylvania was accepting bids and design proposals for a new bridge over the Allegheny River. Peter's boss wanted him to lock up the deal tonight. He was often called on to entertain clients. He was young and smart, and his beautiful wife was the daughter of one of the most powerful bankers in the country. They were an impressive couple.
He thought, Where the hell is she?
He telephoned the Oyster Bay house and spoke to Dorothy.
"I don't know what to say to you, Peter. She left in plenty of time. Perhaps Wiggins was delayed by the weather. You know Wiggins--one sign of rain and he slows to a crawl."
"I'll give her another fifteen minutes. Then I have to leave."
Peter knew Dorothy wouldn't apologize, so he hung up before there could be an awkward moment of silence. He made himself a gin and tonic and drank it very fast while he waited. At seven-fifteen he took the elevator downstairs and stood in the lobby while the doorman went out into the rain and flagged down a taxi.
"When my wife arrives, ask her to come directly to the Stork Club."
"Yes, sir, Mr. Jordan."
The dinner went well, despite the fact that Peter left the table three times to telephone the apartment and the Oyster Bay house. By eight-thirty he was no longer annoyed, he was worried sick.
At eight forty-five p.m. Paul Delano, the headwaiter, presented himself at Peter's table.
"You have a telephone call at the bar, sir."
"Thanks, Paul."
Peter excused himself. At the bar he had to raise his voice above the clinking glasses and the din of conversation.
"Peter, it's Jane."
Peter heard her voice tremble. "What's wrong?"
"I'm afraid there's been an accident."
"Where are you?"
"I'm with the Nassau County Police."
"What happened?"
"A car pulled in front of them on the highway. Wiggins couldn't see it in the rain. By the time he did it was too late."
"Oh, God!"
"Wiggins is in very bad shape. The doctors aren't holding out much hope for him."
"What about Margaret, dammit!"
Lauterbachs did not cry at funerals; grieving was done in private. It was held at St. James's Episcopal Church, the same church where Peter and Margaret had been married four years earlier. President Roosevelt sent a note of condolence and expressed his disappointment that he could not attend. Most of New York society did attend. So did most of the financial world, even though the markets were in turmoil. Germany had invaded Poland, and the world was waiting for the other shoe to drop.
Billy stood next to Peter during the service. He wore short pants and a little blazer and tie. As the family filed out of the church, he reached up and tugged on the hem of his aunt Jane's black dress.
"Will Mommy ever come home?"
"No, Billy, she won't. She's left us."
Edith Blakemore overheard the child's question and burst into tears.
"What a tragedy," she gasped, sobbing. "What a needless tragedy!"
Margaret was buried under brilliant skies in the family plot on Long Island. During the Reverend Pugh's final words a murmur passed through the graveside mourners, then died away.
When it was over Peter walked back to the limousines with his best friend, Shepherd Ramsey. Shepherd had introduced Peter to Margaret. Even in his somber dark suit, he looked as though he'd just stepped off the deck of his sailboat.
"What was everyone talking about?" Peter asked. "It was damned rude."
"Someone arrived late, and they'd been listening to a bulletin on the car radio," Shepherd said. "The British and French just declared war on Germany."
3
LONDON: MAY 1940
Professor Alfred Vicary vanished without explanation from University College on the third Friday of May 1940. A secretary named Lillian Walford was the last member of the staff to see him before his abrupt departure. In a rare indiscretion, she revealed to the other professors that Vicary's last telephone call had been from the new prime minister. In fact, she had spoken to Mr. Churchill personally.
"Same thing happened to Masterman and Cheney at Oxford," Tom Perrington, an Egyptologist, said as he gazed at the entry in the telephone log. "Mysterious calls, men in dark suits. I suspect our dear friend Alfred has slipped behind the veil." Then he added, sotto voce, "Into the secret Acropolis."
Perrington's languid smile did little to hide his disappointment, Miss Walford would remark later. Too bad Britain wasn't at war with the ancient Egyptians--perhaps Perrington would have been chosen too.
Vicary spent his last hours in the cramped disorderly office overlooking Gordon Square putting the final touches on an article for the Sunday Times. The current crisis might have been avoided, it suggested, if Britain and France had attacked Germany in 1939 while Hitler still was preoccupied with Poland. He knew it would be roundly criticized given the current climate; his last piece had been denounced as "Churchillian warmongering" by a publication of the pro-Nazi extreme right. Vicary secretly hoped his new article would be similarly received.
It was a glorious late-spring day, bright sunshine but deceptively chilly. Vicary, an accomplished if reluctant chess player, appreciated deception. He rose, put on a cardigan sweater, and resumed his work.
The fine weather painted a false picture. Britain was a nation under siege--defenseless, frightened, reeling in utter confusion. Plans were drawn up to evacuate the Royal Family to Canada. The government asked that Britain's other national treasure, its children, be sent into the countryside where they would be safe from the Luftwaffe's bombers.
Through the use of skilled propaganda the government had made the general public extremely aware of the threat posed by spies and Fifth Columnists. It was now reaping the consequences. Constabularies were being buried by reports of strangers, odd-looking fellows, or German-looking gentlemen. Citizens were eavesdropping on conversations in pubs, hearing what they liked, then telling the police. They reported smoke signals, winking shore lights, and parachuting spies. A rumor swept the country that German agents posed as nuns during the invasion of the Low Countries; suddenly, nuns were suspect. Most left the walled sanctuary of their convents only when absolutely necessary.
One million men too young, too old, or too feeble to get into the armed forces rushed to join the Home Guard. There were no extra rifles for the Guard so they armed themselves with whatever they could: shotguns, swords, broom handles, medieval bludgeons, Gurkha knives, even golf clubs. Those who somehow couldn't find a suitable weapon were instructed to carry pepper to toss into the eyes of marauding German soldiers.
Vicary, a noted historian, watched his nation's jittery preparations for war with a mixture of enormous pride and quiet depression. Throughout the thirties his periodic newspaper articles and lectures had warned that Hitler posed a serious threat to England and the rest of the world. But Britain, exhausted from the last war with the Germans, had been in no mood to hear about another. Now the German army was driving across France with the ease of a weekend motor outing. Soon Adolf Hitler would stand atop an empire stretching from the Arctic Circle to the Mediterranean. And Britain, poorly armed and ill prepared, stood alone against him.
Vicary finished the article, set down his pencil, and read it from the beginning. Outside, the sun was setting into a sea of orange over London. The smell of the crocuses and daffodils in the gardens of Gordon Square drifted in his window. The afternoon had turned colder; the flowers were likely to set off a sneezing fit. But the breeze felt wonderful on his face and somehow made the tea taste better. He left the window open and enjoyed it.
The war--it was making him think and act differently. It was making him look more fondly upon his countrymen, whom he usually viewed with something approaching despair. He marveled at how they made jokes while filing into the shelter of the underground and at the way they sang in pubs to hide their fear. It took Vicary some time to recognize his feelings for what they were:
patriotism. During his lifetime of study he had concluded it was the most destructive force on the planet. But now he felt the stirring of patriotism in his own chest and did not feel ashamed. We are good and they are evil. Our nationalism is justified.
Vicary had decided he wanted to contribute. He wanted to do something instead of watching the world through his well-guarded window.
At six o'clock Lillian Walford entered without knocking. She was tall with a shot-putter's legs and round glasses that magnified an unfaltering gaze. She began straightening papers and closing books with the quiet efficiency of a night nurse.
Nominally, Miss Walford was assigned to all the professors in the department. But she believed that God, in his infinite wisdom, entrusted each of us with one soul to look after. And if any poor soul needed looking after, it was Professor Vicary. For ten years she had overseen the details of Vicary's uncomplicated life with military precision. She made certain there was food at his house in Draycott Place in Chelsea. She saw that his shirts were delivered and contained the right amount of starch--not too much or it would irritate the soft skin of his neck. She saw to his bills and lectured him regularly about the state of his poorly managed bank account. She hired new maids with seasonal regularity because his fits of bad temper drove away the old ones. Despite the closeness of their working relationship they never referred to each other by their Christian names. She was Miss Walford and he was Professor Vicary. She preferred to be called a personal assistant and, uncharacteristically, Vicary indulged her.
Miss Walford brushed past Vicary and closed the window, casting him a scolding look. "If you don't mind, Professor Vicary, I'll be going home for the evening."
"Of course, Miss Walford."
He looked up at her. He was a fussy, bookish little man, bald on top except for a few uncontrollable strands of gray hair. His long-suffering half-moon reading glasses rested on the end of his nose. They were smudged with fingerprints because of his habit of taking them on and off whenever he was nervous. He wore a weather-beaten tweed coat and a carelessly selected tie stained with tea. His walk was something of a joke around the university; without his knowledge some of his students had learned to imitate it perfectly. A shattered knee during the last war had left him with a stiff-jointed, mechanized limp--a toy soldier no longer in good working order, Miss Walford thought. His head tended to tilt down so he could see over his reading glasses, and he seemed forever rushing somewhere he'd rather not be.