Rex Stout Read Online Free PDF Page B

it.”
    Cullen never grinned, but the fire, the concentration in his eyes, could relax for humor. “On resigning you give me a recommendation, huh?”
    Kilbourn nodded. “Put it that way. I won’t ask you for any. I’m no good.”
    “You go to bed and go to sleep. Sleep all day tomorrow. We’re finished with this. If you want—”
    “Finished?” The secretary laughed, one sharp high-pitched cackle. “You mean we’ve started it. We’ve helped to start it. I’m sick, I know that. I must be. I’m not naturally soft, I’m as hard as you are. I suppose it’s the hangover from that damned shell-shock, anyway I’m sick and no good. It’s funny, I didn’t realize until tonight what we’ve been doing. I don’t blame you, I don’t blame anybody. Go ahead with your newspapers and your movies and your bribes and your radio, persuading the morons to go get their heads shot off to put your steel mills back on three shifts, what the hell? It’s your game and what’s going to keep you from playing it? I’ve been helping you with it. Only tonight I’ve gone sick on it. The vote is tomorrow, and it’s all done, absolutely, and I’ve just realized it. I don’t mean the horrors of war, I mean it’s just too damned dumb. Maybe I do mean the horrors of war, since I’m sick maybe I don’t know what I mean.”
    He had to stop to swallow, and when he lifted his hand to put it in front of his mouth it was trembling again. He muttered, “Could I have a little more wine?”
    The steel man, pouring it, observed with real gentleness and sympathy struggling through his hoarseness, “Ben, all you need is plenty of sleep. Here, this is all you get or it will keep you awake—”
    A low-toned buzzer sounded from the desk. Kilbourn like an automaton started to rise, but Cullen pushed him back and crossed to the telephones and picked up the white one.
    The pastor put his hand on Kilbourn’s shoulder, and listened with him.
    “… No, this is Cullen.… Voorman? Go ahead.… Good.… Good.… It doesn’t surprise me, what do you think we pay you for?… Tilney couldn’t swing it anyway.…”
    It went on. After ten minutes the steel man hung up, and as he turned back towards the others the fire in his eyes was up to rapture again.
    “God bless our country,” Ben Kilbourn said, and gulped the wine.
    The pastor’s jaws were firmer than ever. “Is it war?”
    Cullen nodded. “Tomorrow.” He glanced at the clock. “Today.”
    The pastor breathed deeply. “We are then in need of God.” He swallowed, and cleared his throat. “Its time for me to make my oration then, Cullen. I’m afraid it won’t be as good as Mr. Kilbourn’s, it hasn’t the background.” His voice, forgetting about resonance, seemed thin.
    Cullen said, “You got an oration, Prewitt? Here’s our milk sitting here, better drink it first.”
    “No, thanks. Or—here, I’ll take it. I can’t very well get into heroics sipping milk. I dropped in this evening to tell you something, I couldn’t make it earlier.” He drank a third of the milk. “You know, of course, that on the past five Sundays I have preached against war. You know I abhor it.”
    Cullen nodded. “That’s your business. Did it affect my Easter check?”
    “No. Some it has. Not yours. You’re a good sport, and a man. So am I. That’s what I came here to tell you. If war is declared tomorrow—today, I know quite well what the expectations of my congregation will be, including yourself. They expect that next Sunday I will find that God has changed his mind. Well, He hasn’t, and neither have I, and I won’t. I am against war for good, and I shall say so.”
    Cullen said, “Huh? We’ll kick you out.”
    “I shall say so.”
    “Maybe. It’s six days till Sunday. Nonsense, Prewitt, you’ll be committing suicide.”
    “Of course. But here’s my real confession: my difficulty is not a spiritual one, it isn’t even emotional, it’s intellectual. Mr. Kilbourn said it: