Tales of the Black Widowers

Davenheim smiled dimly. "My unconscious forcing its way through. I could have sworn 1 had put it out of my mind."
"You weren't aware of it," said Avalon. He turned to the others. "I didn't notice it. Florence did. The second time she said, 'What are you calling me?' and he said, 'What?' She said, 'You keep calling me Farber.' And he looked absolutely thunderstruck."
"Just the same," said Davenheim, "it's not my unconscious that's bothering me. It's his."
"Farber's?" asked Drake, tamping out his cigarette with his stained fingers.
"The other one's," said Davenheim.
Trumbull said, "It's about time for the brandy anyway, Jeff. Do you want to grill our esteemed guest, or ought someone else do so?"
"I don't know that he needs to be grilled," said Avalon.
"Perhaps he'll simply tell us what's occupying his unconscious when his conscious mind is being diverted."
"I don't know that I want to do that," said Davenheim grimly. "It's rather a delicate matter."
"You have my word," said Trumbull, "that everything said here is in strictest confidence. I'm sure Jeff has told you that already. And that includes our esteemed Henry. And, of course, you needn't go into full detail."
"I can't hide behind false names, though, can I?"
"Not if Farber is one of the true ones," said Gonzalo, grinning.
"Well, what the devil," sighed Davenheim. "Actually, it's not much of a story as stories go, and it may be nothing; nothing at all. I may be so damned wrong. But if I'm not wrong it's going to be embarrassing for the army, and expensive for the country. I could almost hope I was wrong, but I've committed myself so far that if I am wrong it may permanently-hamper my career. Yet I'm not so far away from retirement."
For a moment he seemed lost in thought, then he said fiercely, "No, I want to be right. However embarrassing, it's got to be stopped."
"Is it treason you're after?" asked Drake.
"No, not in the narrow sense of the word. I almost wish it were. There can be a colossal dignity about treason. A traitor is sometimes only the other side of the patriot coin. One man's traitor is another man's martyr. I'm not talking about the penny-ante handyman for hire. I'm talking about the man who thinks he is serving a higher cause than his country and wouldn't accept a penny for the risks he undergoes. We understand that quite well when it is the enemy's traitors we are dealing with. The men, for instance, whom Hitler considered-"
"It's not treason, then?" said Trumbull, a bit impatiently.
"No. Just corruption! Stinking, fetid corruption. A gang of men-soldiers, I'm sorry to say, officers, conceivably high officers-intent on bleeding Uncle Sam a bit."
"Why isn't that treason?" snapped Rubin. "It weakens us and spreads decay in the army. Soldiers who think so little of their country as to steal from it are scarcely going to think so much of it as to die for it."
"If it comes to that," said Avalon, "people put their emotions and actions in separate compartments. It's quite possible to steal from Uncle Sam today and die for him tomorrow and be perfectly sincere about it both times. Many a man who routinely cheats the national treasury out of half his proper income tax considers himself a loyal American patriot."
Rubin said, "Leave the income tax out of it. Considering what consumes most of federal spending, you can make a good case for maintaining that the true patriot is he who goes to jail rather than pay his taxes."
Davenheim said, "It's one thing not to pay your taxes out of principle, to admit it, and go to jail for it. It's another thing to duck your share of the fair load for no other reason than to see others carry their own burden and yours to boot. Both actions are equally illegal, but I have some respect for the former. In the case I'm talking about the only motivation is simple greed. It is quite possible that millions of dollars of the taxpayers' money are involved."
"Possible? Is that all?" asked Trumbull, his forehead wrinkling into a washboard.
"That's all. So far. I can't prove it and it's a difficult thing to track down without a damned good scent. If I push too hard and can't back my suspicions all the way, I'll be torn in half. Some big names might be involved- and might not."
"What's Farber got to do with it?" asked Gonzalo…
"So far we have two men, a sergeant and a private. The sergeant is Farber; Robert J. Farber. The other is Orin Klotz. We've got nothing on them really."
"Nothing at all?" asked Avalon.
"Not really. As a result of the action of Farber and Klotz, thousands of dollars of army equipment have evaporated but we cannot show that their actions were illegal. They were covered in every case."
"You mean because higher-ups were involved?" Gonzalo smiled slowly. "Officers? With brains?"
"Unlikely as it seems," said Davenheim dryly. "That may be so. But I have no proof."
"Can't you question the two men you have?" said Gonzalo.
"I have," said Davenheim. "And with Farber I can get nothing. He is that most dangerous of men, the honest tool. I believe he was too stupid to know the significance of what he did, and that if he did know, he wouldn't have done it."
"Confront him with the truth," said Avalon.
"What is the truth?" asked Davenheim. "And I'm not ready to put my guesses on the table. If I tell what I know now, it will be dishonorable discharge for the two, at best, and the rest of the ring will pull in its horns for a breathing space and then start in again. No, I'd like to cover my hand until such time as I can get a lead, some lead 1 can be sufficiently sure of to run the risk I'm going to have to run."
"You mean a lead to someone higher up?" asked Rubin.
"Exactly."
"What about the other fellow?" asked Gonzalo.
Davenheim nodded. "He's the one. He knows. He's the brains of that pair. But I can't break his story. I've been over and over it with him and he's covered."
Halsted said, "If it's only a guess that there's something more to this than those two guys, why do you take it so seriously? Aren't the chances actually very good that you're wrong?"
"To other people it would seem so," said Davenheim. "And there's no way in which I could explain why I know I'm not wrong except by pleading experience. After all, Roger, an experienced mathematician can be quite certain that a particular conjecture is true and yet be unable to prove it by the strict rules of mathematical demonstration. Right?"
"I'm not sure that that's a good analogy," said Halsted.
"It seems a good one to me. I've talked to men who were guilty beyond a doubt and to men who were innocent beyond a doubt and the attitude of each under accusation is different and I can sense that difference. The trouble is that that sense I have is not admissible as evidence. Farber I can dismiss, but Klotz is just a shade too wary, just a shade too unconfused. He plays games with me and enjoys it, too, and that's one thing I can't possibly miss."
"If you insist that you can sense such things," said Halsted, dissatisfied, "there's no arguing about it, is there? You put it outside the rational."
"There's just no mistake in it," said Davenheim, unheeding, as though he were now caught up in the fury of his thoughts to the point where what Halsted said was just an outer sound that didn't impinge. "Klotz smiles just a little bit whenever I'm after him hotly. It's as though I'm a bull and he's a matador, and when I'm beginning to lunge at close quarters, he stands there rigidly with his cape flirting negligently to one side, daring me to gore him. And when I try, he's not there and the cape flips over my head."
"I'm afraid he's got you, Sam," said Avalon, shaking his head. "If you feel as though he's playing you for a fool, you've reached the point where you can't trust your judgment. Let someone else take over."