Friday Fiction: Capitulation

CAPITULATION

 

     Two figures toiled amiably through the marmoreal maze of buildings in the Capitol. They were a study in contrasts. The taller man walked briskly along, his gray houndstooth jacket flapping with each step. The other, scarcely less tall but built of solid fat, seemed shorter in comparison. His white cotton suit hung like a damp shroud while he, as a matter of pride, struggled to match the pace of the other, who every now and then paused in tolerant courtesy to let the older man catch up, only to resume his business-like steps as soon as he did.

     The young man finally came to an uncertain halt at the corner of an obscure, unfrequented street.

     "Now, who's leadin' who?" the old man asked breathlessly as he caught up. "I thought I was the head o' this here expedition." He exhaled extravagantly. "Whoo-wee! I'm pourin' like a miser when they pass the plate on Sunday." Even in the chilly April air, the sweat streamed down his sunburned nose.

     The other man grinned.

     "You can cut the cornpone act, Senator Connover. I happen to know you graduated summa cum laude from William and Mary."

     Connover smiled wryly, like a conjurer who's tricks have been rumbled. He took the panama hat off his dripping pewter hair and gestured at a building over the way. Without words they passed through the lethargic traffic to the ornate edifice. In the middle of the pomps of the Capitol, and despite an air of self-importance, it managed to look anonymous.

     They labored up the steps and stopped in the shadowy portico, Connover collapsing gratefully against one of the massive pillars, fanning himself with his hat. The other stood watching with amused pity.

     "You're getting old, Senator," he said.

     "I'll have you know, sir," Connover wheezed, "That I am in the prime of my decreptitude." When the elderly man had recovered sufficiently, he straightened up in theatrical dignity, and winked.

     "Concerning my mannerisms. Take it from a Senior to a Junior Senator, Mr. Lovett. To get along, a politician must embody both the highest and the lowest of his constituency's ideals. I mean that piece of advice to you kindly, even though we are in opposin' parties."

     "You'll excuse me, therefore, if I take it with a grain of salt," the young man replied wryly. He looked out from under the porch. At this location, the Dome could just barely be seen, hovering over the crowded city.

     "You know," he said, "I can never see a view like this without thinking of Augustus's saying, that he found Rome in mud and left it in marble." He sighed. "For all the facade of our marble ideals, we still deal mostly in mud."

     Connover chuckled.

     "Don't nothin' grow in marble, boy. And for all its splendor, it can be a cold, cold stone." He put his hat back on. "Let's go inside."

     As they headed into the building, Lovett glanced at the square brass plates screwed next to the entrance, naming all the many offices within like a list of ingredients. He frowned, brows knotting over dark brown eyes as they passed by quickly.

     "The name's not even on the door!" he declared, as they walked down the lobby. "What sort of hole-in-the-wall affair is this Department of Extranatural Affairs? Come to think of it," he added suspiciously, "I did notice some of the House smirking when my appointment was announced. What is it anyway, some kind of national parks deal?"

     "Don't let it worry you none, Mr. Lovett," said Connover. He took him by the elbow and started to guide the junior senator gently through the convoluted outskirts of the zig-zagging corridors. "Those who really know the Department don't laugh at it. Why, it's one of the oldest fixtures of the gummint. It was started under Thomas Jefferson himself." He chortled grimly. "Oh, the Bureau is the real peculiar institution, son." They took another unexpected bend in the hallway.

     "But what is it? What does it do?" asked Lovett helplessly. "How is it I'm even eligible for this job, with my other duties? And why are you calling it both a department and a bureau? What's the difference?"

     "The office is a quasi-independent agency, with some of its own by-laws and legal exceptions. Rest easy. It's just pro-tem after all; in six months you can be out of it, if you want. It don't take hardly no time at all, and needn't encroach on your other business. As for the difference between a department and a bureau ... Lord, I been in Washington for twenty-five years now, and I'm sure I don't know."

     They walked silently up and down stairs and a dozen kinking passages, saving their breath for the march. He stopped them in front of a door, half frosted glass that was thick with gold painted letters. "Perhaps you can ask your questions of your late predecessor's charmin' secretary," he panted.

     "Charming?" Lovett unconsciously straightened his angular black tie.

     "Oh, yes," said the corpulent senator playfully. "I know her myself. A boundless helpmate to Mr. Creed. They say he died in her arms."

     The young man stood a little taller, smoothing his wavy black hair.

     "Well, thanks for guiding me over, Senator. I don't know if I'd have found the place if you hadn't shown me." He shot his cuffs. "Let's go in. I'm eager to get started."

     "I bet you are." Connover rapped loudly twice on the glass, then popped it open, and, gently but inexorably, ushered the surprised Lovett over the threshold ahead of him.

     "Senator Tyrone Lovett," he announced impishly, remaining in the hallway. "The new Head of your Department." He shut the door behind Lovett, leaving the off-balance young politician alone in the room. Lovett swiveled instinctively in confused alarm for the stiff doorknob and tried to rattle it open, wondering why the old man had abandoned him.

     There was a prim cough and he turned and looked around, trying to regain his composure, but aware that the chance to make a confident first impression was lost. He stood a little less straight as he began to take in his new domain.

     It could only be described as poky. Though neat, it was crowded almost to the roof with filing cabinets, heavy old wooden filing cabinets with yellowing cardboard labels in metal frames. The few places along the walls that the files didn't reach were taken up by a battered map of the states stuck with pins, some dim paintings, and an ancient pendulum clock ticking heavily in the still air. There wasn't even a window; with the overhead light off and a water cooler blooping in the corner, there was an undersea feel to the room. The only illumination was a green banker's lamp on the cluttered desk before him. Behind the clutter, a looming, tweedy figure was rising like an iceberg into the zone of shadows.

     The lanky man squinted, trying to make her out. Was this the 'charming' secretary Connover had described?

     "Hello," he said. He jerked his head, indicating the absconded politico. "As Senator Connover so briefly stated before he left, I am Tyrone Lovett, and I have been appointed Head of this Department." He stretched out a hesitant hand. "And you are ...?"

     "Edna Yorke," came the clipped answer through the murk. "There is a light switch by the door. We don't keep it on, to save electricity."

     "Oh. Thanks." Lovett groped for a moment, then flipped the switch. There was a snap and he yelped at the slight shock.

     The dim room was resolved out of the shadows, showing itself to be even more depressing, with browning paint flaking off the walls and ancient cobwebs in the high corners. They billowed lightly in the asthmatic breath of a dusty air vent. Equally disappointing to the young senator was the all too plain reveal of the secretary's shadowy figure, which shrank into a compact lady of about fifty, with short curly tea-colored hair and pince-nez glasses on her snubby nose. She was dressed in a three-piece tweed suit of coat, skirt, and vest. She examined him through bulging, thyroidal eyes.

     Lovett squared his shoulders, determined to make the best of things, and once more advanced, hand out.

     "I'm very pleased to meet you, uh ... Mrs. ...?"

     She pursed her lips. "Miss."

     Well that figures, he thought, taking her hand and shaking it. It was surprisingly firm, not the fluttering touch of a spinster.

     "I was going to be wed, long ago, but he died," she added stoicly.

     I'll bet he's just using that as an excuse. Lovett found the old joke leaping into his head.

     "I have remained faithful to his memory ever since."

     "Oh, I'm so sorry, Miss Yorke," he fumbled, ashamed of his thoughts.

     "It was long ago," she said, dismissing the subject. "I suppose you'll want to see your office, and go over a review of the Department."

     "Isn't this my office?"

     "Oh, my, no. Your office is over there." To his dismay she pointed to a small door lurking between the file cases. He had unconsciously dismissed it as a closet. She came out from behind the desk and led him over, reaching into the pocket of her vest and pulling out a ring of keys on a chain.

     "It has remained closed since Mr. Creed's death," she said, jangling the lock open. "After a little tidying, of course." She flipped on the light inside and stepped out of the way to let him enter first, then wedged in after him.

     This room was only half the size of the one outside, and half of it was taken up by an ornate oak desk topped with marble, with a plush red chair pulled up behind, flanked by enormous flags. There were filing cabinets here, too, but only on the left side of the room, along with a card catalogue as tall as Lovett himself. On the right side was a sort of sideboard-cabinet combination, filled with books and inexplicable exhibits under glass bell-jars. Two benches with flat, useless cushions sat on either side of the door. To make room in the crowded space and to claim his territory, the junior senator inched over behind the desk and started to pull the chair out.

     "So this is where old Creed spent the last forty years," he said quietly in respect. Then the thought struck him that he might end up here for as long, and then he wondered if he had been stuck into some kind of deadwater, gotten out of the way. He looked over at the secretary in suspicion.

     "Say, why do you think Connover scuttled off so fast? Why wouldn't he even come in the room?"

     Miss Yorke shrugged.

     "Why does a child with a sweet-tooth fear the dentist? The Senator has some history here." She glowered, a memory flickering across her face. "He knows what he did."

     Lovett eyed the woman speculatively and began to lower himself into the plush chair.

     "Miss Yorke," he said, slowly, feeling his way delicately. "Is it true that Senator Creed ... died in your arms?"

     "Oh, yes indeed. In that very chair, as a matter of fact."

     Lovett's hindquarters, which had just about touched the seat, shot up in the air. He stood looking down at the cushiony upholstery, dismayed.

     "I was trying to revive him; he suffered massive heart failure while eating lunch. Well, the man was in his eighties, after all." She saw his look and sniffed. "There is no need to worry. It has been cleaned since."

     He backed nervously away, bumping into the heavy flagpoles behind him. They rocked on their bases. As he tried to steady the wobbling banners, his attention was drawn to the portraits they had partially hidden.

     On the one side was the official photo of the present Chief Executive, grinning behind his spectacles like a fox that has slipped into the henhouse. On the other was a reproduction of Rembrandt Peale's enigmatic portrait of Thomas Jefferson. But bigger than either, and in the center, was an enormous oil painting of a colonial gentleman, with a lantern jaw and an assessing eye, looking keenly out from the dark canvas right into Lovett's soul.

     "Ah." He chuckled weakly. "Who's this old rascal?"

     Miss Yorke bridled.

     "That 'old rascal,' as you put it, is Mr. Samuel B. Frobisher, the first Head of this Department, and our Founder. A very great man."

     Lovett roused at her school-marm tone. Did she think he was here to be lectured at?

     "Oh, yeah?' he snapped. "Well, I've never heard of him."

     She sighed and looked at him in pity.

     "You are confusing fame with greatness. A common mistake. I am sure the name of the late Mr. Al Capone will live in song and legend long after the name of every senator and philanthropist of the last fifty years is only a dusty engraving on a tarnished plaque."

     She looked up at the portrait as if in apology.

     "Mr. Shakespeare to the contrary, the good that men do does live on long after them, even if unrecognized by the ignorant." She turned to Lovett and added severely, "You are the latest of only three other men who have served the Bureau as Head since 1792. I hope you will honor that legacy."

     Lovett backed down, defeated. He felt like a scolded schoolboy. He almost slumped into the chair, then paused, and lowered himself gingerly onto the red plush. He sighed, ran his hands through his hair, and leaned forward on his elbows. The desktop was hard and chilly.

     "Then I suppose I'd better start learning what that legacy is. What do we do here, anyway?"

     "I've taken the liberty of preparing a concise brief of the Department's history, and our current business," she said. "You'll find it in the top right drawer. There is everything there to bring you up-to-date." She checked her wristwatch as he opened the desk. His eyes boggled at the thick wad of paper, barely contained in its brown folder.      "The Department closes at five, but if you wish I can stay to assist you until six. I will answer any questions you may have when you're done."

     "Fine, fine," Lovett said absent-mindedly, as he opened the folder and began to scan its contents. Before she could leave the room, he looked up. "Say, Miss Yorke, could you bring me some coffee, to help me through this thing?"

     "I am not that kind of secretary," she answered. She seemed offended. "My title in the Department is completely official. There is a sandwich cart that comes by at noon. You may purchase your coffee there." She left, closing the door with a discreet but definite bang.

     Lovett gazed after her in consternation, then shook his head and lowered his attention to the open papers, looking for answers. Over him, Samuel B. Frobisher grinned down with ironic eyes.

 

     If there was one thing his career had taught him, it was how to skim through weighty documents and abstract the sense of them. Still, it was nearly four o'clock before he poked his head into the outer room and beckoned to the waiting secretary.

     "Oh, Miss Yorke," he said. "Will you come in here please?"

     The lady entered, a paper cup and a lump wrapped in napkin paper in her hands.

     "I didn't wish to disturb you at lunchtime, as you seemed rather pre-occupied. But I did purchase that coffee you desired, and an article of food that Sam the Sandwich Man describes as a whole rye salami hoagie, which I hope you will find acceptable. The coffee is rather cold now." She set them on the desk.

     "Never mind that," he said, dismissing them and gesturing to the seat opposite. She sat down attentively, ready for questions. He paused for a while searching her face, then reached out and jabbed repeatedly at the folder in front of him.

     "Miss Yorke, is this some kind of joke?" he asked. "Am I being razzed? Is this some sort of secret initiation stunt for the new senators? Because I cannot believe what I'm reading here!"

     "I can assure you, it is all true, and deadly serious." She seemed affronted by the accusation. "Men have dedicated their lives to this service."

     "Are you trying to tell me that the Department of Extranatural Affairs -- a federal organ funded by the taxpayers of the United States of America -- my new appointment, of which I am in charge -- is in genuine and sober fact devoted to the investigation of -- of -- of spooks and witches and -- and monsters?!"

     "Quite so," she answered shortly. She thought a moment while he seemed to struggle with the idea. "Though I won't say that every case investigated proves to be legitimate," she conceded.

     "Not every case," he repeated hollowly. He gathered his ire. "Tell me, Miss Yorke, how can such an organization go on surviving in the Twentieth Century?"

     "Because it must, Mr. Lovett. There are always efforts to take our funding away, but we have helped enough Members of Congress and powerful patrons that every time the Department comes up for review, its continued existence is assured."

     "Helped them, eh? I can imagine how." He rubbed his fingers together in the universal symbol for dollars. He turned over the document, in search of a particular spot. "Tell me, how far does our ... influence extend?"

     "We have at least one office in every state of the Union," she said promptly. "At present, there are three hundred and sixteen investigators in our direct employ."

     "And in our indirect employ?"

     She shrugged.

     "There are certain government projects over which our agency has some jurisdiction. They are for the present classified, but I can reveal to you that they involve some of the more ... clandestine areas of the sciences. Remote viewing, extra-sensory perception, beings from other planets. At the moment the official line is that these are the obsessions of cranks and fantasists, but unofficialy the government feels they are worth delving into."

     The papers dropped forgotten from his fingers.

     "It's incredible." He reached out reflexively and grabbed the cold coffee, took a swig. He grimaced. "Miss Yorke, we live in the Atomic Age. The time for all these ghosts and ghouls and long-leggity beasties is past. These things that you mention are plain-de-ole hoodoo! Modern science has no room for them."

     "Science." The little woman drew herself up to her full height. "Understand that I completely support science. But there is an element to life apart from the scientific, where spirit calls to spirit, as mind calls to mind. Tell me, Mr. Lovett, are you married? Most senators are. Does she love you?"

     "Well ... yes. But what does that have to do with..."

     "Then take your wife," she said fiercely. "Grind her into microscopic pieces, and have scientists sift her every atom. Then tell me when they find the particular elements where her love resides." She looked at his shocked face and smiled grimly. "To see only with a scientific eye is to be half-blind. Better than not seeing at all, perhaps, mired in the purely physical like a pig in its mud, but still, limited." She turned to go, then stopped and turned back. "Oh, and you owe me twenty-five cents for the sandwich."

     He rose and fished the change sheepishly out of his pocket.

     "Miss Yorke," he said, an effort of appeasement in his voice as he handed over the money. "Miss Yorke, my wife and I are holding a little party tonight to celebrate my appointment. I wonder ... I wonder if you would care to attend?"

     "I'm sorry, I have a prior engagement." A wintery smile played on her lips. "But thank you for the invitation." She left.

 

     Later that night, in their apartment suite, as Lovett struggled to get into his evening clothes, he vented his frustration to his wife, Barbara. She was already sheathed in a shimmering black dress, and looked cool and calm as she sat in front of the vanity putting on the last touches of her make-up.

     "I tell you, Barb, they've landed me in some kind of boondoggle. It just doesn't smell right. And if it goes belly-up some day -- and I don't see how it can't -- guess who'll be left holding the baby? Me, that's who!"

     Barbara looked over her shoulder at her husband's reddening face, and rose, smiling indulgently.

     "Here, let me help." She moved his flustered hands away and smoothly attached his collar button. He calmed down the tiniest bit, but his legs were moving like a nervous racehorse.

     "Do you know there's not even a phone line in the office?" he blurted. "She told me that if we needed to call out, and I quote, 'there's a telephone down the hall by the powder-rooms.' Everything else is still done by pageboy!"

     "Scandalous," his wife smiled. She picked up his white bowtie, pressed down on his shoulders to make him stand still, and began knotting the tie on him with practiced skill.

     "Speaking of phones," she said while she worked, "After you called and told me about your appointment, I got on the grapevine to invite a bunch of Very Important People to our party tonight, and I got quite an earful about the Department and Miss Edna Yorke. It seems that rumors abound."

     "Yorke, Yorke, Yorke," Lovett grumbled. "Her name sounds like a dog barking, the old..."

     "From what I heard, you're lucky to have got out of there without being turned into a frog or something." Barbara stepped back to inspect her handiwork.

     "Oh, come on now," Lovett said, reaching for his jacket.

     "Wait," Barbara said, stopping him. She adjusted the tie a fraction. "What I heard, was that many of the ladies here in Washington have a very great respect and even fear of that woman, and the Department."

     "The horoscope and tea-leaf brigade, I suppose," he scoffed, grabbing the jacket and shrugging into it.

     "Not so many in that way that you'd expect. The highest accolades came from Mrs. Van Horn, and a more solid and sensible old bellwether you will not find."

     "But it can't be serious, all this black magic boogie man nonsense," he scowled. "It's got to be a smoke-screen for something else. And I intend to blow it away before it blows me away."

     "My crusader," she said fondly. She put her arms around his neck. "Listen, Ty, I don't want you rushing into reform fever too fast. After all, this job is a bit of a stepping stone in your career. Maybe you shouldn't rock the boat right away. Give it a few days, scout it out, see whose toes you might be stepping on." She kissed him and smiled. "Then step on 'em good and hard."

     He questioned her with his expression, thought about her words, then conceded with an ill-grace.

     "I suppose so," he said. "For now. I might as well gather some evidence before I strike."  He grinned back at her. "Why are senator's wives always so much wiser than senators?"

     "Oh, I think that's true of wives in general."

     He sighed. "I wanted to be busting gangsters, or Reds, or something, and instead I get ghosts."

     "You never know," his wife said, examining herself in the mirror one final time. "There might be more to it than you think."

     They heard the distant chime of the doorbell.

     "There are the guests," she said. "Smiles, now! This is a triumph." She took his arm and they swept out of the bedroom.

 

     The next Monday morning, briefcase in tow, Lovett came into the shabby little office, not without having had some difficulty finding it again in the bowels of the building. He discovered Miss Yorke already at her desk, busily typing away, heaps of dingy brown papers encumbering her desk on either side, peering back and forth at the work through her pince-nez.

     "Good morning, Miss Yorke," he said briskly, taking off his hat. He eyed the piles. "Anything I should look into, there?"

     "Oh, my, no," she said absently, not looking up from her occupation. "Nothing you need be concerned about. This is an on-going project. I'm transcribing all of the early hand-written files into typescript and organizing them. Nothing new today, so far."

     "That looks like quite a task."

     "I calculate," she said flatly, pausing between punctuated flurries at the keys, "That at the present rate of progress. And working through lunch breaks. I shall be done. Sometime. In the next seventy years." She finished the page, pulled the paper out of the machine, and looked up at Lovett brightly.

     "Good morning, Mr. Lovett. Let's go into your chambers, shall we? There's something I want to show you that might help you to understand the Bureau." She rose and began to lead the way.

     He hurried ahead and opened the door for her, ostensibly polite, but damned if he was going to be led into his own office.

     "Say, why do they call it the Bureau anyway?" he asked as she passed in ahead of him. "I was asking Connover that the other day, but he didn't tell me anything."

     "It's just an old nickname," she said, passing over to the display shelves on the right. "The full term is 'The Bureau of Shadows.' I don't know when it started. A description, I suppose, of how and with what we work." She opened a glass box in the main exhibit and pulled out a silvery object. "Now this is a lovely thing."

     Lovett came to her side and bent his head to examine what she held, cradled with care in her wrinkly hand. It looked like a thick, old-fashioned pocket watch, etched and knurled to within an inch of its life. He could just make out, in the middle of the elaborate swirls, the letters D-E-A.

     He looked up at her.

     "It's a watch."

     "It's a watcher," she corrected him proudly. "One of the only three still in existence." She pushed the knob, popping it open, and raised it higher for him to examine. She looked at him intently, to analyze his reaction.

     "Okay, so it's a compass." He shrugged.

     "Sir, it's a needle of gold and silver alloy, floating on a pool of pure mercury! It is totally non-magnetic. It only responds to spiritual disturbances."

     "Okay, so it's a compass that doesn't work," he said. "Look, it's not moving at all."

     "What?" Her glasses fell off her nose in surprise, and bounced on their ribbon. She lifted the watcher up and peered at it near-sightedly.

     "Now that is odd," she said. She began walking around the little room, moving the device up and down, pointing it at various objects. "Very odd indeed."

     "What's odd?" he asked. Lovett watched the pre-occupied secretary for a moment as she prowled around the room. He was reminded of the movements of a man with a Gieger counter.

     "There is always some response here in the office," she answered, eyes on the watcher for any tremor of movement. "The residue of so much past activity. There was a measurable amount, just last week. But now ..." She looked up, bewildered. "Nothing."

     "I see." Lovett broke the moment brusquely and moved behind the oak desk. He sat down, placing his briefcase on the marble top. "Well, Miss Yorke, if there's nothing else, I'd like to review the financial reports for the last four quarters, please."

     "What? Oh. Oh, yes." She replaced the watcher back carefully on its cushioned display, closing the glass with lingering distraction. She looked at it thoughtfully, then shook herself awake. She turned to him cheerfully.

     "Very good, Mr. Lovett. Those do need attention. I'm afraid Mr. Creed rather let them slip in his twilight years." She headed for the door, and turned. "I'm glad to see you are going to make a go of things. I'll be right back with the reports."

     He watched her leave suspiciously, wary of her sudden helpful change of attitude.

     "I wonder what I'll find in there," he mumbled to himself as he leaned forward and began unpacking the contents of his case.

     He took a break for lunch, picking up his hat and coat and heading out for a nearby restaurant he had noted, having sworn not to try to gnaw through another of Sam the Sandwich Man's creations again. He was more puzzled than ever. He mulled his findings as he lingered over an after-meal cocktail, then returned to the office at one, full of more questions for the sybilline Miss Yorke.  He burst in the door, ready to grill her, and was slapped in the face by a flying wad of paper.

     He looked around in incomprehension. The room was full of an agitated whirlwind of fluttering documents, that even as he watched lost force and drifted to the ground like autumn leaves. The little secretary sat in the center of it all, hands folded, watching it calmly as if it were not an unusual occurrence at all, but still vastly absorbing.

     "What in the world... ? he began.

     "Oh, it must have been a cross-breeze between the vent and you opening the door so fast," she said briskly, clearing an item off the desk. "Never you mind, I'll get them picked up in a jiffy. Did you have a nice lunch?"

     "Yes, thank you," he answered automatically, then shook his head to clear it. He looked up at the feebly ginning airvent and then down at Miss Yorke. He dismissed it and steeled himself to the matter at hand. He reached into his case, plucking out a pink, flimsy form, crawling with figures. He waved it at her.

     "Tell me, ma'am, are these all the expenditures for every agent in the whole of our offices?"

     She pinched the bottom of the paper, drew it near, and examined it briefly over her glasses.

     "Oh, yes," she said, letting it go. "That seems quite right."

     "But there's hardly enough here to finance a chain of beaneries, let alone a government department!" And certainly not enough to be funneling off kickbacks somewhere, he thought. "How can we exist on such a shoe-string? How can we pay so many agents a living wage?"

     "The short answer to that is, we don't. Very few of the people who work for us do so as their primary means of income. Most of our agents consider it as something of a vocation. They do it as a supplementary service to the community, rather than a livelihood." There was a hint of missionary zeal in her voice.

     "Oh, well, well bully for them," Lovett said, the sarcasm edging into his voice. "I don't suppose they'd just consider doing it for charity, and saving the taxpayers all the expense and paperwork?"

     "'Why was this waste made? For it might have been sold for more than three hundred pence, and been given to the poor,'" she quoted. She looked at him disapprovingly. "Don't be silly, Mr. Lovett. Without our organization, how would people find the agents? When people are in desperate trouble, it is the business of their government to aid them. And so we do."

     "Oh, now don't you go casting me as Judas," he said hotly. "I want to help people as much as you do. I just don't see how all this ..." he gestured around the crowded office, covered now with paper like drifted snow "... is doing it! I don't get how this psychic mumbo-jumbo is supposed to work."

     "It is not necessarily our duty to fully fathom all these phenomena," she said. "Although there is a growing body of knowledge in this area. No, it is primarily to help American citizens and protect the country."

     "Look, I'm trying to understand this business logically," he said, scuffling forward through the scattered sheets. He leaned down, his palms on the desk, bending in reasonable appeal to the old lady. "Now these, these watchers now, you say they were loaded with mercury, and that's poisonous, you know. If they walked around with these things leaking in their pockets, it's no wonder those old agents started to see things and have hallucinations. Now doesn't that make sense?"

     "Sir, they were hermetically sealed," she explained, as if wearily answering an objection for the hundredth time. "They are no more dangerous than a thermometer, and one doesn't even put them in one's mouth."

     "Look, I'm from Oregon, Miss Yorke, a very down-to-earth state. We're ordinary, plain, straightforward people. It's all farmers, and foresters, and not much else. Nothing strange there, and I doubt that there ever will be." He leaned further in. "Help me, Miss Yorke. Show me one scrap, one speck of evidence to help me believe this isn't one giant fraud on the public, and give me a reason why I shouldn't try to have it shut down."

     Her mouth sprang open as if an indignant answer was trying to leap out, then she forced it closed. She looked up at Lovett, eyes full of reluctance.

     "I'm afraid that, at the moment, circumstances dictate that I can not," she said regretfully. "For now, I'm going to have to ask you to trust me, and what's more, trust the Department."

     Lovett stood back, blowing out his breath in a long, self-righteous sigh.

     "Very well, Miss Yorke," he said, accepting the situation. "For now. But be advised that, as from this present time, your job and the Department are under my scrutiny and appraisal. And the survival of both hangs in the balance."

     He turned with precision and marched into his office, shutting the door with a satisfied bang. Behind him the old lady began, slowly and thoughtfully, to gather up the wind-swept papers.

     His chance came a lot sooner than he had imagined. Lovett spent the rest of the afternoon looking through the cabinets in his room, trying to comprehend their filing system, and giving up baffled. He examined the objects on the display cabinet, including the totally inert watcher. He tried to read through some of the dim old books on the shelves, but gave up in disgust at the tiny print and old-fashioned rhetoric. At five o'clock he gathered his things and headed out the door, thinking he had wasted the day.

     He was surprised to find a gawky senatorial page standing in the outer office, a red-haired, freckled boy who had grown noticeably out of his short suit. The teen looked up startled at Lovett's entrance, caught in the act of handing a message into Miss Yorke's outstretched hand.

     She paused, glancing at the senator, then accepted the paper.

     "Thank you, Johnny," she said. "You arrived just in time. We were on the verge of shutting up shop for the day. We'll get an agent on this right away."

     "Thank you, Miss Yorke," he honked, voice cracking. He turned and bowed stiffly, raising his cap a bit. "Senator." He lurched off into the halls with a barely concealed air of retreat.

     "Well, what's all this then?" Lovett asked.

     "There is a case on a North Carolina airbase," she pronounced, scanning the message. "I shall put an agent on it at once."

     "An airbase?" He plucked the card from her fingers, catching her off-guard.  "That sounds like a matter of national security."

     She looked at him, annoyed, as she slid open a drawer and pulled out a thick, black, hand-lettered directory.

     "You need not concern yourself," she said dismissively, starting to search through the names, peering at them through her glasses. "You may go home. I shall put our closest man on the job, and it will be well-taken care of."

     Sudden inspiration struck.

     "You bet it will," he said, "Because I'm going myself."

     She looked up at him, appalled.

     "What?"

     "You heard me. You want me to understand the business, well, there's nothing like a little field-trip to get a first-hand look at things."

     "But sir, the delay! And you have no training, no experience. As you say, this could be a matter of national security. It requires a certain level of expertise!"

     "What better way to acquire it than to learn by doing? And I did fly a plane during the war, so I'm not a total rube. I can take an evening train and be there by tomorrow."

     Miss Yorke took off her pince-nez with one hand and tapped it worriedly on the other.

     "I suppose I don't really have the power to stop you," she said. He grinned. She settled the glasses firmly on her nose. "But I think I must insist, in this instance, that I accompany you. There should be an experienced docent along, to keep you from taking any ... unfortunate mis-steps."

     "All right. We'll go on a little fact-finding tour, and I'll see just how this place operates."

     "Please remember that there are facts and there are facts, and then there are interpretations of those facts. In the Middle Ages, some thought that toothache was caused by little devils, pulling at the roots."

     "Isn't that the sort of thing you believe in?"

     She shook her head.

     "No. No-one does, anymore. But the pain was real. We must examine this seriously, Mr. Lovett."

     Lovett put his hat on.

     "Pack your bags and meet me at Union Station at eight," he said light-heartedly. "We're taking this show on the road."

 

     Ten o'clock found them ensconced in the last two seats of a rumbling, half-empty passenger car. If Lovett had hoped to shake Miss Yorke with the abrupt nature of this mission, he had failed. It was she who had set their schedule, bought their tickets, and met him, already waiting with her packed bags, in the depot at the station. Now, after an hour and a half of scribbling and checking through some heavy volumes she had hauled out of her valise, she was ready to report her preliminary conclusions to her yawning superior.

     "Well, Senator, after a cursory analysis using the limited information I was able to gather in the short time allotted," she began accusingly. "I think we must conclude that this is not a haunting as at first feared, but something a bit more complicated, and even more dangerous."

     "O-o-o-o-o," he said sleepily. "Creepy. So what is it, do you think? I could use a good bed-time story before I hit the hay."

     "I do wish you would take this more seriously," she said. She hesitated, then went on defiantly. "Very well, I think it's ... gremlins."

     "Gremlins?" Lovett roused himself grumpily. The image of a crude, brightly colored cartoon short he had once seen flashed through his memory. "Gremlins? Oh, come on, Miss Yorke, that's kid stuff! They used to tell us that guff in the Air Force to scare us into double-checking our equipment!"

     "It was an RAF pilot who dubbed them gremlins; he thinks that in inventing the word he has invented the thing. But the concept of such creatures comes down through the ages," she said pedantically. "The kobolds in German mines, the brownies in Scottish kitchens. Unseen creatures, guardians and caretakers of contained areas of human endeavor. And yes, special attention to detail was one way of warding off their attacks, attacks which could be quite murderous, let me tell you. It is no great leap to imagine that they took to the air when we humans moved our operations there."

     "Bah," Lovett said crankily. Even his outrage could barely keep him awake.

     "I only wish I had realized it sooner," she muttered, half to herself. "When we arrive, I'll have to ring the local agent for a special item. I only hope it gets there in time." She cheered up. "Oh, well, maybe this will turn out to be another dud." She looked at Lovett. His eyes were rolling. She spoke louder, to cut through his haze.

     "In the meantime, chief, we'd better get some sleep. It could be a long day tomorrow."

     He snorted awake and tried to focus on her.

     "Oh, oh yeah. G'night, Miss Yorke."

     He got up and stumbled off in the direction of the Pullman car. The stocky little woman took ten minutes to make a couple of notes and gather her books back into her bag, then left for a few hours uneasy rest.

 

     The next morning saw them checked into a cheap hotel and full of a greasy breakfast of hard eggs and soggy toast, walking through the cold dewy air of an Air Force field, the gray Commandant treading heavily beside them.

     "Never thought I'd have a senator coming down personally to investigate," he said grimly, looking at them sideways. "The man I talked to about it said the visit would be very discreet."

     "Oh, I'm not here in a senatorial capacity," Lovett assured him. "Just think of me as another agent in the Department. Of course, I'm the top agent." He laughed, trying to set the other man at ease. The Commandant kept looking at him silently, then turned away, never breaking his stride. Lovett cleared his throat.

     "You know, I flew a plane in the war..." he began.

     "Here we are," the old man interrupted. They stood in the shadow of a battered hulk of a plane. "This here is Silver Sylvie. She's one of the birds we use for solo training missions. Captain Matthews will be taking you up today; this phenomenon, whatever it is, only happens up in the air, and it seems to lo-o-ove Captain Matthews."

     "Good pilot?" Lovett asked.

     "Lowest in his class. But we'll make him an ace yet." He turned to Miss Yorke, whom he had hitherto completely ignored. "Are you going up too, Ma'am?"

     "Oh, yes," she said firmly. "I'm the Senator's secretary, you see. Wherever he goes, I go. In an official capacity, you understand."

     "Of course." He dismissed her from his thoughts again, pivoting back to Lovett. "Matthews is already on board, doing his pre-flight check. Load up, buckle in, and I'll be awaiting your report when you return." He saluted, swiveled, and was walking away before Lovett could even get his hand half-up to salute back.

     The junior senator looked at his amused secretary.

     "Well, let's get on," he said, gesturing up the loading ramp. "Ladies first."

     They struggled up, but before they actually entered the plane, Miss Yorke paused, hands on the hull. Lovett watched as she closed her eyes and her lips silently moved in some kind of incantation. He stood behind her in frustration.

     "Casting a spell?" he asked drolly.

     "I was praying," she answered. "I don't enjoy flying, and I like to be ready whenever I think I might be facing death. Don't you?" She went inside.

     Captain Matthews appeared to be disturbingly rough and raw to a man of Lovett's more seasoned years, and he treated his passengers was a mixture of awe for the senator's position and a care that have been more appropriate for a pair of grandparents. When he tried to seat them right up front behind him, Miss Yorke had insisted that they sit as far back as possible.

     "Gosh, don't you want to see what's goin' on?"

     "We can see fine right here," she said, as they settled down and buckled in. "We don't want to interfere or get in your way."

     "Well, okay, I guess. Do you want me to stow your bag?"

     Her knuckles whitened on the straps of her purse.

     "No, I think I'd rather hang on to it."

     "Well, all right, then. I guess I'd better start her up. I gotta warn you folks, if that thing begins messin' around again, it can get pretty rough. I'd stay strapped in until I can bring her back again."

     "Just do your best, son," said Lovett. "And do a double back-up check, okay?"

     "Yes, sir," he said nervously, and headed up to the cockpit.

     Lovett settled back and looked out the window at the base. On some level he missed all the activity, the feel of the plane, and he actually envied Matthews. On another level he wouldn't go back to his war days for anything. He nearly fell asleep daydreaming out the window. Only a jolt from the engine brought him out of his reverie. He realized they had left the ground.

     "Miss Yorke..." he began, then realize that she was sitting with her eyes screwed shut, her hands in a deathgrip on her purse, looking gray and a hundred years old. He reached out and patted her knotted claws gently. "Miss Yorke, we've left the ground."

     Her eyes shot open. She gave him a sickly smile.

     "I told you, I cannot abide flying."

     "Well, you can't observe anything if you don't open your eyes. Why did you even come up with me if you hate planes so much?"

     "Why, it's my duty, sir," she said shakily. "I can't abandon you to face a possible danger alone." She made a visible, physical effort to fight down her panic. "It's my duty."

     For the first time, Lovett actually felt some real respect for her, tinged with pity. If she could face so much terror for the Department's sake, she must truly believe this stuff was real. He didn't know if that was inspirational or just sad.

     "Relax, Miss Yorke," he said comfortingly. "Even a dunderhead like me can fly a plane."

     "Yes, sir," she said. "That's just what I'm afraid of."

     They flew straight ahead for about half an hour. At first Lovett was tense, waiting for something to happen, then bored, then angry at himself for even thinking anything might have happened. Once or twice he tried to get up to go talk to the pilot, only to be stopped and pulled back into his seat by the iron pinch of Miss Yorke's bony hands. It seemed as if she didn't want to be left alone. Her eyes were riveted straight ahead, never leaving the young aviator or daring to look out the window.

     At last Captain Matthews made the circling sign that he was going to turn the plane around.

     What a waste of time, Lovett thought sourly, and then everything went south.

     Matthews, who had pulled out a map and was reaching for an instrument on the panel at the same time, slipped. The map went tumbling around the cockpit like a mad thing. The pilot reached out and chased it with one hand, thoughtlessly, reflexively. It went tumbling up, and left, and right, his hand following, until it plunged to the floor. Matthews bent down triumphantly, ready to nab the chart, and brought his head smashing against the wheel. He slumped forward like a wet noodle, out cold.

     Immediately the plane pitched downward, the pilot's weight on the wheel sending it into a slow but inexorable descent. Everything and anything loose started tumbling towards the cockpit, where it bounced wildly up and down like corn in a popper with the shaking strain of the engines. Lovett sat transfixed in shock at the horribly swift calamity.

     He felt something battering at him from a million miles away. He turned and saw Miss Yorke flailing at his unresponsive arm. She seemed to be shouting something, but at first he couldn't hear her. Then the words snapped into focus in his brain.

     "Help him, help him!" she was yelling. "For God's sake, go up and help him!"

     Then he was back, and time was moving again. The plane roared in pain around him. He pulled off his safety belt, and, fighting inertia, managed to stand. Holding on to the seats in front of him, he started to fight step by step towards the cockpit.

     Once or twice he nearly slipped, and he could feel the sickening sensation of the fall trying to send him flying backwards. That made him hold more tightly, and struggle forward with more desperation. He knew he had a handful of seconds to respond. He looked up, gauging how much further he had to go, and his guts dropped at an appalling sight.

     There was a figure sitting on the back of the fallen pilot, weighing him down, anchoring him to the wheel at a precise angle, a definite core at the center of a whirling cloud that filled the cockpit. With each torturous step Lovett took, he made it out, growing clearer, until he could finally see it plain enough, and he stopped, petrified.

     A potbellied, wizened, ape-like figure squatted there. Whether it had a dozen arms or just two moving very fast so that they blurred around it, the thing was juggling all the loose objects in a frenzy of contemptuous glee. Its squinting eyes looked up, and it seemed to recognize that Lovett could see it. Its grin broadened, splitting its face to show flat broken teeth. Its taloned feet flexed hungrily into Matthew's back, and the boy groaned.

     Lovett almost gave up then and there, his body unable to move, frozen in that malicious stare. Then he heard Miss Yorke's voice.

     "Help him! Help him!" she screeched against the rushing boom. "Damn it man, it's our duty!"

     There was sudden iron in his bones. Duty. Yes. Beyond all safety, beyond even survival. He had sworn oaths, during the war, on the floor of Congress, to serve. Even if he would die in the next minute, he could make them mean something. He took a grim step forward. He grabbed the next seat and took another. And then another.

     With each step the thing's expression grew more evil, more delighted. It licked its lips with an eager, worm-like tongue. At last Lovett had forced himself forward and stood by the last seat before the cockpit door. He grabbed the hanging strap by the portal. The creature reached out two long hairy arms to seize him, and, convulsively, Lovett let go the strap and leaned in, grabbing the extended claws by the wrists.

     In a twinkling, the creature vanished. The last thing that Lovett saw of it was a look of astonishment on its dissipating face.

     Then he was alone with the knocked-out pilot, looking out of the window of the plunging plane at the earth growing nearer every second.

     He pulled Matthews back out of the way and snatched the wheel. Holding the slumping body back with his elbows he began pulling the vehicle gently, steadily out of its fall. In a few moments it had leveled off and the plane was cruising along. He started to try to gain a little altitude.

     "Oh, well done, Mr. Lovett, well done!" The little secretary came squeezing into the pit behind him.

     "Thank you, Miss Yorke, but I don't know quite what I did," he said. He didn't take his eyes off the instruments or the sky ahead of him. "Could you please move Captain Matthews so I can sit down and fly this thing?"

     "Oh, absolutely, sir," she said, undoing the flight buckles. The pilot slumped into her arms. "Are you sure you can manage it?"

     "It's all coming back to me," he said evenly. "Still, you could try to revive the Captain while I radio the base." He risked a look up as the lady grappled with the pilot's dead-weight and started to wrench him out of the cabin. "You know, you don't look half so scared of flying anymore."

     She smiled wanly.

     "After what we just experienced, this seems like a dally through the daisies."

     She tugged the man out of the room, and Lovett clicked himself into the pilot seat.

 

     Between Lovett's experience, instructions from the base, and the woozy help of Matthews, they were able to make a bumpy but serviceable landing. A half hour later they were seated on a bench outside the air force base infirmary, huddled under scratchy green blankets with hot drinks in their hands. Lovett had coffee; Miss Yorke, against all odds, had got them to bring her some tea. To his surprise, she brought a slim flask from her purse and poured a measure of its contents into each of their cups. He took an experimental sip.

     "Brandy?" he asked, in pleased amazement.

     "I thought we could use it, after all that."

     "Miss Yorke, you're an okay fella." They clinked cups and drank in silence for a moment.

     "So," he finally said. "So. All that Bureau of Shadows stuff. That's all real."

     "Oh, I wouldn't say it's all real," she said. "We have our share of duds and wash-outs and flim-flams." She pushed back a damp curl, that had come unwound in their adventure.

     "But all that stuff -- ghosts and monsters and witches -- all that other stuff is ... is real?"

     "Well, yes, that's what I've been telling you." She smiled. "If you ask around, you'll find that most people have one or two inexplicable incidences in their lives. But most can be shrugged off and forgotten. Others, well, can't, and that's where we come in."

     "Then how come I've never ... "

     She perked up.

     "As to that, I have a theory, that I think I can now prove. You see ... " she began excitedly, pedantically, but was interrupted at that moment.

     "Package for a Miss Edna Yorke." An impassive soldier held out a small brown bag, tied with string.

     "Oh, yes, thank you," she said, and started to unwrap it as he walked away.

     "Good old Chester Watley, late as usual," she said merrily. "If we had this, maybe we wouldn't have had to go through that ordeal. But then you might not have come to believe, either." She undid the string and rustled through the contents inside.

     "What is it? Gremlin repellent?"

     "In a sense. It has the same effect." She unwrapped the last layers of tissue and held up a small furry lump. "There! What do you think of that?"

     He looked at it in unbelief.

     "A rabbit's foot?"

     "No, not precisely. It's a hare's foot," she expounded. "There is a difference, you know. And it must have the first joint of the leg, not only the paw."

     "And this would have stopped that THING?"

     "Why do you think they're considered lucky? I don't understand it either, but you can't argue with proven results. I shall see the Commandant supplies every pilot and trainee with one; that should clear up the problem.  Which brings me back to my theory." She settled back and took a sip of her fortified tea.

     "I had the first inkling of an idea when the watcher went dead. I couldn't understand it, but it jogged a memory in my head. I looked up an old case that morning, and by lunchtime I had brought up a very active relic from the Archives in the basement."

     "Wait a minute, you mean there's more to the Department then those two squinchy little rooms?"

     "Oh, yes, quite a bit. But it's all rather crowded together down there. Anyway, you witnessed the aftermath of that: a tornado of psychic disturbance, that fell to nothing the moment you walked into the room." She paused for another sip.

     "Still, I wasn't totally convinced. Perhaps the relic had simply expended its force at a coincidental time. After all, it was quite ancient and might well have been exhausted from its sudden manifestation."

     Lovett looked at her, not comprehending where all this was leading.

     "When this case turned up, I hesitated, but you were so eager to go. Then I realized that this was the perfect opportunity to test my theory. That's why I had us sit in the back of the plane, you see. So the 'gremlin' wouldn't be affected."

     "By what? You didn't have this doohicky yet."

     "Why, by you, of course. You are, in effect, a living hare's foot. I believe, and I think it's been demonstrated, that you generate a dampening field that nullifies most psychic activity," she concluded happily. "I'm not so sure why you could see it, or why it took actually touching it for the field to take hold. Maybe it was the changing atmospheric pressure. I'll have to make a note about it."

     She reached out and shook his unresponsive hand. "Congratulations, Mr. Lovett. There was only one other agent in the history of the Department with this talent, and I believe it indicates a unique calling for the vocation."

     "A unique calling," he echoed. He looked down at his hand. He looked up and stared into the distance. He sipped his coffee. He sat silently for a while. Then his expression changed, as if he saw something way off on the horizon.

     "You know, Miss Yorke," he said decisively. "I've come to realize the Department does serve a useful purpose, after all. And I think what we need, and what we should get, is our own building, and some more funding, and at least one telephone line of our very own." He turned to her.

     "And we'll get two secretaries for you, the ordinary kind, to help you with the files. We're going to bring everything up to date. Hell, we might even make some new watchers if we can figure out how they're put together." He grinned fiercely, happily. "I found the Department in mud and I'm going to leave it in marble."

     "The construction of a watcher is really quite simple," she began, then the impact of his words struck her. "Oh but Mr. Lovett! Where can we get the money? We barely limp along as it is."

     "I'm not sure, but I will. Somehow." He took a deep draft of his cup. The brandy ran like fire in his veins. "Tell me, Miss Yorke, what have we got on old Connover, anyway?"

     "Sir!" she said, shocked at the implication. "The details are strictly confidential." She looked coy. "But I can reveal that it happened nine times, and each time it was his own fault. 'The burnt Fool's bandaged finger goes wabbling back to the Fire.' That's Kipling. Three years ago, we told him that if it happened a tenth time, we absolutely wouldn't help him again, and since then he's been good as gold." She took another sip of her tea. The cup knocked the pince-nez crooked on her nose.

     "Of course, it's all there in the files. As Director, you have complete access, if you care to go looking. But I defy you to figure out the system. You'd have to read a thousand cases to find it, ten thousand. And by the time you had, you wouldn't care much about his little foibles."

     Her curl slipped down again as she raised her cup in tipsy salute.

     "You'd be scared shitless!" she giggled.

Notes

Many of the photos I have chosen to illustrate this story are of actors that helped me 'cast' the tale. Tyrone Power would have made a perfect Senator Lovett, and Charles Laughton (from, say, Advise and Consent, where he plays just such a southern Senator) would be very good as Connover. And after Charles Laughton, surely Elsa Lanchester must follow. Although I have chosen a photo of Dorothy L. Sayers to illustrate her, there are definitely elements of Lanchester in Edna Yorke, from the secretary Miss Keith in The Razor's Edge (also with Tyrone Power) to Jessica Marbles in Murder by Death. That is a photo of Power with his actual wife. I already had the basic characters for my people in mind, but these actors certainly helped me flesh out their presence. Indeed, I can almost see this short story as a movie from the late 40's - early 50's.

As I say, all 'illustrations' are merely approximations, and that goes for the 'gremlin', which has more spidery elements to it than the creature I tried to describe. The portrait of 'Frobisher' is a period painting of an unknown gentleman of the era.

And my brother John appears as 'Johnny' the pageboy in his teenage incarnation.