Eleven

A sense of elation still lingered as Luke awoke the following morning. The blazing kiss he’d shared with Marianne was probably enough to keep him fueled for weeks, and he set off for the office the moment he finished breakfast.

He hadn’t gotten two steps out the front door when he noticed a cluster of onlookers gathered outside the boardinghouse.

“Are you one of the volunteers?” a young man in a postal uniform asked. He looked barely old enough to shave and had a hopeful, eager expression.

“I am,” Luke acknowledged.

The young man thrust a section of the newspaper toward him. “Will you sign the photograph? I already got the autographs of the two brothers and a little Italian guy. I want to get all twelve autographs.”

Luke glanced at the newspaper folded to the article about the Poison Squad. He took the pencil and signed his name beside his picture, and then two more people rose off a nearby bench to approach him. One lady also wanted his autograph on her newspaper, while a man with a thick mustache had a Brownie camera and wanted to take his picture.

Princeton and St. Louis must have heard the commotion, because they were soon on the landing too, signing autographs and posing for pictures.

“What’s it like?” the postal worker asked. “Are you sick all the time? Or only when you eat?”

“Say, can I sign up?” the mustached man asked. “I think it sounds like a cracking-good adventure.”

A man with a notebook pushed through the crowd. “Brian Musgrove from the New York Times,” he introduced himself. “Can we arrange an interview?”

Luke glanced around the crowd of people in amazement. This sort of publicity hadn’t been his intention when he spoke with Dickie. The story was supposed to influence legislation, not make celebrities of the volunteers, but it looked like that was happening. Princeton smiled broadly as he posed for a picture before the front door of the boardinghouse, and St. Louis was setting up a meeting with the journalist for an interview.

Luke shrugged and slipped away. It couldn’t do any harm, and if it drew the public’s attention to adulterated food, so much the better. He saw no need to linger and indulge the public’s curiosity. He was due to meet Dickie this morning to make headway on getting those five men knocked out of Congress.

He walked faster, but it made his knees and ankles hurt. All his joints hurt these days, but he wouldn’t let it slow him down. Clyde Magruder was cementing his power in Washington by the day, and Luke couldn’t afford the luxury of waiting until the illness passed before beginning his campaign to undermine Clyde’s reelection.

His office building was old, but it had excellent gas heating, and the warmth felt good on his achy joints as he stepped inside and climbed the three flights to his top-floor office.

Something was wrong. The door was ajar, and he was certain he had locked it last night. He approached cautiously. Could the janitor have forgotten to close the door?

He pushed the door open and gasped.

The bookshelves had been tipped over and the binders strewn across the floor. His desk had been overturned and every drawer from the file cabinet pulled out and its contents dumped. Scattered papers littered the floor, and it looked like someone had taken a hammer to the typewriter. The cover plate had been pried off and the keys bashed to pieces.

He laid his hand over the mangled keyboard and closed his eyes against the pain blooming in his chest. This hurt more than anything else. Over the years he had typed a lot of good work on this trusty old typewriter. Seeing it abused like this hurt. It was silly to get sentimental over a piece of metal, but this typewriter was almost like a partner. It had been with him from the beginning of his career and whenever he poured out his heart onto a piece of paper.

The Don Quixote manuscript!

Dread filled him as he darted to his overturned desk and tugged on the bottom drawer. He almost fainted with relief when the steel lock held, meaning they hadn’t gotten to his manuscript. It looked like they tried to smash the lock but failed, so his only copy of the translation was safe.

He glanced up at the bulletin board, still anchored to the wall. His list of five men was missing. Little surprise. Clyde Magruder was surely behind this.

Luke’s shoulders ached as he peeled off his overcoat and hung it on the hook beside the door. It didn’t take long to get the bookshelves upright and stack the manuals in order, but he wouldn’t be able to get the desk up without help. He began putting his files back together, but it was going to take hours to restore this place to order.

“It looks like a tornado came through here.” Dickie Shuster stood in the open doorway, staring at the mess in appalled wonder. “Who did it?”

“Who do you think?”

“I think there’s still no love lost between the Delacroixs and the Magruders.”

Luke stacked another batch of files together. He didn’t want Dickie’s roving eye looking at the various projects he had in progress, but he wanted to get down to business immediately.

“What have you learned about the five congressmen?” he asked.

Dickie tossed a small packet of pages onto the table. “That’s all I’ve got and all you’re going to get. My editor has pulled the plug on any future stories about the Poison Squad.”

Luke looked up in surprise. “Why? It’s generating a huge amount of publicity. People were lined up outside the boardinghouse for more autographs only this morning.”

“It also generated threat of a lawsuit from the Food and Spice Association. They claim there’s no proof the chemicals are unsafe, and by branding the experiment as the Poison Squad, you are slandering the entire packaged food industry. They want a moratorium on any future articles until the results of the study are in.”

“That will take years.”

Dickie shrugged. “Then it takes years. I’m not going to risk my job over this, and the Post won’t publish anything more for fear of a lawsuit.”

“I don’t like private organizations dictating what journalists are allowed to print.” Nevertheless, he began skimming the pages Dickie had brought him. One was a newspaper article suggesting financial irregularities regarding Congressman Roper. Another was news of a promising young challenger in Congressman Westheimer’s district.

It was the last item that was the most confusing. It was an old handbill from a traveling opera company. Luke looked at Dickie in confusion, but it must mean something, for Dickie had the scheming, delighted look of a man sitting on a big secret.

“That opera featured Miss Roxanne Armond. She was briefly Clyde Magruder’s mistress.”

Luke quirked a brow, but the date on the handbill was more than twenty years old, and although it could be damaging, it wasn’t likely to knock him out of Congress. “Yesterday’s news,” he said dismissively.

“Not really,” Dickie said smugly. “Miss Armond bore Mr. Magruder a child twenty-six years ago. And that illegitimate child still lives with him to this day, having been successfully passed off as Vera Magruder’s only daughter.”

Luke’s mind reeled. This sort of gossip would be a broadside that could tarnish Clyde forever. “Does she know?”

“Who?”

“The illegitimate child.” He didn’t like referring to Marianne like that, but he couldn’t let Dickie know of his friendship with her. It was too dangerous. Dickie was the sort who could use it as ammunition against him someday.

“I have no idea. All I know is that I have more than delivered on the deal we struck.” He stood and took another glance around his catastrophe of an office. “Such a shame about the mess. Clyde certainly has a flair for drama.”

Luke sighed as Dickie left, and then got back to work repairing the space. He could speak with the landlord about putting an additional lock on the door, but there wasn’t much to stop Clyde from launching more attacks against him.

His day got worse with the delivery of the afternoon mail. There was only a single large envelope with no return address. He opened it with curiosity, and his heart began to pound as he pulled out a photograph of himself holding that dog only moments after getting out of the ice.

There was a note from Marianne.

Luke,

You won’t be hearing from me again, as things have gotten difficult at home. I will forever treasure the time we had together and wish you only the best.

Marianne

The note was more than just a blow, it flat-out clobbered him. He studied the photograph. His hair was sopping wet and his skin was still damp, but his face was alive with exuberance. His happiness at that moment wasn’t from saving a dog, it was because he’d been gazing at Marianne, a woman he was already half in love with when she snapped this picture of him.

Worry penetrated his fog of disappointment. Clyde had obviously discovered their clandestine meetings, and this explained the ransacking of his office. It probably hadn’t been any easier on Marianne.

“Oh, Marianne,” he whispered into the quiet of the office. She had made her choice, and Clyde Magruder had won. Luke would honor her request to keep his distance, but this hurt.

His head sagged. He’d lived through worse. He could probably put this behind him someday.

Probably.

He prayed Marianne could repair whatever damage she was facing with her father, or else she was destined to follow in her Aunt Stella’s footsteps, and that would wound her forever.

Luke was still dispirited when he sat down to dinner. The plate before him contained baked chicken, au gratin potatoes, and green beans. It smelled good, but he wished he could throw the potatoes out the window, because that was surely the only logical place to infuse a tablespoon of chemicals.

“Bon appétit,” Nurse Hollister said with good cheer as she delivered their meals, but Dr. Wiley looked darkly ominous as he followed her into the dining room.

“I’ve heard there have been a number of visitors prowling around the house, asking for information and even autographs,” he said. “I want it understood that this sort of publicity is not welcome, and I want it stopped immediately.”

“We can’t help it,” Nicolo said. “They love us.”

“It is going to stop immediately,” Dr. Wiley said. “None of you joined this assignment for the glory. It is a controlled experiment for the good of science. The editor of the newspaper in question has agreed he won’t publish any additional reports until the study is concluded. I want this to be the last time I have to issue this warning.”

There was plenty of grumbling, but even though no one actually agreed to anything, Dr. Wiley must have assumed he’d made his point, as he retreated behind the swinging door leading to the kitchen.

“It seems wrong to deny my adoring public access to my autograph,” St. Louis said.

“Your adoring public is nothing compared to mine,” Nicolo said in his florid Italian accent. “Half of the female clerks at the Census Bureau wanted my autograph. They all marveled at my bravery. I got cramps in my hand signing all those newspapers.”

Luke felt too ill to participate in the conversation as he cut into his chicken. Besides, the less attention he drew to himself, the better, because he wasn’t going to let press attention fade away.

Clyde Magruder might have frightened off the editor of The Washington Post, but from now on Modern Century would be getting exclusive stories with all the details. His editor had never been afraid of a lawsuit, and Luke would keep publishing those articles for as long as he was a part of this study. He’d never told Dr. Wiley the name of the journal he worked for, which meant he could get away with publishing his articles anonymously.

Before the ransacking of his office, Luke had been motivated by science. Now he was motivated by the need to take Clyde Magruder down.