Passenger to Frankfurt - Agatha Christie [85]
‘No, I’m–’
‘You’re just an agent, I suppose. I hope you’re on the right side. We still have to hope for miracles these days, but I don’t think you’ll get anything out of Project Benvo.’
‘Why not? You said he worked on it. It would have been a very great invention, wouldn’t it? Or discovery, or whatever you call these things?’
‘Yes, it would have been one of the greatest discoveries of the age. I don’t know just what went wrong. It’s happened before now. A thing goes along all right but in the last stages somehow, it doesn’t click. Breaks down. Doesn’t do what’s expected of it and you give up in despair. Or else you do what Shoreham did.’
‘What was that?’
‘He destroyed it. Every damn bit of it. He told me so himself. Burnt all the formulas, all the papers concerning it, all the data. Three weeks later he had his stroke. I’m sorry. You see, I can’t help you. I never knew any details about it, nothing but its main idea. I don’t even remember that now, except for one thing. Benvo stood for Benevolence.’
Chapter 22
Juanita
Lord Altamount was dictating.
The voice that had once been ringing and dominant was now reduced to a gentleness that had still an unexpectedly special appeal. It seemed to come gently out of the shadows of the past, but to be emotionally moving in a way that a more dominant tone would not have been.
James Kleek was taking down the words as they came, pausing every now and then when a moment of hesitation came, allowing for it and waiting gently himself.
‘Idealism,’ said Lord Altamount, ‘can arise and indeed usually does so when moved by a natural antagonism to injustice. That is a natural revulsion from crass materialism. The natural idealism of youth is fed more and more by a desire to destroy those two phases of modern life, injustice and crass materialism. That desire to destroy what is evil, sometimes leads to a love of destruction for its own sake. It can lead to a pleasure in violence and in the infliction of pain. All this can be fostered and strengthened from outside by those who are gifted by a natural power of leadership. This original idealism arises in a non-adult stage. It should and could lead on to a desire for a new world. It should lead also towards a love of all human beings, and of goodwill towards them. But those who have once learnt to love violence for its own sake will never become adult. They will be fixed in their own retarded development and will so remain for their lifetime.’
The buzzer went. Lord Altamount gestured and James Kleek lifted it up and listened.
‘Mr Robinson is here.’
‘Ah yes. Bring him in. We can go on with this later.’
James Kleek rose, laying aside his notebook and pencil.
Mr Robinson came in. James Kleek set a chair for him, one sufficiently widely proportioned to receive his form without discomfort. Mr Robinson smiled his thanks and arranged himself by Lord Altamount’s side.
‘Well,’ said Lord Altamount. ‘Got anything new for us? Diagrams? Circles? Bubbles?’
He seemed faintly amused.
‘Not exactly,’ said Mr Robinson imperturbably, ‘it’s more like plotting the course of a river–’
‘River?’ said Lord Altamount. ‘What sort of a river?’
‘A river of money,’ said Mr Robinson, in the slightly apologetic voice he was wont to use when referring to his speciality. ‘It’s really just like a river, money is–coming from somewhere and definitely going to somewhere. Really very interesting–that is, if you are interested in these things–It tells its own story, you see–’
James Kleek looked as though he didn’t see, but Altamount said, ‘I understand. Go on.’
‘It’s flowing from Scandinavia–from Bavaria–from the USA–from South-east Asia–fed by lesser tributaries on the way–’
‘And going–where?’
‘Mainly to South America–meeting the demands of the now securely established Headquarters of Militant Youth–’
‘And representing four of the five interwined Circles you showed us–Armaments, Drugs, Scientific and Chemical Warfare Missiles as well as Finance?’
‘Yes–we think we know now fairly accurately