Read Online The Winston Affair by Howard Fast - Free Book Online

late, but I get it. Whitehall and Washington have both washed their hands of Winston. He’ll be hanged as a symbol of unity.”
    â€œAnd then all will be well, Major?”
    â€œAll is never well.”
    â€œNo, I suppose not. Why are you so certain that Winston is insane? Because he murdered Quinn? Couldn’t he have had more good and sane reasons to murder Quinn than you and I would have to shoot down a Jap if he should walk out into that clearing?”
    â€œThat’s an old philosophical approach, Adams—old and well-worn.”
    â€œI am not trying to be original or clever. I am trying to understand something that is very difficult for me to understand.”
    â€œWhy? You still haven’t told me what brings you here.”
    â€œWouldn’t it be easier for you to tell me how you know Winston is insane?”
    â€œAll right,” Kensington agreed. “I’ll play the game your way, Captain Adams. I suspected Winston for a paranoiac before the murder happened. Twice he cornered me and talked to me at great length. You see, he knew why he had been sent here.”
    â€œHe knew?”
    â€œI talk of his own subjectivity. He believed that there was a great international plot, and that he was the nexus of it. He believed that his own talent was such that he should have held a general rank—and that, holding such, he could end the war within weeks through a solution of every logistical problem. He had a theory that logistics was the key to the victory. But the plot woven around him had degraded him to a permanent rank of second lieutenant.”
    â€œHe believed that? He actually believed it?”
    â€œWhy are you so surprised, Adams? We all have our pet areas of unreason. He made it sound quite logical.”
    â€œAnd who did he think was in this plot?”
    â€œAccording to Winston, a great many were in it in one way or another. But at the center of it—international Jewry, the Elders of Zion, the whole kit and kaboodle of Nazi filth.”
    â€œThat makes no sense at all,” Adams said hopelessly.
    â€œNo. Of course not. The man is insane.”
    â€œBut he couldn’t have put it that way. He must have realized that you would not sympathize with his delusions.”
    â€œAdams, your paranoiac shapes the outside world to fit his own purpose. He didn’t put it to me that way. Of course not. His wheedling and whining was to help him get out of Bachree—so that he could go about winning the war. He let drop this and that, and I put it together.”
    â€œAnd yet you took no action?”
    â€œFor heaven’s sake, Adams, what action was there to take? I’m a British medic. I can’t go interfering with you fellows, and even if I were so minded, how do you go about accusing someone of insanity? Do we live in a world that enshrines sanity? I have my hands full maintaining my own sanity in this place.”
    â€œYes, of course.”
    â€œIf you are thinking that I could have prevented Quinn’s death, you’re wrong.”
    â€œI wasn’t thinking that. You couldn’t have prevented it.”
    â€œYou won’t join me in another glass of gin?”
    â€œThank you, no.”
    Kensington poured himself a drink. Adams sat and stated through the window. Now that the rain had stopped, the temperature in the room was rising. He wiped his brow and noticed a mist of perspiration on Kensington’s face.
    â€œThe rain has a cooling effect. When the sun comes out, it feels hotter than it is. The contrast, you know.”
    Adams nodded.
    â€œNot a very nice picture of your client—”
    â€œNo.”
    â€œWell, take it with a grain of salt. I just didn’t like the man. What are your own impressions?”
    â€œI haven’t seen him yet,” Adams said.
    â€œOh?”
    â€œI wanted to know him a little before I met him.”
    â€œI see. You take this quite seriously, don’t