Dragons’s teeth

I

IRMA and Lanny guessed that the feelings of Fanny Barnes were going to be hurt because they weren’t bringing her namesake to see her; to make up for it they had cabled that they would come first to Shore Acres. The Queen Mother was at the steamer to meet them with a big car. She wanted the news about her darling grandchild, and then, what on earth had they been doing all that time in Germany? Everybody was full of questions about Hitlerland, they discovered; at a distance of three thousand miles it sounded like Hollywood, and few could bring themselves to believe that it was real. The newspapers were determined to find out what had happened to a leading German-Jewish financier. They met him at the pier, and when he wouldn’t talk they tried everyone who knew him; but in vain.

At Shore Acres, things were going along much as usual. The employees of the estate were doing the same work for no wages; but with seventeen million unemployed in the country, they were thankful to be kept alive. As for Irma’s friends, they were planning the customary round of visits to seashore and mountains; those who still had dividends would play host to those who hadn’t, and everybody would get along. There was general agreement that business was picking up at last, and credit for the boom was given to Roosevelt. Only a few diehards like Robbie Budd talked about the debts being incurred, and when and how were they going to be paid. Most people didn’t want to pay any debts; they said that was what had got the country into trouble. The way to get out was to borrow and spend as fast as possible; and one of the things to spend for was beer. Roosevelt was letting the people buy it instead of having to make it in their bathtubs.

Robbie came into the city by appointment, and in the office of the Barnes estate, he and Irma and Lanny sat down to a conference with Uncle Joseph Barnes and the other two trustees. Robbie had a briefcase full of figures setting forth the condition of Budd Gunmakers, a list of directors pledged to him, the voting shares which he controlled, and those which he could purchase, with their prices. The trustees presented a list of their poorest-paying shares, and weighed them in the balance. Under the will the trustees had the right to say no; but they realized that this was a family matter, and that it would be a distinguished thing to have Irma’s father-in-law become president of a great manufacturing concern. Also, Irma had developed into a young lady who knew what she wanted, and said it in the style of the days before parliamentary control of the purse had been established.

"There’s no use going into it unless you go heavily enough to win," cautioned Uncle Joseph.

"Of course not," said Irma, promptly. "We have no idea of not winning." L'état, c’est moi!

"If you pay more than the market for Budd stocks, it will mean that you are reducing the principal of your estate; for we shall have to list them at market value."

"List them any way you please," said Irma. "I want Robbie to be elected."

"Of course," said Mr. Barnes, timidly, "you might make up the principal by reducing your expenditures for a while."

"All right," assented Her Majesty—"but it will be time enough to do that when you get me a bit more income."

II

Johannes went to Newcastle to visit the Robbie Budds. The firm of R and R had many problems to talk out, and when Irma and Lanny arrived the pair were deeply buried in business. Robbie considered Johannes the best salesman he had ever known, bar none, and was determined to make a place for him with Budd’s. If Robbie won out, Johannes would become European representative; if Robbie lost, Johannes would become Robbie’s assistant on some sort of share basis. Robbie had a contract with the company which still had nearly three years to run and entitled him to commissions on all sales made in his territory. These matters Robbie put before his friend without reserve; he did it for medico-psychological reasons as well as financial—he wanted to get Johannes out of his depression, and the way to do it was to put him to work.

Robbie added: "Of course, provided there’s anything left of business." America was in the throes of an extraordinary convulsion known as "the New Deal," which Robbie described as "government by college professors and their graduate students." They were turning the country upside down under a scheme called "N.R.A." You had to put a "blue eagle" up in your window and operate under a "code," bossed by an army general who swore like a trooper and drank like the trooper’s horse. New markets for goods were being provided by the simple process of borrowing money from those who had it and giving it to those who hadn’t. One lot of the unemployed were put to work draining swamps to plant crops, while another lot were making new swamps for wild ducks. And so on, for as long as Robbie Budd could find anybody to listen to him.

Everybody in Newcastle was glad to see the young couple again; excepting possibly Uncle Lawford, who wasn’t going to see them. The only place they had met was in church, and Irma and Lanny were going to play golf or tennis on Sunday mornings—Grandfather being out of the way. Or was he really out of the way? Apparently he could only get at them if they went to a medium! Lanny remarked: "I’d like to try the experiment of sleeping in his bed one night and see if I hear any raps." Irma said: "Oh, what a horrid thought!" She had come to believe in the spirits about half way. Subtleties about the subconscious mind didn’t impress her very much, because she wasn’t sure if she had one.

The usual round of pleasure trips began. They motored to Maine, and then to the Adirondacks. So many people wanted to see them; Irma’s gay and bright young old friends. They had got used to her husband’s eccentricities, and if he wanted to pound the piano while they played bridge, all right, they would shut the doors between. He didn’t talk so "Pink" as he had, so they decided that he was getting sensible. They played games, they motored and sailed and swam, they flirted a bit, and some couples quarreled, some traded partners as in one of the old-fashioned square dances. But they all agreed in letting the older people do the worrying and the carrying of burdens. "I should worry," —meaning that I won’t—and "Let George do it," —so ran the formulas. To have plenty of money was the indispensable virtue, and to have to go to work the one unthinkable calamity. "Oh, Lanny," said Irma, after a visit where an ultra-smart playwright had entertained them with brilliant conversation—"Oh, Lanny, don’t you think you could get along over here at least part of the time?"

She wanted to add: "Now that you’re being more sensible." She didn’t really think he had changed his political convictions, but she found it so much pleasanter when he withheld them, and if he would go on doing this long enough it might become a habit. When they passed through New York he didn’t visit the Rand School of Social Science, or any of those summer camps where noisy and mostly Jewish working people swarmed as thick as bees in a hive. He was afraid these "comrades" might have learned what had been published about him in the Nazi papers; also that Nazi agents in New York might report him to Göring. He stayed with his wife, and she did her best to make herself everything that a woman could be to a man.

It worked for nearly a month; until one morning in Shore Acres, just as they were getting ready for a motor-trip to a "camp" in the Thousand Islands, Lanny was called to the telephone to receive a cablegram from Cannes, signed Hansi, and reading: "Unsigned unidentifiable letter postmarked Berlin text Freddi ist in Dachau."

III

Their things were packed and stowed in the car, and the car was waiting in front of the mansion. Irma was putting the last dab of powder on her nose, and Lanny stood in front of her with a frown of thought upon his face: "Darling, I don’t see how I can possibly take this drive."

She knew him well, after four years of wifehood, and tried not to show her disappointment. "Just what do you want to do?"

"I want to think about how to help Freddi."

"Do you suppose that letter is from Hugo?"

"I had a clear understanding with him that he was to sign the name Boecklin. I think the letter must be from one of Freddi’s comrades, some one who has learned that we helped Johannes. Or perhaps some one who has got out of Dachau."

"You don’t think it might be a hoax?"

"Who would waste a stamp to play such a trick upon us?"

She couldn’t think of any answer. "You’re still convinced that Freddi is Göring’s prisoner?"

"Certainly, if he’s in the concentration camp, Göring knows he’s there, and he knew it when he had Furtwaengler tell me that he couldn’t find him. He had him sent a long way from Berlin, so as to make it harder for us to find out."

"Do you think you can get him away from Göring if Göring doesn’t want to let him go?"

"What I think is, there may be a thousand things to think of before we can be sure of the best course of action."

"It’s an awfully nasty job to take on, Lanny."

"I know, darling—but what else can we do? We can’t go and enjoy ourselves, play around, and refuse to think about our friend. Dachau is a place of horror—I doubt if there’s any so dreadful in the world today, unless it’s some other of the Nazi camps. It’s an old dilapidated barracks, utterly unfit for habitation, and they’ve got two or three thousand men jammed in there. They’re not just holding them prisoners—they’re doing what Göring told me with his own mouth, applying modern science to destroying them, body, mind, and soul. They’re the best brains and the finest spirits in Germany, and they’re going to be so broken that they can never do anything against the Nazi regime."

"You really believe that, Lanny?"

"I am as certain of it as I am of anything in human affairs. I’ve been studying Hitler and his movement for twelve years, and I really do know something about it."

"There’s such an awful lot of lying, Lanny. People go into politics, and they hate their enemies, and exaggerate and invent things."

"I didn’t invent Mein Kampf, nor the Brownshirts, nor the murders they are committing night after night. They break into people’s homes and stab them or shoot them in their beds, before the eyes of their wives and children; or they drag them off to their barracks and beat them insensible."

"I’ve heard those stories until I’ve been made sick. But there are just as many violent men of the other side, and there have been provocations over the years. The Reds did the same thing in Russia, and they tried to do it in Germany—"

"It’s not only the Communists who are being tortured, darling; it’s pacifists and liberals, even church people; it’s gentle idealists, like Freddi—and surely you know that Freddi wouldn’t have harmed any living creature."

IV

Irma had to put down her powder-puff, but was still sitting on the stool in front of her dressing-table. She had many things that she had put off saying for a long time; and now, apparently, was the time to get them off her mind. She began: "You might as well take the time to understand me, Lanny. If you intend to plunge into a thing like this, you ought to know how your wife feels about it."

"Of course, dear," he answered, gently. He could pretty well guess what was coming.

"Sit down." And when he obeyed she turned to face him. "Freddi’s an idealist, and you’re an idealist. It’s a word you’re fond of, a very nice word, and you’re both lovely fellows, and you wouldn’t hurt anybody or anything on earth. You believe what you want to believe about the world—which is that other people are like you, good and kind and unselfish—idealists, in short. But they’re not that; they’re full of jealousy and hatred and greed and longing for revenge. They want to overthrow the people who own property, and punish them for the crime of having had life too easy. That’s what’s in their hearts, and they’re looking for chances to carry out their schemes, and when they come on you idealists, they say: Here’s my meat! They get round you and play you for suckers, they take your money to build what they call their movement. You serve them by helping to undermine and destroy what you call capitalism. They call you comrades for as long as they can use you, but the first day you dared to stand in their way or interfere with their plans, they’d turn on you like wolves. Don’t you know that’s true, Lanny?"

"It’s true of many, I’ve no doubt."

"It would be true of every last one, when it came to a showdown. You’re their front, their stalking horse. You tell me what you heard from Göring’s mouth—and I tell you what I’ve heard from Uncle Jesse’s mouth. Not once but a hundred times! He says it jokingly, but he means it—it’s his program. The Socialists will make their peaceable revolution, and then the Communists will rise up and take it away from them. It’ll be easy because the Socialists are so gentle and so kind—they’re idealists! You saw it happen in Russia, and then in Hungary—didn’t I hear Karolyi tell you about it?"

"Yes, dear—"

"With his own mouth he told you! But it didn’t mean much to you, because it isn’t what you want to believe. Karolyi is a gentleman, a noble soul—I’m not mocking—I had a long talk with him, and I’m sure he’s one of the most high-minded men who ever lived. He was a nobleman and he had estates, and when he saw the ruin and misery after the war he gave them to the government. No man could do more. He became the Socialist Premier of Hungary, and tried to bring a peaceful change, and the Communists rose up against his government—and what did he do? He said to me in these very words: I couldn’t shoot the workers. So he let the Communist-led mob seize the government, and there was the dreadful bloody regime of that Jew—what was his name?"

"Bela Kun. Too bad he had to be a Jew!"

"Yes, I admit it’s too bad. You just told me that you didn’t invent Mein Kampf and you didn’t invent the Brownshirts. Well, I didn’t invent Bela Kun and I didn’t invent Liebknecht and that Red Rosa Jewess who tried to do the same thing in Germany, nor Eisner who did it in Bavaria, nor Trotsky who helped to do it in Russia. I suppose the Jews have an extra hard time and that makes them revolutionary; they haven’t any country and that keeps them from being patriotic. I’m not blaming them, I’m just facing the facts, as you’re all the time urging me to do."

"I’ve long ago faced the fact that you dislike the Jews, Irma."

"I dislike some of them intensely, and I dislike some things about them all. But I love Freddi, and I’m fond of all the Robins, even though I am repelled by Hansi’s ideas. I’ve met other Jews that I like—"

"In short," put in Lanny, "you have accepted what Hitler calls honorary Aryans." He was surprised by his own bitterness.

"That’s a mean crack, Lanny, and I think we ought to talk kindly about this problem. It isn’t a simple one."

"I want very much to," he replied. "But one of the facts we have to face is that the things you have been saying to me are all in Mein Kampf, and the arguments you have been using are the foundation stones upon which the Nazi movement is built. Hitler also likes some Jews, but he dislikes most of them because he says they are revolutionary and not patriotic. Hitler also is forced to put down the idealists and the liberals because they serve as a front for the Reds, But you see, darling, the capitalist system is breaking down, it is no longer able to produce goods or to feed the people, and some other way must be found to get the job done. We want to do it peaceably if possible; but surely the way to do it cannot be for all the men who want it done peaceably to agree to shut up and say nothing, for fear of giving some benefit to the men of violence!"

V

They argued for a while, but it didn’t do any good; they had said it before, many times, and neither had changed much. In the course of four years Irma had listened attentively while her husband debated with many sorts of persons, and unless they were Communists she had nearly always found herself in agreement with the other persons. It was as if the ghost of J. Paramount Barnes were standing by her side telling her what to think. Saying: "I labored hard, and it was not for nothing. I gave you a pleasant position, and surely you don’t wish to throw it away!" The ghost never said, in so many words: "What would you be without your money?" It said: "Things aren’t so bad as the calamity-howlers say; and anyhow, there are better remedies." When Lanny, vastly irritated, would ask: "What are the remedies?" the ghost of the utilities king would fall silent, and Irma would become vague, and talk about such things as time, education, and spiritual enlightenment.

"It’s no good going on with this, dear," said the husband. "The question is, what are we going to do about Freddi?"

"If you would only tell me any definite thing that we can do!"

"But that isn’t possible, dear. I have to go there and try this and that, look for new facts and draw new conclusions. The one thing I can’t do, it seems to me, is to leave Freddi to his fate. It’s not merely that he’s a friend; he’s a pupil, in a way. I helped to teach him what he believes; I sent him literature, I showed him what to do, and he did it. So I have a double obligation."

"You have an obligation to your wife and daughter, also."

"Of course, and if they were in trouble, they would come first. But my daughter is getting along all right, and as for my wife, I’m hoping she will see it as I do."

"Do you want me to come with you again?"

"Of course I want you; but I’m trying to be fair, and not put pressure upon you. I want you to do what seems right to you."

Irma was fond enough of having her own way, but wasn’t entirely reconciled to Lanny’s willingness to give it to her. Somehow it bore too close a resemblance to indifference. "A woman wants to be wanted," she would say.

"Don’t be silly, darling," he pleaded. "Of course I want your help. I might need you badly some time. But ought I drag you there against your will, and feeling that you’re being imposed on?"

"It’s a horrid bore for me to be in a country where I don’t understand the language."

"Well, why not learn it? If you and I would agree not to speak anything but German to each other, you’d be chattering away in a week or two."

"Is that what I do in English, Lanny?" He hastened to embrace her, and smooth her ruffled feelings. That was the way they settled their arguments; they were still very much in love, and when he couldn’t bring himself to think as she did, the least he could do was to cover her with kisses and tell her that she was the dearest woman in the world.

The upshot of the discussion was that she would go with him again, but she had a right to know what he was going to do before he started doing it. "Of course, darling," he replied. "How else could I have your help?"

"I mean, if it’s something I don’t approve of, I have a right to say so, and to refuse to go through with it."

He said again: "Haven’t you always had that right in our marriage?"

VI

Johannes had established himself in New York, where he was running errands for Robbie, and incidentally trying to "pick up a little business," something he would never fail to do while he lived. Lanny phoned to his father, who motored in, and the four had a long conference in Johannes’s hotel room. They threshed out every aspect of the problem and agreed upon a code for communicating with one another. They agreed with Lanny that if Freddi was a prisoner of the government, the Minister-Präsident of Prussia knew it, and there could be no gain in approaching him, unless it was to be another money hold-up. Said Johannes: "He is doubtless informed as to how much money Irma has."

Perhaps it was up to Irma to say: "I would gladly pay it all." But she didn’t.

Instead, Robbie remarked to his son: "If you let anybody connected with the government know that you are there on account of Freddi, they will almost certainly have you watched, and be prepared to block you, and make trouble for anyone who helps you."

"I have a business," replied Lanny. "My idea is to work at it seriously and use it as a cover. I’ll cable Zoltan and find out if he’d be interested to give a Detaze show in Berlin this autumn. That would make a lot of publicity, and enable me to meet people; also it would tip off Freddi’s friends as to where and how to get in touch with me. All this will take time, but it’s the only way I can think of to work in Hitler Germany."

This was a promising idea, and it pleased Irma, because it was respectable. She had had a very good time at the London showing of Marcel’s paintings. It was associated in her mind with romantic events; getting married in a hurry and keeping the secret from her friends—she had felt quite delightfully wicked, because nobody could be sure whether they were really married or not. Also the New York show had been fun—even though the Wall Street panic had punctured it like a balloon.

Lanny said that before sailing they should take some time and drum up business; if he had American dollars to pay out for German art treasures, the most fanatical Nazi could find no fault with him. Irma had so far looked upon the picture business as if it were the vending of peanuts from a pushcart; but now it became part of a melodrama—as if she were dressing up as the peanut vender’s wife! But without really sacrificing her social prestige; for the richest and most fastidious persons wouldn’t suspect that the daughter of J. Paramount Barnes was peddling pictures for the money. It would be for love of les beaux arts, a fine and dignified thing.

When Lanny telegraphed some client that he and his wife were about to leave for Germany and would like to motor out and discuss the client’s tastes and wishes, the least the person could do was to invite them to tea, and often it would be to spend the night in some showplace at Bar Harbor or Newport, in the Berkshires or up the Hudson.

So, when the young couple boarded a steamer for Southampton, they really had an excellent pretext for a sojourn in Naziland. They sailed on a German liner, because Irma had set out to learn the language and wanted opportunities to "chatter." They landed in England because their car had been stored there, and because Lanny wanted a conference with Rick before taking the final plunge. Zoltan was in London, and had answered Lanny’s cable with an enthusiastic assent. He was a shrewd fellow, and knowing about Freddi Robin, had no trouble in guessing what was in their heads; but he was discreet, and said not a word.

Beauty had gone back to Juan, and of course the young couple wanted to see little Frances, and also to talk things over with the Robins and make them acquainted with the code. On the way they stopped to see Emily and get her wise advice. One bright moonlit night they arrived at Bienvenu, amid the powerful scent of orange and lemon blossoms. Kennst du das Land, wo die Zitronen blüht? It seemed to Irma that she wanted nothing ever again but to stay in that heaven-made garden.

For three days she was in ecstasies over their darling little girl, calling Lanny’s attention to every new word she had learned. Lanny, duly responsive, wondered what the little one made of these two mysterious, godlike beings called mother and father, who swooped down into her life at long intervals and then vanished in a roar of motors and clouds of dust. He observed that the child was far more interested in the new playmate whom fate permitted her to have without interruption. Baby Freddi was blooming like a dark velvet rose in the hot sunshine of the Midi, for which he had been destined many centuries ago; fear was being forgotten, along with his father. Irma withheld her thought: "I must get those two apart before they come to the falling-in-love age!"

VII

All preparations having been made as for a military campaign, at the beginning of September the young couple set out for Berlin by way of Milan and Vienna. Lanny knew of paintings in the latter city, and the art business could be made more convincing if he stopped there. He had written letters to several of his friends in Germany, telling of his intention to spend the autumn in their country; they would approve his business purpose, for he would be contributing foreign exchange to the Fatherland, and with foreign exchange the Germans got coffee and chocolate and oranges, to say nothing of Hollywood movies and Budd machine guns. To Frau Reichsminister Goebbels he wrote reminding her of her kind offer to advise him; he told of the proposed Detaze exhibit and enclosed some photographs and clippings, in case the work of this painter wasn’t already known to her. Carefully wrapped and stowed in the back of the car were several of Marcel’s most famous works—not the Poilu, not those sketches satirizing German militarism, but Pain, and Sister of Mercy, so gentle, yet moving, adapted to a nation which had just signed a pact renouncing war; also samples of the land- and sea-scapes of that romantic Riviera coast which so many Germans had visited and come to love. Kennst du das Land!

On the drive through Italy, safe from possible eavesdropping, they discussed the various possibilities of this campaign. Should they try to appeal to what sense of honor the Commander of the German Air Force might have? Should they try to make friends with him, and to extract a favor from him, sometime when they had him well loaded up with good liquor? Should they make him a straight-out cash proposition? Or should they try to get next to the Führer, and persuade him that they were the victims of a breach of faith? Should they play the Goebbels faction, or find somebody in power who needed cash and could pull hidden wires? Should they try for a secret contact with some of the young Socialists, and perhaps plan a jailbreak? These and many more schemes they threshed out, and would keep them in mind as they groped their way into the Nazi jungle. One thing alone was certain; whatever plan they decided upon they could carry out more safely if they were established in Berlin as socially prominent and artistically distinguished, the heirs and interpreters of a great French painter, the patrons and friends of a German Komponist, and so on through various kinds of glamour they might manage to wrap about themselves.

In Vienna it wasn’t at all difficult for Lanny to resume the role of art expert. In one of those half-dead palaces on the Ringstrasse he came upon a man’s head by Hobbema which filled him with enthusiasm; he cabled to a collector in Tuxedo Park, the sale was completed in two days, and thus he had earned the cost of a long stay in Berlin before he got there. Irma was impressed, and said: "Perhaps Göring might let you sell for him those paintings in the Robin palace. Johannes would be getting his son in exchange for his art works!"

VIII

A detour in order to spend a couple of days at Stubendorf; for Kurt Meissner was like a fortress which had to be reduced before an army could march beyond it. No doubt Heinrich had already written something about Lanny’s becoming sympathetic to National Socialism, and it wouldn’t do to have Kurt writing back: "Watch out for him, he doesn’t really mean it." If Lanny was to succeed as a spy, here was where he had to begin, and the first step would be the hardest.

A strange thing to be renewing old friendships and at the same time turning them into something else! To be listening to Kurt’s new piano concerto with one half your mind, and with the other half thinking: "What shall I say that will be just right, and how shall I lead up to what I want to tell him about the Robins?"

Was it because of this that Kurt’s music seemed to have lost its vitality? In the old days Lanny’s enthusiasm had been unrestrained; all his being had flowed along with those sweeping melodies, his feet had marched with those thundering chords, he had been absolutely certain that this was the finest music of the present day. But now he thought: "Kurt has committed himself to these political fanatics, and all his thinking is adjusted to their formulas. He is trying to pump himself up and sound impressive, but really it’s old stuff. He has got to the stage where he is repeating himself."

But Lanny mustn’t give the least hint of that. He was an intriguer, a double-dealer, using art and art criticism as camouflage for his kind of ideology, his set of formulas. He had to say: "Kurt, that’s extraordinary; that finale represents the highest point you have ever attained; the adagio weeps with all the woe of the world." How silly these phrases of musical rapture sounded; saying them made a mockery of friendship, took all the charm out of hospitality, even spoiled the taste of the food which the gute verständige Mutter, Frau Meissner, prepared for her guests.

But it worked. Kurt’s heart was warmed to his old friend, and he decided that political differences must not be allowed to blind one to what was fine in an opponent. Later on, Lanny went for a walk in the forest, leaving Irma to have a heart-to-heart talk with Kurt, and tackle a job which would have been difficult for Lanny. For, strangely enough, Irma was play-acting only in part. She said things to this German musician which she hadn’t said to anybody else, and hadn’t thought she would ever say; so she assured him, and of course it touched him. She explained that Lanny was honest, and had dealt with her fairly, telling her his political convictions before he had let her become interested in him. But she had been ignorant of the world, and hadn’t realized what it would mean to be a Socialist, or one sympathetic to their ideas. It meant meeting the most dreadful people, and having them interfere in your affairs, and your being drawn into theirs. Not merely the sincere ones, but the tricksters and adventurers who had learned to parrot the phrases! Lanny could never tell the difference—indeed, how could anybody tell? It was like going out into the world with your skin off, and any insect that came along could take a bite out of you.

"And not only Socialists," said the young wife, "but Communists, all sorts of trouble-makers. You know Uncle Jesse, how bitter he is, and what terrible speeches he makes."

"We had millions like him in Germany," replied Kurt. "Thank God that danger is no more."

"I’ve been pleading and arguing with Lanny for more than four years. At one time I was ready to give up in despair; but now I really begin to believe I am making some headway. You know how Lanny is, he believes what people tell him; but of late he seems to be realizing the true nature of some of the people he’s been helping. That’s why I wanted to ask you to talk to him. He has such a deep affection for you, and you may be able to explain what is going on in Germany, and help him to see things in their true light."

"I’ve tried many times," said Kurt; "but I never seemed to get anywhere."

"Try once more. Lanny is impressionable, and seeing your movement going to work has given a jolt to his ideas. What he wants more than anything is to see the problem of unemployment solved. Do you think the Führer will really be able to do it?"

"I have talked with him, and I know that he has practical plans and is actually getting them under way."

"Explain that to Lanny, so that while he’s here with Marcel’s pictures he’ll watch and understand. It may seem strange to you that I’m letting him sell pictures when I have so much money of my own; but I’ve made up my mind that he ought to have something to do, and not have the humiliation of living on his wife’s money."

"You’re absolutely right," declared the musician, much impressed by the sound judgment of this young woman, whom he had imagined to be a social butterfly. "Lanny is lucky to have a wife who understands his weaknesses so well. Make him stick at some one thing, Irma, and keep him from chasing every will-o'-the-wisp that crosses his path."

IX

So these two boyhood friends got together and renewed their confidences. Life had played strange tricks upon them, beyond any foreseeing. Back in the peaceful Saxon village of Hellerau where they had met just twenty years ago, dancing Gluck’s Orpheus, suppose that somebody had told them about the World War, less than a year off, and five years later Kurt in Paris as a German secret agent, passing ten thousand francs at a time to Uncle Jesse to be used in stirring up revolt among the French workers! Or suppose they had been told about a pitiful artist manqué, earning his bread and sausage by painting picture postcards, sleeping at night among the bums and derelicts of Vienna— and destined twenty years later to become the master of all Germany! What would they have said to that?

But here was Adolf Hitler, the one and only Führer of the Fatherland, sole possessor of a solution to the social problem and at the same time of the power to put it into effect. Kurt explained what Adi was doing and intended to do, and Lanny listened with deep attention. "It sounds too good to be true," was the younger man’s comment.

The Komponist replied: "You will see it, and then you will believe." To himself he said: "Poor Lanny! He’s good, but he’s a weakling. Like all the rest of the world, he’s impressed by success."Having been Beauty’s lover for eight years, Kurt knew the American language, and thought: "He is getting ready to climb onto the bandwagon."

So, when the young couple drove away to Berlin, they left everything at Stubendorf the way they wanted it. Kurt was again their friend, and ready to accept whatever good news might come concerning them. They could ask him for advice, and for introductions, if needed; they could invite him to Berlin to see the Detaze show, and exploit his musical reputation for their own purposes. Lanny didn’t let this trouble his conscience; it was for Freddi Robin, not for himself. Freddi, too, was a musician, a child of Bach and Beethoven and Brahms just as much as Kurt. Many compositions those two Germans had played together, and the clarinetist had given the Komponist many practical hints about writing for that instrument.

When Lanny had mentioned to Kurt that Freddi had been missing since the month of May, Kurt had said: "Oh, poor fellow!"

—but that was all. He hadn’t said: "We must look into it, Lanny, because mistakes are often made, and a harmless, gentle idealist must not be made to pay the penalties for other people’s offenses." Yes, Kurt should have said that, but he wouldn’t, because he had become a full-fledged Nazi, despising both Marxists and Jews, and unwilling to move a finger to help even the best of them. But Lanny was going to help Freddi—and take the liberty of making Kurt take part in the enterprise.

X

On the day that Irma and Lanny arrived at the Hotel Adlon, another guest, an elderly American, was severely beaten by a group of Brownshirts because he failed to notice that a parade was passing and to give the Nazi salute. When he went to the Polizeiwache to complain about it, the police offered to show him how to give the Nazi salute. Episodes such as this, frequently repeated, had had the effect of causing the trickle of tourists to stop; and this was fortunate for an art expert and his wife, because it made them important, and caused space to be given to Detaze and his work. Everybody desired to make it clear that the great art-loving public of Berlin was not provincial in its tastes, but open to all the winds that blew across the world.

Lanny talked about his former stepfather who had had his face burned off in the war and had done his greatest painting in a white silk mask. His work was in the Luxembourg, in the National Gallery of London, and the Metropolitan Museum of New York; now Lanny was contemplating a one-man show in Berlin, and had invited the famous authority Zoltan Kertezsi to take charge of it. Before giving out photographs or further publicity concerning the matter, he wished to consult Reichsminister Doktor Joseph Goebbels, and be sure that his plans were agreeable to the government. That was the proper way to handle matters with a controlled press; the visitor’s tact was appreciated, and the interviews received more space than would have been given if he had appeared anxious to obtain it.

Lanny had already sent a telegram to Magda Goebbels, and her secretary had telephoned an appointment for the next day. While Irma stayed in her rooms and practiced her German on maids and manicurists and hair-dressers, Lanny drove to the apartment in the Reichstagplatz, and bowed and kissed the hand of the first lady of the Fatherland—such was, presumably, her position, Hitler being a bachelor and Göring a widower. Lanny had brought along two footmen from the hotel, bearing paintings, just as had been done in the days of Marie Antoinette, and those of her mother, the Empress Maria Theresa of Austria. The Sister of Mercy was set up in a proper light and duly admired; when the Frau Reichsminister asked who it was, Lanny did not conceal the fact that it was his mother, or that she was well known in Berlin society.

He explained his own position. He had enjoyed the advantage of having these great works explained to him by his stepfather, and so had been a lover of art since his boyhood. He had helped to select several great collections in the United States, which would some day become public property. It was pleasant to earn money, but it was even more so to be able to gratify one’s taste for beautiful things; Lanny was sure the Frau Reichsminister would understand this, and she said that she did. He added that while a few of the Detazes would be sold, that was not the purpose of the exhibition, and he would not ask to take money out of the country, for he had commissions to purchase German art works for Americans, in amounts greatly exceeding what he was willing to sell. He told how he had just purchased a Hobbema in Vienna; contrary to his usual custom he named both parties to the transaction, and it was impressive.

The upshot was that Magda Goebbels declared the proposed show a worthy cultural enterprise. She said that the Führer had very decided tastes in art, he despised the eccentric modern stuff which was a symptom of pluto-democratic Jewish decadence. Lanny said he had understood that this was the case and it was one of his reasons for coming to Berlin. The work of Detaze was simple, like most great art; it was clean and noble in spirit. He would be happy to take specimens of it to show to the Führer in advance, and the Frau Reichsminister said that possibly this might be arranged. He offered to leave the paintings and photographs for the Herr Reichsminister to inspect, and the offer was accepted. He took his departure feeling hopeful that Marcel Detaze might become a popular painter among the Germans. He wondered, had Marcel heard about the Nazis in the spirit land, and what would he make of them? Lanny would have liked to go at once to consult Madame Diseuse—but who could guess what his irreverent ex-stepfather might blurt out in the seance room!

XI

Lanny’s second duty was to get in touch with Oberleutnant Furtwaengler and invite him and his wife to dinner. He explained that it was his wish to show the paintings to Seine Exzellenz, the Herr Minister-Präsident General Göring. Such was now the title— for the newspapers had just made known that the ReichsPräsident Feldmarschall von Hindenburg had been pleased to make the Minister-Präsident into a General of the Reichswehr. The Oberleutnant confirmed the news and showed pride in the vicarious honor; it had been somewhat awkward having his chief a mere Hauptmann while in command of several generals of the Prussian Polizei.

Lanny said he was sure that Seine Exzellenz must be a lover of art; he assumed that the new furnishings in the official residence— that great black table and the gold velvet curtains—must represent Seine Exzellenz’s taste. The staff officer admitted that this was so, and promised to mention Detaze to the great man. Lanny said that during the past three months he had been in London, Paris, New York, Cannes, and Vienna; the young Nazi, who had never been outside of Germany, was impressed in spite of himself, and wanted to know what the outside world was saying about the Führer and his achievements. Lanny said he was afraid they were not getting a very fair picture; apparently the National Socialist representatives abroad were not serving their cause too efficiently. He told of things he had heard, from various persons having important titles and positions; also of efforts he had made to explain and justify— the latter being in reality things that he had heard Lord Wickthorpe say. Lanny added that he had some suggestions which he would be glad to make to Seine Exzellenz if this busy man could spare the time to hear them. The young staff officer replied that he was sure this would be the case.

Not once did Lanny mention the name of Robin. He wanted to see if the Oberleutnant would bring it up; for that would give him an idea whether Göring had taken the staff officer into his confidence. Near the end of the evening, while Irma was off practicing her German on the tall and rather gawky country lady who was the Frau Oberleutnant, the officer said: "By the way, Herr Budd, did you ever hear any more from your young Jewish friend?"

"Not a word, Herr Oberleutnant."

"That is certainly a strange thing."

"I had been hoping for some results from the inquiries which you were kind enough to say you would carry on."

"I have done all that I could think of, Herr Budd, but with no results."

"It was my idea that in the confusion of last spring, various groups had been acting more or less independently, and the records might be imperfect."

"I assure you we don’t do things that way in Germany, Herr Budd. In the office of the Geheime Staats-Polizei is a complete card-file covering every case of any person who is under arrest for any offense or under any charge of even the remotest political nature. I don’t suppose that your friend could have been arrested, say for drunk driving."

"He does not drink and he does not drive, Herr Oberleutnant. He plays delicately and graciously upon the clarinet, and is a devoted student of your classics. If you should give him the beginning of any quotation from Goethe he would complete it and tell you in what work it was to be found."

"It is really too bad, Herr Budd. If there is anything you can suggest to me"

"It has occurred to me that the young man might be in some place of confinement outside of Prussia, and so might not appear in your police card-file. Suppose, for example, that he was in Dachau?"

Lanny was watching his dinner companion closely; but if the officer smelled the rat, he was a skillful actor. "Your friend could not be in Dachau," he declared, "unless he were a Bavarian. Being a Berliner, he would be in Oranienburg or some other place near by. However, if you wish, I will cause an inquiry to be made through the Reichsregierung, and see if anything can be turned up."

"That is most kind of you," declared Lanny. "It is more than I should have ventured to ask in a time when you and your associates have your hands so full. Permit me to mention that while the young man’s name is actually Freddi, some official may have assumed it to be Friedrich, or they might have listed him as Fritz. Also it is conceivable that some one may have set him down as Rabinowitz, the name which his father bore in the city of Lodz."

The staff officer took out his notebook and duly set down these items. "I will promise to do my best, Herr Budd," he declared.

"Perhaps it will be better if you do not trouble Seine Exzellenz with this matter," added the visitor. "I know that he must be the busiest man in the world, and I do not want him to think that I have come to Berlin to annoy him with my personal problems."

Said the staff officer: "He is one of those great men who know how to delegate authority and not let himself be burdened with details. He has time for social life, and I am sure he will be interested to hear what you have to report from the outside world."

Said the undercover diplomat: "I got some reactions of the British Foreign Office to Seine Exzellenz’s speech in Geneva. Lord Wickthorpe was really quite stunned by it. You know how it is, the British have been used to having their own way of late years— perhaps much too easily, Herr Leutnant. I doubt if it is going to be so easy for them in future!"

I

IT WAS Lanny’s hope that as soon as his arrival was announced in the papers he would receive some sort of communication from whoever had taken the trouble to write that Freddi was in Dachau. He was careful in his newspaper interviews to declare himself a non-political person, hoping that some of his former acquaintances among the Social-Democrats would take the hint. But the days passed, and no letter or telephone call was received. Lanny had got from Rahel a list of Freddi’s former comrades; most of them would probably be under arrest, or in hiding, "sleeping out," as it was called, never two nights in the same place. Before trying to meet any of them, it seemed wiser for Lanny to try out his Nazi contacts. It would be difficult to combine the two sorts of connections.

He went to call on Heinrich Jung, who burst into his customary excited account of his activities. He had recently come back from the Parteitag in Nürnberg; the most marvelous of all Parteitage—it had been five days instead of one, and every one of the hundred and twenty hours had been a new climax, a fresh revelation of das Wunder, die Schönheit, der Sieg hidden in the soul of National Socialism. "Honestly, Lanny, the most cynical persons were moved to tears by what they saw there!" Lanny couldn’t summon any tears, but he was able to bring smiles to his lips and perhaps a glow to his cheeks.

"Do you know Nürnberg?" asked Heinrich. Lanny had visited that old city, with a moat around it and houses having innumerable sharp gables, crowded into narrow streets which seldom ran straight for two successive blocks. An unpromising place for the convention of a great political party, but the Nazis had chosen it because of its historic associations, the memories of the old Germany they meant to bring back to life. Practical difficulties were merely a challenge to their powers of organization; they would show the world how to take care of a million visitors to a city whose population was less than half that. Suburbs of tents had been erected on the outskirts, and the Stormtroopers and Hitler Youth had slept on straw, six hundred to each great tent, two blankets to each person. There had been rows of field kitchens with aluminum spouts from which had poured endless streams of goulash or coffee. Heinrich declared that sixty thousand Hitler Youth had been fed in half an hour—three half-hours per day for five days!

These were specially selected youth, who had labored diligently all year to earn this reward. They had been brought by special trains and by trucks, and had marched in with their bands, shaking the air with songs and the great Zeppelin Meadow with the tramp of boots. For five days and most of five nights they had shouted and sting themselves hoarse, making up in their fervor for all the other forty-four political parties which they had wiped out of existence in Germany. Only one party now, one law, one faith, one baptism! A temporary hall had been built, accommodating a small part of the hundred and sixty thousand official delegates; the others listened to loud-speakers all over the fields, and that served just as well, because there didn’t have to be any voting. Everything was settled by the Führer, and the million others had only to hear the speeches and shout their approval.

Heinrich, now a high official in the Hitler Youth, had been among those admitted to the opening ceremonies. He lacked language to describe the wonders, he had to wave his arms and raise his voice. The frenzied acclaim when the Führer marched in to the strains of the Badenweiler Marsch—did Lanny know it? Yes, Lanny did, but Heinrich hummed a few bars even so. After Hitler had reached the platform the standards were borne in, the flags consecrated by being touched with the Blood Flag, which had been borne in the Munich civil struggle. Heinrich, telling about it, was like a good Catholic witnessing the sacred mystery of the Host. He told how Ernst Rohm had called the roll of those eighteen martyrs, and of all the two or three hundred others who had died during the party’s long struggle for power. Muffled drums beat softly, and at the end the S.A. Chief of Staff declared: "Sie marschieren mit uns im Geist, in unseren Reihen."

Five days of speechmaking and cheering, marching and singing by a million of the most active and capable men in Germany, nearly all of them young. Heinrich said: "If you had seen it, Lanny, you would know that our movement has won, and that the Fatherland is going to be what we make it."

"I had a long talk with Kurt," said Lanny. "He convinced me that you and he have been right." The young official was so delighted that he clasped his friend’s hand and wrung it. Another Hitler victory. Sieg Heil!

II

Most of Irma’s fashionable acquaintances had not yet returned to the city, so she employed her spare time accustoming her ears to the German language. She struck up an acquaintance with the hotel’s manicurist, a natural blonde improved by art, sophisticated as her profession required, but underneath it naive, as all Germans seemed to Irma. An heiress’s idea of how to acquire knowledge was to hire somebody to put it painlessly into her mind; and who could be a more agreeable injector than a young woman who had held the hands of assorted millionaires and celebrities from all parts of the world, chattering to them and encouraging them to chatter back? Fraulein Elsa Borg was delighted to sell her spare hours to Frau Budd, geborene Barnes, and to teach her the most gossipy and idiomatic Berlinese. Irma practiced laboriously those coughing and sneezing sounds which Tecumseh had found too barbarous. To her husband she said: "Really the craziest way to put words together! I will the blue bag with the white trimmings to the hotel room immediately bring let. I will the eggs without the shells to be broken have. It makes me feel all the time as if children were making it up."

But no one could question the right of Germans by the children their sentences to be shaped let, and Irma was determined to speak properly if at all; never would she consent to sound to anybody the way Mama Robin sounded to her. So she and the manicurist talked for hours about the events of the day, and when Irma mentioned the Parteitag, Elsa said yes, her beloved Schatz had been there. This "treasure" was the block leader for his neighborhood and an ardent party worker, so he had received a badge and transportation and a permit to leave his work, also his straw and two blankets and goulash and coffee—all free. Irma put many questions, and ascertained what the duties of a block leader were, and how he had a subordinate in every apartment building, and received immediate reports of any new person who appeared in it, and of any whose actions were suspicious, or who failed to contribute to the various party funds, the Büchsen, and so on. All this would be of interest to Lanny, who might use a block leader, perhaps to give him information so that he could outwit some other block leader in an emergency.

Elsa’s "treasure" afforded an opportunity to check on the claims of Heinrich and to test the efficiency of the Nazi machine. One of a hundred clerks in a great insurance office, Elsa’s Karl worked for wretched wages, and if it had not been for his "little treasure" would have had to live in a lodging-house room. Yet he was marching on air because of his pride in the party and its achievements. He worked nights and Sundays at a variety of voluntary tasks, and had never received a penny of compensation—unless you counted the various party festivals, and the fact that the party had power to force his employers to grant him a week’s holiday to attend the Parteitag. Both he and Elsa swelled with pride over this power, and a word of approval from his party superior would keep Karl happy for months. He thought of the Führer as close to God, and was proud of having been within a few feet of him, even though he had not seen him. The "treasure" had been one of many thousands of Brownshirts who had been lined up on the street in Nürnberg through which the Führer made his triumphal entrance. It had been Karl’s duty to hold the crowds back, and he had faced the crowds, keeping watch lest some fanatic should attempt to harm the holy one.

Elsa told how Karl had seen the Minister-Präsident General Göring riding in an open car with a magnificent green sash across his brown party uniform. He had heard the solemn words of Rudolf Hess, Deputy of the Führer: "I open the Congress of Victory!" He had heard Hitler’s own proud announcement: "We shall meet here a year from now, we shall meet here ten years from now, and a hundred, and even a thousand!" And Reichsminister Goebbels’s excoriation of the foreign Jews, the busy vilifiers of the Fatherland. "Not one hair of any Jewish head was disturbed without reason," Frau Magda’s husband had declared. When Irma told Lanny about this, he thought of poor Freddi’s hairs and hoped it might be true. He wondered if this orgy of party fervor had been paid for out of the funds which Johannes Robin had furnished. Doubtless that had been "reason" enough for disturbing the hairs of Johannes’s head!

III

Lanny took Hugo Behr for a drive, that being the only way they could talk freely. Lanny didn’t say: "Did you write me that letter?" No, he was learning the spy business, and letting the other fellow do the talking.

Right away the sports director opened up. "I’m terribly embarrassed not to have been of any use to you, Lanny."

"You haven’t been able to learn anything?"

"I would have written if I had. I paid out more than half the money to persons who agreed to make inquiries in the prisons in Berlin, and also in Oranienburg and Sonnenburg and Spandau. They all reported there was no such prisoner. I can’t be sure if they did what they promised, but I believe they did. I want to return the rest of the money."

"Nonsense," replied the other. "You gave your time and thought and that is all I asked. Do you suppose there is any chance that Freddi might be in some camp outside of Prussia?"

"There would have to be some special reason for it."

"Well, somebody might have expected me to be making this inquiry. Suppose they had removed him to Dachau, would you have any way of finding out?"

"I have friends in Munich, but I would have to go there and talk to them. I couldn’t write."

"Of course not. Do you suppose you could get leave to go?"

"I might be able to think up some party matter."

"I would be very glad to pay your expenses, and another thousand marks for your trouble. Everything that I told you about the case applies even more now. The longer Freddi is missing, the more unhappy the father grows, and the more pressure on me to do something. If the Detaze show should prove a success in Berlin, I may take it to Munich; meantime, if you could get the information, I could be making plans."

"Have you any reason to think about Dachau, especially?"

"I’ll tell you frankly. It may sound foolish, but during the World War I had an English friend who was a flyer in France, and I was at my father’s home in Connecticut, and just at dawn I was awakened by a strange feeling and saw my friend standing at the foot of the bed, a shadowy figure with a gash across his forehead. It turned out that this was just after the man had crashed and was lying wounded in a field."

"One hears such stories," commented the other, "but one never knows whether to believe them."

"Naturally, I believed this. I’ve never had another such experience until the other night. I was awakened, I don’t know how, and lying in the dark I distinctly heard a voice saying: Freddi is in Dachau. I waited a long time, thinking he might appear, or that I might hear more, but nothing happened. I had no reason to think of Dachau-it seems a very unlikely place—so naturally I am interested to follow it up and see if I am what they call psychic "

Hugo agreed that he, too, would be interested; his interest increased when Lanny slipped several hundred-mark notes into his pocket, saying, with a laugh: "My mother and stepfather have paid much more than this to spiritualist mediums to see if they could get any news of our friend."

IV

Hugo also had been to the Parteitag. To him it was not merely a marvelous demonstration of loyalty, but a call to every Parteigenosse to see that the loyalty was not wasted. Those million devoted workers gave their services without pay, because they had been promised a great collective reward, the betterment of the lot of the common man in Germany. But so far they had got nothing; not one of the promised economic reforms had been carried out, and indeed many of the measures which had been taken were reactionary, making the reforms more remote and difficult. The big employers had got a commanding voice in the control of the new shop councils—which meant simply that wages would be frozen where they were, and the workers deprived of all means of influencing them. The same was true of the peasants, because prices were being fixed. "If this continues," said Hugo, "it will mean a slave system, just that and nothing else."

To Lanny it appeared that the young sports director talked exactly like a Social-Democrat; he had changed nothing but his label. He insisted that the rank and file were of his way of thinking, and that what he called the "Second Revolution" could not be more than a few weeks off. He pinned his hopes upon Ernst Rohm, Chief of Staff and highest commander of the S.A., who had been one of the ten men tried for treason and imprisoned after the Beer-hall Putsch; a soldier and fighter all his life, he had become the hero of those who wanted the N.S.D.A.P. to remain what it had been and to do what it had promised to do. The Führer must be persuaded, if necessary he must be pushed; that was the way it was in politics—it was no drawing-room affair, but a war of words and ideas, and if need be of street demonstrations, marching, threats. None knew this better than Hitler himself.

Lanny thought: "Hugo is fooling himself with the Chief of Staff, as earlier he fooled himself with the Führer." Ernst Rohm was a homosexual who had publicly admitted his habits; an ignorant rough fellow who rarely even pretended to social idealism. When he denounced the reactionaries who were still in the Cabinet, it was because he wanted more power for his Brownshirts and their commander. But it wasn’t Lanny’s business to hint at this; he must find out who the malcontents were—and especially whether any of them were in power at Dachau. Such men want money for their pleasures, and if they are carrying on a struggle for power they want money for that. There might be a good chance of finding one who could be paid to let a prisoner slip through the bars.

Their conference was a long one, and their drive took them into the country; beautiful level country, every square foot of it tended like somebody’s parlor. No room for a weed in the whole of the Fatherland, and the forests planted in rows like orchards and tended the same way. It happened to be Saturday afternoon, and the innumerable lakes around Berlin were gay with tiny sailboats, the shores lined with cottages and bathhouses. The tree-lined paths by the roads were full of Wandervogel, young people hiking—but it was all military now, they wore S.A. uniforms and their songs were of defiance. Drill-grounds everywhere, and the air full of sharp cries of command and dust of tramping feet. Germany was getting ready for something. If you asked what, they would say "defense," but they were never clear as to who wished to attack them—right after signing a solemn pact against the use of force in Europe.

Another way in which Hugo resembled the Social-Democrats rather than the Nazis—he hated militarism. He said: "There are two ways the Führer can solve the problem of unemployment; one is to put the idle to work arid make plenty for all, including themselves; the other is to turn them over to the army, to be drilled and sent out to take the land and resources of other peoples. That is the question which is being decided in the inner circles right now."

"Too bad you can’t be there!" remarked Lanny; and his young friend revealed what was in the depths of his mind. "Maybe I will be some day."

V

Seine Exzellenz, Minister-Präsident General Göring, was pleased to invite Mr. and Mrs. Lanny Budd to lunch at his official residence. He didn’t ask them to bring their paintings, and Lanny wasn’t sorry about it, for somehow he couldn’t see the Sister of Mercy in company with a lion cub. He doubted very much if Seine Exzellenz was being deceived as to the real reason for Lanny’s coming to Berlin; and anyhow, the' Commander of the German Air Force was having his own art made to his own order—a nude statue of his deceased wife, made from photographs and cast in solid gold!

At least that was what the Fürstin Donnerstein had told Irma. There was no stopping the tongues of these fashionable ladies; the Fürstin had poured out the "dirt," and Irma had collected it and brought it home. The good-looking blond aviator named Göring, after being wounded in the Beerhall Putsch, had fled abroad and married a Swedish baroness; the lady was an epileptic and her spouse a morphia addict. There could be no doubt about either of these facts, for they had been proved in court when the baroness was refused custody of her son by a former marriage. Later on, the lady had died of tuberculosis, and Göring, returning to Germany, had chosen Thyssen and the former Crown Prince for his cronies, and the steel king’s sister for his "secretary"; the quotation marks were indicated by the Fürstin’s tone as she said the last word. It had been assumed that he would marry this Anita Thyssen, but it hadn’t come off; perhaps he had become too great—or too fat! At the moment Anita was "out," and the "in" was Emmy Sonnemann, a blond Nordic Valkyrie who acted at the State Theater and could have any role she chose. "But that doesn’t exclude other "Damen" added the serpent’s tongue of Fürstin Donnerstein. "Vorsicht, Frau Budd!"

So Irma learned a new German word.

VI

The utility king’s daughter had lived most of her life in marble halls, and wasn’t going to be awed by the livery of Göring’s lackeys or the uniforms of his staff and self. The lion cub was not for ladies, it appeared—and she didn’t miss him. The great ebony table with gold curtains behind it was really quite stunning; they made Irma think of Dick Oxnard’s panels, and she couldn’t see why Lanny had made fun of them. Pink jackets and white silk pumps and stockings for footmen—yes, but hardly in the daytime; and the General’s medals seemed more suited to a state dinner than a private luncheon.

However, the ex-aviator was very good company; he spoke English well, and perhaps wanted to prove it. He did most of the talking, and laughed gaily at his own jokes. There was nobody else present but Furtwaengler and another staff officer, and needless to say they laughed at the jokes and didn’t tell any of their own. Apparently it was a purely social affair; not a word about ransoms or hostages, Jews or concentration camps. No need for Lanny to say: "I hope you have noticed, Exzellenz, that I have kept my agreement." The fact that he was here, being served cold-storage plovers' eggs and a fat squab was proof enough that he had kept it and that his host had made note of the fact.

The assumption was that the holder of eight or ten of the most responsible positions in the "Third Reich" enjoyed nothing so much as sipping brandy and chatting with two idle rich Americans; it was up to Lanny to play his role, and let it come up quite by accident that he and his wife had visited Lausanne in the early days of the Conference on Arms Limitation, and could tell inside stories about the prominent personalities there, including the German. This led to the mention that Lanny had been on the American staff at Paris, and had met many of the men, and had helped a German agent to escape to Spain. He knew leading members of several of the French parties, including Daladier, the Premier, and he had visited in the homes of some of the British Foreign Office set—yes, there could be no doubt that he was a young man of exceptional opportunities, and could be very useful to a Reichsminister without Portfolio if he happened to be well disposed! Not a word was spoken, but always there was floating in the air the thought: "Why not take a chance, Exzellenz, and turn loose my Jewish Schieber-sohn?"

VII

Herr Reichsminister Joseph Goebbels was so gracious as to indicate his opinion that the work of Marcel Detaze was suitable for showing in Germany; quite harmless, although not especially distinguished. Lanny understood that he could expect no more for a painter from a nation which the Führer had described as "Negroid." It was enough, and he wired Zoltan to come to Berlin.

What did one do to obtain publicity with a gleichgeschaltete Presse? Lanny found out, even before his friend arrived. A youngish, very businesslike gentleman called; one of those Berliners who wear a derby hat, and on a hot day a vest-clip on which they may hang the hat, thus preserving comfort and respectability at the same time. His card made him known as Herr Privatdozent Doktor der Philosophie Aloysius Winckler zu Sturmschatten. In a polite philosophical voice he informed Lanny that he was in position to promote the reputation of Detaze—or otherwise. The Privatdozent spoke as one having both authority and determination; he didn’t evade or drop his eyes, but said: "Sie sind ein Weltmann, Herr Budd. You know that a great deal of money can be made from the sale of these paintings if properly presented; and it happens that I am a Parteigenosse from the early days, the intimate friend of persons of great influence. In past times I have rendered them services and they have done the same for me. You understand how such things go."

Lanny said that he understood; but that this was not entirely a commercial undertaking, he was interested in making known the work of a man whom he had loved in life and admired still.

"Yes, yes, of course," said the stranger, his voice as smooth and purring as that of a high-priced motor-car. "I understand what you want, and I am in position to give it to you. For the sum of twenty thousand marks I can make Marcel Detaze a celebrated painter, and for the sum of fifty thousand marks I can make him the initiator of a new era in representational art."

"Well, that would be fine," said Lanny. "But how can I know that you are able to do these things?"

"For the sum of two thousand marks I will cause the publication of an excellent critical account of Detaze, with reproductions of a couple of his works, in any daily newspaper of Berlin which you may select. This, you understand, will be a test, and you do not have to pay until the article appears. But it must be part of the understanding that if I produce such an article, you agree to go ahead on one of the larger projects I have suggested. I am not a cheap person, and am not interested in what you Americans call kleine Kartoffeln. You may write the article yourself, but it would be wiser for you to provide me with the material and let me prepare it, for, knowing the Berlin public, I can produce something which will serve your purposes more surely."

So it came about that the morning on which Zoltan Kertezsi arrived at the hotel, Lanny put into his hands a fresh newspaper containing an account of Detaze at once critically competent and journalistically lively. Zoltan ran his eyes over it and exclaimed: "How on earth did you do that?"

"Oh, I found a competent press agent," said the other. He knew that Zoltan had scruples, whereas Zoltan’s partner had left his in the Austrian town whence he had crossed into Naziland.

Later that morning the Herr Privatdozent called and took Lanny for a drive. The stepson of Detaze said that he wanted his stepfather to become the initiator of a new era in representational painting, and offered to pay the sum of ten thousand marks per week for one week preceding the show and two weeks during it, conditioned upon the producing of publicity in abundant quantities and of a standard up to that of the sample. The Herr Privatdozent accepted, and they came back to the hotel, where Zoltan, possibly not so innocent as he appeared, sat down with them to map out a plan of campaign.

VIII

Suitable showrooms were engaged, and the ever dependable Jerry Pendleton saw to the packing of the pictures at Bienvenu. He hired a camion, and took turns with the driver, sleeping inside and coming straight through with that precious cargo. Beauty and her husband came by train—there could have been no keeping her away, and anyhow, she was worth the expenses of the journey as an auxiliary show. She was in her middle fifties, and with Lanny at her side couldn’t deny it, but she was still a blooming rose, and if you questioned what she had once been, there were two most beautiful paintings to prove it. Nothing intrigued the crowd more than to have her standing near so that they could make comparisons. The widow of this initiator of a new era, and her son—but not the painter’s son —no, these Negroid races run to promiscuity, and as for the Americans, their divorces are a joke, they have a special town in the wild and woolly West where the broken-hearted ladies of fashion stay for a few weeks in order to get them, and meantime are consoled by cowboys and Indians.

For the "professional beauty" it was a sort of public reception, afternoons and evenings for two weeks, and she did not miss a minute of it. A delightfully distinguished thing to be able to invite your friends to an exhibition of which you were so unique a part: hostess, biographer, and historian, counselor and guide—and in case of need assistant saleslady! Always she was genial and gracious, an intimate of the great, yet not spurning one lowly lover of die schonen Kunste. Zoltan paid her a memorable compliment, saying: "My dear Beauty Budd, I should have asked you to marry me and travel about the world promoting pictures." Beauty, with her best dimpled smile, replied: "Why didn’t you?" (Mr. Dingle was off visiting one of his mediums, trying to get something about Freddi, but instead getting long messages from his father, who was so happy in the spirit world, and morally much improved over what he had been—so he assured his son.)

There were still rich men in Germany. The steelmasters of the Ruhr, the makers of electrical power, the owners of plants which could turn out the means of defense—all these were sitting on the top of the Fatherland. Having wiped out the labor unions, they could pay low wages without fear of strikes, and thus count upon profits in ever-increasing floods. They looked about them for sound investments, and had learned ten years ago that one inflation-proof material was diamonds and another was old masters. As a rule the moneylords didn’t possess much culture, but they knew how to read, and when they saw in one newspaper after another that a new school of representational art had come to the front, they decided that they ought to have at least one sample of this style in their collections. If they were elderly and retired they came to the show; if they were middle-aged and busy they sent their wives or daughters. Twenty or thirty thousand marks for a landscape did not shock them, on the contrary it made a Detaze something to brag about. So it was that the profits of Lanny, his mother, and his half-sister —less the ten per cent commission of Zoltan—covered twenty times over what they had paid to the efficient Herr Privatdozent, and Zoltan suggested that they should pay this able promoter and continue the splurge of glory for another week. Even Irma was impressed, and began to look at the familiar paintings with a new eye. She wondered if it mightn’t be better to save them all for the palace with modern plumbing which she meant some day to have in England or France. To her husband she remarked: "You see how much better everything goes when you settle down and stop talking like a Red!"

IX

The Detaze show coincided in time with one of the strangest public spectacles ever staged in history. The Nazis had laid the attempt to burn the Reichstag upon the Communists, while the enemies of Nazism were charging that the fire had been a plot of the Hitlerites to enable them to seize power. The controversy was brought to a head by the publication in London of the Brown Book of the Hitler Terror, which charged that the Nazi Chief of Police of Breslau, one of the worst of their terrorists, had led a group of S.A. men through the tunnel from Göring’s residence into the Reichstag building; they had scattered loads of incendiary materials all over the place, while another group had brought a half-witted Dutch tramp into the building by a window and put him to work starting fires with a domestic gas-lighter. This was what the whole world was coming to believe, and the Nazis couldn’t very well dodge the issue. For six or seven months they had been preparing evidence, and in September they began a great public trial. They charged the Dutchman with the crime, and three Bulgarian Communists and a German with being his accessories. The issue thus became a three-months' propaganda battle, not merely in Germany but wherever news was read and public questions discussed. Ten thousand pages of testimony were taken, and seven thousand electrical transcriptions made of portions of the testimony for broadcasting.

The trial body was the Fourth Criminal Senate of the German Supreme Court in Leipzig; oddly enough, the same tribunal before which, three years previously, Adolf Hitler had proclaimed that "heads will roll in the sand." Now he was going to make good his threat. Unfortunately he had neglected to "co-ordinate" all five of the court judges; perhaps he didn’t dare, because of world opinion. There was some conformity to established legal procedure, and the result was such a fiasco that the Nazis learned a lesson, and never again would political suspects have a chance to appear in public and cross-question their accusers.

In October and November the court came to Berlin, and it was a free show for persons who had leisure; particularly for those who in their secret hearts were pleased to see the Nazis humiliated. The five defendants had been kept in chains for seven months and wore chains in the courtroom during the entire trial. The tragedy of the show was provided by the Dutchman, van der Lubbe, half-blind as well as half-witted; mucus drooled from his mouth and nose, he giggled and grinned, made vague answers, sat in a stupor when let alone. The melodrama was supplied by the Bulgarian Dimitroff, who "stole the show"; a scholar as well as a man of the world, witty, alert, and with the courage of a lion, he turned the trial into anti-Nazi propaganda; defying his persecutors, mocking them, driving them into frenzies of rage. Three times they put him out of the room, but they had to bring him back, and again there was sarcasm, defiance, and exposition of revolutionary aims.

It soon became clear that neither Dimitroff nor the other defendants had ever known van der Lubbe or had anything to do with the Reichstag fire. The mistake had arisen because there was a parliamentary archivist in the Reichstag building who happened to resemble the half-witted Dutchman, and it was with him that the Communist Torgler had been seen in conversation. The proceedings gradually turned into a trial of the Brown Book, with the unseen British committee as prosecutors and the Nazis as defendants.

Goebbels appeared and denounced the volume, and Dimitroff mocked him and made him into a spectacle. Then came the corpulent head of the Prussian state; it was a serious matter for him, because the incendiaries had operated from his residence and it was difficult indeed to imagine that he hadn’t known what was going on. Under the Bulgarian’s stinging accusations Göring lost his temper completely and had to be saved by the presiding judge, who ordered Dimitroff dragged out, while Göring screamed after him: "I am not afraid of you, you scoundrel. I am not here to be questioned by you . . . You crook, you belong to the gallows! You’ll be sorry yet, if I catch you when you come out of prison!" Not very dignified conduct for a Minister-Präsident of Prussia and Reichsminister of all Germany!

X

During these entertaining events two communications came to Lanny Budd at his hotel. The first was painful indeed; a cablegram from his father, saying that the newly elected directors of Budd Gunmakers had met, and that both Robbie and his brother had been cheated of their hopes. Seeing the younger on the verge of victory, Lawford had gone over to a Wall Street group which had unexpectedly appeared on the scene, backed by the insurance company which held the Budd bonds. The thing which Grandfather Samuel had dreaded and warned against all his life—Budd’s had been taken out of the hands of the family!

"Oh, Lanny, how terrible!" exclaimed Irma. "We should have been there to attend to it."

"I doubt if we could have done anything," he replied. "If Robbie had thought so, he would surely have cabled us."

"What Uncle Lawford did was an act of treason to the family!"

"He is that kind of man; one of those dark souls who commit crimes. I have often had the thought that he might shoot Robbie rather than let him get the prize which both have been craving all their lives."

"What does he get out of the present arrangement?"

"The satisfaction of keeping Robbie out; and, of course, the Wall Street crowd may have paid him. Anyhow, Robbie has his contract, so they can’t fire him."

"I bought all that stock for nothing!" exclaimed the young wife.

"Not for nothing, but for a high price, I fear. You had best cable Uncle Joseph to look into the matter thoroughly and advise you whether to sell it or hold on. Robbie, no doubt, will be writing us the details."

The other communication was very different; a letter addressed to Lanny in his own handwriting, and his heart gave a thump when he saw it, for he had given that envelope to Hugo Behr. It was postmarked Munich and Lanny tore it open quickly, and saw that Hugo had cut six letters out of a newspaper and pasted them onto a sheet of paper—a method of avoiding identification well known to kidnapers and other conspirators. "Jawohl" can be one word or two. With space after the first two letters, as Hugo had pasted them, it told Lanny that Freddi Robin was in Dachau and that he was well.

So the American playboy forgot about his father’s lost hopes and his own lost heritage. A heavy load was lifted from his mind, and he sent two cablegrams, one to Mrs. Dingle in Juan—the arrangement being that the Robins were to open such messages—and the other to Robbie in Newcastle: "Clarinet music excellent," that being the code. To the latter message the dutiful son added: "Sincere sympathy don’t take it too hard we still love you." Robbie would take this with a grin.

Irma and Lanny tore Hugo’s message into small pieces and sent it on its way to the capacious sewers of Berlin. They still had hope of some favor to be gained from the head of the Prussian government. At any moment Leutnant Furtwaengler might show up and announce: "We have found your Yiddisher friend." Until then, Lanny could only wait; for when you are cultivating acquaintances in die grosse Welt, you don’t say to these persons: "I have made certain that you are lying to me, and propose that we now proceed to negotiate upon that basis." No, Lanny couldn’t even say: "I have doubts." For right away the Oberleutnant would look surprised and ask: "What is the basis of them?" Lanny couldn’t even say: "I urge you to try harder"; for important persons must be assumed to have their hands full.

XI

The sum of more than four hundred thousand marks which had been paid for Detaze pictures had been deposited in Berlin banks. It would be up to Lanny and Zoltan to use those marks in purchasing art works for their American clients, who would make their payments in New York; thus the pair would have to ask no favors of the Nazis. Lanny had obtained information from a list of clients in America, and Zoltan had a list which he had been accumulating over a period of many years; so there would be no difficulty in doing a sufficient amount of business. They had agreed to go fifty-fifty on all transactions.

Lanny had suggested taking the show to Munich for-a week, and his friend had approved. Here was a great art-loving public, and sales were certain; moreover, Beauty got fun out of it, and Lanny knew of pictures which might be bought there. Jerry Pendleton, who had been waiting in Berlin to take the unsold Detazes back to France, would see to packing and transporting them to Munich. The Herr Privatdozent assured them that he enjoyed even more influence in the Bavarian city, the cradle of National Socialism. He would be paid another fifteen thousand marks for his services, plus his expenses for two weeks. He was planning to live high;

Hugo Behr returned to Berlin, reporting that he had made contact with an old party acquaintance who was now one of the S.A. guards in the camp of Dachau. To this man Hugo had explained that he had a friend who was owed money by a young Jew, and wondered if the debtor was still alive and if there was any prospect of his coming out. The report had been that Freddi Robin had been in the camp for four or five months; had been pretty roughly treated before he came there, and now was kept by himself, for what reason the S.A. man didn’t know. What he had meant by reporting Freddi as "well" was that he was alive and not being abused, so far as the informant had heard. Nobody was happy in Dachau, and least of all any Jew.

Hugo added: "We might be able to trust that fellow, because I had a long talk with him and he feels about events pretty much as I do. He’s sick of his job, which isn’t at all what he bargained for. He says there are plenty of others who feel the same, though they don’t always talk. You know, Lanny, the Germans aren’t naturally a cruel people, and they don’t like having the most brutal and rowdyish fellows among them picked out and put in charge."

"Did he say that?" inquired Lanny.

"He said even more. He said he’d like to see every Jew put out of Germany, but he didn’t see any sense in locking them up and kicking them around, just for being what they were born. I told him my idea that the party is being led astray and that it’s up to the rank and file to set it straight. He was interested, and maybe we’ll have an organized group in Dachau."

"That’s fine," commented the American; "and I’m ever so much obliged to you. I’m going to Munich pretty soon and perhaps you can come again, and I’ll have some other message for your friend." At the same time he took a little roll of hundred-mark notes out of his pocket and slipped them into his friend’s—a matter of only a few inches as they sat side by side in the car.

XII

To his wife Lanny said: "There might be a possibility of getting Freddi out without waiting forever on the fat General."

"Oh, do be careful!" exclaimed Irma. "That would be a fearful risk to take!"

"Only as a last resort. But I really think Göring has had time enough to peer into all the concentration camps in the Reich."

He made up his mind to call up Oberleutnant Furtwaengler and inquire concerning the promised investigation. But he put it off till the next morning, and before he got round to it the young staff officer was announced and ushered up to the suite. "Herr Budd," he said, "are you free for the next two or three days?"

"I could get free."

"Seine Exzellenz has earned a holiday after the strain of his court appearances." The serious young officer said this without the least trace of a smile, and Lanny assented with the gravest of nods. "Seine Exzellenz is taking a shooting trip to the estate of Prinz von Schwarzerober in the Schorfheide, and would be pleased if you would accompany him."

"That is very kind indeed," replied the American, with a carefully measured amount of cordiality. "I appreciate the honor and will enjoy the opportunity to know the General better."

"Unfortunately," added the other, "this is what you Americans, I believe, call a stag affair."

"A stag affair in two senses of the word," smiled Lanny, who knew about shooting in the German forests. "My wife won’t object to staying here, for she has friends who keep her entertained."

"Very well, then," replied the Oberleutnant. "The car will call for you at fifteen o’clock tomorrow."

Later, the young couple went driving and talked over the situation. "He wants something," declared the husband. "I suppose I’m going to find out about it now."

"Let him do the talking," cautioned Irma. "You saw that he expects it." She was nine years younger than her husband, and had met the General only once, but she knew all about his Prunksucht, his delight in self-display, both physical and mental. "He has to prove that he’s the greatest man in the company, the greatest in the government, perhaps the greatest in the world. He will do anything for you if you convince him you believe that."

Lanny’s mother had been supplying him with that sort of instruction all through his life. He wondered: had Irma got it from Beauty —or from the Great Mother of them all?

I

LANNY in his boyhood had observed the feudal system operating in Stubendorf, and had found it paternal and pleasant; so he could understand how the Nazis had made the same discovery. The party was bound for the hunting preserve of one of those great landlords who had been the friends of Hauptmann Göring in the days when he was an ace aviator, successor to von Richthofen in command of that famous squadron. These wealthy Junkers had allied themselves with the Hitler party upon Göring’s assurance that they would be properly cared for, and Göring now was seeing that the pledge was kept. There wasn’t going to be any "Second Revolution" in Prussia if the head of the government could prevent it, and he thought that he could.

The party traveled in that six-wheeled Mercedes which Lanny had come to call "the tank." The chauffeur and the guard who rode beside him were black-uniformed Schutzstaffel men, both well armed. The very large General lolled in the back seat, with Lanny in the place of honor beside him. In two retractable seats rode Oberst Siemans, a Reichswehr officer who was a World War buddy of the General’s, and Hauptmann Einstoss, an S.A. man who had accompanied Göring in his flight to Switzerland after the Beerhall Putsch. A second car followed with Furtwaengler and another staff officer, a secretary, a telephone operator, and a valet.

The party in the "tank" talked about the trial. Lanny wished he might hear what they would have said if he hadn’t been along, but there was no way to arrange that. They talked on the assumption that the five prisoners were the spawn of Satan, and that the General had completely annihilated Dimitroff. When they asked Lanny what would be the opinion of the outside world, he replied that all people were inclined to believe what it was in their interest to believe, and the outside world was afraid of the Nazis because it suspected that they meant to rearm Germany. Thus, if one was cautious, it was possible to avoid lying and at the same time avoid giving offense.

They drove at high speed, with a powerful horn giving notice to all the world to clear the way. Toward dusk they left the highway and entered a heavy forest; they drove many miles on a private road before coming to a hunting lodge, well lighted for their reception. A spacious hall, with bearskins on the floor and trophies on the walls; a glass-cased rack of guns at one end, a banquet-table at the other, and a great stone fireplace with logs blazing. There was no host—the place had been turned over to the General. Servants in green foresters' uniforms brought drinks, and when Seine Exzellenz called for supper there came a procession of men, each bearing a silver platter: the first containing a huge roasted boar’s head, steaming hot, the second a haunch of venison, the third several capercailzie, a kind of grouse bigger than any chicken, and the fourth some fricasseed hares. Lanny, dining under the feudal system, could only laugh and beg for mercy. His host, proud of his prowess as a trencherman, was not displeased to have others take an attitude of inferiority.

It was the same with the drinking. Hot punch and cold Moselle, burning brandy sauces, cocktails, beer—there was apparently no ordained sequence; the valiant air commander took everything that he saw and called for more. The way Lanny saved himself was by music; when they started singing he took his glass of punch to the piano and played and sang: "Show me the way to go home, boys," and other "college songs" which he had learned as a boy from his father. The General was amused, and Lanny kept him entertained with various kinds of American humor: "Yankee Doodle" and "Down Went McGinty" and "There’ll be a Hot Time in the Old Town Tonight." Whether they all knew the language didn’t matter, for pretty soon they didn’t know what they knew. He played "My Old Kentucky Home" and they wept; he played "The Arkansas Traveler" and "Turkey, in the Straw" and they tried to dance. Lanny cut his capers on the keyboard, and the head of the Prussian state approved of him so ardently that he wouldn’t let his own valet help him upstairs, but insisted upon having the young American on one side and a blue-eyed Wendish damsel on the other.

This was another aspect of the feudal system about which Lanny had heard talk and which he now saw in action. The men servants who had brought in the heavy dishes had disappeared, and desserts and coffee and various drinks were served by young women in peasant costumes with flaxen hair in heavy braids down their backs. They were not prostitutes, but daughters of the servants and retainers; they curtsied to these high-born great gentlemen in uniforms, danced with them when invited, and were prepared to be honored by their further attentions. Not much flirtation or cajoling was called for; they obeyed commands. Fortunately for Lanny there were not enough to go around, and his renunciation was appreciated.

The party arose late next day. There was no hurry, for this kind of shooting proceeds according to the convenience of the shooters and not of the game. After a "fork breakfast" they set out to stands in the forests, and beaters drove stags and buffalo and boar out of the thickets into the open ranges. Lanny had the honor of being posted with the General, and he waited respectfully while the great man shot, and when he was told that it was his turn he upheld the reputation of Budd Gunmakers. It was worth while for him to do so, for he guessed it wouldn’t be long before Robbie would be making use of these valuable connections.

II

Having obtained recreation and exercise by pulling the trigger of a rifle, Seine Exzellenz returned to the hunting lodge and took up the reins of government. Apparently he had had a private wire run into the estate, and for a couple of hours he listened to reports and gave orders. He sounded angry most of the time—or was that just his way of governing? It was almost as if he were trying to communicate with Berlin by the medium of the air instead of by a copper wire. His bellowing echoed through the house, and Lanny, anxious not to overhear, went into the billiard room and watched the two junior officers winning small sums from each other. Now and then, when the tones rose especially loud, they would grin at Lanny and he would grin back—this being a privilege of subordinates.

The guest would have liked to walk in that lovely deep forest, but had the idea that he should hold himself at the disposal of his host; and sure enough, after the State of Prussia had received its marching orders for the morrow, Lanny was summoned to the Presence, and found out why he had been taken on a shooting trip. Reclining at ease in a sky-blue silk dressing gown with ermine trimmings, the portly Kommandant of the German Air Force led the conversation into international channels, and began explaining the difficulties of getting real information as to the attitude of ruling circles in other European capitals. He had agents aplenty, paid them generous salaries, and allowed them to pad their expense accounts; but those who were the most loyal had the fewest connections, while those who really had the connections were just as apt to be working for the other side.

"Understand me, Budd"—he had got to that stage of intimacy— "I am not so foolish as to imagine that I could employ you. I know you have a well-paying profession, not to mention a rich wife. I also had one, and discovered that such a spouse expects attentions and does not leave one altogether free. But it happens that you go about and gather facts; and no doubt you realize when they are important."

"I suppose that has happened now and then," said Lanny, showing a coming on disposition, but not too much.

"What I should like to have is, not an agent, but a friend; a gentleman, whose sense of honor I could trust, and who would not be indifferent to the importance of our task in putting down the Red menace in Germany, and perhaps later wiping out the nest where those vipers are being incubated. Surely one does not have to be a German in order to approve such an aim."

"I agree with you, Exzellenz." "Call me Göring," commanded the great one. "Perhaps you can understand how tired one gets of dealing with lackeys and flatterers. You are a man who says what he thinks, and when I box with you I get some competition."

"Thank you, Ex—Göring."

"I am sure you understand that we Nazis are playing for no small stakes. You are one of the few who possess imagination enough to know that if you become my friend you will be able to have anything you care to ask for. I am going to become one of the richest men in the world—not because I am greedy for money, but because I have a job to do, and that is one of the tools. We are going to build a colossal industry, which will become the heritage of the future, and most certainly we are not going to leave it in the hands of Jews or other Bolshevist agencies. Sooner or later we shall take over the industry of Russia and bring it into line with modern practices. For all that we need brains and ability. I personally need men who see eye to eye with me, and I am prepared to pay on a royal scale. There is no limit to what I would do for a man who would be a real associate and partner."

"I appreciate the compliment, my dear Göring, but I doubt my own qualifications for any such role. Surely you must have among your own Germans men with special training—"

"No German can do what I am suggesting to you—an American, who is assumed to be above the battle. You can go into France or England and meet anybody you wish, and execute commissions of the most delicate sort without waste of time or sacrifice of your own or your wife’s enjoyment. Be assured that I would never ask you to do anything dishonorable, or to betray any trust. If, for example, you were to meet certain persons in those countries and talk politics with them, and report on their true attitudes, so that I could know which of them really want to have the Reds put down and which would rather see those devils entrench themselves than to see Germany get upon her feet—that would be information almost priceless to me, and believe me, you would have to do no more than hint your desires. If you would come now and then on an art-buying expedition to Berlin and visit me in some quiet retreat like this, the information would be used without any label upon it, and I would pledge you my word never to name you to anyone."

III

Lanny perceived that he was receiving a really distinguished offer, and for a moment he was sorry that he didn’t like the Nazis. He had a feeling that Irma would be willing for him to say yes, and would enjoy helping on such international errands. Doubtless the General had invited her to lunch in order that he might size her up from that point of view.

"My dear Göring," said Irma’s husband, "you are paying me a compliment, and I wish I could believe that I deserve it. To be sure, I sometimes meet important persons and hear their talk when they are off their guard; I suppose I could have more such opportunities if I sought them. Also I find Berlin an agreeable city to visit, and if I should run over now and then to watch your interesting work, it would be natural for you to ask me questions and for me to tell you what I had heard. But when you offer to pay me, that is another matter. Then I should feel that I was under obligations; and I have always been a Taugenichts—even before I happened to acquire a rich wife I liked to flit from one place to another, look at pictures, listen to good music or play it not so well, chat with my friends, and amuse myself watching the human spectacle. It happens that I have made some money, but I have never felt that I was earning it, and I would hate to feel that I had to."

It was the sort of answer a man would make if he wished to raise his price; and how was a would-be employer to know? "My dear Budd," said the General, in the same cautious style, "the last thing in the world I desired was to put you under any sense of obligation, or to interfere with your enjoyments. It is just because of that way of life that you could be of help to me."

"It would be pleasant indeed, Exzellenz, to discover that my weaknesses have become my virtues."

The great man smiled, but went on trying to get what he wanted.

"Suppose you were to render me such services as happened to amuse you, and which required no greater sacrifice on your part than to motor to Berlin two or three times a year; and suppose that some day, purely out of friendship, I should be moved to present you with a shooting preserve such as this, a matter of one or two hundred square kilometers—surely that wouldn’t have to be taken as a humiliation or indignity."

"Gott behüte!" exclaimed the playboy. "If I owned such a property, I would have to pay taxes and upkeep, and right away I should be under moral pressure to get some use out of it."

"Can you think of nothing I might do for you?"

Lanny perceived that he was being handled with masterly diplomacy. The General wasn’t saying: "You know I have a hold on you, and this is the way you might induce me to release it!" He wasn’t compelling Lanny to say: "You know that you are holding out on me and not keeping your promise!" He was making things easy for both of them; and Lanny was surely not going to miss his chance! "Yes, Göring," he said, quickly, "there is one thing—to have your wonderful governmental machine make some special effort and find that young son of Johannes Robin."

"You are still worried about that Yiddisher?"

"How can I help it? He is a sort of relative—my half-sister is married to his brother, and naturally the family is distressed. When I started out for Berlin to show my Detaze paintings, I had to promise to do everything in my power to find him. I have hesitated to trouble you again, knowing the enormous responsibilities you are carrying—"

"But I have already told you, my dear Budd, that I have tried to find the man without success."

"Yes, but I know how great the confusion of the past few months has been; I know of cases where individuals and groups have assumed authority which they did not legally possess. If you want to do me a favor I shall never forget, have one of your staff make a thorough investigation, not merely in Berlin but throughout the Reich, and enable me to get this utterly harmless young fellow off my conscience."

"All right," said the Minister-Prasident; "if that is your heart’s desire, I will try to grant it. But remember, it may be beyond my power. I cannot bring back the dead."

IV

Back in Berlin, Lanny and his wife went for a drive and talked out this new development. "Either he doesn’t trust me," said Lanny, "or else I ought to hear from him very soon."

"He must pretend to make an investigation," put in Irma.

"It needn’t take long to discover a blunder. He can say: I am embarrassed to discover that my supposed-to-be-efficient organization has slipped up. Your friend was in Dachau all along and I have ordered him brought to Berlin. If he doesn’t do that, it’s because he’s not satisfied with my promises."

"Maybe he knows too much about you, Lanny."

"That is possible; but he hasn’t given any hint of it."

"Would he, unless it suited his convenience? Freddi is his only hold on you, and he knows that. Probably he thinks you’d go straight out of Germany and spill the story of Johannes."

"That story is pretty old stuff by now. Johannes is a poor down-and-out, and I doubt if anybody could be got to take much interest in him. The Brown Book is published and he isn’t in it."

"Listen," said the wife; "this is a question which has been troubling my mind. Can it be that Freddi has been doing something serious, and that Göring knows it, and assumes that you know it?"

"That depends on what you mean by serious. Freddi helped to finance and run a Socialist school; he tried to teach the workers a set of theories which are democratic and liberal. That’s a crime to this Regierung, and people who are guilty of it are luckier if they are dead."

"I don’t mean that, Lanny. I mean some sort of plot or conspiracy, an attempt to overthrow the government."

"You know that Freddi didn’t believe in anything of the sort. I’ve heard him say a thousand times that he believed in government by popular consent, such as we have in America, and such as the Weimar Republic tried to be—or anyhow, was supposed to be."

"But isn’t it conceivable that Freddi might have changed after the Reichstag fire, and after seeing what was done to his comrades? It wouldn’t have been the Weimar Republic he was trying to overthrow, but Hitler. Isn’t it likely that he and many of his friends changed their minds?"

"Many did, no doubt; but hardly Freddi. What good would he have been? He shuts his eyes when he aims a gun!"

"There are plenty of others who would do the shooting. What Freddi had was money—scads of it that he could have got from his father. There were the months of March and April—and how do you know what he was doing, or what his comrades were planning and drawing him into?"

"I think he would have told us about it, Irma. He would have felt in honor, bound."

"He might have been in honor bound the other way, he couldn’t talk about those comrades. It might even be that he didn’t know what was going on, but that others were using him. Some of those fellows I met at the school—they were men who would have fought back, I know. Ludi Schultz, for example—do you imagine he’d lie down and let the Nazi machine roll over him? Wouldn’t he have tried to arouse the workers to what they call mass action? And wouldn’t his wife have helped him? Then again, suppose there was some Nazi agent among them, trying to lure them into a trap, to catch them in some act of violence so that they could be arrested?"

"The Nazis don’t have to have any excuses, Irma; they arrest people wholesale."

"I’m talking about the possibility that there might be some real guilt, or at any rate a charge against Freddi. Some reason why Göring would consider him dangerous and hold onto him."

"The people who are in the concentration camps aren’t those against whom they have criminal charges. The latter are in the prisons, and the Nazis torture them to make them betray their associates; then they shoot them in the back of the neck and cremate them. The men who are in Dachau are Socialist politicians and editors and labor leaders—intellectuals of all the groups that stand for freedom and justice and peace."

"You mean they’re there without any charge against them?" "Exactly that. They’ve had no trial, and they don’t know what they’re there for or how long they’re going to stay. Two or three thousand of the finest persons in Bavaria—and my guess is that Freddi has done no more than any of the others."

Irma didn’t say any more, and her husband knew the reason—she couldn’t believe what he said. It was too terrible to be true. All over the world people were saying that, and would go on saying it, to Lanny’s great exasperation.

V

The days passed, and it was time for the Munich opening, and still nobody had called to admit a blunder on the part of an infallible governmental machine. Lanny brooded over the problem continually. Did the fat General expect him to go ahead delivering the goods on credit, and without ever presenting any bill? Lanny thought: "He can go to hell! And let it be soon!"

In his annoyance, the Socialist in disguise began thinking about those comrades whom he had met at the school receptions. Rahel had given him addresses, and in his spare hours he had dropped in at place after place, always taking the precaution to park his car some distance away and to make sure that he was not followed. In no single case had he been able to find the persons, or to find anyone who would admit knowing their whereabouts. In most cases people wouldn’t even admit having heard of them. They had vanished off the face of the Fatherland. Was he to assume that they were all in prisons or concentration camps? Or had some of them "gone underground"? Once more he debated how he might find his way to that nether region—always being able to get back to the Hotel Adlon in time to receive a message from the second in command of the Nazi government!

Irma went to à_ _thé dansant at the American Embassy, and Lanny went to look at some paintings in a near-by palace. But he didn’t find anything he cared to recommend to his clients, and the prices seemed high; he didn’t feel like dancing, and could be sure that his wife had other partners. His thoughts turned to a serious-minded young "commercial artist" who wore large horn-rimmed spectacles and hated his work—the making of drawings of abnormally slender Aryan ladies wearing lingerie, hosiery, and eccentric millinery. Also Lanny thought about the young man’s wife, a consecrated soul, and an art student with a genuine talent. Ludwig and Gertrude Schultz —there was nothing striking about these names, but Ludi and Trudi sounded like a vaudeville team or a comic strip.

Lanny had phoned to the advertising concern and been informed that the young man was no longer employed there. He had called the art school and learned that the former student was no longer studying. In neither place did he hear any tone of cordiality or have any information volunteered. He guessed that if the young people had fled abroad they would surely have sent a message to Bienvenu. If they were "sleeping out" in Germany, what would they be doing? Would they go about only at night, or would they be wearing some sort of disguise? He could be fairly sure they would be living among the workers; for they had never had much money, and without jobs would probably be dependent upon worker comrades.

VI

How to get underground! Lanny could park his car, but he couldn’t park his accent and manners and fashionable little brown mustache. And above all, his clothes! He had no old ones; and if he bought some in a secondhand place, how would he look going into a de luxe hotel? For him to become a slum-dweller would be almost as hard as for a slum-dweller to become a millionaire playboy.

He drove past the building where the workers' school had been. There was now a big swastika banner hanging from a pole over the door; the Nazis had taken it for a district headquarters. No information to be got there! So Lanny drove on to the neighborhood where the Schultzes had lived. Six-story tenements, the least "slummy" workingclass quarter he had seen in Europe. The people still stayed indoors as much as they could. Frost had come, and the window-boxes with the flowers had been taken inside.

He drove past the house in which he had visited the Schultzes. Nothing to distinguish it from any other house, except the number. He drove round the block and came again, and on a sudden impulse stopped his car and got out and rang the Pfortner’s bell. He had already made one attempt to get something here, but perhaps he hadn’t tried hard enough.

This time he begged permission to come in and talk to the janitor’s wife, and it was grudgingly granted. Seated on a wooden stool in a kitchen very clean, but with a strong smell of pork and cabbage, he laid himself out to make friends with a suspicious woman of the people. He explained that he was an American art dealer who had met an artist of talent and had taken some of her work and sold it, and now he owed her money and was troubled because he was unable to find her. He knew that Trudi Schultz had been an active Socialist, and perhaps for that reason did not wish to be known; but he was an entirely non-political person, and neither Trudi nor her friends had anything to fear from him. He applied what psychology he possessed in an effort to win the woman’s confidence, but it was in vain. She didn’t know where the Schultzes had gone; she didn’t know anybody who might know. The apartment was now occupied by a laborer with a family of several children. "Nein," and then again "Nein, mein Herr."

Lanny gave up, and heard the door of the Pfortnerin close behind him. Then he saw coming down the stairway of the tenement a girl of eight or ten, in a much patched dress and a black woolen shawl about her head and shoulders. On an impulse he said, quickly: "Bitte, wo wohnt Frau Trudi Schultz?"

The child halted and stared. She had large dark eyes and a pale undernourished face; he thought she was Jewish, and perhaps that accounted for her startled look. Or perhaps it was because she had never seen his kind of person in or near her home. "I am an old friend of Frau Schultz," he continued, following up his attack.

"I don’t know where she lives," murmured the child.

"Can you think of anybody who would know? I owe her some money and she would be glad to have it." He added, on an inspiration: "I am a comrade."

"I know where she goes," replied the little one. "It is the tailor-shop of Aronson, down that way, in the next block."

"Danke schön" said Lanny, and put a small coin into the frail hand of the hungry-looking little one.

He left his car where it stood and found the tailorshop, which had a sign in Yiddish as well as German. He walked by on the other side of the street, and again regretted his clothes, so conspicuous in this neighborhood. "Aronson" would probably be a Socialist; but maybe he wasn’t, and for Lanny to stroll in and ask for Trudi might set going some train of events which he could not imagine. On the other hand, he couldn’t walk up and down in front of the place without being noticed—and those inside the shop no doubt had reasons for keeping watch.

What he did was to walk down to the corner and buy a Bonbon-Tüte and come back and sit on a step across the street from the shop but farther on so that he was partly hidden by a railing. Sitting down made him less tall, and holding a bag of candy and nibbling it certainly made him less fashionable. Also it made him interesting to three children of the tenement; when he shared his treasure, which they called Bom-bom, they were glad to have him there, and when he asked their names, where they went to school, what games they played, they made shy answers. Meanwhile he kept his eyes on the door of Aronson’s tailorshop.

Presently he ventured to ask his three proletarian friends if they knew Trudi Schultz. They had never heard of her, and he wondered if he was on a wild-goose chase. Perhaps it would be more sensible to go away and write a note; not giving his name, just a hint: "The friend who sold your drawings in Paris." He would add: "Take a walk in front of the enormous white marble Karl der Dicke (the Stout), in the Siegesallee at twenty-two o’clock Sunday." With one-third of his mind he debated this program, with another he distributed Leckereien to a growing throng, and with the remaining third he watched the door of "Aronson: Schneiderei, Reparatur."

VII

The door opened suddenly, and there stepped forth a young woman carrying a large paper bundle. Lanny’s heart gave a jump, and he handed the almost empty Tute to one of his little friends, and started in the same direction as the woman. She was slender, not so tall as Lanny, and dressed in a poor-looking, badly-faded brown coat, with a shawl over her head and shoulders. He couldn’t see her hair, and being somewhat behind her he couldn’t see her face, but he thought he knew her walk. He followed for a block or so, then crossed over and came up behind her and to her side. Her face was paler and thinner than when he had last seen her; she appeared an older woman; but there was no mistaking the finely chiseled, sensitive features, which had so impressed him as revealing intelligence and character. "Wie geht’s, Trudi?" he said.

She started violently, then glanced at him; one glance, and she turned her face to the front and walked steadily on. "I am sorry, mein Herr. You are making a mistake."

"But Trudi!" he exclaimed. "I am Lanny Budd." "My name is not Trudi and I do not know you, sir." If Lanny had had any doubt as to her face, he would have been sure of her voice. It had rather deep tones, and gave an impression of intense feelings which the calm features seemed trying to repress. Of course it was Trudi Schultz. But she didn’t want to know him, or be known.

It was the first time Lanny had met a Socialist since he set out to save the Robin family. He had kept away from them on purpose; Rick had warned him what he might be doing to his own reputation, and now here he saw it! He walked by this devoted comrade’s side, and spoke quickly—for she might come to her destination and slam a door in his face, or turn away and forbid him to follow her. "Trudi, please hear what I have to say. I came to Germany to try to save the Robins. First I got Johannes out of jail, and I took him and his wife with Rahel and the baby, out to France. Now I have come back to try to find Freddi and get him free."

"You are mistaken, sir," repeated the young woman. "I am not the person you think."

"You must understand that I have had to deal with people in authority here, and I couldn’t do it unless I took an attitude acceptable to them. I have no right to speak of that, but I know I can trust you, and you ought to trust me, because I may need your help—I am a long way from succeeding with poor Freddi. I have tried my best to find some of his old friends, but I can’t get a contact anywhere. Surely you must realize that I wouldn’t be dropping my own affairs and coming here unless I was loyal to him and to his cause. I have to trust somebody, and I put you on your honor not to mention what I am telling you. I have just learned that Freddi is in Dachau—"

She stopped in her tracks and gasped: "In Dachau!"

"He has been there for several months."

"How do you know it?"

"I am not free to say. But I am fairly certain."

She started to walk again, but he thought she was unsteady on her feet. "It means so much to me," she said, "because Ludi and Freddi were arrested together."

"I didn’t know that Ludi had been arrested. What has happened to him?"

"I have heard nothing from him or concerning him since the Nazis came and dragged them both away from our home."

"What was Freddi doing there?"

"He came because he had been taken ill, and had to have some place to lie down. I knew it was dangerous for him, but I couldn’t send him away."

"The Nazis were looking for Ludi?"

"We had gone into hiding and were doing illegal work. I happened to be away from home at the time and a neighbor warned me. The Nazis tore everything in the place to pieces, as if they were maniacs. Why do you suppose they took Freddi to Dachau?"

"It’s a long story. Freddi is a special case, on account of being a Jew, and a rich man’s son."

It seemed to Lanny that the young woman was weak, perhaps from this shock, perhaps from worry and fear, and not getting enough to eat. He couldn’t suggest that they sit on some step, because it would make them conspicuous. He said: "Let me carry that bundle."

"No, no," she replied. "It’s all right."

But he knew that it wasn’t, and in the land of his forefathers men did not let women carry the loads. He said: "I insist," and thought that he was being polite when he took it out of her arms.

Then right away he saw why she hadn’t wanted him to have it. It was wrapped like a bundle of clothing, and was soft like such a bundle, but its weight was beyond that of any clothing ever made. He tried to guess: did the bundle contain arms of some sort, or was it what the comrades called "literature"? The latter was more in accord with Trudi’s nature, but Irma had pointed out that one couldn’t count upon that. A small quantity of weapons might weigh the same as a larger quantity of printed matter. Both would be equally dangerous in these times; and here was Lanny with an armful of either or both!

VIII

They must keep on walking and keep on talking. He asked: "How far do you have to go?"

"Many blocks."

"I have a car, and I could get it and drive you."

"A car must not stop there, nor can I let you go to the place."

"But we ought to have a talk. Will you let Irma and me meet you somewhere and take you for a drive? That way we can talk safely."

She walked for a space without speaking. Then she said: "Your wife is not sympathetic to our ideas, Genosse Budd."

"She does not agree with us altogether," he admitted; "but she is loyal to me and to the Robins."

"Nobody will be loyal in a time like this except those who believe in the class struggle." They walked again in silence; then the young artist continued: "It is hard for me to say, but it is not only my life that is at stake, but that of others to whom I am pledged. I would be bound to tell them the situation, and I know they would not consent for me to meet your wife, or to let her know about our affairs.'' He was a bit shocked to discover what the comrades had been thinking about his marriage; but he couldn’t deny Trudi’s right to decide this matter. "All right," he said. "I won’t mention you, and don’t you mention me. There might be a spy among your group, I suppose."

"It’s not very likely, because our enemies don’t wait long when they get information. They are efficient, and take no chances. It is dangerous for you to be walking with me.'"

"I doubt if it could make serious trouble for an American; but it might cost me my chance to save Freddi if it became known that I was in touch with Socialists."

"It is certainly unwise for us to meet."

"It depends upon what may happen. How can we find each other in case of need?"

"It would not do for you to come where I am. If I need to see you, I’ll send you an unsigned note. I read in the papers that you were staying at the Adlon."

"Yes, but I’m leaving tomorrow or the next day for Munich, where I’ll be at the Vier Jahreszeiten. Letters will be forwarded, however."

"Tell me, Genosse Lanny," she exclaimed, in a tense voice; "do you suppose there could be any chance for you to find if Ludi is in Dachau?"

"I can’t think of any way now; but something might turn up. I must have some way to get word to you."

"Notice this corner ahead of us; remember it, and if you have any news for me, walk by here on Sunday, exactly at noon. I’ll be watching for you, and I’ll follow you to your car. But don’t come unless you have something urgent."

"You mean that you will come to this corner every Sunday?"

"So long as there’s any chance of your coming. When you leave Germany, I can write you to Juan-les-Pins."

"All right," he said; and then, as a sudden thought came to him: "Do you need money?"

"I’m getting along all right."

But he knew that propagandists can always use money. He didn’t take out his billfold, that being a conspicuous action; he reached under his coat, and worked several bills into a roll, and slipped them into the pocket of that well-worn brown coat. He was becoming expert in the art of distributing illicit funds. What he gave her would be a fortune for Social-Democrats, underground or above. He would leave it for her to explain how she had got it.

When he returned to the hotel, Irma said: "Well! You must have found some paintings that interested you!"

He answered: "A couple of Menzels that I think are worth Zoltan’s looking at. But the works by the Maris brothers were rather a disappointment."

IX

The period of the Detaze show in Berlin corresponded with an election campaign throughout the German Reich; assuredly the strangest election campaign since that contrivance had been born of the human brain. Hitler had wiped out all other political parties, and all the legislative bodies of the twenty-two German states; by his methods of murder and imprisonment he had destroyed democracy and representative government, religious toleration and all civil rights; but being still the victim of a "legality complex," he insisted upon having the German people endorse what he had done. A vote to say that votes had no meaning! A Reichstag to declare that a Reichstag was without power! A completely democratic repudiation of democracy! Lanny thought: "Has there ever been such a madman since the world began? Has it ever before happened that a whole nation has gone mad?"

Living in the midst of this enormous institute of lunacy, Lanny Budd tried to keep his balance and not be permanently stood upon his head. If there was anything he couldn’t comprehend, his Nazi friends were eager to explain it, but there wasn’t a single German from whom he could hear a sane word. Even Hugo Behr and his friends who were planning the "Second Revolution" were all loyal Hitlerites, co-operating in what they considered a sublime demonstration of patriotic fervor. Even the members of smart society dared give no greater sign of rationality than a slight smile, or the flicker of an eyelash so faint that you couldn’t be sure if you had seen it. The danger was real, even to important persons. Only a few days later they would see Herzog Philip Albert of Württemberg imprisoned for failing to cast his vote in this sublime national referendum.

Hitler had raised the issue in the middle of October when the British at Geneva had dared to propose a four years' "trial period" before permitting Germany to rearm. The Führer’s reply was to withdraw the German delegates from both the League of Nations and the Conference for Arms Limitation. In so doing he issued to the German people one of those eloquent manifestoes which he delighted to compose; he told them how much he loved peace and how eager he was to disarm when the other nations would do the same. He talked to them about "honor"—he, the author of Mein Kampf—and they believed him, thus proving that they were exactly what he had said they were. He proclaimed that what the German people wanted was "equal rights"; and, having just deprived them of all rights, he put to them in the name of the government this solemn question:

"Does the German people accept the policy of its National Cabinet as enunciated here and is it willing to declare this to be the expression of its own view and its own will and to give it holy support?"

Such was the "referendum" to be voted on a month later. In addition, there was to be a new Reichstag election, with only one slate of candidates, 686 of them, all selected by the Führer, and headed by the leading Nazis: Hitler, Göring, Goebbels, Hess, Röhm, and so on. One party, one list—and one circle in which you could mark your cross to indicate "yes." There was no place for you to vote "no," and blank ballots were declared invalid.

For that sort of "election" the Fatherland was kept in a turmoil for four weeks, and more money was spent than had ever been spent by all the forty-five parties in any previous Reichstag election. The shows and spectacles, the marching and singing, the carrying of the "blood banners," the ceremonies in honor of the Nazi martyrs; the posters and proclamations, the torchlight processions, the standing at attention and saluting, the radio orations with the people assembled in the public squares to listen to loud-speakers— and a few sent to concentration camps for failing to listen. Hitherto the business of standing silent had been reserved as an honor for the war dead; but now all over Germany the traffic came to a halt and people stood in silence with bared heads; all the factories ceased work and thirty million workers stood to listen to the voice of Adolf Hitler, speaking in the dynamo hall of the enormous Siemens-Schuckert Electrical Works in Berlin. Afterward they stayed and worked an hour overtime, so that they and not their employers might have the honor and glory of making a sacrifice for the Fatherland!

X

On a bright and pleasant Sunday in mid-November, great masses of the German Volk lined up in front of polling-places all over the land, and even in foreign lands, and in ships upon the high seas. They voted in prisons and even in concentration camps. Late in the day the Stormtroopers rounded up the lazy and careless ones; and so more than forty-three million ballots were cast, and more than ninety-five per cent voted for the Hitler Reichstag and for the solemn referendum in favor of their own peace and freedom. Irma read about it, the next day and the days thereafter, and was tremendously impressed. She said: "You see, Lanny, the Germans really believe in Hitler. He is what they want." When she read that the internees of Dachau had voted twenty to one for the man who had shut them up there, she said: "That seems to show that things can’t be so very bad."

The husband replied: "It seems to me to show that they are a lot worse."

But he knew there was no use trying to explain that. It would only mean an argument. He was learning to keep his unhappiness locked up in his soul. His wife was having a very good time in Berlin, meeting brilliant and distinguished personalities; and Lanny was going about tormenting himself over the activities and the probable fates of a little group of secret conspirators in a Berlin slum!

He could guess pretty well what they were doing; he imagined a small hand-press in the back of the tailor shop, and they were printing leaflets, perhaps about the Brown Book and its revelations concerning the Reichstag fire, perhaps quoting opinions of the outside world, so as to keep up the courage of the comrades in a time of dreadful anguish. Probably Trudi was carrying some of this "literature" to others who would see to its distribution. All of them were working in hourly peril of their lives; and Lanny thought: "I ought to be helping them; I am the one who could really accomplish something, because I could get money, and bring them information from outside, and carry messages to their comrades in France and England."

But then he would think: "If I did that, I’d ruin the happiness of my mother and my wife and most of my friends. In the end I’d probably wreck my marriage."

I

A PLEASANT thing to leave the flat windy plain of Prussia at the beginning of winter and motor into the forests and snug valleys of South Germany. Pleasant to arrive in a beautiful and comparatively modern city and to find a warm welcome awaiting you in an establishment called the "Four Seasons of the Year" so as to let you know that it was always ready. Munich was a "Four Seasons of the Year" city; its life was a series of festivals, and the drinking of beer out of Maßkrugen was a civic duty.

The devoted Zoltan had come in advance and made all arrangements for the show. The Herr Privatdozent Doktor der Philosophie Aloysius Winckler zu Sturmschatten had applied his arts, and the intellectuals of Munich were informed as to the merits of the new school of representational painting; also the social brilliance of the young couple who were conferring this bounty upon them.

In the morning came the reporters by appointment. They had been provided with extracts from what the Berlin press had said about Detaze, and with information as to the Barnes fortune and the importance of Budd Gunmakers; also the fact that Lanny had been on a shooting trip with General Göring and had once had tea with the Führer. The young couple exhibited that affability which is expected from the land of cowboys and movies. Lanny said yes, he knew Munich very well; he had purchased several old masters here— he named them, and told in what new world collections they had found havens. He had happened to be in the city on a certain historic day ten years ago and had witnessed scenes which would make the name of Munich forever famous. Flashlight bulbs went off while he talked, reminding him of those scenes on the Marienplatz when the Nazi martyrs had been shot down.

The interviews appeared in due course, and when the exhibition opened on the following afternoon the crowds came. An old story now, but the people were new, and those who love greatness and glory never tire of meeting Herzog und Herzogin Überall und Prinz und Prinzessin Undsoweiter. A great thing for art when ladies of the highest social position take their stand in a public gallery to pay tribute to genius, even though dead. While Parsifal Dingle went off to ask the spirit of the dead painter if he was pleased with the show, and while Lanny went to inspect older masters and dicker over prices, Beauty Budd and her incomparable daughter-in-law were introduced to important personages, accepted invitations to lunches and dinners, and collected anecdotes which they would retail to their spouses and later to their relatives and friends.

There was only one thing wrong between this pair; the fact that Marcel Detaze had died when Irma was a child and had never had an opportunity to paint a picture of her. Thus Beauty got more than her proper share of glory, and there was no way to redistribute it. The mother-in-law would be humble, and try not to talk about herself and her portraits while Irma was standing by; but others would insist upon doing so, and it was a dangerous situation. Beauty said to her son: "Who is the best portrait painter living?"

"Why?" he asked, surprised.

"Because, you ought to have him do Irma right away. It would be a sensation, and help to keep her interested in art."

"Too bad that Sargent is gone!" chuckled Lanny.

"Don’t make a joke of it," insisted the mother. "It’s quite inexcusable that the crowds should come and look at pictures of a faded old woman who doesn’t matter, instead of one in the prime of her beauty."

"Art is long and complexions are fleeting," said the incorrigible one.

II

A far greater event than the Detaze exhibition came to Munich, causing the city to break out with flags. The Reichskanzler, the Führer of the N.S.D.A.P., had been motoring and flying all over his land making campaign speeches. After his overwhelming triumph he had sought his mountain retreat, to brood and ponder new policies; and now, refreshed and reinspired, he came to his favorite city, the one in which his movement had been built and his crown of martyrdom won. Here he had been a poor Schlawiner, as they called a man whose means of subsistence they did not know, a Wand- und Landstreicher, who made wild, half-crazy speeches, and people went to hear him because it was a Gaudi, or what you would call in English a "lark." Munich had seen him wandering about town looking very depressed, uncouth in his rusty worn raincoat, carrying an oversize dogwhip because of his fear of enemies, who, however, paid no attention to him.

But now he had triumphed over them all. Now he was the master of Germany, and Munich celebrated his arrival with banners. Here in the Braune Haus he had the main headquarters of the party; a splendid building which Adolf himself had remodeled and decorated according to his own taste. He, the frustrated architect, had made something so fine that his followers were exalted when they entered the place, and took fresh vows of loyalty to their leader and his all-conquering dream.

Mabel Blackless, alias Beauty Budd, alias Madame Detaze, had done some conquering in her time, and was still capable of dreams. "Oh, Lanny!" she exclaimed. "Do you suppose you could get him to come to the exhibition? It would be worth a million dollars to us!"

"It’s certainly worth thinking about," conceded the son.

"Don’t delay! Telephone Heinrich Jung and ask him to come. Pay him whatever he wants, and we’ll all stand our share."

"He won’t want much. He’s not a greedy person."

The young Nazi official was staggered by the proposal. He feared it was something far, far beyond his powers. But Lanny urged him to rise to a great occasion. He had worked hard through the electoral campaign and surely was entitled to a few days' vacation. What better way to spend it than to pay his compliments to his Führer, and take him to see some paintings of the special sort which he approved?

"You can bring them to him if he prefers," said Lanny. "We’ll close the show for a day and pick out the best and take them wherever he wishes." He spoke with eagerness, having another scheme up his sleeve; he wasn’t thinking merely about enhancing the prices of his family property. "If you can get off right away, take a plane. There’s no time to be lost."

"Herrgott!" exclaimed the ex-forester. He was in heaven.

Then Lanny put in a long distance call to Kurt Meissner in Stubendorf. Kurt had refused an invitation to Berlin because he couldn’t afford the luxury and wasn’t willing to be put under obligations. But now Lanny could say: "This is a business matter. You will be doing us a service, and also one for the Führer. You can play your new compositions for him, and that will surely be important for your career. Heinrich is coming, and we’ll paint the town brown." He supposed that was the proper National Socialist formula!

Irma took the phone and added: "Come on, Kurt. It will be so good for Lanny. I want him to understand your movement and learn to behave himself." Impossible for an apostle and propagandist to resist such a call. Irma added: "Take a plane from Breslau if that’s quicker. We’ll have a room reserved for you."

III

Somewhat of an adventure for Beauty Budd. Six years had passed since Kurt had departed from Bienvenu and had failed to return. He had found himself a wife, and she a husband, and now they would meet as old friends, glad to see each other, but with carefully measured cordiality; their memories would be like Marcel’s paintings hanging on the walls—but not for public showing.

Parsifal Dingle was here, and he had heard much talk about the wonderful German composer who had lived for so long with the Budds. He hadn’t been told that Kurt had been Beauty’s lover for eight years, but he couldn’t very well have failed to guess. He never asked questions, that being contrary to his philosophy. A wise and discreet gentleman with graying hair, he had found himself an exceptionally comfortable nest and fitted himself into it carefully, taking up no more than his proper share of room. He cultivated his own soul, enjoyed the process, and asked nothing more of life. If a German musician who had read Hegel, Fichte, and others of his country’s philosophers wished to ask questions about the inner life, Parsifal would be glad to answer; otherwise he would listen to Kurt play the piano in their suite and give his own meanings to the music.

Friendship to Lanny Budd had always been one of life’s precious gifts. Now he was happy to be with Kurt and Heinrich again; yet he was torn in half, because he wasn’t really with them, he was lying to them. How strange to be using affection as a camouflage; feeling sympathy and oneness, yet not really feeling it, working against it all the time! Lanny’s friendship was for Freddi, and Freddi and these two were enemies. With a strange sort of split personality, Lanny loved all three; his friendship for Kurt and Heinrich was still a living thing, and in his feelings he went back to the old days in Stubendorf, twelve years ago, when he had first met the Oberforster’s son. To be sure, Heinrich had been a Nazi even then, but Lanny hadn’t realized what a Nazi was, nor for that matter had Heinrich realized it. It had been a vision of German progress, a spiritual thing, constructive and not destructive, a gain for the German Volk without any loss for Jews or Socialists or democrats or pacifists—all those whom the Nazis now had in their places of torture.

The three talked about old times and were at one. They talked about Kurt’s music, and were still at one. But then Heinrich fell to talking about his work, and recent developments in party and national affairs, and at once Lanny had to start lying. It wasn’t enough just to keep still, as he had done earlier; no, when the young party official went into ecstasies over that marvelous electoral victory, Lanny had to echo: "Herrlich!" When Kurt declared that the Führer’s stand for peace and equality among the nations was a great act of statesmanship, Lanny had to say: "Es hat was heroisches" And all the time in his soul he wondered: "Which of us is crazy?"

No easy matter to stick to the conviction that your point of view is right and that all the people about you are wrong. That is the way not merely with pioneers of thought, with heroes, saints, and martyrs, but also with lunatics and "nuts," of whom there are millions in the world. When one of these "nuts" succeeds in persuading the greater part of a great nation that he is right, the five per cent have to stop and ask themselves: "How come?" Particularly is this true of one like Lanny Budd, who was no pioneer, hero, or saint, and surely didn’t want to be a martyr. All he wanted was that his friends shouldn’t quarrel and make it necessary for him to choose between them. Kurt and Rick had been quarreling since July 1914, and Lanny had been trying to make peace. Never had he seemed less successful than now, while trying to act as a secret agent for Rick, Freddi, and General Göring all at the same time!

They talked over the problem of approaching the Chancellor of Germany, and agreed that Kurt was the one to do it, he being the elder, and the only one with a claim to greatness. Kurt called the Führer’s secretary at the Braune Haus, and said that he wished not merely to play the piano for his beloved leader, but to bring the Führer’s old friend, Heinrich Jung, and the young American, Lanny Budd, who had visited the Führer in Berlin several years ago. Lanny would bring a sample of the paintings of Marcel Detaze, who was then having a one-man exhibition and had been highly praised in the press. The secretary promised to put the matter before the Chancellor in person, and the Komponist stated where he could be reached. Needless to say, it added to his importance that he was staying at the most fashionable of Munich’s hotels, with its fancy name, "The Four Seasons."

IV

Irma invited Kurt into her boudoir for a private chat. She was in a conspiracy with him against her husband—for her husband’s own good, of course; and Kurt, who had had professional training in intrigue, was amused by this situation. A sensible young wife, and it might be the saving of Lanny if he could be persuaded to follow her advice. Irma explained that Lanny had been behaving rationally on this trip, and was doing very well with his picture business, which seemed to interest him more than anything else; but he still had Freddi on his conscience, and was convinced that Freddi was innocent of any offense. "I can’t get him to talk about it," said Irma, "but I think somebody has told him that Freddi is a prisoner in a concentration camp. It has become a sort of obsession with him."

"He is loyal to his friends," said the Komponist, "and that’s a fine quality. He has, of course, no real understanding of what the Jews have done to Germany, the corrupting influence they have been in our national life."

"What I’m afraid of," explained Irma, "is that he might be tempted to bring up the subject to the Führer. Do you think that would be bad?"

"It might be very unfortunate for me. If the Führer thought that I had brought Lanny for that purpose, it might make it impossible for me ever to see him again."

"That’s what I feared; and perhaps it would be wise if you talked to Lanny about it and warned him not to do it. Of course don’t tell him that I spoke to you on the subject."

"Naturally not. You may always rely on my discretion. It will be easy for me to bring up the subject, because Lanny spoke to me about Freddi in Stubendorf."

So it came about that Lanny had a talk with Kurt without being under the necessity of starting it and having Kurt think that that was why he had been invited to Munich. Lanny assured his old friend that he had no idea of approaching the Führer about the matter; he realized that it would be a grave breach of propriety. But Lanny couldn’t help being worried about his Jewish friend, and Kurt ought to be worried too, having played so many duets with him and knowing what a fine and sensitive musician he was. Lanny said: "I have met one of Freddi’s old associates, and I know that he is under arrest. I could never respect myself if I didn’t try to do something to aid him."

Thus the two resumed their old intimacy; Kurt, one year or so the elder, still acting as mentor, and Lanny, the humble and diffident, taking the role of pupil. Kurt explained the depraved and antisocial nature of Juda, and Lanny let himself be convinced. Kurt explained the basic fallacies of Social-Democracy, one of the Jewish perversions of thought, and how it had let itself be used as a front for Bolshevism—even when, as in the case of Freddi, its devotees were ignorant of what base purposes they were serving. Lanny listened attentively, and became more and more acquiescent, and Kurt became correspondingly affectionate in his mood. At the end of the conversation Kurt promised that if they had the good fortune to be received by the Führer, he would study the great man’s moods, and if it could be done without giving offense, he would bring up the subject of Lanny’s near-relative and ask the Führer to do the favor of ordering his release, upon Lanny’s promise to take him out of Germany and see to it that he didn’t write or speak against the Fatherland.

"But don’t you bring up the subject," warned Kurt. Lanny promised solemnly that he wouldn’t dream of committing such a breach of propriety.

V

They waited in the hotel until the message came. The Führer would be pleased to see them at the Braune Haus next morning; and be sure they would be on hand!

It proved to be one of those early winter days when the sun is bright and the air intoxicating, and they would have liked to walk to the appointment; but they were taking the picture, Sister of Mercy, so Lanny would drive them. Heinrich, who had learned as a youth to labor with his hands, offered to carry the burden into the Braune Haus, but Beauty insisted that things had to be done with propriety, by a uniformed attendant from the hotel. She herself called up the management to arrange matters, and they fell over themselves to oblige. No charge, Frau Budd, and a separate car if you wish—what hotel in all Germany would not be honored to transport a picture to the Führer? The word spread like wildfire through the establishment, and the three young men were the cynosure of all eyes. The Führer, they learned, had been a familiar figure in this fashionable hotel; for many years he had been entertained here by two of his wealthy supporters, one of them a piano manufacturer and the other a Prussian Graf whose wife was conspicuous because of her extreme friendliness with the bellhops. Irma knew all about this, for the reason that she was practicing her German on one of the women employees of the establishment. One would never lack for gossip in a grand hotel of Europe!

The Braune Haus is on the Briennerstrasse, celebrated as one of the most beautiful streets in Germany; a neighborhood reserved for millionaires, princes, and great dignitaries of state and church. In fact, the palace of the Papal Nuncio was directly across the street, and so the representatives of the two rival faiths of Munich could keep watch upon each other from their windows. The princely delegate of the lowly Jewish carpenter looked across to a square-fronted three-story building set far back from the street and protected by high fences; on top of it a large swastika flag waved in the breeze which blew from the snow-clad Alps; in front of its handsome doorway stood day and night two armed Stormtroopers. If the Catholic prelate happened to be on watch that morning he saw a luxurious Mercedes car stop in front of the Nazi building and from it descend a blond and blue-eyed young Nazi official in uniform, a tall Prussian ex-artillery captain with a long and somewhat severe face, and a fashionably attired young American with brown hair and closely trimmed mustache; also a hotel attendant in a gray uniform with brass buttons, carrying a large framed picture wrapped in a cloth.

These four strode up the walk, and all but the burden-bearer gave the Nazi salute. Heinrich’s uniform carried authority, and they came into an entrance hall with swastikas, large and small, on the ceiling, the windows, the doorknobs, the lamp-brackets, the grillework. They were a little ahead of time, so Heinrich led them up the imposing stairway and showed them the Senatorensaal, with memorial tablets for the Nazi martyrs outside the doors. Inside were forty standards having bronze eagles, and handsome red leather armchairs for the "senators," whoever they were—they couldn’t have met very often, for the Führer gave all the orders. "Prachtvoll!" was the comment of Heinrich and Kurt. Lanny had the traitor thought: "This came out of the deal with Thyssen and the other steel kings!"

The offices of Hitler and his staff were on the same floor, and promptly at the appointed hour they were ushered into the simply decorated study of the head Nazi. They gave the salute, and he rose and greeted them cordially. He remembered Lanny and shook hands with him. "Willkommen, Herr Budd. How long has it been since we met—more than three years? How time does fly! I don’t have a chance to notice it, to say nothing of enjoying it."

Once more Lanny felt that soft moist hand, once more he looked into those gray-blue eyes set in a pale, pasty face, rather pudgy now. for Adi was gaining weight, in spite of or possibly because of his gall-bladder trouble. Looking at him, Lanny thought once more that here was the world’s greatest mystery. You might have searched all Europe and not found a more commonplace-appearing man; this Führer of the Fatherland had everything it took to make mediocrity. He was smaller than any of his three guests, and as he was now in a plain business suit with a white collar and black tie, he might have been a grocery assistant or traveling salesman for a hair tonic. He took no exercise, and his figure was soft, his shoulders narrow and hips wide like a woman’s. The exponent of Aryan purity was a mongrel if ever there was one; he had straight thick dark hair and wore one lock of it long, as Lanny had done when a boy. Apparently the only thing he tended carefully was that absurd little Charlie Chaplin mustache.

Watching him in his Berlin apartment, Lanny had thought: "It is a dream, and the German people will wake up from it." But now they were more deeply bemused than ever, and Lanny, trying to solve the riddle, decided that here was the Kleinbürgertum incarnate, the average German, the little man, the "man in the street." Thwarted and suppressed, millions of such men found their image in Adi Schicklgruber, understood him and believed his promises. The ways in which he differed from them—as in not eating meat and not getting drunk when he could—these made him romantic and inspiring, a great soul.

VI

The hotel attendant was standing in the doorway, with the picture resting on the floor; he steadied it with his left hand while keeping his right arm and hand extended outward and upward in a permanent salute. The Führer noticed him and asked: "What is this you have brought me?"

Lanny told him, and they stood the picture on a chair, with the attendant behind it, out of sight, holding it firmly. Hitler placed himself at a proper distance, and Lanny ceremoniously removed the cover. Then everybody stood motionless and silent while the great man did his looking.

"A beautiful thing!" he exclaimed. "That is my idea of a work of art. A Frenchman, you say? You may be sure that he had German forefathers. Who is the woman?"

"She is my mother," replied Lanny. He had made that statement hundreds of times in his life—Munich being the fifth great city in which he had assisted at an exhibition.

"A beautiful woman. You should be proud of her."

"I am," said Lanny, and added: "It is called Sister of Mercy. The painter was badly wounded in the war, and later killed. You can see that he felt what he was painting."

"Ah, yes!" exclaimed Adi. "I too, have been wounded, and know how a soldier feels about the women who nurse him. It would appear that great art comes only by suffering."

"So your Goethe has told us, Herr Reichskanzler."

A silence, while Hitler studied the painting some more. "A pure Aryan type," he commented; "the spiritual type which lends itself to idealization." He looked a while longer, and said: "Pity is one of the Aryan virtues. I doubt if the lesser races are capable of feeling it very deeply."

This went on for quite a while. The Führer looked, and then made a remark, and no one else ventured to speak unless it was a question. "This sort of art tells us that life is full of suffering. It should be the great task of mankind to diminish it as far as possible. You agree with that, Herr Budd?"

"Indeed I do; and I know that it was the leading idea of Marcel’s life."

"It is the task of the master race. They alone can fulfill it, because they have both the intelligence and the good will." Lanny was afraid he was going to repeat the question: "You agree with that?" and was trying to figure how to reply without starting an argument. But instead the Führer went on to inform him: "That should be our guiding thought in life. Here in this room we have three of the world’s great nationalities represented: the German, the French, the American. What a gain if these nations would unite to guard their Aryan purity and guarantee the reign of law throughout the world! Do you see any hope for that in our time?"

"It is a goal to aim at, Herr Reichskanzler. Each must do what he can."

"You may be sure that I will, Herr Budd. Tell it to everyone you know."

The master of Germany returned to the seat at his desk. "I am obliged to you for bringing me this portrait. I understand that you are having an exhibition?"

"Yes, Herr Reichskanzler; we should be honored if you would attend; or if you prefer, I will bring other samples of the work."

"I wish I could arrange it. Also"—turning to Kurt—"I was hoping to have you come to my apartment, where I have a piano. But I’m afraid I have to leave for Berlin. I was a happier man when I had only a political party to direct; now, alas, I have a government as well, and therefore a lover of music and art is compelled to give all his time and attention to the jealousies and rivalries of small men."

The picture-viewing was over, and the attendant carried it out, backing away and bowing at every step. The Führer turned to Kurt and asked about his music, and lifted a Komponist to the skies by saying that Kurt had rendered a real service to the cause. "We have to show the world that we National Socialists can produce talent and even genius, equal to the best of the past. Science must be brought to reinforce inspiration so that the Herrenvolk may ascend to new heights, and, if possible, raise the lesser tribes after them."

He turned to Heinrich. He wanted to hear all that a young official could tell him concerning the Hitler Jugend and its progress. The efficient head of a great organization was getting data about personalities and procedures over which he had control. He asked probing questions, watching the respondent through half-closed eyes. He could be sure that this official was telling him the truth, but it would be colored by the young man’s enthusiastic nature. Heinrich was hardly the one to report upon backstairs intrigue and treachery. "I wish I had more young men like you," remarked the Reichskanzler, wistfully.

"You have thousands of them, mein Führer," replied the enraptured ex-forester; "men whom you have never had an opportunity to meet."

"My staff try to shut me up as though I were an oriental despot," said Adi. "They talk to me about physical danger—but I know that it is my destiny to live and complete my work."

VII

It was quite an interview, and Lanny was on pins and needles for fear the great man might rise and say: "I am sorry, but my time is limited." Nobody could imagine anyone in a better humor; and Lanny looked at Kurt, and would have winked at him, only Kurt was keeping his eyes fixed upon his master and guide. Lanny tried telepathy, thinking as hard as he could: "Now! Now!"

"Mein Führer," said Kurt, "before we leave there is something which my friend Budd thinks I ought to tell you."

"What is it?"

"A great misfortune, but not his fault. It happens that his half-sister is married into a Jewish family."

"Dormerwetter!" exclaimed Adolf. "A shocking piece of news!"

"I should add that the husband is a fine concert violinist."

"We have plenty of Aryan artists, and no need to seek anything from that polluted race. What is the man’s name?"

"Hansi Robin."

"Robin? Robin?" repeated Hitler. "Isn’t he the son of that notorious Schieber, Johannes?"

"Yes, mein Führer."

"She should divorce him." The great man turned upon Lanny. "My young friend, you should not permit such a thing to continue. You should use your authority, you and your father and the other men of the family."

"It happens that the couple are devoted to each other, Herr Reichskanzler; also, she is his accompanist, and is now playing with him in a tour of the United States."

"But, Herr Budd, it is sordid and shameful to admit considerations of worldly convenience in such a matter. Your sister is a Nordic blond like yourself?"

"Even more so."

"Yet she gets upon public platforms and advertises her ignominy! And think of what she is doing to the future, the crime she commits against her children!"

"They have no children, Herr Reichskanzler. They are devoting their lives to art."

"It is none the less an act of racial pollution. Whether she has children or not, she is defiling her own body. Are you not aware that the male seminal fluid is absorbed by the female, and thus her bloodstream is poisoned by the vile Jewish emanations? It is a dreadful thing to contemplate, and if it were a sister of mine, I would rather see her dead before my eyes; in fact, I would strike her dead if I knew she intended to commit such an act of treason to her race."

"I am sorry, Herr Reichskanzler; but in America we leave young women to choose their own mates."

"And what is the result? You have a mongrel race, where every vile and debasing influence operates freely, and every form of degradation, physical, intellectual, and moral, flourishes unhindered. Travel that highway into hell, if you please, but be sure that we Germans are going to preserve our purity of blood, and we are not going to let ourselves be seduced by tricky words about freedom and toleration and humanitarianism and brotherly love and the rest. No Jew-monster is a brother of mine, and if I find one of them attempting to cohabit with an Aryan woman I will crush his skull, even as our Stormtrooper song demands: Crush the skulls of the Jewish pack! Pardon me if I speak plainly, but that has been my life’s habit, it is the duty which I have been sent to perform in this world. Have you read Mein Kampf?"

"Yes, Herr Reichskanzler."

"You know what I have taught in it: The Jew is the great instigator of the destruction of Germany. They are, as I have called them, true devils, with the brain of a monster and not that of a man. They are the veritable Untermenschen. There is a textbook of Hermann Gauch, called Neue Grundlage der Rassenforschung, which is now standard in our schools and universities, and which tells with scientific authority the truths about this odious race. Our eminent scientist classifies the mammals into two groups, first the Aryans, and second, non-Aryans, including the rest of the animal kingdom.

You have seen that book, by chance?"

"I have heard it discussed, Herr Reichskanzler."

"You do not accept its authority?"

"I am not a scientist, and my acceptance or rejection would carry no weight. I have heard the point raised that Jews must be human beings because they can mate with Aryans and Nordics, but not with non-human animals."

"Dr. Gauch says it has by no means been proved that Jews cannot mate with apes and other simian creatures. I suggest this as an important contribution which German science can make—to mate both male and female Jews with apes, and so demonstrate to the world the facts which we National Socialists have been proclaiming for so many years."

VIII

The master of all Germany had got started on one of his two favorite topics, the other being Bolshevism. Again Lanny observed the phenomenon that an audience of three was as good as three million. The sleepy look went out of the speaker’s eyes and they became fixed upon the unfortunate transgressor in a hypnotic stare. The quiet voice rose to a shrill falsetto. Something new appeared in the man, demonic and truly terrifying; the thrust-out finger struck as it were hammer blows upon Lanny’s mind. A young American playboy must be made to realize the monstrous nature of the treason he was committing in condoning his sister’s defilement of the sacred Aryan blood. Somehow, at once, the evil must be averted; the man who had been commissioned by destiny to save the world must prove his power here and now, by bringing this strayed sheep back into the Nordic fold. "Gift!" cried the Führer of the Nazis. "Poison! Poison.'"

Back in New England, Lanny’s Great-Great-Uncle Eli Budd had told him the story of the witch-hunt in early Massachusetts. "Fanaticism is a destroyer of mind," he had said. Here it was in another form—the terrors, the fantasies born of soul torment, the vision of supernatural evil powers plotting the downfall of all that was good and fair in human life. Adi really loved the Germans: their Gemütlichkeit, their Treue und Ehre, their beautiful songs and noble symphonies, their science and art, their culture in its thousand forms. But here was this satanic power, plotting, scheming day and night to destroy it all. Die Juden sind schuld!

Yes, literally, the Jews were to blame for everything; Hitler called the roll of their crimes for the ten thousandth time. They had taught revolt to Germany, they had undermined her patriotism and discipline, and in her hour of greatest peril they had stabbed her in the back. The Jews had helped to shackle her by the cruel Diktat of Versailles, and then had proceeded to rivet the chains of poverty upon her limbs. They had made the inflation, they had contrived the Dawes Plan, the Young Plan, the systems of interest and reparations slavery; the Jewish bankers in alliance with the Jewish Bolsheviks! They had seduced all German culture—theater, literature, music, journalism. They had sneaked into the professions, the sciences, the schools, and universities—and, as always, they had defiled and degraded whatever they touched. Die Juden sind unser Ungluck!

This went on for at least half an hour; and never once did anybody else get in a word. The man’s tirade poured out so fast that his sentences stumbled over one another; he forgot to finish them, he forgot his grammar, he forgot common decency and used the words of the gutters of Vienna, where he had picked up his ideas. The perspiration stood out on his forehead and his clean white collar began to wilt. In short, he gave the same performance which Lanny had witnessed in the Bürgerbraukeller of Munich more than a decade ago. But that had been a huge beerhall with two or three thousand people, while here it was like being shut up in a small chamber with a hundred-piece orchestra including eight trombones and four bass tubas playing the overture to The Flying Dutchman.

Suddenly the orator stopped. He didn’t say: "Have I convinced you?" That would have been expressing a doubt, which no heaven-sent evangelist ever admits. He said: "Now, Herr Budd, go and do your duty. Make one simple rule that I have maintained ever since I founded this movement—never to speak to a Jew, even over the telephone." Then, abruptly: "I have other engagements and have to be excused."

The three quickly said their adieus; and when they were outside, Lanny, in his role of secret agent, remarked: "No one can wonder that he stirs his audiences."

When he was back in the hotel with his wife and mother, he exclaimed: "Well, I know now why Göring is keeping Freddi."

"Why?" they asked, with much excitement.

Lanny answered, in a cold fury: "He is going to breed him with a female ape!"

IX

Lanny had to play out the game according to the rules. He must not let either of these friends discover that he had brought them here solely in the hope of persuading Hitler to release a Jewish prisoner. It was for friendship, for sociability, for music and art. Lanny and Kurt must play piano duets as in the old days. Zoltan must take them through the two Pinakotheks and give them the benefit of his art knowledge. Beauty and Irma must put on their best togs and accompany them to the Hof-und-National Theater for Die Meistersinger, and to the Prinz-Regenten Theater for Goethe’s Egmont. There must be a dinner at which distinguished personalities in the musical world were invited to meet a leading Komponist. After a symphony concert in the Tonhalle, Lanny listened to Kurt’s highly technical comments on the conductor and the sounds produced. The tone was hard, cold, and brilliant; it lacked "body," by which Kurt explained that he meant a just proportion of low and middle to high registers. He accused the too-ardent Kapellmeister of exaggerating his nuances, of expanding and contracting his volume unduly, fussing over his orchestra like an old hen with a too-large brood of chicks—certainly an undignified procedure, and by no means suitable to the rendition of Beethoven’s Eroica.

But to Lanny it seemed more important to try to understand what the composer of that noble symphony was trying to tell him than to worry about details of somebody’s rendition. The last time Lanny had heard this work had been with the Robin family in Berlin, and he recalled Freddi’s gentle raptures. Freddi wasn’t one of those musicians who have heard so much music that they have got tired of it, and can think about nothing but technicalities and personalities and other extraneous matters. Freddi loved Beethoven as if he had been the composer’s son; but now father and son had been torn apart. Freddi wasn’t fit to play Beethoven, by Heinrich’s decree, because he was a Jew; and certainly he wasn’t having any chance to hear Beethoven in Dachau. Lanny could think of little else, and the symphony became an appeal to the great master for a verdict against those who were usurping his influence and his name.

In Beethoven’s works there is generally a forceful theme that tramples and thunders, and a gentle theme that lilts and pleads. You may take it as pleading for mercy and love against the cruelties and oppressions of the world. You may take it that the grim, dominating theme represents these cruelties, or perhaps it represents that which rises in your own soul to oppose them. Anyhow, to Lanny the opening melody of the Eroica became the "Freddi theme," and Beethoven was defending it against the hateful Nazis. The great democrat of old Vienna came into the Tonhalle of Munich and laid his hand on Lanny’s burning forehead, and told him that he was right, and that he and his Jewish friend were free to march with Beethoven on the battlefields of the soul and to dance with him on the happy meadows.

Was it conceivable that Beethoven would have failed to despise the Nazis, and to defy them? He had dedicated his symphony to Napoleon because he believed that Napoleon represented the liberating forces of the French revolution, and he had torn up the title page of his score when he learned that Napoleon had got himself crowned Emperor of France. He had adopted Schiller’s Hymn to Joy, sending a kiss to the whole world and proclaiming that all men became brothers where the gentle wing of joy came to rest. Very certainly he had not meant to exclude the Jews from the human race, and would have spurned those who built their movement out of hate.

That was what this urgent music was about; that was what gave it drive and intensity. The soul of Beethoven was defending itself, it was defending all things German from those who would defile them. The "Freddi theme" pleaded, it stormed and raged, heaving itself in mighty efforts as the kettledrums thundered. The young idealist had told his friends that he wasn’t sure if he had within him the moral strength to withstand his foes; but here in this symphony he was finding it; here he would prevail, and rejoice-but then would come the rushing hordes and bowl him over and trample him. When the first movement came to its tremendous climax Lanny’s hands were tightly clenched and perspiration stood on his forehead.

The poignant, majestic march was Beethoven walking through the Nazi concentration camps—as Lanny had walked so many times in imagination. It was the grief and suffering of fifty or a hundred thousand of the finest and best-trained minds of Germany. It was Beethoven mourning with them, telling them that the blackest tragedy can be turned to beauty by the infinite powers of the soul. The finale of the symphony was a victory—but that was a long way off, and Lanny couldn’t imagine how it would come; he could only cling to the hand of the great master like a little child to its father. After hearing this concert Lanny had to face the fact that his love for Kurt and Heinrich had come to an end. He found it hard to be polite to his old friends; and he decided that being a spy, or secret agent, or whatever you chose to call it, was first and foremost a damnable bore. The greatest of all privileges in this life is saying what you think; and your friends have to be people who can at least give decent consideration to your ideas. Lanny was glad when he got Kurt and Heinrich on their separate trains for home. He thanked them for what they had done, assured them that it had been worth while, and thought: "I am going to get Freddi out of this hell, and then get myself out and stay out."

X

For a week Lanny had been living in close proximity to that mass of human misery known as Dachau; he had pretended to be indifferent to it, and had spoken of it only when he and Irma were alone in their car. Dachau is a small market-town nine miles northwest of the city, and a well-paved highway leads to it. Inevitably their thoughts had turned there, and the car had taken them at the first opportunity. They didn’t, like most tourists, inspect the castle on the height; they looked for the concentration camp, which wasn’t hard to find, as it occupied a square mile of ground. It had been a World War barracks and training camp, disused since the peace. A concrete wall seven feet high ran around it, having on top a tangle of barbed wire, no doubt electrically charged. Lanny thought about somebody trying to climb that wall; it seemed less possible when he came at night, and saw a blaze of white searchlights mounted in towers, moving continually along the walls.

The report, published in the newspapers, that the Führer had seen the Sister of Mercy, filled thousands of Bavarians with a desire to see it, and accordingly it was decided to continue the exhibition another week. But Lanny was tired of telling people about it, and tired of what they said; in fact, he was tired of what everybody said in Nazi Germany. If they said it because they wanted to, he hated them; if they said it because they had to, he was sorry for them; but in neither case could he be interested.

Deciding to take the bull by the horns, he picked out a sunshiny morning when the inmates of Dachau might be outdoors—those who were allowed out. He put in his pocket a newspaper clipping about the Führer having viewed and approved the Detaze painting; also a few of the interviews with himself and Irma, containing his portrait, and mention of his having been a guest of Göring. These ought to be equivalent to a ticket of admission to any place in Naziland. Leaving Irma to do some shopping, he drove out the Dachau road, and instead of parking his car like a humble nobody, drove to the main gates and announced his desire to see the Kommandant.

They looked at his car, they looked at his clothes and his Aryan face, and at the engraved card which he gave them. "Mr. Lanning Prescott Budd" might be somebody so important that he didn’t bother to put his titles and honors on his card, as was the German custom. They let him through the steel gates, and two Stormtroopers stood guard while a third took his card to the office. In front of him was a drill ground, and at one side a clatter of hammers; they were putting up new buildings, doubtless with the labor of prisoners. Stormtroopers were everywhere, all with their rubber truncheons and automatics; there were now half a million of these fighting men for whom jobs had to be provided.

XI

The Kommandant consented to see Herr Budd, and he was escorted to the private office of a tough young Süddeutscher with a scarred face and a round head with black hair close cropped. Having met Göring, Lanny thought he had no more to learn about toughness. He sat down and came straight to the point:

"Herr Kommandant, I am an American sympathizer who happens to be in Munich because I am interested in an art exhibition. You may have read about it, and possibly about me. I had the honor of spending a morning with the Führer at the Braune Haus a few days ago. I am a friend of Minister-Präsident General Göring, and had the pleasure of accompanying him on a shooting trip last month. I live in France and visit frequently in England and America, where I hear a great deal of propaganda against your Regierung—you no doubt know of the charges of cruelty and torturing which are being widely published. I thought it might be a good thing if I could say: I have visited one of the large concentration camps and seen conditions with my own eyes. I appreciate that this is a request you would hardly grant to a stranger; but it happens that I have some clippings from Munich newspapers which will show you who I am—and incidentally they contain pictures of myself, so that you can see I’m not anybody else."

The smiling visitor handed over the clippings; the tough Nazi studied them, and his toughness evaporated like early morning frost in sunshine. This elegant rich foreigner had actually enjoyed the highest privilege which any good Stormtrooper could imagine—of walking into the Führer’s private study and discussing art with him! "Certainly, Herr Budd; we are always pleased to show our camp to properly accredited persons. We have taken several foreign journalists through in the past month or two." The Kommandant arose, prepared to do the honors himself—perhaps he could find the secret of how to make friends with the Führer!

So Lanny strolled about and saw what was inside those concrete walls with heavily electrified barbed wire. The officer explained the routine of the camp, and led his visitor over to the corner where the barracks were situated, fenced off from the rest of the grounds with barbed-wire entanglements. They were dismal, unpainted, and half-rotted buildings which had been erected of flimsy materials in wartime and had been neglected ever since. There were numerous cracks in the board walls and some of the windows had missing glass. There were thirteen one-story buildings, each with five connecting rooms, and in each room were fifty or more berths, arranged in three tiers like shelves. The floors were of concrete, and the mattresses were straw sacks. There was one washstand in each room.

Many of the inmates were outside the camp, working on the roads under heavy guard. Others were in the workshops, or building the new barracks, or in the offices. The old and the sick were getting the advantage of the sunshine, the only gift of nature which was still free to them. They sat leaning against the sides of the buildings, or strolling slowly. Apparently they were forbidden to converse; at any rate they weren’t doing it. They looked dully at Lanny, and he was ashamed to meet their eyes. Fortunately he had no acquaintances among the Reds and Pinks of Bavaria, so he gave no soul-wounds.

A drab and distressing spectacle the prisoners presented. They had close-cropped heads. They wore the clothes in which they had been arrested; but that had been months ago, in many cases nearly a year, and doubtless they were sleeping in their clothes on these near-winter nights. The intellectuals of Bavaria had evidently not been fond of outdoor sports; some were lean and stoop-shouldered, others were paunched and flabby. Many had white hair, and might have been the grandfathers of their guards, but that earned them no consideration. Ill health and depression were written all over them. They did not know what they were here for, or how long they would have to stay—they who had been free men, free thinkers, the best of the land’s intellectuals. They had dreamed of a happier and more ordered world, and this was the punishment which fitted their crime. "We are not running a health resort," remarked the Kommandant.

Lanny kept walking, as long as there was anything to be seen: sixty-five bunk-rooms, several mess-halls, a dozen workshops, and various outdoor constructions. Everywhere he scanned the faces, looking for that of his brother-in-law’s brother or that of Trudi Schultz’s husband. He saw neither; and after he had covered all the ground he could find out about, he ventured the question: "Don’t you have any Jews?"

"Oh, yes," replied the host, "about forty; but we keep them apart, out of consideration for the others."

"They work, I suppose?"

"They work good and hard, you may be sure."

"Could I see them?"

"That, I am sorry to say, is contrary to the regulations."

The man volunteered no more; and Lanny, having asked as many questions as he dared, let himself be led back to his car. "I thank you, Herr Kommandant," he said. "I will be able to tell newspaper reporters that I didn’t see any bruised or bloody inmates, or any wire whips or rubber hose for beatings."

"You might have looked still farther and not seen any," replied the tough Nazi. The remark was open to more than one interpretation, and Lanny thought: "Maybe he is like me, and prefers not to lie if he can help it!"

XII

The amateur investigator drove back to the city, wondering how Freddi was standing it. Freddi himself had wondered, did he have the needed courage, could he find in himself the spiritual resources?

Lanny, being of an imaginative temperament, asked the same questions of himself; he lived in those dingy and squalid sheds and felt on his back the lash of those whips which he had not seen.

Then his busy mind began inventing a little story. He went to see the tough Nazi Kommandant, and invited him to see the show, and after that to take a ride. When they were well out in the country Lanny addressed him as follows:

"Herr Kommandant, one of the Jews whom you are providing with plenty of hard work happens to be a sort of relative of mine. He is a harmless young fellow, and if I should take him to my home in France he would be content to play the clarinet for the rest of his life and never do any harm to your glorious movement. It happens that I have just sold some paintings and have cash in a Munich bank. Suppose I were to pay you, say twenty-five thousand marks, in any form and by any method you direct, and you in turn would find some way to let me pick up that prisoner in my car and whisk him up into the mountains and across the Austrian border-would that appeal to you as a good night’s work?"

Lanny’s fancy created several denouements for that story. He knew that the Nazi machine was pretty well riddled with graft; Johannes Robin had told many tales of pure Aryan business men who were getting what they wanted by such methods, old as the first despotism. On the other hand, this particular toughie might be a sincere fanatic—it was impossible to tell them apart. Lanny was sure that if Hugo Behr had been in charge of the camp, he would have taken the money; on the other hand, Heinrich Jung would probably have reported him to the grim Gestapo.

And what would happen then? They couldn’t very well do worse than escort him to the frontier, as Generalissimo Balbo’s men had done in Rome nearly ten years ago. But here was the thing to give Lanny pause: if the Kommandant was a really virtuous Nazi, he might go back to his camp and make it impossible for Lanny to corrupt any weakling among his men, by the simple method of taking Freddi Robin and beating him to death and cremating the body.

"I must think of something better," said the grown-up playboy.