Dragons’s teeth

I

CHRISTMAS was coming; and Irma had been away from her darling for more than three months. It was unthinkable to stay longer. What was Lanny accomplishing? What was he hoping to accomplish? Göring was just playing with him. He was trying to get something out of them, and for nothing. He was keeping them quiet, sealing their lips. Not that Irma minded so very much having her husband’s lips sealed. If only he wouldn’t worry, and fill his mind with horrors so that he started in his sleep!

The Detaze show was over, and a happy development had come. One of the great museums in Dresden had asked to have the paintings for a while; they would treat them in a distinguished way, putting them in a separate room. The art lovers of that Luxusstadt would come and admire them, inquiries would be made, and it would be a good thing both from the point of view of art and of money. Zoltan would be coming and going, and inquiring purchasers could be referred to him. Much better than having the pictures stuck away in a storeroom on a private estate!

Beauty and Parsifal were going to London, on account of the strangest development you could imagine. Lady Caillard had sent a dear friend of hers all the way to Munich to persuade the American couple to come again as her guests, on account of a presentiment which had seized her; she was going very soon to rejoin her beloved "Vinnie" in the spirit world, and she wanted Beauty’s dear man of love to be in her home at that time to close her eyes and take charge of her funeral which was to be like none other in modern times, a thing of joy and not of mourning. The guests were to wear white, and there would be happy music and feasting, all under the sign of "V.B.X"—Vinnie, Birdie, and a Kiss. "Perhaps she will send us some word about Freddi," said Beauty; and then—a horrid thought: "Perhaps she will leave us some of her money."

The museum in Dresden was attending to the pictures, so Jerry Pendleton was free. Irma and Lanny took him with them through a pass in those snow-covered mountains which make for Munich a setting like a drop curtain. They crossed the narrow belt which the Versailles Diktat had left to Austria, and through the Brenner pass which had been included in Italy’s share of the loot. There Mussolini’s Blackshirts were busily engaged in making Aryans into Mediterraneans by the agency of rubber truncheons and dogwhips. It made bad blood between Fascismo and its newborn offspring in the north. Dr. Goebbels’s well-subsidized agitators were working everywhere in Austria, and not a few of them were in Italian dungeons. Optimistic young Pinks looked forward to seeing the Fascists and the Nazis devour each other like the two Kilkenny cats.

Home sweet home seemed ever so humble when you had been dwelling and visiting in palaces; but roses were in bloom beside its gates, and down the drive came racing a treasure without price, a tiny creature in a little blue dress, with dark brown hair streaming and dark brown eyes shining—she had been told two days ago that mother and father were on the way, and had been prattling about them and asking questions ever since. She was more than halfway through her fourth year, and it is astounding how fast they grow; you come back after three or four months and a new being confronts you; you cannot restrain your cries of delight, and a watchful expert has to check your ardors, lest you promote the evil quality of self-consciousness. Irma Barnes, who had been brought up in a play-world herself, had a hard time realizing that a child is more than a plaything for two delighted parents. Irma Barnes, who had always had her own way, had to learn to submit to discipline in the name of that very dogmatic new science of "child study."

Yes, indeed; for even a twenty-three-million-dollar baby has to learn to use her hands, and how shall she learn if someone does everything for her and never lets her make any effort? How will she learn discipline if she always has her own way, and if she gets the idea that she is the center of attention, more important than any of those with whom she has to deal? The severe Miss Severne persisted in the notion that her professional authority must be respected; and likewise the conscientious Miss Addington, no longer needed as Marceline’s governess, but staying on as half-pensioner, half-friend of the family until she would take charge of Frances. Those two Church-of-England ladies had been conspiring together, and enlisted Lanny’s help against a doting mother, two rival grandmothers, and a Provencal cook and major domo—to say nothing of Santa Claus.

II

A merry Christmas, yet not too much so, for over the household hangs the shadow of sorrow; nobody can forget those two bereaved Jewish women and the grief that is in their hearts. Rahel and Mama try their best to restrain themselves, and not to inflict their suffering upon their friends; but everybody knows what they are thinking about. Really, it would be less sad if Freddi were dead and buried, for then at least they would be sure he wasn’t suffering. But this way the worst is possible, and it haunts them; they stay by themselves in the Lodge, their lost one always in the back of their minds and most of the time in the front. They are touchingly grateful for everything that has been done for them, but there is one thing more they have to ask; their looks ask it even when their lips are silent. Oh, Lanny, oh, Irma, emit you think of something to do for poor Freddi?

Hansi and Bess are in the Middle West, giving concerts several times every week. They have cabled money after the first concert, so Mama and Rahel no longer have to use Irma’s money to buy their food. They have offered to rent a little place for themselves, but Beauty has said No, why should they—it would be very unkind. Irma says the same; but in her heart she cannot stifle the thought that she would like it better if they did. She feels a thunder-cloud hanging over the place, and wants so much to get Lanny from under it. She is worried about what is going on in his mind, and doesn’t see why she should give up all social life because of a tragedy they are powerless to avert. Irma wants to give parties, real parties, of the sort which make a social impression; she will put up the money and Beauty and Feathers will do the work—both of them happy to do so, because they believe in parties, because parties are what set you apart from the common herd which cannot give them, at least not with elegance and chic.

Then, too, there is the question of two little tots. They are together nearly all the time, and this cannot be prevented; they clamor for it, take it for granted, and the science of child study is on their side. Impossible to bring up any child properly alone, because the child is a gregarious creature; so the textbooks agree. If little Johannes were not available it would be necessary to go out and get some fisherboy, Provencal, or Ligurian or what not. There isn’t the slightest fault that Irma can find with the tiny Robin; he is a dream of brunette loveliness, he is gentle and sweet like his father, but he is a Jew, and Irma cannot be reconciled to the idea that her darling Frances should be more interested in him than in any other human being, not excepting herself. Of course, they are such tiny things, it seems absurd to worry; but the books and the experts agree that this is the age when indelible impressions are made, and is it wise to let an Aryan girl-child get fixed in her mind that the Semitic type is the most romantic, the most fascinating in the world? Irma imagines some blind and tragic compulsion developing out of that, later on in life.

Also, it means that the spirit of Freddi Robin possesses the whole of Bienvenu. The frail little fellow looks like his father, acts like him, and keeps him in everybody’s thoughts; even the visitors, the guests. Everybody has heard rumors that Johannes Robin has been deprived of his fortune by the Nazis, and that his grandchild is here, a refugee and pensioner; everybody is interested in him, asks questions, and starts talking about the father—where is he, and what do you think, and what are you doing about it? The fate of Freddi Robin overshadows even the Barnes fortune, even the twenty-three-million-dollar baby! Bienvenu becomes as it were a haunted house, a somber and serious place where people fall to talking about politics, and where the frivolous ones do not feel at home. Irma Barnes certainly never meant to choose that kind of atmosphere!

III

There wasn’t anything definite the matter with Lady Caillard, so far as any doctor could find out; but she had got her mind thoroughly made up that she was going to join her "Vinnie" in the spirit world, and sure enough, in the month of January she "passed on." The funeral was held, and then her will was read. She had left to her friend Mrs. Parsifal Dingle her large clock with the gold and ivory bird that sang; a pleasant memento of "Birdie," and one about which there would be no controversy. The medium to whom the Vickers stock had been promised got nothing but a headache out of it, for the directors of the huge concern were determined to protect Sir Vincent’s son and daughter, and they worked some sort of hocus-pocus with the stock; they "called" it, and since the estate didn’t have the cash to put up, the company took possession of the stock and ultimately the legitimate heirs got it. There was a lot of fuss about it in the papers, and Lanny was glad his mother and his stepfather were not mixed up in it.

With the proceeds of their dramatic success Nina and Rick had got a small car. Rick couldn’t drive, on account of his knee, but his wife drove, and now they brought the Dingles to the Riviera, and stayed for a while as guests in the villa. Rick used Kurt’s old studio to work on an anti-Nazi play, based on the Brown Book, the stories Lanny had told him, and the literature Kurt and Heinrich had been sending him through the years. It would be called a melodrama, Rick said—because the average Englishman refused to believe that there could be such people as the Nazis, or that such things could be happening in Europe in the beginning of the year 1934. Rick said furthermore that when the play was produced, Lanny would no longer be able to pose as a fellow-traveler of the Hitlerites, for they would certainly find out where the play had been written.

Lanny was glad to have this old friend near, the one person to whom he could talk out his heart. Brooding over the problem of Freddi Robin day and night, Lanny had about made up his mind to go to Berlin, ask for another interview with General Göring, and put his cards on the table, saying: "Exzellenz, I have learned that my brother-in-law’s brother is a prisoner in Dachau, and I would like very much to take him out of Germany. I have about two hundred thousand marks in a Berlin bank which I got from sales of my stepfather’s paintings, and I have an equal amount in a New York bank which I earned as commissions on old masters purchased in your country. I would be glad to turn these sums over to you to use in your propaganda, in return for the freedom of my friend."

Rick said: "But you can’t do such a thing, Lanny! It would be monstrous."

"You mean he wouldn’t take the money?"

"I haven’t any doubt that he’d take it. But you’d be aiding the Nazi cause."

"I don’t think he’d use the money for that. I’m just saying so to make it sound respectable. He’d salt the New York funds away, and spend the German part on his latest girl friend."

"You say that to make it sound respectable to yourself," countered Rick. "You don’t know what he’d spend the money for, and you can’t get away from the fact that you’d be strengthening the Nazi propaganda. It’s just as preposterous as your idea of giving Göring information about British and French public men."

"I wouldn’t give him any real information, Rick. I would only tell him things that are known to our sort."

"Göring is no fool and you can’t make him one. Either you’d give him something he wants, or you wouldn’t get what you want. He has made that perfectly plain to you, and that’s why Freddi is still in Dachau—if he is."

"You think I have to leave him there?"

"You do, unless you can work out some kind of jailbreak."

"I’d have to pay somebody, Rick—even if it was only a jailer."

"There’d be no great harm in paying a jailer, because the amount would be small, and you’d be undermining the Nazi discipline. Every prisoner who escapes helps to do that."

"You think I did wrong to help Johannes out?"

"I don’t think that made much difference, because Johannes would have given up anyhow; he’s that sort of man. He thinks about himself and not about a cause."

"You wouldn’t have done it in his place?"

"It’s hard to say, because I’ve never been tortured and I can’t be sure how I’d stand it. But what I should have done is plain enough-hang myself in my cell, or open my veins, rather than let Göring get hold of any foreign exchange to use in keeping his spies and thugs at work."

IV

Rick talked along the same line to Mama and Rahel; he was the only one who had the courage to do it. He spoke gently, and with pity for their tears, but he told them that the only way he knew of helping Freddi was by writing an anti-Nazi play. He bade them ask themselves what Freddi would want them to do. There could be no doubt about the answer, for Freddi was a devoted Socialist, and would rather die than give help to the enemies of his cause. Rahel could see that, and said so. Mama could see it, also—but couldn’t bring herself to say it.

"Consider this," persisted Rick. "Suppose that what Göring wanted of Freddi was to betray some of his comrades. It’s quite possible that that may be happening; and would he pay that price for his freedom?"

"Of course he wouldn’t," admitted the young wife.

"Well, money’s the same thing. The Nazis want foreign exchange so they can buy weapons and the means to make weapons. They want it so they can pay their agents and carry on their propaganda in foreign lands. And in the end it adds up to more power for Nazism, and more suffering for Jews and Socialists. These Hitlerites aren’t through; they never can be through so long as they live, because theirs is a predatory system; it thrives on violence, and would perish otherwise. It has to have more and more victims, and if it gets money from you it uses the money to get more money from the next lot. So whatever resources we have or can get, have to go to fighting them, to making other people understand what Nazism is, what a menace it represents to everything that you and I and Freddi stand for."

Rick spoke with eloquence, more than he usually permitted himself. The reason was that it was a scene from his play. He was writing about people confronted with just such a cruel decision. He didn’t say: "Let’s all put our money and our labors into getting an anti-Nazi play produced, and use the proceeds to start a paper to oppose the Nazis." But that was what he had in mind, and Rahel knew that if her husband could speak to her, he would say: "Rick is right."

But poor Mama! She was no Socialist, and couldn’t make real to herself the task of saving all the Jews in Germany. She kept silence, for she saw that Rick had convinced Rahel and Lanny; but what gave her hope was a letter from Johannes, about to sail for Rio de Janeiro to try to work up business for Budd Gunmakers. "I’m going to get some money again, and then I’ll find a way to get Freddi out." That was the sort of talk for a sensible Jewish mother!

V

The Riviera was full of refugees from Germany; all France was the same. Many of these unfortunates tried to get hold of Lanny Budd, but he was afraid even to answer their letters. He was still clinging to the idea that Göring might release Freddi; if not, Lanny was going back to make some sort of effort. Therefore he had to be circumspect. Trying to play the spy makes one spy-conscious. How could he be sure that any refugee who appealed to him for aid might not have come from Göring, to find out how he was behaving, and whether he was a person to be dealt with?

All this suited Irma completely. She didn’t care what was the reason, so long as her husband kept away from Reds and troublemakers. She and Beauty and Emily and Sophie consulted and conspired to keep him busy and contented; to provide him with music and dancing and sports, with interesting people to talk to, with Jerry Pendleton and the faithful Bub Smith to go fishing. Best of all for the purpose was little Frances; Irma got a book on child psychology and actually read every word of it, so as to be able to make intelligent remarks, and keep Lanny interested in what his home had to offer. She made love to him assiduously; and of course he knew what she was doing, and was touched by it. But he took Dachau with him everywhere; at one of Emily’s soirées musicales a strain of sad music brought tears to his eyes, and then a pro-Nazi remark by one of the ladies of the haut monde made the blood rush to his head and ruined his appetite for the delicate viands.

Early in February Robbie Budd arrived in Paris on a business trip. Irma thought that change of scene would help, and she knew that the father would back her point of view; so they put their bags into the car and arrived at the Crillon the evening before Robbie was due. Always a pleasant thing to see that man of affairs, sound and solid, if a little too rotund and rosy. He was taking his loss of the presidency of the company as just one of those things; what can’t be cured must be endured, and Robbie was getting along with the new head. A self-made man, well informed on financial conditions, he had won everyone’s respect; he didn’t try to tell Robbie how to sell goods in Europe, and had taken Robbie’s word as to the capabilities of Johannes Robin. Things were going on much as in the old days.

Robbie wanted to hear every detail of what had happened in Germany. It was important for him to understand the Nazis, for they were trying to get credit from Budd’s and from the banking group which now had Budd’s under its wing. Morals had nothing to do with it—except as they bore on the question whether the Third Reich would meet its notes on time.

Robbie and the two young people discussed the problem of Freddi from every point of view, and Robbie gave his approval of what had been done. He said no more in his son’s presence, but when he was alone with Irma he confirmed her idea that the Reds and Pinks of Germany had brought their troubles upon themselves. Nor was he worried about Hitler; he said that all Britain and France had to do was to stand together firmly, and let the Nazis devote their energies to putting down the Red menace throughout eastern and central Europe.

Of course it was unfortunate that one of the victims of this conflict had to be a young Jewish idealist. They must try to help the poor fellow, if only for the family’s peace of mind. Robbie, who usually thought of money first, made the guess that if Freddi really was in Dachau it was because of Irma’s stocks and bonds. Rumor invariably multiplied a rich person’s holdings by three or four, and sometimes by ten or twenty; the fat General doubtless was expecting to get many millions in ransom. Robbie said that he himself would offer to go in and see what could be done; but he didn’t propose to see Irma plundered, so the best thing was to wait and let Göring show his hand if he would. Irma appreciated this attitude, and wondered why Lanny couldn’t be as sensible.

One thing Robbie said he was unable to understand: the fact that they had never received a single line of writing from Freddi in more than eight months. Surely any prisoner would be permitted to communicate with his relatives at some time! Lanny told what he had learned from the Kommandant of Dachau, that the inmates were permitted to write a few lines once a week to their nearest relatives; but this privilege was withheld in certain cases. Robbie said: "Even so, there are ways of smuggling out letters; and certainly there must be prisoners released now and then. You’d think some one of them would have your address, and drop a note to report the situation. It suggests to me that Freddi may be dead; but I don’t say it to the Robins."

VI

Hard times were producing in France the same effects they had produced in Germany; and now the political pot boiled over, making a nasty mess. It was the "Stavisky case," centering about a swindler of Russian-Jewish descent. "Too bad he had to be a Jew!" said Irma, and Lanny wasn’t sure whether she was being sympathetic or sarcastic. "Handsome Alex," as he was called, had been engaged in one piece of financial jugglery after another, culminating in a tour de force which sounded like comic opera—he had promoted an extensive issue of bonds for the pawnshops of the town of Bayonne! Altogether he had robbed the French public of something like a billion francs; and it was discovered that he had been indicted for a swindle eight or nine years previously, and had succeeded in having his trial postponed no less than nineteen times. Obviously this meant collusion with police and politicians; either he was paying them money or was in position to blackmail them. When Robbie read the details he said it sounded exactly like Chicago or Philadelphia.

Stavisky had gone into hiding with his mistress, and when the police came for him he shot himself; at least, so the police said, but evidence began to indicate that the police had hushed him up. The Paris newspapers, the most corrupt in the world, printed everything they could find out and twenty times as much. Two groups were interested in exploiting the scandals: the parties of the extreme right, the Royalists and Fascists, who wanted to overthrow the Republic and set up their kind of dictatorship; and the Communists, who wanted a different kind. The two extremes met, and while vowing the deadliest hatred, they made war on the same parliamentary system.

Lanny couldn’t afford to visit his Red uncle, but he invited Denis de Bruyne to dinner, and the three Budds listened to the story from the point of view of a French Nationalist. The situation in the de Bruyne family bore an odd resemblance to that between Robbie and his son. Denis belonged to a respectable law-and-order party, and was distressed because his younger son had joined the Croix de Feu, most active of the French Fascist groups. Now Charlot was off somewhere with his fellows, conspiring to overpower the police and seize control of the country’s affairs. At any moment he and his organization might come out on the streets, and there would be shooting; the unhappy father couldn’t enjoy his dinner, and wanted Lanny to find the crazy boy and try to bring him to his senses. Such were the duties you got in for when you chose a lovely French lady for your amie!

Lanny said no; he had tried to influence both boys, and had failed, and now he was out of politics; he had made a promise to his wife. He listened to the innermost secrets of la république française, derived from first-hand observation. He learned about Daladier, the baker’s son, who had just become Premier, the fourth within a year; what interests had subsidized his career, and what noble lady had become his mistress. He learned about Chiappe, chief of the Paris police, a Corsican known as "the little Napoleon"—he was five feet three inches, and had just been "fired" for being too intimate with Stavisky. He had known all the wholesale crooks, the blackmailers and Jewish métèques of France, and had whispered their secrets to his son-in-law, publisher of one of the great gutter-journals of Paris.

Lanny observed that the individuals who awakened the anger and disgust of Denis de Bruyne were the climbers, those struggling for Wealth and power to which they had no valid claim. He rarely had any serious fault to find with the mur d’argent, the members of the "two hundred families" who had had wealth and power for a long time. They had to pay large sums of money in these evil days, and the basis of Denis’s complaint was not the corruption but the increasing cost. The politicians demanded larger campaign funds, and at the same time kept increasing taxes; their idea of economy was to cut the salaries of civil servants—which Denis had discovered was bad for the taxicab business. To make matters worse, the taxicab drivers were on strike! Robbie listened sympathetically, and when his friend got through scolding Daladier, Robbie took a turn at Roosevelt.

VII

Next day Lanny escorted his wife to the Summer Fashion Show. This wasn’t a public affair, but one for the trade; an exhibition of the new styles which the manufacturers intended soon to release. Irma was invited as a special honor by the fashion artist to whom she entrusted her social destiny. Lanny went along because, if she endeavored to take an interest in his things, it was only fair that he should do the same for hers. They sat in a hall with many potted palms, gazing at a long ramp with dark blue curtains behind it; along the ramp paraded beautiful and chic young women wearing summer costumes with a strong Japanese flavor, or note, or atmosphere—the journalists groped about for a metaphor. There were bamboo buttons and coolie hats; the ladies' gowns had fan-tails like Japanese goldfish, the afternoon costumes had cut sleeves like kimonos, and the evening wraps had designs resembling Japanese flower prints.

Among the favored guests at this show was an old friend of Lanny’s; Olivie Hellstein, now Madame de Broussailles, very lovely daughter of Jerusalem whom Emily had picked out as a proper match for Lanny. That had been some eight years ago, and now Olivie had three or four children, and had become what you called "maternal," a kinder word than "plump." Words which have an unpleasant connotation change frequently in the best society, where people try so hard not to wound one another’s feelings.

Olivie was a woman of Irma’s type, a brunette with deep coloring, in temperament rather placid, in manner sedate. They had entertained each other, exchanged visits, and satisfied their curiosity. Now they talked about having to wear summer clothing with a strong Japanese flavor, or note, or atmosphere; they would have to wear it, of course—it would never occur to them to rebel against what the fashion creators decided was the fashion.

Lanny, wishing to be polite, remarked: "We were talking about your family last night. My father is having a meeting with your father."

"A business matter?" inquired Olivie.

"Mine is trying to persuade yours that he can deliver certain railroad equipment at Brest at a lower price than it can be manufactured in France."

"It will be pleasant if they become associated," replied the young matron. "My father has a great admiration for American production methods, and wishes they might be imported into France."

Pierre Hellstein was a director in the Chemin de Fer du Nord, and controlled one of the biggest banks in Paris. Robbie had asked Denis about him, and they had discussed this wealthy Jewish family spread widely over Europe; also the position of the railroad, reputed to be run down and overloaded with bonds. The Hellsteins didn’t have to worry, because the government covered its deficits; there had been criticism in the Chamber—the French Republic was going broke in order to protect the railroad bondholders. Denis de Bruyne, who owned some of the bonds, resented these criticisms as irresponsible and demagogic. As for Olivie, beautiful, serene, magnificent in a long sable coat, she was perfect evidence of the wisdom of guaranteeing large incomes to a few chosen individuals, in order that they may be free to attend fashion shows and constitute themselves models of elegance and refinement.

VIII

"Oh, by the way," said the daughter of Jerusalem, all at once; "I understand that you were in Germany not long ago."

"Just before Christmas," replied Lanny.

"I do wish you would tell me about it. It must be dreadful."

"In some ways, and for some people. Others hardly notice it."

"Oh, Monsieur Budd," said Olivie, lowering her voice, "may I tell you something without its going any farther? I’m really not supposed to talk, but we are all so worried."

"You may be sure that my wife and I will respect your confidence, Madame."

"We have just learned that the Nazis have arrested my Uncle Solomon. You know him, possibly?"

"I had the pleasure of meeting him at the home of Johannes Robin. Also, I am one of his depositors in Berlin."

"They have trumped up some charge against him, of sending money out of Germany. You know, of course, that a banker cannot help doing that; especially a family like ours, doing business in Austria and Czechoslovakia and Rumania, and so many other countries."

"Of course, Madame."

"We Jews hear the most dreadful stories—really, it makes you quite sick."

"I am sorry to say that many of them are true. They tell you that such things happen in violent social overturns. But I doubt if the Nazis would do physical harm to a man like your uncle. They would be more likely to assess him a very large fine."

"It is all so bewildering, Monsieur Budd. Really, my father cannot be sure whether it would be safe for him to go into Germany to see about it."

"I will make a suggestion, Madame, if you don’t mind."

"That is just what I was hoping you might do."

"I ask you to consider it confidential, just as you have asked me. Tell your mother and father, but nobody else."

"Certainly, Monsieur Budd."

"I suggest their sending somebody to interview General Göring. He has a great deal of influence and seems to understand these matters."

"Oh, thank you!" exclaimed Olivie Hellstein. "I am so glad I thought to ask you about it."

Irma put in: "Send somebody who is dignified and impressive-looking, and tell him to be dressed exactly right, and not forget any of the Minister-Prasident General’s titles."

IX

Out of duty to the memory of Marie de Bruyne, Lanny made an effort to see her younger son, but found it impossible. Charlot was meeting somewhere with the leaders of his society, and the inquiries of strangers were not welcomed. This Tuesday, the sixth of February, was to be the great night in which all the organizations of the Right in France would "demonstrate" against the government. Marching orders had been published in all the opposition papers, under the slogan: "À bas les voleurs! Down with the thieves!" At twilight Charlot would emerge from his hiding place, wearing his tricolor armband with the letters F.C.F., which meant that he was a Son of the Cross of Fire. He would be singing the Marseillaise; an odd phenomenon, the battle-song of one revolution becoming the anti-song of the next! In between singing, Charlot and his troop of patriotic youths would be yelling the word "Démission!"—which meant the turning out of the Daladier government. Less politely they would cry: "Daladier аи poteau!" meaning that they wished to burn him alive.

Lanny drove his wife to the Chamber, going by a circuitous route because the Pont de la Concorde was blocked by gendarmes. For an hour the couple sat in the public gallery and listened to an uproar which reminded Lanny of what he had heard on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange at the height of the panic. Daladier couldn’t make his speech; his political enemies hurled at him every abusive name in the extensive French vocabulary, while at the same time the Communists sang the Internationale.

When this became monotonous, the Americans went out to have a look at the streets. They couldn’t see much from a car, for fear of being caught in fighting, and decided that the best place from which to witness a Paris démonstration was from the windows of their hotel suite. Robbie, sensible fellow, was in his rooms, talking business with the head of a French building concern which sometimes bought ascenseurs. The two younger people stood on the balcony of their drawing-room, which looked over the great Place de la Concorde, brilliantly lighted, and with an obelisk in the center having floodlights on it. Directly across the Place was the bridge over the Seine to the Palais-Bourbon, where the deputies met; a building in Roman style with many tall pillars brightly shining.

There must have been a hundred thousand people in the Place, and more pouring in by every street. They were trying to get across the bridge, but the police and troops had blocked it with patrol-wagons. The mob started throwing things, and soon there was a pitched battle, with charges and counter-charges going on most of the night. The Fascists hurled whatever they could lay hands on. They pried up stones from the pavement, and tore off the scaffolding from the American Embassy, which was under repair. The railings of the Tuileries gardens provided them with an iron missile, shaped like a boomerang and impossible to see in the dark. When the mounted gardes républicaines tried to drive them off the bridge, charging and striking with the flat of their sabers, the mob countered with walking-sticks having razor-blades fastened to the ends, to slash the bellies of the horses. In one attack after another they crippled so many of the police and gardes that they came very near getting across the bridge and into the Chamber.

So at last shooting began. The street-lights were smashed, and the floodlights on the obelisk were turned off, so you couldn’t see much. An omnibus had been overturned and set afire near the bridge, but that gave more smoke than light, and it soon burned out. The last sight that Lanny saw was a troop of the Spahis, African cavalrymen in white desert robes looking like the Ku Kluxers, galloping up the Champs Elysees and trampling the mob. There came screams directly under where Irma and Lanny were standing; a chambermaid of the hotel had been shot and killed on the balcony. So the guests scrambled in quickly, deciding that they had seen enough of the class war in France.

"Do you think they will raid the hotel?" asked Irma; but Lanny assured her that this was a respectable kind of mob, and was after the politicians only. So they went to bed.

X

"Bloody Tuesday," it was called, and the Fascist newspapers set out to make it into the French "Beerhall Putsch." From that time on they would have only one name for Daladier: "Assassin!" They clamored for his resignation, and before the end of the next day they got it; there were whispers that he could no longer depend upon the police and the gardes. More than two hundred of these were in the hospitals, and it looked like a revolution on the way. There was wreckage all over Paris, and the Ministry of Marine partly burned. Charlot had got a slash across the forehead, and for the rest of his life would wear a scar with pride. "La Concorde" he would say, referring to the bridge; it would become a slogan, perhaps some day a password to power.

On Wednesday night matters were worse, for the police were demoralized, and the hoodlums, the apaches, went on the warpath. They smashed the windows of the shops in the Rue de Rivoli and other fashionable streets and looted everything in sight. It wasn’t a pleasant time for visitors in Paris; Robbie was going to Amsterdam on business, so Irma and Lanny stepped into their car and sped home.

But you couldn’t get away from the class war in France. The various reactionary groups had been organized all over the Midi, and they, too, had received their marching orders. They had the sympathy of many in the various foreign colonies; anything to put down the Reds. Rick, after hearing Lanny’s story, said that la patrie was awaiting only one thing, a leader who would have the shrewdness to win the "little man." So far, all the Fascist groups were avowedly reactionary, and it would take a leftish program to win. Lanny expressed the opinion that the French man in the street was much shrewder than the German; it wouldn’t be so easy to hoodwink him.

Life was resumed at Bienvenu. Rick worked on his play and Lanny read the manuscript, encouraged him, and supplied local color. In the privacy of their chamber Irma said: "Really, you are a collaborator, and ought to be named." She wondered why Lanny never wrote a play of his own. She decided that what he lacked was the impulse of self-assertion, the strong ego which takes up the conviction that it has something necessary to the welfare of mankind. Uncle Jesse had it, Kurt had it, Rick had it. Beauty had tried in vain to awaken it in her son, and now Irma tried with no more success. "Rick can do it a lot better"—that was all she could get.

Irma was becoming a little cross with this lame Englishman. She had got Lanny pretty well cured of his Pinkness, but now Rick kept poking up the fires. There came a series of terrible events in Austria—apparently Fascism was going to spread from country to country until it had covered all Europe. Austria had got a Catholic Chancellor named Dollfuss, and a Catholic army, the Heimwehr, composed mainly of peasant lads and led by a dissipated young prince. This government was jailing or deporting Hitlerites, but with the help of Mussolini was getting its own brand of Fascism, and now it set out to destroy the Socialist movement in the city of Vienna. Those beautiful workers' homes, huge apartment blocks which Lanny had inspected with such joy—the Heimwehr brought up its motorized artillery and blasted them to ruins, killing about a thousand men, women, and children. Worse yet, they killed the workers' movement, which had been two generations building.

A terrible time to be alive in. Lanny and Rick could hardly eat or sleep; they could only grieve and brood over the tragedy of the time into which they had been born. Truly it seemed futile to work for anything good; to dream of peace and order, justice or even mercy. This wholesale slaughter of working people was committed in the name of the gentle and lowly Jesus, the carpenter’s son, the social rebel who had been executed because he stirred up the people! A devout Catholic Premier ordering the crime, and devout Catholic officers attending mass before and after committing it! And not for the first time or the last in unhappy Europe. Rick reminded his friend of that cardinal in France who had ordered the St. Bartholomew massacre, saying: "Kill them all; God will be able to pick out His Christians."

XI

Hot weather came to the Riviera, and the people whom Irma considered important went away. Those who were poor, like the Dingles and the Robins, would stick it out and learn to take a siesta. But Nina and Rick went back to England, and Emily Chattersworth moved her servants to Les Forêts and invited Irma and Lanny to visit her and see the spring Salon and the new plays. It was Irma’s idea, to keep her husband’s mind off the troubles of the world. They went, and after they had played around for a couple of weeks, Irma had a letter from her mother, begging them to come to Shore Acres and bring Baby Frances for the summer. Really it was a crime to have that magnificent place and never use it; also it was grossly unfair that one grandmother should have her heart’s desire all the time and the other not at all. "I don’t believe that Beauty cares for the child anything like as much as I do," wrote the Queen Mother; a sentence which Irma skipped when she read the letter aloud.

The couple talked over the problem. Irma was reluctant to take her precious darling on board a steamer; she hadn’t got over her memories of the Lindbergh kidnaping, and thought that an ocean liner was an ideal place for a band of criminals to study a twenty-three-million-dollar baby, her habits and entourage. No, it would be better to spend the summer in England’s green and pleasant land, where kidnapers were unknown. Let Mother be the one to brave the ocean waves! Irma hadn’t spent any money to speak of during the past year, and now interest on bonds was being paid and dividends were hoped for. She said: "Let’s drive about England, the way we did on our honeymoon, and see if we can find some suitable place to rent."

Nothing is more fun than doing over again what you did on your honeymoon; that is, if you have managed to keep any of the honeymoon feeling alive after five years. "There are so many nice people there," argued the young wife. Lanny agreed, even though he might not have named the same persons.

He knew that Rick’s play was nearly done, and he wanted to make suggestions for the last act. Then there would be the job of submitting it to managers, and Lanny would want to hear the news. Perhaps it might be necessary to raise the money, and that wouldn’t be so easy, for it was a grim and violent play, bitter as gall, and would shock the fashionable ladies. But Lanny meant to put up the money which he had earned in Germany—all of it, if necessary, and he didn’t want Irma to be upset about it. They were following their plan of keeping the peace by making concessions, each to the other and in equal proportions.

They crossed the Channel and put up at the Dorchester. When their arrival was announced in the papers, as it always would be, one of the first persons who telephoned was Wickthorpe, saying: "Won’t you come out and spend the week end?"

Lanny replied: "Sure thing. We’re looking for a little place to rent this summer. Maybe you can give us some advice." He said "little" because he knew that was good form; but of course it wouldn’t really be little.

"I have a place near by," responded his lordship. "I’ll show it to you, if you don’t mind."

"Righto!" said Lanny, who knew how to talk English to Englishmen.

When he told Irma about it, she talked American. "Oh, heck! Do you suppose it’ll have tin bathtubs?"

XII

But it didn’t. It was a modern villa with three baths, plenty of light and air, and one of those English lawns, smooth as a billiard table, used for playing games. There was a high hedge around the place, and everything lovely. It was occupied by Wickthorpe’s aunt, who was leaving for a summer cruise with some friends. There was a staff of well-trained servants who would stay on if requested. "Oh, I think it will be ducky!" exclaimed the heiress. She paid the price to his lordship’s agent that very day, and the aunt agreed to move out and have everything in order by the next week end. Irma cabled her mother, and wrote Bub Smith and Feathers to get everything ready and bring Baby and Miss Severne and the maid on a specified date. Jerry Pendleton would see to the tickets, and Bub would be in charge of the traveling, Feathers being such a featherbrain.

So there was a new menage, with everything comfortable, and no trouble but the writing of a few checks and the giving of a few orders. A delightful climate and many delightful people; a tennis court and somebody always to play; a good piano and people who loved music; only a few minutes' drive to the old castle, where Lanny and his wife were treated as members of the family, called up and urged to meet this one and that. Again Lanny heard statesmen discussing the problems of the world; again they listened to what he had to tell about the strange and terrifying new movement in Germany, and its efforts to spread itself in all the neighboring countries. Englishmen of rank and authority talked freely of their empire’s affairs, telling what they would do in this or that contingency; now and then Lanny would find himself thinking: "What wouldn’t Göring pay for this!"

Zoltan had been in Paris, and now came to London. It was the "season," and there were exhibitions, and chances to make sales. An art expert, like the member of any other profession, has to hear the gossip of his monde; new men are coming in and old ones going out, and prices fluctuating exactly as on the stock market. Lanny and his partner still had money in Naziland, and lists of pictures available in that country, by means of which they expected to get their money out. Also, there was the London stage, and Rick to go with them to plays and tell the news of that world. There was the fashion rout, with no end of dances and parties. Dressmakers and others clamored to provide Irma with costumes suited to her station; they would bring them out into the country to show her at any hour of the day or night.

Good old Margy Petries, Dowager Lady Eversham-Watson, had opened her town house, and begged the young couple to make it their headquarters whenever they came to town; she telegraphed Beauty and Sophie to bring their husbands and come and have a good old-fashioned spree. When Mrs. Barnes arrived, she, too, was "put up"; that was the custom in Kentucky, and Margy still called herself a blue-grass-country girl, even at the age of fifty-five.

So it was just like Bienvenu at the height of midwinter; so many things going on that really you had a hard time choosing, and would rush from one event to the next with scarcely time to catch your breath. It was extremely difficult for Lanny to find time to brood over the fate of the world; and that was what his wife had planned. She saw that she was winning out, and was happy, and proud of her acumen. Until one Saturday noon, arriving at their villa for a week end, Lanny found a telegram from Bienvenu, signed "Rahel" and reading:

"Letter from Clarinet in place you visited most distressing circumstances he implores help am airmailing letter."

I

THE argument started as soon as Irma read the telegram and got its meaning clear. She knew exactly what would be in her husband’s mind; she had been thinking about it for more than a year, watching him, anticipating this moment, living through this scene. And she knew that he had been doing the same. They had talked about it a great deal, but she hadn’t uttered all of her thoughts, nor he of his; they had dreaded the ordeal, shrinking from the things that would be said. She knew that was true about herself, and guessed it was true about him; she guessed that he guessed it about her—and so on through a complication such as develops when two human souls, tied together by passionate love, discover a basic and fundamental clash of temperaments, and try to conceal it from each other and even from themselves.

Irma said: "Lanny, you can’t do it! You can’t, you can’t!" And he replied: "Darling, I have to! If I didn’t I couldn’t bear to live!"

So much had been said already that there was nothing to gain by going over it. But that is the way with lovers' quarrels; each thinks that if he says it one time more, the idea will penetrate, it will make the impression which it so obviously ought to make, which it has somehow incomprehensibly failed to make on previous occasions.

Irma protested: "Your wife and child mean nothing to you?"

Lanny answered: "You know they do, dear. I have tried honestly to be a good husband and father. I have given up many things that I thought were right for me, when I found they were wrong for you. But I can’t give up Freddi to the Nazis."

"A man is free to take up a notion like that—and then all his family duties become nothing?"

"A man takes up a notion like that when there’s a cause involved; something that is more precious to him than his own life."

"You’re going to sacrifice Frances and me for Freddi!"

"That’s rather exaggerated, darling. You and Frances can stay quite comfortably here while I go in and do what I can."

"You’re not asking me to go with you?"

"It’s a job for someone who believes in it, and certainly not for anyone who feels as you do. I have no right to ask it of you, and that’s why I don’t."

"What do you suppose will be my state of mind while you are in there risking your life with those dreadful men?"

"It will be a mistake to exaggerate the danger. I don’t think they’ll do serious harm to an American."

"You know they have done shocking things to Americans. You have talked about it often."

"What happened in those cases was accidental; they were mix-ups in street crowds and public places. You and I have connections in Germany, and I don’t think the authorities will do me any harm on purpose."

"Even if they catch you breaking their laws?"

"I think they’ll give me a good scare and put me out."

"You know you don’t believe that, Lanny! You’re only trying to quiet me down. You will be in perfectly frightful danger, and I will be in torment."

She broke down and began to weep. It was the first time he had seen her do that, and he was a soft-hearted man. But he had been thinking it over for a year, and had made up his mind that this would be the test of his soul. "If I funk this, I’m no good; I’m the waster and parasite I’ve always been called."

There was no way to end the argument. He couldn’t make her realize the importance of the matter to him; the duty he owed to what he called "the cause." He had made Freddi Robin into a Socialist; had taught him the ideal of human brotherhood and equality, what he called "social justice." But Irma hated all these high-sounding words; she had heard them spoken by so many disagreeable persons, mostly trying to get money, that the words had become poison to her. She didn’t believe in this "cause"; she believed that brotherhood was rather repulsive, that equality was another name for envy, and social justice an excuse for outrageous income and inheritance taxes. So her tears dried quickly, and she grew angry with herself for having shed them, and with him for making her shed them.

She said: "Lanny, I warn you; you are ruining our love. You are doing something I shall never be able to forgive you for."

All he could answer was: "I am sorry, darling; but if you made me give up what I believe is my duty, I should never be able to forgive either you or myself."

II

The airmail letter from Juan arrived. Freddi’s message had been written in pencil on a small piece of flimsy paper, crumpled up as if someone had hidden it in his mouth or other bodily orifice. It was faded, but Rahel had smoothed it out and pasted the corners to a sheet of white paper so that it could be read. It was addressed to Lanny and written in English. "I am in a bad way. I have written to you but had no reply. They are trying to make me tell about other people and I will not. But I cannot stand any more. Do one thing for me, try to get some poison to me. Do not believe anything they say about me. Tell our friends I have been true."

There was no signature; Freddi knew that Lanny would know his handwriting, shaky and uncertain as it was. The envelope was plain, and had been mailed in Munich; the handwriting of the address was not known to Lanny, and Rahel in her letter said that she didn’t know it either.

So there it was. Irma broke down again; it was worse than she had imagined, and she knew now that she couldn’t keep Lanny from going. She stopped arguing with him about political questions, and tried only to convince him of the futility of whatever efforts he might make. The Nazis owned Germany, and it was madness to imagine that he could thwart their will inside their own country. She offered to put up money, any amount of money, even if she had to withdraw from social life. "Go and see Göring," she pleaded. "Offer him cash, straight out."

But Rick—oh, how she hated him all of a sudden!—Rick had persuaded Lanny that this was not to be done. Lanny wouldn’t go near Göring, or any of the other Nazis, not even Kurt, not even Heinrich. They wouldn’t help, and might report him and have him watched. Göring or Goebbels would be sure to take such measures. Lanny said flatly: "I’m going to help Freddi to escape from Dachau."

"Fly over the walls, I suppose?" inquired Irma, with bitterness.

"There are many different ways of getting out of prison. There are people in France right now who have managed to do it. Sometimes they dig under the walls; sometimes they hide in delivery wagons, or are carried out in coffins. I’ll find somebody to help me for a price."

"Just walk up to somebody on the street and say: How much will you charge to help me get a friend out of Dachau? "

"It’s no good quarreling, dear. I have to put my mind on what I mean to do. I don’t want to delay, because if I do, Freddi may be dead, and then I’d blame myself until I was dead, too."

So Irma had to give up. She had told him what was in her heart, and even though she would break down and weep, she wouldn’t change; on the contrary, she would hold it against him that he had made her behave in that undignified fashion. In her heart she knew that she hated the Robin family, all of them; they were alien to her, strangers to her soul. If she could have had her way she would never have been intimate with them; she would have had her own yacht and her own palace and the right sort of friends in it. But this Socialism business had made Lanny promiscuous, willing to meet anybody, an easy victim for any sort of pretender, any slick, canting "idealist"—how she loathed that word! She had been forced to make pretenses and be polite; but now this false "cause" was going to deprive her of her husband and her happiness, and she knew that she heartily despised it.

It wasn’t just love of herself. It was love of Lanny, too. She wanted to help him, she wanted to take care of him; but this "class struggle" stepped in between and made it impossible; tore him away from her, and sent him to face danger, mutilation, death. Things that Irma and her class were supposed to be immune from! That was what your money meant; it kept you safe, it gave you privilege and security. But Lanny wanted to throw it all away. He had got the crazy notion that you had no right to money; that having got it, you must look down upon it, spurn it, and thwart the very purposes for which it existed, the reasons why your forefathers had worked so hard! If that was not madness, who could find anything that deserved the name?

III

All social engagements were called off while this duel was fought out. Irma said that she had a bad headache; but as this affliction had not been known to trouble her hitherto, the rumor spread that the Irma Barneses were having a quarrel; everybody tried to guess what it could be about, but nobody succeeded. Only three persons were taken into the secret; Rick, and the mothers of the two quarrelers. Rick said: "I wish I could help you, old chap; but you know I’m a marked man in Germany; I have written articles." Lanny said: "Of course."

As for Fanny Barnes, she considered it her duty to give Lanny a lecture on the wrongness of deserting his family on account of any Jew or all of them. Lanny, in turn, considered it his duty to hear politely all that his mother-in-law had to say. He knew it wasn’t any good talking to her about "causes"; he just said: "I’m sorry, Mother, but I feel that I have incurred obligations, and I have to repay them. Do what you can to keep Irma cheerful until I get back." It was a rather solemn occasion; he might not come back, and he had a feeling that his mother-in-law would rind that a not altogether intolerable solution of the problem.

As for Beauty, she wasn’t much good in this crisis; the sheer horridness of it seemed to paralyze her will. She knew her boy’s feeling for the Robin boys, and that it couldn’t be overcome. She knew also that he suspected her concern about Irma’s happiness as being not altogether disinterested. The mother dared not say what was in the deeps of her heart, her fear that Lanny might lose his ultra-precious wife if he neglected her and opposed her so recklessly. And of all places to leave her—on the doorstep of Lord Wickthorpe! Beauty developed a crise des nerfs, with a real headache, and this didn’t diminish the gossip and speculation.

Meanwhile, Lanny went ahead with his preparations. He wrote Rahel to have a photograph of Freddi reduced to that small size which is used on passports, and to airmail it to him at once; he had a reason for that, which she was at liberty to guess. He wrote Jerry Pendleton to hold himself in readiness for a call to bring a camion to Germany and return the Detaze paintings to their home. That would be no hardship, because the tourist season was over and Cerise could run the office.

Lanny gave his friend Zoltan a check covering a good part of the money he had in the Hellstein banks in Berlin and Munich; Zoltan would transfer the money to his own account, and thus the Nazis wouldn’t be able to confiscate it. In case Lanny needed the money, he could telegraph and Zoltan could airmail him a check. The ever discreet friend asked no questions, and thus would be able to say that he knew nothing about the matter. Lanny talked about a picture deal which he thought he could put through in Munich, and Zoltan gave him advice on this. Having been pondering all these matters for more than a year, Lanny was thoroughly prepared.

When it came to the parting, Lanny’s young wife and Lanny’s would-be-young mother both broke down. Both offered to go with him; but he said No. Neither approved his mission, and neither’s heart would be in the disagreeable task. He didn’t tell the plain truth, which was that he was sick of arguments and excitements; it is one of the painful facts about marital disputes that they cause each of the disputants to grow weary of the sound of the other’s voice, and to count quiet and the freedom to have one’s own way as the greatest of life’s blessings. Lanny believed that he could do this job himself, and could think better if he didn’t have opposition. He said: "No, dear," and "No, darling; I’m going to be very careful, and. it won’t take long."

IV

So, bright and early one morning, Margy Petries’s servants deposited his bags in his car, and not without some moisture in his eyes and some sinkings in his inside, he set out for the ferry to Calais, whose name Queen Mary had said was written on her heart, and which surely existed as some sort of scar on Lanny’s. He went by way of Metz and Strasbourg, for the fewer countries one entered in unhappy Europe, the less bother with visas and customs declarations. How glorious the country seemed in the last days of June; and how pitiful by contrast that Missgeburt of nature which had developed the frontal lobes of its brain so enormously, in order to create new and more dreadful ways of destroying millions of other members of its own species! "Nature’s insurgent son" had cast off chain-mail and dropped lances and battle-axes, only to take up bombing-planes and Nazi propaganda.

The blood of millions of Frenchmen and Germans had fertilized this soil and made it so green and pleasant to Lanny’s eyes. He knew that in all these copses and valleys were hidden the direful secrets of the Maginot Line, that series of complicated and enormously expensive fortifications by which France was counting upon preventing another German invasion. Safe behind this barricade, Frenchmen could use their leisure to maim and mangle other Frenchmen with iron railings torn from a beautiful park. Where Lanny crossed the Rhine was where the child Marie Antoinette had come with her train of two or three hundred vehicles, on her long journey from Vienna to marry the Dauphin of France. All sorts of history around here, but the traveler had no time to think about it; his mind was occupied with the history he was going to make.

Skirting the edge of the Alps, with snow-dad peaks always in view, he came to the city of Munich on its little river Isar. He put up at a second-class hotel, for he didn’t want newspaper reporters after him, and wanted to be able to put on the suit of old clothes which he had brought, and be able to walk about the city, and perhaps the town of Dachau, without attracting any special attention. At the Polizeiwache he reported himself as coming for the purpose of purchasing works of art; his first act after that was to call upon a certain Baron von Zinszollern whom he had met at the Detaze show and who had many paintings in his home. This gentleman was an avowed Nazi sympathizer, and Lanny planned to use him as his "brown herring," so to speak. In case of exposure this might sow doubts and confusion in Nazi minds, which would be so much to the good.

Lanny went to this art patron’s fine home and looked at his collection, and brought up in his tactful way whether any of the works could be bought; he intimated that the prices asked were rather high, but promised to cable abroad and see what he could do. He did cable to Zoltan, and to a couple of customers in America, and these messages would be a part of his defense in case of trouble. All through his stay in Munich he would be stimulating the hopes of a somewhat impoverished German aristocrat, and diminishing the prices of his good paintings.

V

Upon entering Germany the conspirator had telephoned to Hugo Behr in Berlin, inviting that young Nazi to take the night train to Munich. Lanny was here on account of pictures, he said, and would show his friend some fine specimens. Hugo had understood, and it hadn’t been necessary to add, "expenses paid." The young sports director had doubtless found some use for the money which Lanny had paid him, and would be pleased to render further services.

He arrived next morning, going to a different hotel, as Lanny had directed. He telephoned, and Lanny drove and picked him up on the street. A handsome young Pomeranian, alert and with springy step, apple-cheeked and with wavy golden hair, Hugo was a walking advertisement of the pure Nordic ideal. In his trim Brownshirt uniform, with insignia indicating his important function, he received a salute from all other Nazis, and from many civilians wishing to keep on the safe side. It was extremely reassuring to be with such a man in Germany—although the "Heil Hitlers" became a bit monotonous after a while.

Lanny drove his guest out into the country, where they could be quiet and talk freely. He encouraged the guest to assume that the invitation was purely out of friendship; rich men can indulge their whims like that, and they do so. Lanny was deeply interested to know how Hugo’s movement for the reforming of the Nazi party was coming along, and as the reformer wanted to talk about nothing else, they drove for a long time through the valleys of the Alpine foothills. The trees were in full splendor, as yet untouched by any signs of wear. A beautiful land, and Lanny’s head was full of poetry about it. Die Fenster auf, die Herzen auf! Geschwinde, geschwinde!

But Hugo’s thoughts had no trace of poetic cheerfulness. His figure of a young Hermes was slumped in the car seat, and his tone was bitter as he said: "Our Nazi revolution is kaput. We haven’t accomplished a thing. The Führer has put himself completely into the hands of the reactionaries. They tell him what to do—it’s no longer certain that he could carry out his own program, even if he wanted to. He doesn’t see his old friends any more, he doesn’t trust them. The Reichswehr crowd are plotting to get rid of the Stormtroopers altogether."

"You don’t really mean all that, Hugo!" Lanny was much distressed.

"Haven’t you heard about our vacation?"

"I only entered Germany yesterday."

"All the S.A. have been ordered to take a vacation during the month of July. They say we’ve been overworked and have earned a rest. That sounds fine; but we’re not permitted to wear our uniforms, or to carry our arms. And what are they going to do while we’re disarmed? What are we going to find when we come back?"

"That looks serious, I admit."

"It seems to me the meaning is plain. We, the rank and file, have done our job and they’re through with us. We have all been hoping to be taken into the Reichswehr; but no, we’re not good enough for that. Those officers are Junkers, they’re real gentlemen, while we’re common trash; we’re too many, two million of us, and they can’t afford to feed us or to train us, so we have to be turned off—and go to begging on the streets, perhaps."

"You know, Hugo, Germany is supposed to have only a hundred thousand in its regular army. Mayn’t it be that the Führer doesn’t feel strong enough to challenge France, and Britain on that issue?"

"What was our revolution for, but to set us free from their control? And how can we ever become strong, if we reject the services of the very men who have made National Socialism? We put these leaders in power—and now they’re getting themselves expensive villas and big motor-cars, and they’re afraid to let us of the rank and file even wear our uniforms! They talk of disbanding us, because the Reich can’t afford our magnificent salaries of forty-two pfennigs a day."

"Is that what you get?"

"That is what the rank and file get. What is that in your money?"

"About ten cents."

"Does that sound so very extravagant?"

"The men in our American army get about ten times that. Of course both groups get food and lodgings free."

"Pretty poor food for the S.A.; and besides, there are all the levies, which take half what anybody earns. Our lads were made to expect so much, but now all the talk is that the Reich is so poor. The propaganda line has changed; Herr Doktor Goebbels travels over the land denouncing the Kritikaster and the Miessmacher and the Nörgler and the Besserwisser—" Hugo gave a long list of the depraved groups who dared to suggest that the Nazi Regierung was anything short of perfect. "In the old days we were told there would be plenty, because we were going to take the machinery away from the Schieber and set it to work for the benefit of the common folk. But now the peasants have been made into serfs, and the workingman who asks for higher pay or tries to change his job is treated as a criminal. Prices are going up and wages falling, and what are the people to do?"

"Somebody ought to point these things out to the Führer," suggested Lanny.

"Nobody can get near the Führer. Göring has taken charge of his mind—Göring, the aristocrat, the friend of the princes and the Junker landlords and the gentlemen of the steel Kartell. They are piling up bigger fortunes than ever; I’m told that Göring is doing the same—and sending the money abroad where it will be safe."

"I’ve heard talk about that in Paris and London," admitted Lanny; "and on pretty good authority. The money people know what’s going on."

VI

They were high up in the foothills, close to the Austrian border. Auf die Berge will ich steigen, wo die dunkeln Tannen ragen! The air was crystal clear and delightfully cool, but it wasn’t for the air that Lanny had come, nor yet on account of Heine’s Harzreise. They sat on an outdoor platform of a little inn looking up a valley to a mountain that was Austria; Lanny saw that the slopes about him were not too precipitous, nor the stream in the valley too deep. He remarked to his companion: "There’s probably a lot of illegal traffic over these mountain paths."

"Not so much as you might think," was the reply. "You don’t see the sentries, but they’re watching, and they shoot first and ask questions afterward."

"But they can’t do much shooting on a stormy night."

"They know where the paths are, and they guard them pretty closely. But I’ve no doubt some of the mountaineers take bribes and share with them. The Jews are running money out of Germany by every device they can think of. They want to bleed the country to death."

That didn’t sound so promising; but Lanny had to take a chance somewhere. When they were back in the car, safe from prying ears, he said: "You know, Hugo, you’re so irritated with the Jews, and yet, when I hear you talk about the ideals of National Socialism, it sounds exactly like the talk of my friend Freddi Robin whom I’ve told you about."

"I don’t deny that there are good Jews; many of them, no doubt; and certainly they have plenty of brains."

"Freddi is one of the finest characters I have ever known. He is sensitive, delicate, considerate, and I’m sure he never had a vice. He was giving all his time and thought to the cause of social justice, exactly as you believe in it and have explained it today."

"Is he still in Dachau?"

"I want to talk to you about him, Hugo. It’s so important to me; I can’t have any peace of mind while the situation stands as it is, and neither can anybody who knows Freddi. I’d like to take you into my confidence, and have your word that you won’t mention it to anybody else, except by agreement with me."

"I don’t think it’ll be possible to get me to take an interest in the affairs of any Jew, Lanny. I don’t even care to know about him, unless I can have your word that you won’t tell anybody that you have told me."

"You certainly can have that, Hugo. I have never mentioned your name to anyone except my wife, and this time I didn’t even tell her that I was planning to meet you. I’ve told everybody I was coming for the purpose of buying some pictures from Baron von Zinszollern."

On that basis the young Aryan athlete consented to risk having his mind sullied, and Lanny told him he had positive information that Freddi was being tortured in Dachau. Lanny intimated that this news had come to him from high Nazi sources; Hugo accepted this, knowing well that the rich American had such contacts. Lanny drew a horrifying picture, using the details which Göring had furnished him; Hugo, a fundamentally decent fellow, said it was a shame, and what did they expect to accomplish by such proceedings? Lanny answered that some of the big Nazis had learned that Lanny’s wife had a great deal of money, and were hoping to get a chunk of it—money they could hide in New York, and have in case they ever had to take a plane and get out of Germany. Irma had been on the verge of paying; but Lanny’s English friend, Rick, had said No, those men were betraying the Socialist movement of the world, and nobody should furnish them with funds. It had occurred to Lanny that he would rather pay money to some of the honest men in the movement, those who took seriously the second half of the party’s name, and would really try to promote the interests of the common man.

In short, if Hugo Behr would spend his vacation helping to get Freddi out of Dachau, Lanny would pay him five thousand marks at the outset, and if he succeeded would pay him another five thousand, in any form and any manner he might desire. Hugo might use the money for the movement he was building, and thus his conscience would be clear. Lanny would be glad to put up whatever additional sums Hugo might find it necessary to expend in order to interest some of the proletarian S.A. men in Dachau in bringing about the escape of a comrade who had the misfortune to have been born a Jew. They, too, might use the money to save National Socialism.

"Oh, Lanny!" exclaimed the young sports director. "That’s an awfully serious thing to be trying!"

"I know that well. I’ve been hesitating and figuring it for a year. But this news about the torturing decided me—I just can’t stand it, and I’m willing to run whatever risk I have to. It’s something that ought to be stopped, Hugo, and every decent Nazi ought to help me, for the good name of the party. Is that guard you told me about still there?"

"I’d have to make sure."

"I don’t ask you to tell me anything you’re doing, or thinking of doing. I have complete confidence in your judgment. It’ll be up to you to make some friends in the camp and decide who are the right ones to trust. Don’t mention me to them, and I won’t mention you to anybody, now or later. We’ll carry this secret to our graves."

"There’ll be the question of getting your man over the border."

"You don’t have to bother about that part of it. All I ask is for you to deliver Freddi to me on some dark night at a place agreed upon, and without anybody to stop me or follow me. I don’t want to rush you into it—take your time, think it over, and ask me all the questions you want to. Let’s have a complete understanding, so that you’ll know exactly what you’re getting in for, and each of us will know exactly what we’re promising."

VII

Hugo did his thinking right there in the car. He said it was a deal; but when Lanny asked him how he wanted his first payment, he was afraid to take the money. He said he wouldn’t dare to carry such a sum on his person, and he had no place to hide it; he was a poor man, and had no right to have money, but Lanny, a rich man, did, so keep it for him until the job was done and the danger was over. Lanny said: "I am touched by your confidence."

They worked out their arrangements in detail. Neither would ever visit the other’s hotel. When Hugo wanted Lanny he would telephone, and always use the code name of "Boecklin." They agreed upon a certain spot on a well-frequented street, and whenever they were to meet, Lanny would stop at that spot and Hugo would step into the car. They would do all their talking in the car, so there could never be any eavesdropping. All this having been agreed upon, Lanny drove his fellow conspirator to Dachau and left him near the concentration camp, so that he might start getting in touch with his friend.

The art expert telephoned the American consul in Munich. He had taken the precaution to meet that gentleman on his previous visit and to invite him to the Detaze show. Now he took him to dinner, and over a bottle of good wine they chatted about the affairs of Germany and the outside world. Lanny contributed an account of the riots in Paris, and the consul said that this kind of thing proved the need of a strong government, such as Hitler was now furnishing to the German people. The official was sure that the excesses of the Regierung had no great significance; National Socialism would soon settle down and get itself on a living basis with the rest of Europe. Lanny found this a sensible point of view, and his conversation showed no faintest trace of Pinkness.

Incidentally he mentioned that he was in Munich to arrange for a picture deal with Baron von Zinszollern. He wondered if the consul knew anything about this gentleman, and his reputation in the community. The reply was that the baron bore an excellent reputation, but of course the consul couldn’t say as to his financial situation. Lanny smiled and said: "He is selling, not buying." He knew that the consul would take this inquiry as the purpose for which he had been invited to dine; it was a proper purpose, it being the duty of consuls to assist their fellow countrymen with information. They parted friends, and the official was satisfied that Lanny Budd was in Munich for legitimate reasons, and if later on Lanny should get into any sort of trouble, the representative of his country would have every reason to assist him and vouch for him.

Lanny stayed in his room the rest of the evening and read the Münchener Neueste Nachrichten from page one to the end. He learned a little of what was happening in Germany, and still more of what the Nazis wanted the Germans to believe was happening. The Reichsführer was in the Rheinland, attending the wedding of one of his Gauleiter. He was stopping at the Rhein Hotel in Essen, and had visited the Krupp works and conferred with several of the steel magnates. That was in accord with what Hugo had said; and so was the fact that Minister-Präsident General Göring was accompanying him. Flying in the rear cabin in a plane was the best of occasions for one man to whisper into another man’s ear; and what was Göring telling Adi about plots against him, and the urgent need to disband the S.A. and avert the "Second Revolution"? Lanny put his imagination to work; for it was a part of his job to point out these things to Hugo and have Hugo pass them on to discontented members of the S.A. in Dachau. From the leading editorial in the newspaper Lanny followed the campaign now going on against those evil persons who were described by the German equivalents of grouches, knockers, and smart Alecks, soreheads, muckrakers, and wet blankets.

VIII

Late at night Lanny was summoned to the telephone. There being none in his room, he went downstairs, and there was the voice of "Boecklin," saying: "Can I see you?" Lanny replied, "Ja, gewiss" which in American would have been "Sure thing!"

He went to his car and picked up his friend at the place agreed upon. "Well," said Hugo, "I believe it can be arranged."

"Oh, good!" exclaimed the other.

"I promised not to name any names, and there’s no need of your knowing the details, I suppose."

"None in the world. I just want to know that I can come to a certain place and pick up my friend."

"There’s only one trouble: I’m afraid it will cost a lot of money. You see, it can’t be done by a common guard. Somebody higher up has to consent."

"What do you think it will cost?"

"About twenty thousand marks. I can’t be sure what will be demanded; it might be twenty-five or thirty thousand before we get through."

"That’s all right, Hugo; I can afford it. I’ll get the cash and give it to you whenever you say."

"The job ought to be put through as soon as it’s agreed upon. The longer we wait, the more chance of somebody’s talking."

"Absolutely. I have certain arrangements to make, and it’s hard for me to know exactly how long it will take, but I’m pretty sure I can be ready by Friday night. Would that be all right?"

"So far as I can guess."

"If something went wrong with my plans I might have to put it off till Saturday. Whenever you are ready for the money, you have to let me know before the bank closes."

All this was assented to; and after dropping his friend on a quiet street Lanny went to one of the large hotels where he would find a telephone booth, and there put in a call for Jerry Pendleton, Pension Flavin, Cannes. It takes time to achieve such a feat in Europe, but he waited patiently, and at last heard his old pal’s sleepy voice.

Lanny said: "The Detazes are ready, and I’m waiting in Munich for you. I am buying some others, and want to close the deal and move them on Friday. Do you think you can get here then?"

"By heck!" said Jerry. It was Wednesday midnight, and his voice came suddenly awake. "I can’t get visas until morning."

"You can hunt up the consul tonight and pay him extra."

"I’ll have to go and make sure about Cyprien first." That was a nephew of Leese, who did truck-driving for Bienvenu.

"All right, get him or somebody else. Make note of my address, and phone me at noon tomorrow and again late in the evening, letting me know where you are. Come by way of Verona and the Brenner, and don’t let anything keep you from being here. If you should have a breakdown, let Cyprien come with the truck, and you take a train, or a plane if you have to. I have somebody here I want you to meet on Friday."

"O.K." said the ex-tutor and ex-soldier; he sort of sang it, with the accent on the first syllable, and it was like a signature over the telephone.

IX

Baron von Zinszollern possessed an Anton Mauve, a large and generous work portraying a shepherd leading home his flock in a pearly gray and green twilight. It seemed to Lanny a fine example of that painter’s poetical and serious feeling, and he had got the price down to thirty thousand marks. He had telegraphed Zoltan that he was disposed to buy it as a gamble, and did his friend care to go halves? His friend replied Yes, so he went that morning and bought the work, paying two thousand marks down and agreeing to pay the balance within a week. This involved signing papers, which Lanny would have on his person; also, an influential Nazi sympathizer would have an interest in testifying that he was really an art expert. Incidentally it gave Lanny a pretext for going to the Munich branch of the Hellstein Bank, and having them pay him thirty thousand marks in Nazi paper.

At noon the dependable Jerry telephoned. He and Cyprien and the camion were past Genoa. They would eat and sleep on board, and keep moving. Lanny told him to telephone about ten in the evening wherever they were. Jerry sang: "O.K."

A little later came a call from "Boecklin," and Lanny took him for a drive. He said: "It’s all fixed. You’re to pay twenty-three thousand marks, and your man will be delivered to you anywhere in Dachau at twenty-two o’clock tomorrow evening. Will you be ready?"

"I’m pretty sure to. Here’s your money." Lanny took out his wallet, and handed it to his friend beside him. "Help yourself."

It was improbable that Hugo Behr, son of a shipping clerk, had ever had so much money in his hands before. The hands trembled slightly as he took out the bundle of crisp new banknotes, each for one thousand marks; he counted out twenty-three of them, while Lanny went on driving and didn’t seem to be especially interested. Hugo counted them a second time, both times out loud.

"You’d better take your own, also," suggested the lordly one. "You know I might get into some trouble."

"If you do, I’d rather be able to say you hadn’t paid me anything. I’m doing it purely for friendship’s sake, and because you’re a friend of Heinrich and Kurt."

"Lay all the emphasis you can on them!" chuckled Lanny. "Mention that Heinrich told you how he had taken Kurt and me to visit the Führer last winter; and also that I told you about taking a hunting trip with Göring. So you were sure I must be all right."

Hugo had got some news about Freddi which the other heard gladly. Apparently Lanny had been right in what he had said about the Jewish prisoner; he had won the respect even of those who were trying to crush him. Unfortunately he was in the hands of the Gestapo, which kept him apart from the regular run of inmates. A prison inside the prison, it appeared! The rumor was that they had been trying to force Freddi to reveal the names of certain Social-Democrats who were operating an illegal press in Berlin; but he insisted that he knew nothing about it.

"He wouldn’t be apt to know," said Lanny. To himself he added: "Trudi Schultz!"

It had been his intention to make a casual remark to his friend: "Oh, by the way, I wonder if you could find out if there’s a man in Dachau by the name of Ludwig Schultz." But now he realized that it was not so simple as he had thought. To tell Hugo that he was trying to help another of the dreaded "Marxists" might sour him on the whole deal. And for Hugo to tell his friends in the concentration camp might have the same effect upon them. Lanny could do nothing for poor Trudi—at least not this trip.

X

He drove the car to Dachau, and they rolled about its streets, to decide upon a spot which would be dark and quiet. They learned the exact description of this place, so that Hugo could tell it to the men who were going to bring Freddi. Hugo said he had an appointment to pay the money to a man in Munich at twenty o’clock, or 8:00 p.m. according to the American way of stating it. Hugo was nervous about wandering around with such an unthinkable sum in his pocket, so Lanny drove him up into the hills, where they looked at beautiful scenery. The American quoted: "Where every prospect pleases and only man is vile." He didn’t translate it for his German friend.

Hugo had been talking to some of his party comrades in Munich, the birthplace of their movement, and had picked up news which didn’t get into the gleichgeschaltete Presse. There was a terrible state of tension in the party; everybody appeared to be quarreling with everybody else. Göring and Goebbels were at daggers drawn over the question of controlling policy—which, Lanny understood, meant controlling Hitler’s mind. Goebbels had announced a program of compelling industry to share profits with the workers, and this, of course, was criminal to Göring and his friends the industrialists. Just recently von Papen, still a Reichsminister, had made a speech demanding freedom of the press to discuss all public questions, and Göring had intervened and forbidden the publication of this speech. A day or two ago the man who was said to have written the speech for the "gentleman jockey" had been arrested in Munich, and the town was buzzing with gossip about the quarrel. It was rumored that a hundred and fifty of Goebbels’s personal guards had mutinied and been sent to a concentration camp. All sorts of wild tales like this, and who knew what to believe?

They had come to the Tegernsee, a lovely mountain lake, and there was a road-sign, reading: "Bad Wiessee, 7 km." Hugo said: "The papers report that Röhm is having his vacation there. I hear he’s had several conferences with the Führer in the past week or two, and they’ve had terrible rows."

"What’s the trouble between them?" inquired the gossip-hungry visitor.

"The same old story. Röhm and his friends want the original party program carried out. Now, of course, he’s wild over the idea of having his Stormtroopers disbanded."

Lanny could credit the latter motive, if not the former. He had heard the red-headed Chief of Staff speak at one of the Nazi Versammlungen, and had got the impression of an exceedingly tough military adventurer, untroubled by social ideals. Perhaps that was due in part to his battle-scars, the upper part of his nose having been shot away! Röhm wanted the powers of his Brownshirts increased, and naturally would fight desperately against having them wiped out.

Seven kilometers was nothing, so Lanny turned his car in the direction indicated by the sign. A lovely little village with tree-shaded streets, and cottages on the lakefront. In front of one of the largest, and also of the Gasthaus Heinzlbauer, were parked a great many fancy cars. Hugo said: "They must be having a conference. Only our leaders can afford cars like those." The note of bitterness indicated that he didn’t trust his new Führer much more than his old.

"Do you know him?" asked Lanny.

"I know one of the staff members in Berlin, and he has told the Chief that I am working on his behalf."

"Would you like to go in and meet him?"

"Do you know him?" countered Hugo, startled.

"No; but I thought he might be interested to meet an American art expert."

"Aber, Lanny!" exclaimed the young sports director, whose sense of humor was not his strongest suit. "I really don’t think he has much time to think about art right now!"

"He might take a fancy to a magnificent young athlete like yourself, Hugo."

"Gott behüte.'" was the reply.

It seemed almost blasphemy to talk about this subject while under the shadow of Röhm and his entourage; but when the American put the question point blank, Hugo admitted that he had heard about the habits of the Sturmabteilung Chief of Staff. Everybody in Germany knew about them, for Hauptmann Röhm, while acting as a military instructor in Bolivia, had written a series of letters home admitting his abnormal tastes, and these letters had been published in the German press. Now, said Hugo, his enemies gave that as the reason for not taking him and his staff into the regular army. "As if the Reichswehr officers were lily-white saints!" exclaimed the S.A. man.

XI

Back in the city, Lanny took a long walk in the Englischer Garten, going over his plans and trying to make all possible mistakes in advance. Then he went back and read the co-ordinated newspapers, and picked up hints of the struggle going on—you could find them if you were an insider. It looked very much as if the N.S.D.A.P. was going to split itself to pieces. Lanny was tempted by the idea that if he waited a few days, Freddi Robin might come out from Dachau with a brass band leading the way!

At the appointed hour Jerry Pendleton called; he was rolling on, and all was well. It was slow on the mountain roads, but he thought he could make it by noon the next day. "What is the deadline?" he asked, and Lanny replied: "Two o’clock." Jerry sang: "O.K." and Lanny lay down and tried to sleep, but found it difficult, because he kept imagining himself in the hands of the Gestapo, who had prisons inside of prisons. What would he say? And more important yet, what would they do?

Next morning the conspirator received a telephone call from "Herr Boecklin," and drove to meet his friend and receive some bad news; one of the men concerned was demanding more money, because the thing was so very dangerous. Lanny asked how much, and the answer was, another five thousand marks. Lanny said all right, he would get it at once; but Hugo wanted to change the arrangement. He hadn’t paid out the money, and wanted to refuse to pay more than half until the prisoner was actually delivered. His idea now was to drive to Dachau with Lanny at the appointed time, and to keep watch near by. If Freddi was produced and everything seemed all right, he would emerge and pay the rest of the money.

Lanny said: "That’s a lot more dangerous for you, Hugo." "Not so very," was the reply. "I’m sure it’s not a trap; but if it were, they could get me anyhow. What I want to do is to keep you from paying the money and then not getting your man."

XII

Lanny went back to his hotel and waited until early afternoon, on pins and needles. At last came a telephone call; Jerry Pendleton was at the hotel in Munich to which Lanny had told him to come. "Evervthing hunkydory, not a scratch."

Lanny said: "Be out on the street; I’ll pick you up."

"Give me ten minutes to shave and change my shirt," countered the ex-lieutenant from Kansas.

Delightful indeed to set eyes on somebody from home; somebody who could be trusted, and who didn’t say "Heil Hitler!" The ex-lieutenant was over forty, his red hair was losing its sheen and he had put on some weight; but to Lanny he was still America, prompt, efficient, and full of what it called "pep," "zip," and "ginger." A lady’s man all his life, Lanny was still impressed by the masculine type, with hair on its chest. Though he would have died before admitting it, he was both lonely and scared in Naziland.

Driving in the traffic of the Ludwigstrasse, he couldn’t look at his ex-tutor, but he said: "Gee whiz, Jerry, you’re a sight for sore eyes!"

"The same to you, kid!"

"You won’t be so glad of my company when you hear what I’m in this town for."

"Why, what’s the matter? I thought you were buying pictures."

"I am buying Freddi Robin out of the Dachau concentration camp."

"Jesus Christ!" exclaimed Jerry.

He’s to be delivered to me at ten o’clock tonight, and you’ve got to help me smuggle him out of this goddam Nazi country!"

I

JERRY had known that Freddi Robin was a prisoner in Germany, but hadn’t known where or why or how. Now, in the car, safe from eavesdroppers, Lanny told the story and expounded his plan. He was proposing to take his own photograph from his passport and substitute that of Freddi Robin which he had brought with him. Then he would pick up Freddi in Dachau, drive to some other part of the town and get Jerry, and let Jerry drive Freddi out of Germany under the name of Lanning Prescott Budd. Such was the genial scheme.

"At first," Lanny explained, "I had the idea of fixing up your passport for Freddi to use, and I would drive him out. But I realized, there’s very little danger in the driving part—the passports will be all right, and once you get clear of Dachau everything will be O.K. But the fellow who’s left behind without a passport may have a bit of trouble; so that’s why I’m offering you the driving part."

"But, my God!" cried the bewildered Kansan. "Just what do you expect to do about getting out?"

"I’ll go to the American consul and tell him my passport has been stolen. I have made friends with him and he’ll probably give me some sort of duplicate. If he won’t, it’ll be up to me to find a way to sneak out by some of the mountain passes."

"But, Lanny, you’re out of your mind! In the first place, the moment Freddi’s escape is discovered they’ll know he’s heading for the Austrian border, and they’ll block the passes."

"It’ll take you only an hour or two to get to the border from Dachau, and you’ll be over and gone. You’re to drive my car, understand, not the camion."

"But there will be the record of the Lanny Budd passport and of mine at the border."

"What then? They’ll draw the conclusion that you are the man who stole my passport. But it’s not an extraditable offense."

"They’ll know it was a put-up job! You’re the brother-in-law of Freddi’s brother and you’ve been trying to get him released. It’ll be obvious that you gave me your papers."

"They won’t have a particle of evidence to prove it."

"They’ll sweat it out of you, Lanny. I tell you, it’s a bum steer! I could never look your mother or your father or your wife in the face if I let you put your foot into such a trap." As ex-tutor, Jerry spoke for the family.

"But I have to get Freddi out of Germany!" insisted the ex-pupil. "I’ve been a year making up my mind to that."

"All right, kid; but go back to your original idea. You steal my passport and drive Freddi out."

"And leave you in the hole?"

"That’s not nearly so bad, because I’m not related to the prisoner and I’m not known. I’m a fellow you hired to get your paintings, and you played a dirty trick on me and left me stuck. I can put up a howl about it and stick to my story."

"They’d sweat you instead of me, Jerry."

So the two argued back and forth; an "Alphonse and Gaston" scene, but deadly serious. Meanwhile the precious time was passing in which exit permits and visas had to be got. There appeared to be a deadlock—until suddenly an inspiration came to the ex-tutor. "Let’s both go out with Freddi, and leave Cyprien to face the music. I’ll steal his passport in earnest."

"That would be a rotten deal, Jerry."

"Not so bad as it seems. Cyprien’s a French peasant, who obviously wouldn’t have the brains to think up anything. He’ll be in a rage with us, and put on a fine act. I’ll get him loaded up with good Munich beer and he’ll be smelling of it when the police come for him. When we get to France you can telegraph some money to the French consul here and tell him to look after his own. When Cyprien gets home with his truck you can give him a few thousand francs and he’ll think it was the great adventure of his life."

Lanny didn’t like that plan, but his friend settled it with an argument which Lanny hadn’t thought of. "Believe me, Freddi Robin looks a lot more like the name Cyprien Santoze than like the name Lanning Prescott Budd!" Then, seeing Lanny weakening: "Come on! Let’s get going!"

II

Jerry took the truckman to get their exit permits and to have their passports "visaed" for Switzerland—he thought it better not to trust themselves in Mussolini’s land. Lanny went separately and did the same, while Jerry treated Cyprien to a square meal, in eluding plenty of good Munich beer. The Frenchman, who hadn’t grown up as saintly as his mother had named him, drank everything that was put before him, and then wanted to go out and inspect the girls of thirteen years and up who were offering themselves in such numbers on the streets of Munich. His escort said: "Those girls sometimes pick your pockets, so you’d better give me your papers to keep." The other accepted this as a reasonable precaution.

Lanny drove his friend out to Dachau to study the lay of the land. He pointed out the spot where the prisoner was to be delivered, and made certain that Jerry knew the street names and landmarks. It was the Kansan’s intention to "scout around," so he said; he would find a place from which he could watch the spot and see that everything went off according to schedule. Hugo would be doing the same thing, and Lanny wasn’t at liberty to tell Jerry about Hugo or Hugo about Jerry. It sufficed to warn his friend that there would be a Nazi officer watching, and -Jerry said: "I’ll watch him, too!"

One serious difficulty, so far as concerned the ex-tutor, and that was, he knew only a few words of German. He said: "Tell me, how do you say: Hands up!?"

Lanny answered: "What are you thinking about, idiot? Have you got a gun?"

"Who? Me? Who ever heard of me carrying a gun?" This from one who had been all through the Meuse-Argonne in the autumn of 1918!

"You mustn’t try any rough stuff, Jerry. Remember, murder is an extraditable offense."

"Sure, I know," responded the other. "They extradited a couple of million of us. You remember, the A.E.F., the American Extraditable Force!" It was the old doughboy spirit.

Lanny knew that Jerry owned a Budd automatic, and it was likely he had brought it along with him in the truck. But he wouldn’t say any more about it; he just wanted to learn to say: "Hande hoch!"

They studied the map. They would drive north out of Dachau, then make a circle and head south, skirt the city of Munich and streak for the border. When they had got the maps fixed in mind, they went over the streets of Dachau, noting the landmarks, so as to make no mistake in the dark. All this done, they drove back to Munich and had a late supper in a quiet tavern, and then Jerry went to his hotel. There were a few things he didn’t want to leave behind, and one or two letters he wanted to destroy. "I didn’t know I was embarking upon a criminal career," he said, with a grin.

At the proper hour he met his pal on the street and was motored out to Dachau and dropped there. It was dark by then, a lovely summer evening, and the people of this workingclass district were sitting in front of their homes. Lanny said: "You’ll have to keep moving so as not to attract attention. See you later, old scout!" He spoke with assurance, but didn’t feel it inside!

III

Back in Munich, the playboy drove past the spot where he was accustomed to meet Hugo, in front of a tobacco shop on a well-frequented street. Darkness had fallen, but the street was lighted. Lanny didn’t see his friend, and knowing that he was ahead of time, drove slowly around the block. When he turned the corner again, he saw his friend not far ahead of him, walking toward the appointed spot.

There was a taxicab proceeding in the same direction, some thirty or forty feet behind Hugo, going slowly and without lights. Lanny waited for it to pass on; but the driver appeared to be looking for a street number. So Lanny went ahead of it and drew up by the curb, where Hugo saw him and started to join him. Lanny leaned over to open the door on the right side of the car; and at the same moment the taxicab stopped alongside Lanny’s car. Three men sprang out, wearing the black shirts and trousers and steel helmets of the Schutzstaffel. One of them stood staring at Lanny, while the other two darted behind Lanny’s car and confronted the young sports director in the act of putting his hand on the car door.

"Are you Hugo Behr?" demanded one of the men.

"I am," was the reply.

Lanny turned to look at the questioner; but the man’s next action was faster than any eye could follow. He must have had a gun in his hand behind his back; he swung it up and fired straight into the face in front of him, and not more than a foot away. Pieces of the blue eye of Hugo Behr and a fine spray of his Aryan blood flew out, and some hit Lanny in the face. The rest of Hugo Behr crumpled and dropped to the sidewalk; whereupon the man turned his gun into the horrified face of the driver.

"Hande hoch!" he commanded; and that was certainly turning the tables upon Lanny. He put them high.

"Wer sind Sie?" demanded the S.S. man.

It was a time for the quickest possible answers, and Lanny was fortunate in having thought up the best possible. "I am an American art expert, and a friend of the Führer."

"Oh! So you’re a friend of the Führer!"

"I have visited him several times. I spent a morning with him in the Braune Haus a few months ago."

"How do you come to know Hugo Behr?"

"I was introduced to him in the home of Heinrich Jung, a high official of the Hitler Jugend in Berlin. Heinrich is one of the Führer’s oldest friends and visited him many times when’he was in the Landsberg fortress. It was Heinrich who introduced me to the Führer." Lanny rattled this off as if it were a school exercise; and indeed it was something like that, for he had imagined interrogations and had learned his Rolle in the very best German. Since the S.S. man didn’t tell him to stop, he went on, as fast as ever: "Also on the visit to the Reichsführer in the Braune Haus went Kurt Meissner of Schloss Stubendorf, who is a Komponist and author of several part-songs which you sing at your assemblies. He has known me since we were boys at Hellerau, and will tell you that I am a friend of the National Socialist movement."

That was the end of the speech, so far as Lanny had planned it. But even as he said the last words a horrible doubt smote him: Perhaps this was some sort of anti-Nazi revolution, and he was sealing his own doom! He saw that the point of the gun had come down, and the muzzle was looking into his navel instead of into his face; but that wasn’t enough to satisfy him. He stared at the S.S. man, who had black eyebrows that met over his nose. It seemed to Lanny the hardest face he had ever examined.

"What were you doing with this man?"—nodding downward toward what lay on the pavement.

"I am in Munich buying a painting from Baron von Zinszollern. I saw Hugo Behr walking on the street and I stopped to say Gruss Gott to him." Lanny was speaking impromptu now.

"Get out of the car," commanded the S.S. man.

Lanny’s heart was hitting hard blows underneath his throat; his knees were trembling so violently he wasn’t sure they would hold him up. It appeared that he was being ordered out so that his blood and brains might not spoil a good car. "I tell you, you will regret it if you shoot me. I am an intimate friend of Minister-Präsident General Göring. I was on a hunting trip with him last fall. You can ask Oberleutnant Furtwaengler of Seine Exzellenz’s staff. You can ask Reichsminister Goebbels about me—or his wife, Frau Magda Goebbels—I have visited their home. You can read articles about me in the Munich newspapers of last November when I conducted an exhibition of paintings here and took one of them to the Führer. My picture was in all the papers—"

"I am not going to shoot you," announced the S.S. man. His tone indicated abysmal contempt of anybody who objected to being shot.

"What are you going to do?"

"Take you to Stadelheim until your story is investigated. Get out of the car."

Stadelheim was a name of terror; one of those dreadful prisons about which the refugees talked. But it was better than being shot on the sidewalk, so Lanny managed to control his nerves, and obeyed. The other man passed his hands over him to see if he was armed. Then the leader commanded him to search the body of Hugo, and he collected a capful of belongings including a wad of bills which Lanny knew amounted to some fifteen thousand marks.

Apparently they meant to leave the corpse right there, and Lanny wondered, did they have a corpse-collecting authority, or did they leave it to the neighborhood?

However, he didn’t have much time for speculation. "Get into the back seat," commanded the leader and climbed in beside him, still holding the gun on him. The man who had got out on Lanny’s side of the car now slipped into the driver’s seat, and the car sprang to life and sped down the street.

IV

Lanny had seen Stadelheim from the outside; a great mass of buildings on a tree-lined avenue, the Tegernsee road upon which he had driven Hugo Behr. Now the walls of the place loomed enormous and forbidding in the darkness. Lanny was ordered out of the car, and two of his captors escorted him through the doorway, straight past the reception room, and down a stone corridor into a small room. He had expected to be "booked" and fingerprinted; but apparently this was to be dispensed with. They ordered him to take off his coat, trousers, and shoes, and proceeded to search him. "There is considerable money in that wallet," he said, and the leader replied, grimly: "We will take care of it." They took his watch, keys, fountain-pen, necktie, everything but his handkerchief. They searched the linings of his clothing, and looked carefully to see if there were any signs that the heels of his shoes might be removable.

Finally they told him to put his clothes on again. Lanny said: "Would you mind telling me what I am suspected of?" The reply of the leader was: "Maul halten!" Apparently they didn’t believe his wonder-tales about being the intimate friend of the three leading Nazis. Not wishing to get a knock over the head with a revolver butt, Lanny held his mouth, as ordered, and was escorted out of the room and down the corridor to a guarded steel door.

The head S.S. man appeared to have the run of the place; all he had to do was to salute and say: "Heil Hitler!" and all doors were swung open for him. He led the prisoner down a narrow flight of stone stairs, into a passage dimly lighted and lined with steel doors.

Old prisons have such places of darkness and silence, where deeds without a name have been done. A warder who accompanied the trio opened one of these doors, and Lanny was shoved in without a word. The door clanged behind him; and that, as he had learned to say in the land of his fathers, was that.

V

In the darkness he could only explore the place by groping. The cell was narrow and had an iron cot built into the stone wall. On the cot were two sacks of straw and a blanket. In the far corner was a stinking pail without a cover; and that was all. There was a vile, age-old odor, and no window; ventilation was provided by two openings in the solid door, one high and one low; they could be closed by sliding covers on the outside, but perhaps this would be done only if Lanny misbehaved. He didn’t.

He was permitted to sit on the straw sacks and think, and he did his best to quiet the tumult of his heart and use his reasoning powers. What had happened? It seemed obvious that his plot had been discovered. Had the would-be conspirators been caught, or had they taken the money and then reported the plot to their superiors? And if so, would they shoot Freddi? No use worrying about that now. Lanny couldn’t be of any use to Freddi unless he himself got out, so he had to put his mind on his own plight, and prepare for the examination which was bound sooner or later to come.

Hugo’s part in the jailbreak had evidently been betrayed; but Hugo had never named Lanny, so he had said. Of course this might or might not have been true. They had found a bunch of thousand-mark notes on Hugo, and they had found some on Lanny; suddenly the prisoner realized, with a near collapse of his insides, what a stupid thing he had done. The clue which a criminal always leaves! He had gone to the bank and got thirty new thousand-mark bills, doubtless having consecutive serial numbers, and had given some of these to Hugo and kept some in his own wallet!

So they would be sure that he had tried to buy a prisoner out of Dachau. What would the penalty be for that crime? What it would have been under the old regime was one thing, and under the Nazis something else again. As if to answer his question there came terrifying sounds, muffled yet unmistakable; first, a roll of drums, and then shooting somewhere in those dungeon depths or else outside the walls. Not a single shot, not a series of shots, but a volley, a closely-packed bunch of shots. They were executing somebody, or perhaps several bodies. Lanny, who had started to his feet, had to sit down again because his legs were giving way.

Who would that be? The S.A. man in Dachau with whom Hugo had been dealing? The man higher up who had demanded more money? The plot must have been betrayed early, for it couldn’t be much after ten o’clock, and there had hardly been time for the jailbreak to have been attempted and the guilty parties brought from Dachau to this prison. Of course it might be that this was some execution that had nothing to do with Dachau. Shootings were frequent in Nazi prisons, all refugees agreed. Perhaps they shot people every night at twenty-two o’clock, German time!

After the most careful thought, Lanny decided that the Nazis had him nailed down; no chance of wriggling out. He had come to Germany to get Freddi Robin, and the picture-dealing had been only a blind. He had had a truck brought from France—they would be sure he had meant to take Freddi out in that truck! And there was Jerry—with two one-thousand-mark bills which Lanny had handed him! Also with the passport of Cyprien Santoze, having the picture of Freddi Robin substituted! Would they catch the meaning of that?

Or would Jerry perhaps get away? He would be walking about, passing the appointed spot, waiting for the prisoner and for Lanny to appear. Would the Nazis be watching and arrest anybody who passed? It was an important question, for if Jerry escaped he’d surely go to the American consul and report Lanny as missing. Would he tell the consul the whole truth? He might or he might not; but anyhow the consul would be making inquiries as to the son of Budd Gunmakers.

VI

More drum-rolls and more shooting! Good God, were they killing people all night in German prisons? Apparently so; for that was the way Lanny spent the night, listening to volleys, long or short, loud or dim. He couldn’t tell whether they were inside or out. Did they have a special execution chamber, or did they just shoot you anywhere you happened to be? And what did they do with all the blood? Lanny imagined that he smelled it, and the fumes of gunpowder; but maybe he was mistaken, for the stink of a rusty old slop-pail can be extremely pungent in a small cell. An art expert had seen many pictures of executions, ancient and modern, so he knew what to imagine. Sometimes they blindfolded the victims, sometimes they made them turn their backs, sometimes they just put an, automatic to the base of their skulls, the medulla; that was said to be merciful, and certainly it was quick. The Nazis cared nothing about mercy, but they surely did about speed.

Every now and then a door clanged, and Lanny thought: "They are taking somebody to his doom." Now and then he heard footsteps, and thought: "Are they coming or going?" He wondered about the bodies. Did they have stretchers? Or did they just drag them? He imagined that he heard dragging. Several times there were screams; and once a man going by his door, arguing, shouting protests. What was the matter with them? He was as good a Nazi as anyone in Germany. They were making a mistake. It was eine gottverdammte Schande—and so on. That gave Lanny something new to think about, and he sat for a long time motionless on his straw pallet, with his brain in a whirl.

Maybe all this hadn’t anything to do with Freddi and a jailbreak! Maybe nothing had been discovered at all! It was that "Second Revolution" that Hugo had been so freely predicting! Hugo had been shot, not because he had tried to bribe a Dachau guard, but because he was on the list of those who were actively working on behalf of Ernst Rohm and the other malcontents of the Sturmabteilung! In that case the shootings might be part of the putting down of that movement. It was significant that Lanny’s captors had been men of the Schutzstaffel, the "elite guard," Hitler’s own chosen ones. They were putting their rivals out of business; "liquidating" those who had been demanding more power for the S.A. Chief of Staff!

But then, a still more startling possibility—the executions might mean the success of the rebels. The fact that Hugo Behr had been killed didn’t mean that the S.S. had had their way everywhere. Perhaps the S.A. were defending themselves successfully! Perhaps Stadelheim had been taken, as the Bastille had been taken in the French revolution, and the persons now being shot were those who had put Lanny in here! At any moment the doors of his cell might be thrown open and he might be welcomed with comradely rejoicing!

Delirious imaginings; but then the whole thing was a delirium. To lie there in the darkness with no way to count the hours and nothing to do but speculate about a world full of maniacal murderers. Somebody was killing somebody, that alone was certain, and it went on at intervals without any sign of ending. Lanny remembered the French revolution, and the unhappy aristocrats who had lain in their cells awaiting their turn to be loaded into the tumbrils and carted to the guillotine. This kind of thing was said to turn people’s hair gray over night; Lanny wondered if it was happening to him. Every time he heard footsteps he hoped it was somebody coming to let him out; but then he was afraid to have the footsteps halt, because it might be a summons to the execution chamber!

He tried to comfort himself. He had had no part in any conspiracy of the S.A. and surely they wouldn’t shoot him just because he had met a friend on the street. But then he thought: "Those banknotes!" They would attach a still more sinister meaning to them now. They would say: "What were you paying Hugo Behr to do?" And what should he answer? He had said that he hadn’t known what Hugo wanted of him. They would know that was a lie. They would say: "You were helping to promote a revolution against the N.S.D.A.P." And that was surely a shooting offense-even though you had come from the sweet land of liberty to do it!

Lanny thought up the best way to meet this very bad situation.

When he was questioned, he would talk about his friendship with the great and powerful, and wait to pick up any hint that the questioner had made note of the bills, or had found out about Freddi Robin. If these discoveries had been made, Lanny would laugh—at least he would try to laugh—and say: "Yes, of course I lied to those S.S. men on the street. I thought they were crazy and were going to shoot me. The truth is that Hugo Behr came to me and asked for money and offered to use his influence with the S.A. in Dachau to get my friend released. There was no question of any bribe, he said he would put the money into the party funds and it would go for the winter relief." One thing Lanny could be sure of in this matter—nothing that he said about Hugo could do the slightest harm to the young sports director.

VII

Footsteps in the corridor; a slot at the bottom of Lanny’s door was widened, and something was set inside. He said, quickly: "Will you please tell me how long I am to be kept here?" When there was no reply, he said: "I am an American citizen and I demand the right to communicate with my consul." The slot was made smaller again and the footsteps went on.

Lanny felt with his hands and found a metal pitcher of water, a cup of warm liquid, presumably coffee, and a chunk of rather stale bread. He wasn’t hungry, but drank some of the water. Presumably that was breakfast, and it was morning. He lay and listened to more shooting off and on; and after what seemed a very long time the slot was opened and more food put in. Out of curiosity he investigated, and found that he had a plate of what appeared to be cold potatoes mashed up with some sort of grease. The grease must have been rancid, for the smell was revolting, and Lanny came near to vomiting at the thought of eating it. He had been near to vomiting several times at the thought of people being shot in this dungeon of horrors.

A bowl of cabbage soup and more bread were brought in what he assumed was the evening; and this time the warder spoke. He said:

"Pass out your slop-pail." Lanny did so, and it was emptied and passed back to him without washing. This sign of humanity caused him to make a little speech about his troubles. He said that he had done nothing, that he had no idea what he was accused of, that it was very inhuman to keep a man in a dark hole, that he had always been a lover of Germany and a sympathizer with its struggle against the Versailles Diktat. Finally, he was an American citizen, and had a right to notify his consul of his arrest.

This time he managed to get one sentence of reply: "Sprechen verboten, mein Herr." It sounded like a kind voice, and Lanny recalled what he had heard, that many of the permanent staff of these prisons were men of the former regime, well disciplined and humane. He took a chance and ventured in a low voice: "I am a rich man, and if you will telephone the American consul for me, I will pay you well when I get out."

"Sprechen verboten, mein Herr" replied the voice; and then, much lower: "Sprechen Sie leise." Speaking is forbidden, sir; speak softly! So the prisoner whispered: "My name is Lanny Budd." He repeated it several times: "Lanny Budd, Lanny Budd." It became a little song. Would that it might have wings, and fly to the American consulate!

VIII

For three days and four nights Lanny Budd stayed in that narrow cell. He could estimate the number of cubic feet of air inside, but he didn’t know what percentage of that air was oxygen, or how much he needed per hour in order to maintain his life. His scientific education had been neglected, but it seemed a wise precaution to put his straw sacks on the floor and lie on them with his mouth near the breathing hole.

Saturday, Sunday, Monday—he could tell them by the meal hours —and during a total of some eighty-two hours there were not a dozen without sounds of shooting. He never got over his dismay. God Almighty, did they do this all the time? Had this been going on ever since the National Socialist revolution, one year and five months ago? Did they bring all the political suspects of Bavaria to this one place? Or was this some special occasion, a Nazi St. Bartholomew’s Eve? "Kill them all; God will be able to pick out His Christians!"

Lanny, having nothing to do but think, had many and varied ideas. One was: "Well, they are all Nazis, and if they exterminate one another, that will save the world a lot of trouble." But then: "Suppose they should open the wrong cell door?" An embarrassing thought indeed! What would he say? How would he convince them? As time passed he decided: "They have forgotten me. Those fellows didn’t book me, and maybe they just went off without a word." And then, a still more confusing possibility: "Suppose they get shot somewhere and nobody remembers me!" He had a vague memory of having read about a forgotten prisoner in the Bastille; when the place was opened up, nobody knew why he had been put there. He had had a long gray beard. Lanny felt the beginnings of his beard and wondered if it was gray.

He gave serious study to his jailers and their probable psychology. It seemed difficult to believe that men who had followed such an occupation for many years could have any human kindness left in their systems; but it could do no harm to make sure. So at every meal hour he was lying on the floor close to the hole, delivering a carefully planned speech in a quiet, friendly tone, explaining who he was, and how much he loved the German people, and why he had come to Munich, and by what evil accident he had fallen under suspicion. All he wanted was a chance to explain himself to somebody. He figured that if he didn’t touch the heart of any of the keepers, he might at least get them to gossiping, and the gossip might spread.

IX

He didn’t know how long a person could live without food. It wasn’t until the second day that he began to suffer from hunger, and he gnawed some of the soggy dark bread, wondering what was in it. He couldn’t bring himself to eat the foul-smelling mash or the lukewarm boiled cabbage with grease on top. As for the bitter-tasting drink that passed for coffee, he had been told that they put sal soda into it in order to reduce the sexual cravings of the prisoners. He didn’t feel any craving except to get out of this black hole. He whispered to his keepers: "I had about six thousand marks on me when I was brought in here, and I would be glad to pay for some decent food." The second time he said this he heard the kind voice, which he imagined coming from an elderly man with a wrinkled face and gray mustaches. "Alles geht d’runter und d’ruber, mein Herr." . . . "Everything topsy-turvy, sir; and you will be safer if you stay quiet."

It was a tip; and Lanny thought it over and decided that he had better take it. There was a civil war going on. Was the "Second Revolution" succeeding, or was it being put down? In either case, an American art lover, trapped between the firing lines, was lucky to have found a shell-hole in which to hide! Had the warder been a Cockney, he would have said: "If you knows of a better 'ole, go to it!"

So Lanny lay still and occupied himself with the subject of psychology, which so far in his life he had rather neglected. The world had been too much with him; getting and spending he had laid waste his powers. But now the world had been reduced to a few hundred cubic feet, and all he had was the clothes on his back and what ideas he had stored in his head. He began to recall Parsifal Dingle, and to appreciate his point of view. Parsifal wouldn’t have minded being here; he would have taken it as a rare opportunity to meditate. Lanny thought: "What would Parsifal meditate about?" Surely not the shooting, or the fate of a hypothetical revolution! No, he would say that God was in this cell; that God was the same indoors as out, the same yesterday, today, and forever.

Then Lanny thought about Freddi Robin. Freddi had been in places like this, and had had the same sort of food put before him, not for three days but for more than a year. What had he said to himself all that time? What had he found inside himself? What had he done and thought, to pass the time, to enable him to endure what came and the anticipation of what might come? It seemed time for Lanny to investigate his store of moral forces.

X

On Tuesday morning two jailers came to his cell and opened the door. " 'Raus, raus." they said, and he obeyed to the best of his ability; he was weak from lack of food and exercise—not having dared to use up the air in that cell. Also his heart was pounding, because all the psychology exercises had failed to remove his disinclination to be shot, or the idea that this might be his death march. Outside the cell he went dizzy, and had to lean against the wall; one of the jailers helped him up the flight of stone stairs.

They were taking him toward an outside door. They were going to turn him loose!—so he thought, for one moment. But then he saw, below the steps, a prison van—what in America is called "Black Maria," and in Germany "Grüne Minna." The sunlight smote Lanny’s eyes like a blow, and he had to shut them tight. The jailers evidently were familiar with this phenomenon; they led him as if he were a blind man and helped him as if he were a cripple. They put him into the van, and he stumbled over the feet of several other men.

The doors were closed, and then it was mercifully dim. Lanny opened his eyes; since they had been brought to the condition of an owl’s, he could see a stoutish, melancholy-looking gentleman who might be a businessman, sitting directly across the aisle. At Lanny’s side was an eager little Jew with eyeglasses, who might be a journalist out of luck. Lanny, never failing in courtesy, remarked: "Guten Morgen"; but the man across the way put his finger to his lips and nodded toward the guard who had entered the van and taken his seat by the door. Evidently "Sprechen verboten" was still the rule.

But some men have keen wits, and do not hand them over when they enter a jail. The little Jew laid his hand on Lanny’s where it rested on the seat between them. He gave a sharp tap with his finger, and at the same time, turning his head toward Lanny and from the guard, he opened his mouth and whispered softly: "Ah!" just as if he were beginning a singing lesson, or having his throat examined for follicular tonsillitis. Then he gave two quick taps, and whispered: "Bay!" which is the second letter of the German alphabet. Then three taps: "Tsay!"—the third letter; and so on, until the other nodded his head. Lanny had heard tapping in his dungeon, but hadn’t been sure whether it was the water-pipes or some code which he didn’t know.

This was the simplest of codes, and the Jew proceeded to tap eighteen times, and then waited until Lanny had calculated that this was the letter R. Thus slowly and carefully, he spelled out the name "R-O-E-H-M." Lanny assumed that the little man was giving his own name, and was prepared to tap "B-U-D-D," and be glad that it was short. But no, his new friend was going on; Lanny counted through letter after letter: "E-R-S-C-H-O-S-." By that time the little Jew must have felt Lanny’s hand come alive beneath his gentle taps, and realized that Lanny had got his meaning. But he finished the word to make sure. It took twice as long as it would have taken in English: "Rohm shot!"

XI

That simple statement bore a tremendous weight of meaning for Lanny. It enabled him to begin choosing among the variety of tales which he had constructed for himself in the past three days and four nights. If Ernst Rohm, Chief of Staff of the Sturmabteilung, had been shot, it must mean that the much-talked-of "Second Revolution" had failed. And especially when the tapping continued, and Lanny counted out, letter by letter, the words "in Stadelheim." That was a flash of lightning on a black night; it told Lanny what all the shooting had been about. The S.A. Chief of Staff and his many lieutenants who had been gathered for a conference! They must have been seized, carried from Wiessee, and shot somewhere in the grim old prison! The quick finger tapped on, and spelled the name of Heines, followed again by the dread word "erschossen." Lanny knew that this was the police chief of Breslau, who had led the gang which had burned the Reichstag; he was one of the most notorious of the Nazi killers, and Hugo had named him as one of Rohm’s fellow-perverts, and a guest at the Wiessee villa.

And then the name of Strasser! Lanny put his hand on top of the little Jew’s and spelled the name "Otto"; but the other wiggled away and spelled "Gr—" so Lanny understood that it was Gregor Strasser, whom he had heard getting a tongue-lashing from the Führer, and whom he and Irma had heard speaking at a Versammlung in Stuttgart. Otto Strasser was the founder of the hated "Black Front," and was an exile with a price on his head; but his elder brother Gregor had retired from politics and become director of a chemical works. Lanny had been surprised when Hugo had mentioned him as having had conferences with Rohm.

The little Jewish intellectual was having a delightful time breaking the rules and gossiping with a fellow-prisoner, telling him the meaning of the terrific events of the past three days. Even into a prison, news penetrates and is spread; and never in modern times had there been news such as this! The eager finger tapped the name of Schleicher; the one-time Chancellor, the self-styled "social general" who had tried so hard to keep Hitler out of power; who had thwarted von Papen, and then been thwarted in turn. Of late he had been dickering with the malcontents, hankering to taste the sweets of power again. "Schleicher erschossen!" A high officer of the Reichswehr, a leading Junker, one of the sacred ruling caste! Lanny looked at the face of the stoutish gentleman across the aisle, and understood why his eyes were wide and frightened. Could he see the little Jew’s finger resting on Lanny’s hand, and was he perhaps counting the taps? Or was he just horrified to be alive in such a world?

Lanny had heard enough names, and began tapping vigorously in his turn. "Wohin gehen wir?" The answer was: "Munich Police Prison." When he asked: "What for?" the little Jew didn’t have to do any tapping. He just shrugged his shoulders and spread his two hands, the Jewish way of saying in all languages: "Who knows?"

I

IN THE city jail of Munich Lanny was treated like anybody else; which was a great relief to him. He was duly "booked": his name, age, nationality, residence, and occupation—he gave the latter as Kunstsachverständiger, which puzzled the man at the desk, as if he didn’t get many of that kind; with a four days' growth of brown beard Lanny looked more like a bandit, or felt that he did. He was, it appeared, under "protective arrest"; there was grave danger that somebody might hurt him, so the kindly Gestapo was guarding him from danger. By this device a Führer with a "legality complex" was holding a hundred thousand men and women in confinement without trial or charge. The American demanded to be allowed to notify his consul, and was told he might make that request of the "inspector"; but he wasn’t told when or how he was to see that personage. Instead he was taken to be fingerprinted, and then to be photographed.

All things are relative; after a "black cell" in Stadelheim, this city jail in the Ettstrasse seemed homelike and friendly, echt suddeutsch-gemütlich. In the first place, he was put in a cell with two other men, and never had human companionship been so welcome to Lanny Budd. In the next place, the cell had a window, and while it was caked with dust, it was permitted to be open at times, and for several hours the sun came through the bars. Furthermore, Lanny’s money had been credited to his account, and he could order food; for sixty pfennigs, about fifteen cents, he could have a plate of cold meat and cheese; for forty pfennigs he could have a shave by the prison barber. For half an hour in the morning while his cell was being cleaned he was permitted to walk up and down in the corridor, and for an hour at midday he was taken out into the exercise court and allowed to tramp round and round in a large circle, while from the windows of the four-story building other inmates looked down upon him. Truly a gemütlich place of confinement!

One of his cell-mates was the large business man who had been his fellow-passenger in the Grüne Minna. It turned out that he was the director of a manufacturing concern, accused of having violated some regulation regarding the payment of his employees; the real reason, he declared, was that he had discharged an incompetent and dishonest Nazi, and now they were going to force him out and put that Nazi in charge. He would stay in prison until he had made up his mind to sign certain papers which had been put before him. The other victim was a Hungarian count, who was a sort of Nazi, but not the right sort, and he, too, had made a personal enemy, in this case his mistress. Lanny was astonished to find how large a percentage of prisoners in this place were or thought they were loyal followers of the Führer. Apparently all you had to do in order to get yourself into jail was to have a quarrel with someone who had more influence than yourself, then you would be accused of any sort of offense, and you stayed because in Naziland to be accused or even suspected was worse than being convicted.

Lanny discovered that having been in a "black cell" of Stadelheim for three days and four nights had made him something of a distinguished person, a sort of Edmond Dantes, Count of Monte Cristo. His cell-mates fell upon him and plied him with questions about what he had seen and heard in those dreadful underground dungeons. Apparently they knew all about the killings; they could even tell him about the courtyard with a wall against which the shooting was done, and the hydrant for washing away the blood. Lanny could add nothing except the story of how he had lain and listened; how many drum-rolls and volleys he had heard, and about the man who had argued and protested, and Lanny’s own frightful sensations. It was a relief to describe them, he found; his Anglo-Saxon reticence broke down in these close quarters, where human companionship was all that anybody had, and he must furnish his share of entertainment if he expected others to furnish it to him.

II

Newspapers had been forbidden in the prison during this crisis; but you could get all sorts of things if you had the price, and the Hungarian had managed to secure the Münchner Zeitung of Monday. He permitted Lanny to have a look at it, standing against the wall alongside the door, so as to be out of sight of any warder who might happen to peer through the square opening in the door; if he started to unlock the door Lanny would hear him and slip the paper under the mattress or stuff it into his trousers. Under these romantic circumstances he read the flaming headlines of a radio talk in which his friend Joseph Goebbels had told the German people the story of that dreadful Saturday of blood and terror. Juppchen had been traveling about the Rheinland with the Führer, dutifully inspecting labor-camps, and he now went into details, in that spirit of melodrama combined with religious adoration which it was his job to instill into the German people. Said crooked little Juppchen:

"I still see the picture of our Führer standing at midnight on Friday evening on the terrace of the Rhein Hotel in Godesberg and in the open square a band of the Western German Labor Service playing. The Führer looks seriously and meditatively into the dark sky that has followed a refreshing thunderstorm. With raised hand he returns the enthusiastic greetings of the people of the Rheinland … In this hour he is more than ever admired by us. Not a quiver in his face reveals the slightest sign of what is going on within him. Yet we few people who stand by him in all difficult hours know how deeply he is grieved and also how determined to deal mercilessly in stamping out the reactionary rebels who are trying to plunge the country into chaos, and breaking their oath of loyalty to him under the slogan of carrying out a Second Revolution."

Dispatches come from Berlin and Munich which convince the Führer that it is necessary to act instantly; he telephones orders for the putting down of the rebels, and so: "Half an hour later a heavy tri-motored Junkers plane leaves the aviation field near Bonn and disappears into the foggy night. The clock has just struck two. The Führer sits silently in the front seat of the cabin and gazes fixedly into the great expanse of darkness."

Arriving in Munich at four in the morning they find that the traitorous leaders have already been apprehended. "In two brisk sentences of indignation and contempt Herr Hitler throws their whole shame into their fearful and perplexed faces. He then steps to one of them and rips the insignia of rank from his uniform. A very hard but deserved fate awaits them in the afternoon."

The center of the conspiracy is known to be in the mountains, and so a troop of loyal S.S. men have been assembled, and, narrates Dr. Juppchen, "at a terrific rate the trip to Wiessee is begun." He gives a thrilling account of the wild night ride, by which, at six in the morning "without any resistance we are able to enter the house and surprise the conspirators, who are still sleeping, and we arouse them immediately. The Führer himself makes the arrest with a courage that has no equal … I may be spared a description of the disgusting scene that lay before us. A simple S.S. man, with an air of indignation, expresses our thoughts, saying: I only wish that the walls would fall down now, so that the whole German people could be a witness to this act."

The radio orator went on to tell what had been happening in Berlin. "Our party comrade, General Göring, has not hesitated. With a firm hand he has cleared up a nest of reactionaries and their incorrigible supporters. He has taken steps that were hard but necessary in order to save the country from immeasurable disaster."

There followed two newspaper columns of denunciation in which the Reichsminister of Popular Enlightenment and Propaganda used many adjectives to praise the nobility and heroism of his Führer, "who has again shown in this critical situation that he is a Real Man." A quite different set of adjectives was required for the "small clique of professional saboteurs," the "boils, seats of corruption, the symptoms of disease and moral deterioration that show themselves in public life," and that now have been "burned out to the flesh."

"The Reich is there," concluded Juppchen, "and above all our Führer."

III

Such was the story told to the German people. Lanny noticed the curious fact that not once did the little dwarf name one of the victims of the purge; he didn’t even say directly that anybody had been killed! As a specimen of popular fiction there was something to be said for his effusion, but as history it wouldn’t rank high. Lanny could nail one falsehood, for he knew that Hugo Behr had been shot at a few minutes after nine on Friday evening, which was at least three hours before the Führer had given his orders, according to the Goebbels account. The jail buzzed with stories of other persons who had been killed or arrested before midnight; in fact some had been brought to this very place. Evidently somebody had given the fatal order while the Führer was still inspecting labor camps.

It was well known that Göring had flown to the Rheinland with his master, and had then flown back to Berlin. Hermann was the killer, the man of action, who took the "steps that were hard but necessary," while Adi was still hesitating and arguing, screaming at his followers, threatening to commit suicide if they didn’t obey him, falling down on the floor and biting the carpet in a hysteria of bewilderment or rage. Lanny became clear in his mind that this was the true story of the "Blood Purge." Göring had sat at Hitler’s ear in the plane and terrified him with stories of what the Gestapo had uncovered; then, from Berlin, he had given the orders, and when it was too late to reverse them he had phoned the Führer, and the latter had flown to Munich to display "a courage that has no equal," to show himself to the credulous German people as "a Real Man."

The official statement was that not more than fifty persons had been killed in the three days and nights of terror; but the gossip in the Ettstrasse was that there had been several hundred victims in Munich alone, and it turned out that the total in Germany was close to twelve hundred. This and other official falsehoods were freely discussed, and the jail buzzed like a beehive. Human curiosity broke down the barriers between jailers and jailed; they whispered news to one another, and an item once put into circulation was borne by busy tongues to every corner of the institution. In the corridors you were supposed to walk alone and not to talk; but every time you passed other prisoners you whispered something, and if it was a tidbit you might share it with one of the keepers. Down in the exercise court the inmates were supposed to walk in silence, but the man behind you mouthed the news and you passed it on to the man in front of you.

And when you were in your cell, there were sounds of tapping; tapping on wood, on stone, and on metal; tapping by day and most of the night; quick tapping for the experts and slow tapping for the new arrivals. In the cell directly under Lanny was a certain Herr Doktor Obermeier, a former Ministerialdirektor of the Bavarian state, well known to Herr Klaussen. He shared the same water-pipes as those above him, and was a tireless tapper. Lanny learned the code, and heard the story of Herr Doktor Willi Schmitt, music critic of the Neueste Nachrichten and chairman of the Beethoven-Vereinigung; the most amiable of persons, so Herr Klaussen declared, with body, mind, and soul made wholly of music. Lanny had read his review of the Eroica performance, and other articles from his pen. The S.S. men came for him, and when he learned that they thought he was Gruppenführer Willi Schmitt, a quite different man, he was amused, and told his wife and children not to worry. He went with the Nazis, but did not return; and when his frantic wife persisted in her clamors she received from Police Headquarters a death certificate signed by the Burgermeister of the town of Dachau; there had been "a very regrettable mistake," and they would see that it did not happen again.

Story after story, the most sensational, the most horrible! Truly, it was something fabulous, Byzantine! Ex-Chancellor Franz von Papen, still a member of the Cabinet, had been attacked in his office and had some of his teeth knocked out; now he was under "house arrest," his life threatened, and the aged von Hindenburg, sick and near to death, trying to save his "dear comrade." Edgar Jung, Papen’s friend who had written his offending speech demanding freedom of the press, had been shot here in Munich. Gregor Strasser had been kidnaped from his home and beaten to death by S.S. men in Grunewald. General von Schleicher and his wife had been riddled with bullets on the steps of their villa. Karl Ernst, leader of the Berlin S.A., had been slugged unconscious and taken to the city. His staff leader had decided that Göring had gone crazy, and had flown to Munich to appeal to Hitler about it. He had been taken back to Berlin and shot with seven of his adjutants. At Lichterfelde, in the courtyard of the old military cadet school, tribunals under the direction of Göring were still holding "trials" averaging seven minutes each; the victims were stood against a wall and shot while crying: "Heil Hitler!"

IV

About half the warders in this jail were men of the old regime and the other half S.A. men, and there was much jealousy between them. The latter group had no way of knowing when the lightning might strike them, so for the first time they had a fellow-feeling for their prisoners. If one of the latter had a visitor and got some fresh information, everybody wanted to share it, and a warder would find a pretext to come to the cell and hear what he had to report. Really, the old Munich police prison became a delightfully sociable and exciting place! Lanny decided that he wouldn’t have missed it for anything. His own fears had diminished; he decided that when the storm blew over, somebody in authority would have time to hear his statement and realize that a blunder had been made. Possibly his three captors had put Hugo’s money into their own pockets, and if so, there was no evidence against Lanny himself. He had only to crouch in his "better 'ole"—and meantime learn about human and especially Nazi nature.

The population of the jail was in part common criminals—thieves, burglars, and sex offenders—while the other part comprised political suspects, or those who had got in the way of some powerful official. A curious situation, in which one prisoner might be a blackmailer and another the victim of a blackmailer—both in the same jail and supposedly under the same law! One man guilty of killing, another guilty of refusing to kill, or of protesting against killing! Lanny could have compiled a whole dossier of such antinomies. But he didn’t dare to make notes, and was careful not to say anything that would give offense to anybody. The place was bound to be full of spies, and while the men in his own cell appeared to be genuine, either or both might have been selected because they appeared to be that.

The Hungarian count was a gay companion, and told diverting stories of his liaisons; he had a passion for playing the game of Halma, and Lanny learned it in order to oblige him. The business man, Herr Klaussen, told stories illustrating the impossibility of conducting any honest business under present conditions; then he would say: "Do you have things thus in America?" Lanny would reply: "My father complains a great deal about politicians." He would tell some of Robbie’s stories, feeling certain that these wouldn’t do him any harm in Germany.

Incidentally Herr Klaussen expressed the conviction that the talk about a plot against Hitler was all Quatsch; there had been nothing but protest and discussion. Also, the talk about the Führer’s being shocked by what he had discovered in the villa at Wiessee was Dummheit, because everybody in Germany had known about Röhm and his boys, and the Führer had laughed about it. This worthy Bürger of Munich cherished a hearty dislike of those whom he called die 'Preiss’n—the Prussians—regarding them as invaders and source of all corruptions. These, of course, were frightfully dangerous utterances, and this was either a bold man or a foolish one. Lanny said: "I have no basis to form an opinion, and in view of my position I’d rather not try." He went back to playing Halma with the Hungarian, and collecting anecdotes and local color which Eric Vivian Pomeroy-Nielson might some day use in a play.

V

Lanny had spent three days as a guest of the state of Bavaria, and now he spent ten as a guest of the city of Munich. Then, just at the end of one day, a friendly warder came and said: "Bitte, kommen Sie, Herr Budd."

It would do no good to ask questions, for the warders didn’t know. When you left a cell, you said Ade, having no way to tell if you would come back. Some went to freedom, others to be beaten insensible, others to Dachau or some other camp. Lanny was led downstairs to an office where he found two young S.S. men, dapper and correct, awaiting him. He was pleased to observe that they were not the same who had arrested him. They came up, and almost before he realized what was happening, one had taken his wrist and snapped a handcuff onto it. The other cuff was on the young Nazi’s wrist, and Lanny knew it was useless to offer objections. They led him out to a courtyard, where he saw his own car, with another uniformed S.S. man in the driver’s seat. The rear door was opened. "Bitte einsteigen."

"May I ask where I’m being taken?" he ventured.

"It is not permitted to talk," was the reply. He got in, and the car rolled out into the tree-lined avenue, and into the city of Munich. They drove straight through, and down the valley of the Isar, northeastward.

On a dark night the landscape becomes a mystery; the car lights illumine a far-stretching road, but it is possible to imagine any sort of thing to the right and left. Unless you are doing the driving, you will even become uncertain whether the car is going uphill or down. But there were the stars in their appointed places, and so Lanny could know they were headed north. Having driven over this route, he knew the signposts; and when it was Regensburg and they were still speeding rapidly, he made a guess that he was being taken to Berlin.

"There’s where I get my examination," he thought. He would have one more night to do his thinking, and then he would confront that colossal power known as the Geheime Staats-Polizei, more dark than any night, more to be dreaded than anything that night contained.

The prisoner had had plenty of sleep in the jail, so he used this time to choose his Ausrede, his "alibi." But the more he tried, the worse his confusion became. They were bound to have found out that he had drawn thirty thousand marks from the Hellstein bank in Munich; they were bound to know that he had paid most of it to Hugo; they were bound to know that some sort of effort had been made to take Freddi out of Dachau. All these spelled guilt on Lanny’s part; and the only course that seemed to hold hope was to be frank and naive; to laugh and say: "Well, General Göring charged Johannes Robin his whole fortune to get out, and used me as his agent, so naturally I thought that was the way it was done. When Hugo offered to do it for only twenty-eight thousand marks, I thought I had a bargain."

In the early dawn, when nobody was about except the milkman and the machine-gun detachments of the Berlin police, Lanny’s car swept into the city, and in a workingclass quarter which he took to be Moabit, drew up in front of a large brick building. He hadn’t been able to see the street signs, and nobody took the trouble to inform him. Was it the dreaded Nazi barracks in Hedemannstrasse, about which the refugees talked with shudders? Was it the notorious Columbus-Haus? Or perhaps the headquarters of the Feldpolizei, the most feared group of all?

"Bitte aussteigen," said the leader. They had been perfectly polite, but hadn’t spoken one unnecessary word, either to him or to one another. They were machines; and if somewhere inside them was a soul, they would have been deeply ashamed of it. They were trying to get into the Reichswehr, and this was the way.

They went into the building. Once more they did not stop to "book" the prisoner, but marched him with military steps along a corridor, and then down a flight of stone stairs into a cellar. This time Lanny couldn’t be mistaken; there was a smell of blood, and there were cries somewhere in the distance. Once more he ventured a demand as to what he was being held for, what was to be done to him? This time the young leader condescended to reply: "Sie sind ein Schutzhäftling."

They were telling him that he was one of those hundred thousand persons, Germans and foreigners, who were being held for their own good, to keep harm from being done to them. "Aber," insisted Lanny, with his best society manner, "I haven’t asked to be a Schutzhäftling —I’m perfectly willing to take my chances outside." If any of them had a sense of humor, this was not the place to show it. There was a row of steel doors, and one was opened. For the first time since these men had confronted Lanny in the Munich jail the handcuff was taken from his wrist, and he was pushed into a "black cell" and heard the door clang behind him.

VI

The same story as at Stadelheim; only it was more serious now, because that had been an accident, whereas this was deliberate, this was after two weeks of investigation. Impossible to doubt that his plight was as serious as could be. Fear took complete possession of him, and turned his bones to some sort of pulp. Putting his ear to the opening in the door, he could have no doubt that he heard screaming and crying; putting his nose to the opening, he made sure that he smelled that odor which he had heretofore associated with slaughter-houses. He was in one of those dreadful places about which he had been reading and hearing, where the Nazis systematically broke the bodies and souls of men—yes, and of women, too. In the Brown Book he had seen a photograph of the naked rear of an elderly stout woman, a city councilor of the Social-Democratic party, from her shoulders to her knees one mass of stripes from a scientific beating.

They weren’t going to trouble to question him, or give him any chance to tell his story. They were taking it for granted that he would lie, and so they would punish him first, and then he would be more apt to tell the truth. Or were they just meaning to frighten him? To put him where he could hear the sounds and smell the smells, and see if that would "soften him up"? It had that effect; he decided that it would be futile to try to conceal anything, to tell a single lie. He saw his whole past lying like an open book before some Kriminalkommissar, and it was a very bad past indeed from the Nazi point of view; every bit as bad as that which had brought Freddi Robin some fourteen months of torture.

Whatever it was, it was coming now. Steps in the corridor, and they stopped in front of his door; the door was opened, and there were two S.S. men. New ones—they had an unlimited supply, and all with the same set faces, all with the same code of Blut und Eisen. Black shirts, black trousers, shiny black boots, and in their belts an automatic and a hard rubber truncheon—an unlimited supply of these, also, it appeared.

They took him by the arms and led him down the corridor. Their whole manner, the whole atmosphere, told him that his time had come. No use to resist; at least not physically; they would drag him, and would make his punishment worse. He was conscious of a sudden surge of anger; he loathed these subhuman creatures, and still more he loathed the hellish system which had made them. He would walk straight, in spite of his trembling knees; he would hold himself erect, and not give them the satisfaction of seeing him weaken. He dug his nails into the palms of his hands, he gritted his teeth, and walked to whatever was beyond that door at the end of the corridor.

VII

The sounds had died away as Lanny came nearer, and when the door was opened he heard only low moans. Two men were in the act of leading a beaten man through a doorway at the far side of the room. In the semi-darkness he saw only the dim forms, and saw one thrown into the room beyond. Apparently there were many people there, victims of the torturing; moans and cries came as from a section of Dante’s inferno; the sounds made a sort of basso continuo to all the infernal events which Lanny witnessed in that chamber of horrors.

A room about fifteen feet square, with a concrete floor and walls of stone; no windows, and no light except half a dozen candles; only one article of furniture, a heavy wooden bench about eight feet long and two feet broad, in the middle of the room. From end to end the bench was smeared and dripping with blood, and there was blood all over the floor, and a stench of dried blood, most sickening. Also there was the pungent odor of human sweat, strong, ammoniacal; there were four Nazis standing near the bench, stripped to the waist, and evidently they had been working hard and fast, for their smooth bodies shone with sweat and grease, even in the feeble light. Several other Nazis stood by, and one man in civilian clothes, wearing spectacles.

Lanny had read all about this; every anti-Nazi had learned it by heart during the past year and a half. He took it in at a glance, even to the flexible thin steel rods with handles, made for the purpose of inflicting as much pain as possible and doing as little permanent damage. If you did too much damage you lost the pleasure of inflicting more pain—and also you might lose important evidence. Lanny had read about it, heard about it, brooded over it, wondered how he would take it—and now here it was, here he was going to find out.

What happened was that a wave of fury swept over him; rage at these scientifically-trained devils, drowning out all other emotion whatsoever. He hated them so that he lost all thought about himself, he forgot all fear and the possibility of pain. They wanted to break him; all right, he would show them that he was as strong as they; he would deny them the pleasure of seeing him weaken, of hearing him cry out. He had read that the American Indians had made it a matter of pride never to groan under torture. All right, what an American Indian could do, any American could do; it was something in the climate, in the soil. Lanny’s father had hammered that pride into him in boyhood, and Bub Smith and Jerry had helped. Lanny resolved that the Nazis could kill him, but they wouldn’t get one word out of him, not one sound. Neither now nor later. Go to hell, and stay there!

It was hot in this underground hole, and perhaps that was why the sweat gathered on Lanny’s forehead and ran down into his eyes. But he didn’t wipe it away; that might be taken for a gesture of fright or agitation; he preferred to stand rigid, like a soldier, as he had seen the Nazis do. He realized now what they meant. All right, he would learn their technique; he would become a fanatic, as they. Not a muscle must move; his face must be hard, turned to stone with defiance. It could be done. He had told himself all his life that he was soft; he had been dissatisfied with himself in a hundred ways. Here was where he would reform himself.

He was expecting to be told to strip, and he was ready to do it. His muscles were aching to begin. But no, apparently they knew that; their science had discovered this very reaction, and knew a subtler form of torture. They would keep him waiting a while, until his mood of rage had worn off; until his imagination had had a chance to work on his nerves; until energy of the soul, or whatever it was, had spent itself. The two men who led him by the arms took him to one side of the room, against the wall, and there they stood, one on each side of him, two statues, and he a third.

VIII

The door was opened again, and another trio entered; two S.S. men, leading an elderly civilian, rather stout, plump, with gray mustaches, a gray imperial neatly trimmed; a Jew by his features, a business man by his clothes—and suddenly Lanny gave a start, in spite of all his resolutions. He had talked to that man, and had joked about him, the rather comical resemblance of his hirsute adornments to those of an eminent and much-portrayed citizen of France, the Emperor Napoleon the Third. Before Lanny’s eyes loomed the resplendent drawing-room of Johannes Robin’s Berlin palace, with Beauty and Irma doing the honors so graciously, and this genial old gentleman chatting, correct in his white tie and tails, diamond shirtstuds no longer in fashion in America, and a tiny square of red ribbon in his buttonhole—some order that Lanny didn’t recognize. But he was sure about the man—Solomon Hellstein, the banker.

Such a different man now: tears in his eyes and terror in his face; weeping, pleading, cowering, having to be half dragged. "I didn’t do it, I tell you! I know nothing about it! My God, my God, I would tell you if I could! Pity! Have pity!"

They dragged him to the bench. They pulled his clothes off, since he was incapable of doing it himself. Still pleading, still protesting, screaming, begging for mercy, he was told to lie down on the bench. His failure to obey annoyed them and they threw him down on his belly, with his bare back and buttocks and thighs looming rather grotesque, his flabby white arms hanging down to the floor. The four shirtless Nazis took their places, two on each side, and the officer in command raised his hand in signal.

The thin steel rods whistled as they came down through the air; they made four clean cuts across the naked body, followed by four quick spurts of blood. The old man started up with a frightful scream of pain. They grabbed him and threw him down, and the officer cried: "Lie still, Juden-Schwein! For that you get ten more blows!"

The poor victim lay shuddering and moaning, and Lanny, tense and sick with horror, waited for the next strokes. He imagined the mental anguish of the victim because they did not fall at once. The officer waited, and finally demanded: "You like that?"

"Nein, nein! Um Himmel’s Willen!"

"Then tell us who took that gold out!"

"I have said a thousand times—if I knew, I would tell you. What more can I say? Have mercy on me! I am a helpless old man!"

The leader raised his hand again, and the four rods whistled and fell as one. The man shuddered; each time the anguish shook him, he shrieked like a madman. He knew nothing about it, he would tell anything he knew, it had been done by somebody who had told him nothing. His tones grew more piercing; then gradually they began to die, they became a confused babble, the raving of a man in delirium. His words tripped over one another, his sobs choked his cries.

Of the four beaters, the one who was working on the victim’s shoulders apparently held the post of honor, and it was his duty to keep count. Each time he struck he called aloud, and when he said "Zehn" they all stopped. Forty strokes had been ordered, and the leader signed to the civilian in spectacles, who proved to be a doctor; the high scientific function of this disciple of Hippocrates was to make sure how much the victim could stand. He put a stethoscope to the raw flesh of the old Jew’s back, and listened. Then he nodded and said: "Noch eins."

The leader was in the act of moving his finger to give the signal when there came an interruption to the proceedings; a voice speaking loud and clear: "You dirty dogs!" It rushed on: "Ihr dreckigen Schweinehunde, Ihr seid eine Schandfleck der Menschheit!"

For a moment everybody in the room seemed to be paralyzed. It was utterly unprecedented, unprovided for in any military regulations. But not for long. The officer shouted: " 'Rrraus mit ihm!" and the two statues besides Lanny came suddenly to life and led him away. But not until he had repeated loudly and clearly: "I say that you dishonor the form of men!"

IX

Back in his cell, Lanny thought: "Now I’ve cooked my goose!" He thought: "They’ll invent something special for me." He discovered that his frenzy, his inspiration, whatever it was, had passed quickly; in darkness and silence he realized that he had done something very foolish, something that could do no good to the poor old banker and could do great harm to himself. But there was no undoing it, and no good lamenting, no good letting his bones turn to pulp again. He had to get back that mood of rage and determination, and learn to hold it, no matter what might come. It was a psychological exercise, a highly difficult one. Sometimes he thought he was succeeding, but then he would hear with his mind’s ears the whistle of those terrible steel rods, and he would find that a disgraceful trembling seized him.

Waiting was the worst of all; he actually thought he would feel relief when his cell door was opened. But when he heard the steps coming, he found that he was frightened again, and had to start work all over. He must not let them think that they could cow an American. He clenched his hands tightly, set his teeth, and looked out into the corridor. There in the dim light was the S.S. man to whom he had been handcuffed for a whole night—and behind that man, looking over his shoulder, the deeply concerned face of Ober-leutnant Furtwaengler!

"Well, well, Herr Budd!" said the young staff officer. "What have they been doing to you?"

Lanny had to change his mood with lightning speed. He was busily hating all the Nazis; but he didn’t hate this naive and worshipful young social climber. "Herr Oberleutnant!" he exclaimed, with relief that was like a prayer.

"Come out," said the other, and looked his friend over as if to see if he showed any signs of damage. "What have they done to you?"

"They have made me rather uncomfortable," replied the prisoner, resuming the Anglo-Saxon manner.

"It is most unfortunate!" exclaimed the officer. "Seine Exzellenz will be distressed."

"So was I," admitted the prisoner.

"Why did you not let us know?"

"I did my best to let somebody know; but I was not successful."

"This is a disgraceful incident!" exclaimed the other, turning to the S.S. man. "Some one will be severely disciplined."

"Zu Befehl, Herr Oberleutnant!" replied the man. It conveyed the impression: "Tell me to shoot myself and I am ready."

"Really, Herr Budd, I don’t know how to apologize."

"Your presence is apology enough, Herr Oberleutnant. You are, as we say in America, a sight for sore eyes."

"I am sorry indeed if your eyes are sore," declared the staff officer, gravely.

It was like waking up suddenly from a nightmare, and discovering that all those dreadful things had never happened. Lanny followed his friend up the narrow stone stairway, and discovered that there were no more formalities required for his release than had been required for his arrest. Doubtless the officer’s uniform bore insignia which gave him authority. He said: "I assume responsibility for this gentleman," and the S.S. man repeated: "At command, Herr Oberleutnant."

They went out to the official car which was waiting. Rain was falling, but never had a day seemed more lovely. Lanny had to shut his eyes from the light, but he managed to get inside unassisted. Sinking back in the soft seat he had to struggle to make up his mind which was real—these cushions or that dungeon! Surely both couldn’t exist in the same city, in the same world!

I

LANNY was living in a kaleidoscope; one of those tubes you look into and observe a pattern, and then you give it a slight jar, and the pattern is gone, and there is an utterly different one. He was prepared for anything, literally anything. But when he heard his friend give the order: "Seine Exzellenz’s residence," he came to with a start, and became what he had been all his life, a member of the beau monde, to whom the proprieties were instinctive and inescapable. "Surely," he protested, "you’re not taking me to Seine Exzellenz in this condition! Look at my clothes! And my beard!" Lanny ran his hand over it, wondering again if it was gray.

"Where are your clothes, Herr Budd?"

"When last heard from they were in a hotel in Munich."

"A most preposterous affair! I will telephone for them this morning."

"And my money?" added the other. "That was taken from me in Stadelheim. But if you will drive me to the Adlon, I am sure they will cash my check."

The orders were changed, and the young staff officer entered with amusement into the enterprise of making his friend presentable by the magic of modern hotel service. While the guest bathed himself, a valet whisked his clothes away to sponge and press them, and a bellboy sped to the nearest haberdashers for a shirt, tie, and handkerchief. A barber came and shaved him—and collected no gray hairs. In half an hour by the Oberleutnant’s watch—Lanny had none—he was again the picture of a young man of fashion, ready to meet all the world and his wife.

It was truly comical, when they were motored to the official residence of the Minister-Präsident of Prussia and escorted up to his private apartments. This mighty personage had all the sartorial appurtenances of his office: blue trousers with a broad white stripe; a coat of lighter blue with a white belt and broad white sash from one shoulder crossing his chest; numerous gold cords and stars, epaulets and insignia of his rank—but it was a blazing hot day in mid-July, and all this honorificabilitudinitatibus had become intolerable to a fat man. He had it hung on a chair near-by, and was sitting at his desk in his shorts and that large amount of soft white skin with which nature had endowed him. Beads of perspiration stood out on the skin, and before Lanny’s mind flashed the vision of a Jewish banker. Impossible to keep from imagining this still larger mass of flesh and fat laid out on a blood-soaked and slimy bench, bottom up!

II

It was the General’s intention to take Lanny Budd’s misadventure as a comic opera divertissement in the midst of very grave business; and it was up to Lanny to be a good sport and do the same. "Ja aber, mein lieber Herr Budd!" cried Seine Exzellenz, and caught Lanny’s hand in a grip that showed he was by no means all fat. "Was ist Ihnen denn passiert?"—he insisted upon hearing all about a playboy’s misadventures. "Were you afraid?" he wanted to know; and Lanny said: "Wait until your turn comes, Exzellenz, and see if you’re not afraid."

That wasn’t so funny. The great man replied: "You had the misfortune to get caught in the traffic at a very busy hour. We have some wild fellows in our party, and it was necessary to teach them a lesson. I think they have learned it thoroughly."

Lanny had done a bit of thinking while he was in the bathtub at the hotel. He would never trust any Nazi again. It seemed unlikely that the head of the Prussian state had no information as to what had been happening to one who claimed to be his friend; almost incredible that his efficient secret police had failed to send him any report during the past two weeks. A thousand times more likely that there had been some purpose in what had befallen an American visitor; also in this sudden change of front, this explosion of friendliness and familiarity. Last-minute rescues belong in melodramas, where they are no accidents, but have been carefully contrived. Lanny had begun to suspect this particularly hair-raising denouement.

The Minister-Präsident of Prussia didn’t keep him long in suspense. There was a large stack of papers on his desk and he was obviously a busy fat man. "Jawohl, Herr Budd!" he said. "You had the opportunity of studying our penal institutions at first hand; also our methods of dealing with Jew Schieber! You can testify that they are effective."

"I had no opportunity to observe the outcome, Exzellenz."

"I will see that you are informed about it, if you so desire. Do you have any idea who that Jew was?"

"It so happens that I had met him in Berlin society."

"Indeed? Who was he?"

"His name is Solomon Hellstein."

"Ach! Our weltberühmter Shylock! You will indeed have an interesting story to tell the outside world."

Lanny thought he saw a hint. "You will remember, Exzellenz, that you asked me to say nothing to the outside world about the case of Johannes Robin. Fourteen months have passed, and still I have not done so."

"I have made a note of the fact, Herr Budd, and appreciate your good judgment. But now there is a quite different set of circumstances. We have a saying in German: Es hängt ganz davon ab."

Lanny supplied the English: "It all depends."

"Also, Herr Budd! Would you be greatly embarrassed if I should suggest that you narrate the story of what you saw this morning?"

"I should be somewhat puzzled, Exzellenz."

"It is a bright idea which occurs to me. Are you still interested in that Jude Itzig of yours?" This is a German name of jeering derived from the Hebrew word for Isaac, which is Yitzchock.

"If you mean the son of Johannes Robin, I am still deeply interested, Exzellenz."

"I have recently learned that he is in the Lager at Dachau. Would you like to have him turned loose?"

"Aber naturlich, Exzellenz."

"Na, also! I offer him to you in exchange for a small service which you may render me. Go to Paris and tell the members of the Hellstein family what you have seen happening to their Berlin representative. You know them, possibly?"

"It happens that I know them rather well."

"I will explain to you: This Dreck-Jude has succeeded in shipping a fortune out of Germany, and we were not so fortunate as in the case of Robin, we do not know where the money is. The family is scattered all over Europe, as you know. We have no claim to their money, but we intend to have Solomon’s, every mark of it— if we have to flay him alive."

"You wish me to tell them that?"

"They know it already. All you have to tell is what you saw with your own eyes. Make it as realistic as you know how."

"Am I to mention that you have asked me to tell them?"

"If you do that, they may suspect your good faith. It will be better not to refer to me. Simply tell what happened to you and what you saw."

"And then, Exzellenz?"

"Then I will release your pet Jew."

"How am I to let you know that I have done my part?"

"I have my agents, and they will report to me. The story will be all over Paris in a few hours. It will be a good thing, because our rich Schieber have got the idea that we dare not touch them, and they think they can bleed Germany to death."

"I get your point, Exzellenz. How will I know where I am to get Freddi Robin?"

"Leave your Paris address with Furtwaengler, and within a day or two after you have talked with the Hellsteins he will telephone you and arrange to ship your precious Itzig to the French border. Is that according to your wishes?"

"Quite so, Exzellenz. I can see no reason why I shouldn’t comply with your request."

"Abgemacht! It is a deal. It has been a pleasure to meet you, Herr Budd; and if, after you think it over, you wish to do more business with me, come and see me at any time."

"Danke schon, Exzellenz. I will bear your suggestion in mind and perhaps avail myself of the opportunity."

"Dem Mutigen ist das Glück hold!" The fat commander had risen from his chair to speed his parting guest, and now favored him with a staggering slap upon the back, and a burst of merriment which left the visitor uncertain whether he was being laughed with or at.

III

So Lanny went out from the presence of this half-naked freebooter, and was courteously driven back to his hotel by the young staff officer. Evidently Lanny’s papers had been brought along on the trip from Munich, for Furtwaengler put his passport and his six thousand marks into his hands; also an exit permit. He promised to have Lanny’s clothes and other belongings forwarded to Juan. The American didn’t lay any claim to the money which had been found on the body of Hugo Behr!

His car had been delivered to the hotel, and the Oberleutnant assured him that it had been properly serviced and supplied with a tank full of petrol. They parted warm friends; and Lanny stayed in Berlin only long enough to pay his hotel bill and send telegrams to Rahel in Juan, to his father in Newcastle, to his mother and his wife in England: "Leaving for Crillon Paris hopeful of success notify friends all well." He dared say no more, except to ask Irma to meet him in Paris. He knew that they must have been in an agony of dread about him, but he wouldn’t make any explanations until he was out of Germany and had got Freddi out. There would be a chance that an old-style Teutonic freebooter might get some additional information and change his mind. The Hellstein family in Paris might "come across," or the Gestapo in Munich might unearth the story of the attempted jailbreak.

Or had they already done so, and had the Minister-Präsident of Prussia tactfully refrained from mentioning the subject? No chance to fathom the mind of that master of intrigue, that wholesale killer of men! At some time in the course of the past two weeks of madness and murder he had found time to take note that he had an American playboy in his clutches, and to figure out a way to make use of him. Lanny shook with horror every time he recalled those minutes in the torture-chamber; nor was the experience a particle less dreadful because he now perceived that it had been a piece of stageplay, designed to get his help in extorting some millions of marks, possibly some scores of millions of marks, from a family of Jewish bankers.

IV

Lanny didn’t feel very much like driving, but he didn’t want to leave his car to the Nazis, so he stuck it out, and drove steadily, with a mind full of horrors, not much relieved by hope. The Nazi General, who had cheated him several times, might do it again; and anyhow, Lanny had come to a state of mind where he wasn’t satisfied to get one Jewish friend out of the clutches of the terror. He wanted to save all the Jews; he wanted to wake up Europe to the meaning of this moral insanity which had broken out in its midst. The gemütliche German Volk had fallen into the hands of gangsters, the most terrible in all history because they were armed with modern science. Lanny echoed the feelings of the "simple S.A. man" of whom Goebbels had told, who had wanted the walls of Rohm’s bedroom to fall down, so that the German people might see. Lanny wanted the walls of that torture chamber to fall down, so that all the world might see.

He crossed the border into Belgium in the small hours of the morning and went to a hotel and had a sleep, full of tormenting dreams. But when he awakened and had some breakfast, he felt better, and went to the telephone. There was one person he simply couldn’t wait to hear from, and that was Jerry Pendleton in Cannes —if he was in Cannes. Lanny’s guess proved correct, and his friend’s voice was the most welcome of sounds.

"I am in Belgium," said the younger man. "I’m all right, and I just want a few questions answered—with no names."

"O.K.," sang Jerry.

"Did you see our friend that evening?"

"I saw him brought out; but nobody came for him."

"What happened then?"

"I suppose he was taken back; I had no way to make sure. There was nothing I could do about it. I was tempted to try, but I didn’t see how I could get away without a car."

"I was afraid you might have tried. It’s all right. I have a promise and have some hopes."

"I was worried to death about you. I went to the American authority and reported your absence. I went again and again, and I think he did everything he could, but he was put off with evasions."

"It was serious, but it’s all right now. What did you do then?"

"I couldn’t think of anything to do for you, so I came out to report to the family. They told me to come home and wait for orders, and I did that. Gee, kid, but I’m glad to hear your voice! Are you sure you’re all right?"

"Not a scratch on me. I’m leaving for Paris."

"I just had a wire from your wife; she’s on the way to meet you at the Crillon. She’s been scared half out of her wits. There’s been a lot in the papers, you know."

"Thanks, old sport, for what you did."

"I didn’t do a damn thing. I never felt so helpless."

"It’s quite possible you saved me. Anyhow, you’ve got an interesting story coming to you. So long!"

V

The traveler reached Paris about sunset, and surprised Irma in the suite she had taken. She looked at him as if he were a ghost; she seemed afraid to touch him, and stood staring, as if expecting to find him scarred or maimed. He said: "I’m all here, darling," and took her in his arms.

She burst into tears. "Oh, Lanny, I’ve been living in hell for two weeks!" When he started to kiss her, she held off, gazing at him with the most intense look he had ever seen on her usually calm face. "Lanny, promise me—you must promise me—you will never put me through a thing like this again!"

That was the way it was between them; their argument was resumed even before their love. It was going to be that way from now on. He didn’t want to make any promises; he didn’t want to talk about that aspect of the matter—and she didn’t want to talk about anything else. For two weeks she had been imagining him dead, or even worse, being mutilated by those gangsters. She had had every right to imagine it, of course; he couldn’t tell her that she had been foolish or unreasonable; in fact he couldn’t answer her at all. She wanted to hear his story, yet she didn’t want to hear it, or anything else, until her mind had been put at rest by a pledge from him that never, never would he go into Germany, never, never would he have anything to do with that hateful, wicked thing called the class struggle, which drove men and women to madness and crime and turned civilized life into a nightmare.

He tried his best to soothe her, and to make her happy, but it couldn’t be done. She had been thinking, and had made up her mind. And he had to make up his mind quickly. For one thing, he wouldn’t tell her the whole story of what happened to him in Hitlerland. That would be for men only. He would have to tell the Hellstein ladies about the torturing; but only Robbie and Rick would ever know about his deal with Göring. Rumors of that sort get twisted as they spread, and Lanny might get himself a name that would make him helpless to serve the movement he loved.

Now he said: "Control yourself, darling; I’m here, and I’m none the worse for an adventure. There’s something urgent that I have to do, so excuse me if I telephone."

Her feelings were hurt, and at the same time her curiosity was aroused. She heard him call Olivie Hellstein, Madame de Broussailles, and tell her that he had just come out of Germany, and had seen her Uncle Solomon, and had some grave news for her; he thought her mother and father also ought to hear it. Olivie agreed to cancel a dinner engagement, and he was to come to her home in the evening.

He didn’t want to take Irma, and had a hard time not offending her. What was the use of subjecting her to an ordeal, the witnessing of a tragic family scene? He had to tell them that the Nazis were cruelly beating the brother of Pierre Hellstein to get his money; and of course they would weep, and perhaps become hysterical. Jews, like most other people, love their money, also they love their relatives, and between the two the Hellstein family would suffer as if they themselves were being beaten.

Then, of course, Irma wanted to know, how had he been in position to see such things? He had a hard time evading her; he didn’t want to say: "Göring had me taken there on purpose, so that I might go and tell the Hellsteins; that is the price of his letting Freddi go." In fact, there wasn’t any use mentioning Freddi at all, it was clear that Irma didn’t care about him, hadn’t asked a single question. What she wanted to know was that she was going to have a husband without having to be driven mad with fear; she looked at Lanny now as if he were a stranger—as indeed he was, at least a part of him, a new part, hard and determined, insistent upon having its own way and not talking much about it.

"I owe Olivie Hellstein the courtesy to tell her what I know; and I think it’s common humanity to try to save that poor old gentleman in Berlin if I can."

There it was! He was going on saving people! One after another —and people about whom Irma didn’t especially care. He was more interested in saving Solomon Hellstein than in saving his wife’s peace of mind, and their love, which also had been put in a torture chamber!

VI

The scene which took place in the very elegant and sumptuous home of Madame de Broussailles was fully as painful as Lanny had foreseen. There was that large and stately mother of Jerusalem who had once inspected him through a diamond-studded lorgnette to consider whether he was worthy to become a progenitor of the Hellstein line. There was Pierre Hellstein, father of the family, stoutish like the brother in Berlin, but younger, smarter, and with his mustaches dyed. There was Olivie, an oriental beauty now in full ripeness; she had found Lanny a romantic figure as a girl, and in her secret heart this idea still lurked. She was married to a French aristocrat, a gentile who had not thought it his duty to be present. Instead there were two brothers, busy young men of affairs, deeply concerned.

Lanny told the story of the dreadful scene he had witnessed, sparing them nothing; and they for their part spared him none of their weeping, moaning, and wringing of hands. They were the children of people who had set up a Wailing Wall in their capital city, for the public demonstration of grief; so presumably they found relief through loud expression. Lanny found that it didn’t repel him; on the contrary, it seemed to be the way he himself felt; the tears started down his cheeks and he had difficulty in talking. After all, he was the brother-in-law of a Jew, and a sort of relative to a whole family, well known to the Hellsteins. He had gone into Germany to try to save a member of their race, and had risked his life in the effort, so he couldn’t have had better credentials. He told them that he had expected to be the next victim laid on the whipping-bench, and had been saved only by the good luck that an officer friend had got word about his plight and had arrived in time to snatch him away. They did not find this story incredible.

Lanny didn’t wait to hear their decision as to the payment of ransom to the Nazis. He guessed it might require some telephoning to other capitals, and it was none of his affair. They asked if the story he had told them was confidential, and he said not at all; he thought the public ought to know what was happening in Naziland, but he doubted if publicity would have any effect upon the extortioners. Olivie, in between outbursts of weeping, thanked him several times for coming to them; she thought he was the bravest and kindest man she had ever known—being deeply moved, she told him so. Lanny was tempted to wish she had said it in the presence of his wife, but on second thought he decided that it wouldn’t really have helped. Nothing would help except for him to conduct himself like a proper man of fashion, and that seemed to be becoming more and more difficult.

VII

Lanny’s duty was done, and he had time to woo his wife and try to restore her peace of mind. When she found that he was trying not to tell her his story, her curiosity became intensified; he made up a mild version, based upon his effort to buy Freddi out of Dachau, which Irma knew had been his plan. He said that he and Hugo had been arrested, and, he had been confined in the very gemütlich city jail of Munich. He could go into details about that place and make a completely convincing story; his only trouble had been that they wouldn’t let him communicate with the outside world. It was on account of the confusion of the Blood Purge; Irma said the papers in England had been full of that, and she had become convinced that she was a widow.

"You’d have made a charming one," he said; but he couldn’t get a smile out of her.

"What are you waiting for now?" she wanted to know. He told her he had had a conference with Furtwaengler, and had a real hope of getting Freddi out in the next few days. He couldn’t think of any way to make that sound plausible, and Irma was quite impatient, wanting to be taken to England. But no, he must stay in this hotel all day—the old business of waiting for a telephone call that didn’t come! She wanted to get away from every reminder of those days and nights of misery; and this included Freddi and Rahel and all the Robin family. It made her seem rather hard; but Lanny realized that it was her class and racial feeling; she wanted to give her time and attention to those persons whom she considered important. Her mother was in England, and so was Frances; she had new stories to tell about the latter, and it was something they could talk about and keep the peace. It was almost the only subject.

There being more than one telephone at the Crillon, Lanny was able to indulge himself in the luxury of long-distance calls without a chance of delaying the all-important one from Berlin. He called his mother, who shed a lot of tears which unfortunately could not be transmitted by wire. He called Rick, and told him in guarded language what were his hopes. He called Emily Chattersworth and invited her to come in and have lunch, knowing that this would please Irma. Emily came, full of curiosity; she accepted his synthetic story, the same that he had told his wife. The episode of Solomon Hellstein was all over Paris, just as Göring had predicted; Emily had heard it, and wanted to verify it. Lanny explained how he had been under detention in Berlin, and there had got the facts about what was being done to the eldest of the half dozen banking brothers. Also Lanny wrote a long letter to his father, telling him the real story; a shorter letter to Hansi and Bess, who had gone to South America, along with Hansi’s father—the one to sell beautiful sounds and the other to sell hardware, including guns. The young Reds hadn’t wanted to go, but the two fathers had combined their authority. The mere presence in Europe of two notorious Reds would be an incitement to the Nazis, and might serve to tip the scales and defeat Lanny’s efforts to help Freddi. The young pair didn’t like the argument, but had no answer to it.

VIII

Early in the morning, a phone call from Berlin! The cheerful voice of Oberleutnant Furtwaengler announcing: "Gute Nachrichten, Herr Budd! I am authorized to tell you that we are prepared to release your friend."

The man at the Paris end of the wire had a hard time preserving his steadiness of voice. "Whereabouts, Herr Oberleutnant?"

"That is for you to say."

"Where is he now?"

"In Munich."

"You would prefer some place near there?"

"My instructions are that you shall name the place."

Lanny remembered the bridge by which he had crossed the river Rhein on his way to Munich; the place at which the child Marie Antoinette had entered France. "Would the bridge between Kehl and Strasbourg be acceptable to you?"

"Entirely so."

"I will be on that bridge whenever you wish."

"We can get there more quickly than you. So you set the time."

"Say ten o’clock tomorrow morning."

"It is a date. I won’t be there personally, so this is to thank you for your many courtesies and wish you all happiness."

"My wife is in the room, and desires to send her regards to you and your wife."

"Give her my greetings and thanks. I am certain that my wife will join in these sentiments. Adieu." Such were the formulas; and oh, why couldn’t people really live like that?

IX

"Now, dear," said Lanny to his wife, "I think we can soon go home and have a rest."

Her amazement was great, and she wanted to know, how on earth he had done it? He told her: "They were trying to find the whereabouts of some of Freddi’s friends and comrades. My guess is, they’ve got them by now, so he’s of no use to them. Also, it might be that Göring thinks he can make some use of me in future."

"Are you going to do anything for him?"

"Not if I can help it. But all that’s between you and me. You must not breathe a word of it to anybody else, not even to your mother, nor to mine." It pleased her to feel that she stood first in his confidence, and she promised.

He went to the telephone and put in a call for his faithful friend in Cannes. "Jerry," he said, "I think I’m to get Freddi out, and here’s another job. Call Rahel at Bienvenu and tell her to get ready; then get her, and motor her to Strasbourg. Don’t delay, because I have no idea what condition Freddi will be in, and she’s the one who has to handle him and make the decisions. You know the sort of people we’re dealing with; and I can’t give any guarantees, but I believe Freddi will be there at ten tomorrow, and it’s worthwhile for Rahel to take the chance. Get Beauty’s car from Bienvenu, if you like. I advise you to come by way of the Rhone valley, Besancon and Mulhouse. Drive all night if you can stand it and let Rahel sleep in the back seat. I will be at the Hotel de la Ville-de-Paris in Strasbourg."

Lanny had another problem, a delicate one. He didn’t want to take Irma on this trip, and at the same time he didn’t want to hurt her feelings. "Come if you want to," he said, "but I’m telling you it may be a painful experience, and there won’t be much you can do."

"Why did you ask me to Paris, Lanny, if you didn’t want my help?"

"I asked you because I love you, and wanted to see you, and I thought you would want to see me. I want your help in everything that interests you, but I don’t want to drag you into something that you have no heart for. I haven’t seen Freddi, and I’m just guessing: he may look like an old man; he may be ill, even dying; he may be mutilated in some shocking way; he may be entirely out of his mind. It’s his wife’s job to take care of him and nurse him back to life; it’s not your job, and I’m giving you the chance to keep out of another wearing experience."

"We’ll all be in it, if they’re going to live at Bienvenu."

"In the first place, Rahel may have to take him to a hospital. And anyhow, we aren’t going back until fall. Hansi and Bess are making money, and so is Johannes, I have no doubt, and they’ll want to have a place of their own. All that’s in the future, and a lot of it depends on Freddi’s condition. I suggest leaving you at Emily’s until I come back. I’m having Jerry bring Rahel in a car, so he can take her wherever she wants to go, and then you and I will be free. There’s a maison de sante here in Paris, and a surgeon who took care of Marcel when he was crippled and burned; they’re still in business, and I phoned that I might be sending them a patient."

"Oh, Lanny!" she exclaimed. "How I would enjoy it if we could give just a little time to our own affairs!"

"Yes, darling," he said. "It’s a grand idea, and England will seem delightful after I get this job off my hands. I’m eager to see what Rick has done with his last act, and maybe I can give him some hints."

It wasn’t until he saw Irma’s moue that he realized what a slip he had made. Poor Lanny, he would have a hard time learning to think about himself!

X

Irma was duly deposited at the Chateau les Forêts, an agreeable place of sojourn in mid-July. In fifteen years the noble beech forests had done their own work of repair, and the summer breezes carried no report of the thousands of buried French and German soldiers. Since Emily had been a sort of foster-mother to Irma’s husband, and had had a lot to do with making the match, they had an inexhaustible subject of conversation, and the older woman tried tactfully to persuade a darling of fortune that every man has what the French call les défauts de ses qualités, and that there might be worse faults in a husband than excess of solicitude and generosity. She managed to make Irma a bit ashamed of her lack of appreciation of a sweet and gentle Jewish clarinetist.

Meanwhile Lanny was speeding over a fine highway, due eastward toward the river Rhein. It was in part the route over which the fleeing king and queen had driven in their heavy "berlin"; not far to the south lay Varennes, where they had been captured and driven back to Paris to have their heads cut off. Human beings suffer agonies, and their sad fates become legends; poets write verses about them and playwrights compose dramas, and the remembrance of past grief becomes a source of present pleasure—such is the strange alchemy of the spirit.

The traveler had supper on the way, and reached his destination after midnight. There was no use looking at an empty bridge, and he wasn’t in the mood for cathedrals, even one of the oldest. He went to bed and slept; in the morning he had a breakfast with fruit, and a telegram from Jerry saying that they were at Besancon and coming straight on. No use going to the place of appointment ahead of time, so Lanny read the morning papers in this town which had changed hands many times, but for the present was French. He read that Adolf Hitler had called an assembly of his tame Reichstag in the Kroll Opera House, and had made them a speech of an hour and a half, telling how he had suffered in soul over having to kill so many of his old friends and supporters. When he was through, he sat with head bowed, completely overcome, while Göring told the world how Hitler was the ordained Führer who was incapable of making a mistake; to all of which they voted their unanimous assent.

With thoughts induced by this reading Lanny drove three or four miles to the Pont de Kehl, parked his car, and walked halfway across. He was ahead of time, and standing by the railings he gazed up and down that grand old river. No use getting himself into a state of excitement over his own mission; if it was going to succeed it would succeed, and if it didn’t, he would go to the nearest telephone and get hold of the Oberleutnant and ask why. No use tormenting himself with fears about what he was going to see; whatever Freddi was would still be Freddi, and they would patch it up and make the best of it.

Meantime, look down into the depths of that fast-sliding water and remember, here was where the Rheinmaidens had swum and teased the dwarf Alberich. Perhaps they were still swimming; the motif of the Rheingold rang clear as a trumpet call in Lanny’s ears. Somewhere on the heights along this stream the Lorelei had sat and combed her golden hair with a golden comb, and sung a song that had a wonderfully powerful melody, so that the boatman in the little boat had been seized with a wild woe, and didn’t see the rocky reef, but kept gazing up to the heights, and so in the end the waves had swallowed boatman and boat; and that with her singing the Lorelei had done. Another of those tragic events which the alchemy of the spirit had turned into pleasure!

Every minute or two Lanny would look at his watch. They might be early; but no, that would be as bad as being late. "Punktlich!" was the German word, and it was their pride. Just as the minute hand of Lanny’s watch was in the act of passing the topmost mark of the dial, a large official car would approach the center line of the bridge, where a bar was stretched across, the east side of the bar being German and the west side French. If it didn’t happen exactly so, it would be the watch that was wrong, and not deutsche Zucht und Ordnung. As a boy Lanny had heard a story from old Mr. Hackabury, the soapman, about a farmer who had ordered a new watch by mail-order catalogue, and had gone out in his field with watch and almanac, announcing: "If that sun don’t get up over that hill in three minutes, she’s late!"

XI

Sure enough, here came the car! A Mercedes-Benz, with a little swastika flag over the radiator-cap, and a chauffeur in S.S. uniform, including steel helmet. They came right up to the barrier and stopped, while Lanny stood on the last foot of France, with his heart in his mouth. Two S.S. men in the back seat got out and began helping a passenger, and Lanny got one glimpse after another; the glimpses added up to a gray-haired, elderly man, feeble and bowed, with hands that were deformed into claws, and that trembled and shook as if each of them separately had gone mad. Apparently he couldn’t walk, for they were half-carrying him, and it wasn’t certain that he could hold his head up—at any rate, it was hanging.

"Heil Hitler!" said one of the men, saluting. "Herr Budd?"

"Ja," said Lanny, in a voice that wasn’t quite steady.

"Wohin mit ihm?" It was a problem, for you couldn’t take such a package and just walk off with it. Lanny had to ask the indulgence of the French police and customs men, who let the unfortunate victim be carried into their office and laid on a seat. He couldn’t sit up, and winced when he was touched. "They have kicked my kidneys loose," he murmured, without opening his eyes. Lanny ran and got his car, and the Frenchmen held up the traffic while he turned it around on the bridge. They helped to carry the sufferer and lay him on the back seat. Then, slowly, Lanny drove to the Hotel de la Ville-de-Paris, where they brought a stretcher and carried Freddi Robin to a room and laid him on a bed.

Apparently he hadn’t wanted to be freed; or perhaps he didn’t realize that he was free; perhaps he didn’t recognize his old friend.

He didn’t seem to want to talk, or even to look about him. Lanny waited until they were alone, and then started the kind of mental cure which he had seen his mother practice on the broken and burned Marcel Detaze. "You’re in France, Freddi, and now everything is going to be all right."

The poor fellow’s voice behaved as if it was difficult for him to frame sounds into words. "You should have sent me poison!" That was all he could think of.

"We’re going to take you to a good hospital and have you fixed up in no time." A cheerful "spiel," practiced for several days.

Freddi held up his trembling claws; they waved in the air, seemingly of their own independent will. "They broke them with an iron bar," he whispered; "one by one."

"Rahel is coming, Freddi. She will be here in a few hours."

"No, no, no!" They were the loudest sounds he could make. "She must not see me." He kept that up for some time, as long as his strength lasted. He was not fit to see anybody. He wanted to go to sleep and not wake up. "Some powders!" he kept whispering.

Lanny saw that the sick man was weakening himself by trying to argue, so he said, all right. He had already called for a doctor, and when the man came he whispered the story. Here on the border they knew a great deal about the Nazis, and the doctor needed no details. He gave a sleeping powder which quieted the patient for a while. The doctor wanted to examine him, but Lanny said no, he would wait until the patient’s wife had arrived to take charge. Lanny didn’t reveal that he had in mind to get an ambulance and take the victim to Paris; he could see that here was a case that called for a lot of work and he wanted it done by people whom he knew and trusted. He was sure that Rahel would agree with this.

XII

A moment not soon to be forgotten when the two travelers arrived, and Freddi’s wife came running into the hotel suite, an agony of suspense in her whole aspect; her face, gestures, voice. "He’s here? He’s alive? He’s ill? Oh, God, where is he?"

"In the next room," replied Lanny. "He’s asleep, and we’d better not disturb him."

"How is he?"

"He needs to be gone over by a good surgeon and patched up; but we can have it done. Keep yourself together, and don’t let him see that you’re afraid or shocked."

She had to set her eyes upon him right away; she had to steal into the room, and make it real to herself that after so many long months he was actually here, in France, not Germany. Lanny warned her: "Be quiet, don’t lose your nerve." He went with her, and Jerry on the other side, for fear she might faint. And she nearly did so; she stood for a long while, breathing hard, staring at that grayhaired, elderly man, who, a little more than a year ago, had been young, beautiful and happy. They felt her shuddering, and when she started to sob, they led her out and softly closed the door.

To Lanny it was like living over something a second time, as happens in a dream. "Listen, Rahel," he said: "You have to do just what my mother did with Marcel. You have to make him want to live again. You have to give him hope and courage. You must never let him see the least trace of fear or suffering on your face. You must be calm and assured, and just keep telling him that you love him, and that he is going to get well."

"Does he know what you say to him?"

"I think he only half realizes where he is; and perhaps it’s better so. Don’t force anything on him. Just whisper love, and tell him he is needed, and must live for your sake and the child’s."

The young wife sat there with her whole soul in her eyes. She had always been a serious, intellectual woman, but having her share of vigor and blooming. Now she was pale and thin; she had forgotten to eat most of the time; she had dined on grief and supped on fear. It was clear that she wanted only one thing in the world, to take this adored man and devote her life to nursing him and restoring him to health. She wouldn’t rebel against her fate, as Beauty Budd, the worldling, had done; she wouldn’t have to beat and drive herself to the role of Sister of Mercy. Nor would she have herself painted in that role, and exhibit herself to smart crowds; no, she would just go wherever Freddi went, try to find out what Freddi needed and give it to him, with that consecrated love which the saints feel for the Godhead.

Lanny told her what he had in mind. They would take him in an ambulance, to Paris, quickly but carefully, so as not to jar him. Rahel could ride with him, and talk to him, feed him doses of courage and hope, even more necessary than physical food. Jerry and Lanny would follow, each in his own car; Jerry would stay in Paris for a while, to help her in whatever way he could. Lanny would instruct the surgeon to do everything needed, and would pay the bill. He told Jerry to go and get some sleep—his aspect showed that he needed it, for he had driven five or six hundred miles with only a few minutes' respite at intervals.

XIII

Lanny had food and wine and milk brought to the room, and persuaded Rahel to take some; she would need her strength. She should give Freddi whatever he would take—he probably had had no decent food for more than a year. Preparing her for her long ordeal, he told more of the story of Marcel, the miracle which had been wrought by love and unfailing devotion. Lanny talked as if he were Parsifal Dingle; incidentally he said: "Parsifal will come to Paris and help you, if you wish." Rahel sat weeping softly. With half her mind she took in Lanny’s words, while the other half was with the broken body and soul in the next room.

Presently they heard him moaning. She dried her eyes hastily, and said. "I can never thank you. I will do my best to save Freddi so that he can thank you."

She stole into the other room, and Lanny sat alone for a long while. Tears began to steal down his cheeks, and he leaned his arms upon the table in front of him. It was a reaction from the strain he had been under for more than a year. Tears because he hadn’t been able to accomplish more; because what he had done might be too late. Tears not only for his wrecked and tormented friend, not only for that unhappy family, but for all the Jews of Europe, and for their tormentors, just as much to be pitied. Tears for the unhappy people of Germany, who were being lured into such a deadly trap, and would pay for it with frightful sufferings. Tears for this unhappy continent on which he had been born and had lived most of his life. He had traveled here and there over its surface, and everywhere had seen men diligently plowing the soil and sowing dragon’s teeth—from which, as in the old legend, armed men would some day spring. He had raised his feeble voice, warning and pleading; he had sacrificed time and money and happiness, but all in vain. He wept, despairing, as another man of gentleness and mercy had wept, in another time of oppression and misery, crying:

"O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them which are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not! Behold, your house is left unto you desolate."