Professor Adler, he reported, had somehow got wind of Trudi’s kidnaping and had fled from Paris, but now he had returned. He had raised a gray beard, and was no longer a clarinetist, a conspicuous occupation; he was living in a different workingclass district and planned to support himself by doing translating. Only three persons were to know about him, Lanny, Monck, and that injured man about whom Monck had told Lanny in Spain. Lanny was to write Adler a code letter and they were to meet on the street, as in the old days. This was like having Trudi back again—the most important part, so Trudi would have told him, and so the Trudi-ghost would continue to assert. At least it would give him a reason for selling more pictures and making more money.
XIV
Hofman had not been told that Trudi Schultz was Lanny’s wife, and so it was necessary for Lanny to conceal his grief when the locksmith was present. The locksmith had become convinced that Trudi was dead, and he said so flatly. As for Monck, he considered it the part of kindness to convince Lanny of the fact, in order that he might not go on wasting his efforts. When they were alone together, he said this, and Lanny thanked him, saying: “You may be right, and I fear you are; but surely I have to make certain before my mind can feel at peace!”
“How do you expect to make certain?”
“I have an idea that I am going to get Hitler to tell me.” Then, seeing his friend’s surprise, he added: “Don’t think I’m crazy. So far it’s just an idea, but it might work out. Hitler is a believer in occult phenomena, I’ve been told; and if I can get him interested in spirit communications, he might take the trouble to verify them.”
“Por dios!” exclaimed the Capitán. “If you pull off that one, will you promise to let me know about it?”
“We’ll have a dinner somewhere, and I’ll tell you the story. But meantime, don’t forget, all this is as close a secret as anything on this earth.”
Later on Lanny had a private talk with Hofman, who still insisted that he didn’t want any payment for his part of this job; he had had a delightful trip to Paris, had seen the sights and heard the news, living en prince in the meantime; what more could a man want?—especially when he had failed in the job.
Lanny replied: “You opened every lock.”
“I got a free education,” countered the Meister-Schlosser—“in two different subjects, psychic research and the insides of Nazism. Both are worth while to me, and I wouldn’t take a lot of money for them.”
“Do this,” suggested the host. “Follow your hobby for a few days here in Paris. I have to wait for my father, and meanwhile you may find some old locks that you would like to add to your collection; if so, let me buy them for you and feel better in my conscience. I might need you again some day, you know.”
XV
Lanny had to go and see his Red uncle and wind up matters there. The nephew was teaching himself discretion, and didn’t tell Jesse the story of what had happened at the Château de Belcour; he just said: “That enterprise failed to come off, so you can pay Jean and tell him to forget it and move out of the mill.” He didn’t ask for an accounting and Jesse didn’t offer one.
They talked about the Cagoulard exposé, as everybody in Paris was doing at the moment. Lanny was afraid the delay had spoiled his uncle’s story, but Jesse declared: “If I had sprung the news in the Chambre everybody would have said it was a canard; but when the government springs it, some of those scoundrels get at least a few days of jail—damn their dirty souls!”
The député de la république française went on to reveal an amusing aspect of the affair. A very discreet representative of the Croix de Feu had come to him and explained how they were planning to expose their traducers; they had heard rumors that M. Block-léss had been collecting information along these lines and they wanted it to add to their own and turn it all over to the government. At first Jesse had been unwilling to trust the man, but the latter had managed to convince the deputy of his good faith; he wanted the data so badly that he offered to pay, and Jesse actually sold a copy of his notes for ten thousand francs, a most unexpected contribution to a Communist campaign fund. “Every little helps,” he said; and Lanny replied with an even more pointed adage: “Extremes meet!”
Hofman knew where to look for locks, and he found a collection of ancient Egyptian contrivances which a dealer was holding in the certainty of some day interesting a rich American. Hofman told Lanny, and that rich American was interested. It appeared that the pyramid makers had designed such a good lock that no one had ever been able to think of a better idea. The only difference was that modern lockmakers had steel and precision instruments, whereas the Egyptians had had only wood. Hofman explained:
“They fastened their doors with a long hollow bolt and staple made of teak, the hardest wood they could find. Into the upper part of the staple, or housing, they fitted several loose pins that dropped into matching holes in the bolt and held it in place. The key was a flat stick of wood, generally thirteen or fourteen inches long for a street door, with pegs on the end to correspond to the pins in the bolt. To unlock the door, the Egyptians stuck the key through a round hole in the wall, lifted the pins until they cleared the bolt, then drew back the bolt by pulling the key which held it by pegs sticking in the pin holes. Egyptian locksmiths carried their finished keys about on their shoulders like a bunch of fagots.”
“What does this dealer want for his collection?” asked Lanny.
“He wants sixty thousand francs, but that’s much more than I would let you spend.”
“I would pay it cheerfully,” said the son of Budd-Erling, in whose pockets money always burned a hole. “But you can be sure your dealer doesn’t expect to get his asking price—not even from an American. Offer him thirty thousand.”
“I offered thirty-five and he laughed at me.”
“Did you give him your name and address?”
“I did; and I told him I was leaving for New York in a couple of days.”
“Bide your time. He hopes to get fifty thousand, and will take forty; but don’t say more than thirty-five until you report to me. Remember, I’ve been buying and selling art works in this city for some fifteen years.”
Hofman took the advice, and bought the collection for thirty-eight thousand francs of Lanny’s money. He brought the locks home and spread them out on the bed and explained them to his friend. They had been used, no doubt, to secure the granaries or other treasure houses of some wealthy Egyptian, perhaps a pharaoh, nearly three thousand years ago. They had been carefully cleaned, and still worked, and the Meister-Schlosser was as delighted with them as a child with a big doll which shuts its eyes when you lay it down. When these two parted, it was indeed “Au revoir” and not “Good-by.” Hofman said: “If ever you have anything as novel and entertaining as your last assignment, don’t fail to let me know.” He grinned, and added: “When I was a boy we used to say things like that, and finish with: ‘I don’t think!’”
BOOK FOUR
In the Midst of Wolves
14
The Jingling of the Guinea
I
Robbie Budd arrived in Paris. He had got news of the arrest of the de Bruynes on board the steamer, and on the boat-train had got the newspapers and brought himself up to date. The French police had arrested a hundred or more conspirators, and at least a score of them were persons of wealth. Robbie’s sympathy was with such persons, anywhere in the world and regardless of what they had done, provided that it was for the benefit and protection of their class. The government of France had Socialists in the cabinet, and that was enough to prove it incompetent and dangerous. Men who had tried to get rid of it might have been indiscreet, but you couldn’t really blame them.
Robbie was in an especially embittered mood just now, because the near-Socialist government of his own country had broken his proud will. He had announced that he would go out of business before he would have anything to do with labor union organizers, but when it came to a showdown, he had felt himself obliged to consider the
interests of his stockholders. There had been sitdown strikes all over the country, and the New Dealers were trying their best to prevent any more of them. Robbie had been plainly told that he wouldn’t be allowed to have one; there was that most outrageous “Wagner Act,” having to do with labor relations, and there were dark hints that delays in the placing of government orders might be experienced by employers who refused to meet union representatives and work out agreements.
Robbie was having a hard time, and he simply couldn’t have gone on without government orders. It was humiliating, outrageous, an insult to his dignity as a man and his right as a citizen; but he had been forced to bow to the will of these new tsars, the bureaucrats, and their allies and political supporters, the walking delegates, the labor union racketeers. It was a political conspiracy; these fellows had put up half a million dollars to elect Roosevelt, and now they came to collect their price. It meant the death and burial of what Robbie had learned to call the “free enterprise system.” It didn’t occur to him to mention what amounts he and his associates had put up in the effort to defeat Roosevelt, or the use they had made of the government in the good old days when nobody had disputed their control.
Lanny had had many a wrangle with his father over such questions, and was resolved never to have another. He listened to the story of how Robbie, unwilling to meet the usurpers himself, had delegated the unsavory job to one of his vice-presidents and a couple of superintendents; how then, greatly to Robbie’s discomfiture, the usurpers had succeeded in persuading this trio that their men earnestly desired to increase and improve the Budd-Erling product, provided they could have some reasonable say about the conditions of their labor and a fair share in the profits thus earned. Poor Robbie had found himself backed up against the wall. “Big Steel” had surrendered to this holdup, and so had General Motors. What could a poor “little fellow” do?
And so, Budd-Erling had become a union shop; the racketeers had the right to tell Robbie whom he could employ—or rather they had the right to say that the new employee couldn’t go to work until he had got a union card, and had agreed to let the company deduct a percentage of his pay and turn it over to the union. The “check-off system,” it was called, and the money would be used to extend the power of the union to other plants—or perhaps to enable the gangsters to have free trips to Florida, who could say? The hypocritical Lanny remarked that the world was changing, and nobody seemed to know how to stop it.
II
Denis de Bruyne and his sons had tried to make some changes in their French world, and apparently had got themselves into serious trouble. Robbie wanted to hear all that Lanny knew about it; he was deeply distressed, and perhaps it was his duty to go and visit the prisoners; would Lanny come along? The son replied that he had thought the matter over and decided against going. This was a factional quarrel of the French, the most bitter that could be imagined, and they wouldn’t want foreigners mixing in it; Lanny’s business as an art expert would be knocked into a cocked hat if he were suspected of doing so.
What was really troubling Lanny was the possibility that the de Bruynes might say something to his father, indicating how deeply Lanny had committed himself to them. Robbie wouldn’t understand that, and Lanny couldn’t very well explain it. “If I were you,” he said, “I’d think twice before calling at the prison; it surely wouldn’t do you any good with the government. You must realize that the Cagoulards had a hanging list, and many members of the government know that their names were on it. Their fury is easy to understand.”
“What do you think they’ll do to the prisoners?”
“Keep them in jail a few weeks to frighten them; but I doubt very much if they’ll ever be brought to trial. There are too many important figures involved, people who will be moving heaven and earth to suppress the story.”
“After all, I don’t suppose there’s anything I can do for Denis or the boys.”
“Not a thing in the world. What is done will have to be done by Frenchmen.”
So the cautious businessman remarked: “Perhaps it might be the part of wisdom for me to wait until I have seen Schneider, and found out what he wants.”
“I should advise that strongly. The de Bruynes know the situation, and their feelings won’t be hurt. They understand that we can’t help them, and they don’t need anybody to cry over them.”
“Frankly, Lanny, I’m having a hard time. The recession is getting worse every day. I’ve taken a huge gamble in the belief that aviation is going to increase. It would be a great load off my mind if I could get a real order from the French right now.”
“Well then, you had better keep away from the Cagoule. Many of the army officers sympathize with it, but dare not show their feelings at present, and Pierre Cot, the air minister, is a leftist, and one of those who are fighting in the Cabinet for the full exposure of the conspiracy. You are up against much the same sort of thing as at home: le New Deal, the French call it.”
III
Robbie had telegraphed Baron Schneider from the steamer, notifying him of his impending arrival; and now at the hotel was an engraved card requesting the honor of the company of M. Robert Budd at the town house of the Baron that same evening. Lanny had received a similar invitation at his hotel. Beauty’s heart would have been broken if she had been left out of such an affair, so Lanny telephoned the Baron’s secretary, saying that his mother was in town and asking if it would be agreeable for him to bring her. The result was another card arriving by messenger within the hour.
Robbie got out his “tails” and had them pressed, and with one of his waggish grins asked his son: “Shall we wear hoods?” Lanny replied that the Baron would slip money to secret conspirators, but would not invite any of them to his home in this crisis. There one would meet the most fashionable crowd, plus the politicians of the center and right, and any sort of famous persons who might enjoy the favor of one of the most powerful men in France. The same sort of evening affair that Robbie had seen in the days when Lanny had been “Mr. Irma Barnes,” and they had leased the palace of the Duc de Belleaumont, so that Irma might learn the duties of a salonnière under the guidance of Emily Chattersworth.
They engaged a uniformed chauffeur from Denis’s taxicab company to drive Lanny’s car and deliver them in proper state before the doors of the mansion. There between nine and ten o’clock was tout Paris arriving, with the traditional red carpet under its feet and striped canvas canopy overhead. Black-clad gentlemen with the correct white ties, and others in uniform with chests covered by decorations; the ladies in the much greater splendor permitted to them: gorgeous furs from every part of the earth and jewels from its depths; evening gowns of every hue, and snow-white or pink bosoms and arms and backs; coiffures so elaborate that the ladies exhausted themselves sitting up to have them prepared and then dared not lie down for a moment’s rest. A splendid scene, as Lanny had foretold, comparing it to a dead fish such as he and his father could see on the beach at Juan on a dark night, shining with gold, silver, green, purple, shimmering and pulsating, fascinating to the eye—so long as you kept to windward of it.
The Baron received them cordially and said that he had been looking forward to the meeting with Robbie; would he and his son come to lunch on the morrow? “I don’t suppose I have to introduce you to anybody,” added the host, “since you know so many in my country. Consider yourselves at home,”—the utmost a Frenchman could say to foreigners.
Robbie Budd, who had been doing business as a munitions salesman in Europe since the beginning of the century, had met most of these military gentlemen and knew what their insignia and decorations meant. He had been a steel man, so he could talk shop with François de Wendel; he had been an oil man, so he could exchange greetings with Sir Henri Deterding, and chat with him about what had happened since their meeting at The Hague. He had attended several of the great international conferences in the interest of Budd Gunmakers, then of New England-Arabian Oil, and more recently of Budd-Erling; so he could chat w
ith the diplomats and politicians, also with the great ladies, the duchesses and marchionesses and countesses who favored them. Beauty knew them, too, and had paid many a one to bring to luncheon or dinner some general or cabinet minister or great capitalist whom it was important for a salesman or promoter to meet privately.
IV
The great world of Paris was fluid, almost as much as that of New York. Persons of prominence lost their influence and new ones took their places. Writers and other intellectuals, musicians and other artists lost their vogue, and one met them in the cafés but no longer at fashionable soirées. Speculators lost their money and disappeared; others made sensational gains, and they and their chosen ladies made their appearance, having been properly coached and equipped by couturiers and modistes, and by ladies of fashion who had fallen into need and lived by giving help to the newly arrived. All this was especially true of politicians; they began, as a rule, by making violent speeches of a leftist character, and when they had got the votes, they accepted “campaign funds” from the big businessmen; each one acquired a rich amie, and after he had been taught how to handle a knife and fork, he made his entrée in the salons, where people were curious to meet him because his name had been in the newspapers.