“But the army rank and file, Jim!”
“The rank and file will obey orders—what’s an army for? There will be attempts at resistance, of course, but the junta will put them down. I’m not saying they can do it, mind you; I’m saying they believe they can, and they mean to try.”
“You are sure it’s a real thing, and not just gossip?”
“As certain of it as a man can be of anything human. I am not at liberty to go into details; but telephone wires have been tapped and people have been followed and conversations recorded over a period of several months.”
“You have reported this to F.D.?”
“I have reported to him, and to the persons he has ordered me to.”
“And what is he doing about it?”
“He doesn’t tell me, except in hints. He refuses to worry about it—he’s not the worrying kind, you know. He insists that he can deal with the gang in an inconspicuous way, without a scandal that would injure the national morale. He will send the suspected men to some district a long way off.”
“But somebody ought to point out to F.D. that it doesn’t take a plane very long to fly from any part of the country. The Republican Government of Spain tried that same device with General Franco some five years ago. They exiled him to the Canary Islands, but it didn’t keep him from continuing with his conspiracy, and when the time came, he was on deck.”
“Quite so,” agreed Jim, “and be sure I have talked to the Chief about it. He says that he has his plans, and naturally I can’t ask him too many questions. When I get information, I take it to him.”
XIII
Lanny sat for a while in silence, then he said: “This thing takes my breath away.”
“It has me worried sick,” replied Jim. “Since F.D. refuses to worry, I’ve taken the job on.”
“What strikes me especially is the resemblance to what I saw in France shortly before the war broke-out. Do you know about the Cagoulard conspiracy?”
“Only what I read in our papers.”
“It happened that I was close to it. The de Bruyne family, old friends of mine, were among its backers. It was a conspiracy to overthrow the Third Republic and jail its leading officials. Only this summer Admiral Darlan told me with his own lips that he had planned to put the Leftists among the French naval officers on board the antiquated battleship Jean Bart and take her out to sea and sink her.”
“The men I have named to you would hardly have that much imagination,” remarked the serious-minded Jim.
“I was struck by your statement that F.D. doesn’t want a scandal because of the bad effect on morale. That’s exactly why the Cagoule was never purged in France; there were more than five hundred army officers involved in the plot, and the Cabinet voted against Léon Blum and Marx Dormoy, who wanted to root them out. The result was, they stayed in the army and went on making appeasement propaganda, even in the midst of war.”
“The propaganda of this bunch is anti-Jew, anti-Russian, and to some extent anti-British. It is closely tied up with the Catholic hierarchy—the Papal Knights and the Papal Delegates and our millionaires who back them.”
“There you have it! Franco Spain, and the intrigues of the Nazis in South America—these are all parts of the same world conspiracy!”
“I see you know the game,” said Jim. “It happens that Harrison Dengue’s present mistress is a Nazi countess whose brother is one of the leading Nazi agents in Buenos Aires.”
“Does that happen to be the Gräfin Schönen?”
“Dora Schönen, the same!”
“But she was the mistress of Otto Abetz, Nazi Governor of Paris.”
“Well, maybe he got tired of her; or maybe the Nazis sent her here, to build up the American Cagoule. They don’t let love—or passion, or whatever you choose to call it—stand in the way of politics. That would be weakness.”
“I met that lovely lady; and unless I am mistaken, she has some of the evil Jewish blood.”
“Quite possibly, she may be an honorary Aryan. That’s another detail in which the gang over here is following the Nazis. There are wealthy Jews in the group. Dengue’s finger man here in New York is a Jew who changed his name; he is a crafty anti-Democrat, who despises Roosevelt. The gang has a code name for Jews; they are ‘Number Threes.’ You understand, our officialdom is not supposed to discriminate against them.”
“But the country clubs do, and the dinner parties!”
“You can bet on that,” remarked the man from North Shore Drive. “Believe me, I have helped to make out the lists for hundreds of smart affairs.”
XIV
These two who had become fast friends upon one glimpse of a visiting card behaved as if they would never stop talking. Lanny had read Jim’s books, but Jim had many stories that were not in the books, and Lanny wanted to hear them all. Jim wanted to know about Lanny, where and how he lived and what he was doing. Lanny explained that in his youth he had become a Pink, but in recent years he had begun to change his coloration, as a means of getting information for friends abroad, and later for some in America. That was as near as he would come to saying the letters “P.A.”; but that was near enough. He added: “If you ever speak of me to anyone except F.D., remember that I’m a near-Fascist and friend of all the top Nazis. Don’t say anything good about me!”
“It will be better not to know you, and that we meet privately. You could be tremendously useful to me in running down the members of this gang.”
“I would be glad to do it, but at the moment I have another commission, and must return to France. I come here every few months, and then I’ll look up your three top conspirators and give them the latest news from their friends in Vichy France and Spain.”
“I had better give you the code name for this group; among themselves they are ‘SG’s.’ I have never been able to find out what that stands for, but their purpose is to ‘save America,’ they tell themselves. There are sincere fanatics among them, but others are self-seekers, impatient men, and arrogant—the type of Aaron Burr, if you remember the details of his conspiracy. There are several senators and congressmen in their confidence, men who are highly placed in the committees, and very powerful. It is a movement that is steadily expanding and solidifying itself. The further F.D. goes in carrying out his policies, the more his enemies are automatically driven together. That is something he himself is reluctant to face, but his friends keep pounding at him and he’s beginning to wake up.”
“I believe I may have helped a little,” said Lanny. “Coming to him independently of you and all the others, my statements should have carried weight.”
“What I want most to do,” continued the other, “is to persuade him to take Hyde Park out of the New York Military District and put it under the direct control of Washington. If the Chief hadn’t gone off on this cruise, I would urge you to go back and press that idea upon him.”
Lanny couldn’t say: “He has ordered me abroad.” His answer was: “I hope to God there aren’t any admirals among your SG’s!”
BOOK THREE
He That Diggeth a Pit
9
Set Thine House in Order
I
Lanny drove back to Newcastle to return the borrowed car and say his farewells. Budd-Erling had got its share of those twenty-six thousand planes which F.D. had permitted the British to order, and now the President of Budd-Erling was under pressure from the brass hats to expand some more. His son compared him to an infant who has reached out for a nipple and got the nozzle of a hose. Everybody in the town was under the pressure of that hose, it appeared; the old-timers complained that social life was at an end and there was no room to get around on the streets. Robbie no longer came home to lunch, but ate a sandwich and a glass of milk in his office. The two sturdy sons of Robbie and Esther were like a pair of faithful drayhorses pulling in harness, and with new loads being piled onto the dray.
At Lanny’s request the father put in an application for Lanny’s passport to Europe. The arrangemen
t with President Roosevelt had been that Robbie was to apply to a certain official in the War Department, on the ground that Lanny was traveling on Budd-Erling business. “War” would make the arrangements with “State,” and thus there would be no ground for suspicion that Lanny was anything other than the son of Budd-Erling. The passport was to be for Portugal, Spain, Vichy France, Switzerland, Germany, and Britain. There were many persons in New York and Washington who, for reasons of their own, would have paid large sums of money for such a document, but couldn’t get it because of the government’s stern policy of restricting travel in the war zones.
Lanny waited; and meantime, there was private business in Newcastle. Christmas was coming, and it was too bad to leave just before that! One of Esther’s nieces was coming home from the Harvard School of Art, and her aunt was giving her a party. Couldn’t Lanny he tempted to stay over for that? Lanny’s stepmother, the subtlest of psychological manipulators, didn’t drop any hints concerning love and marriage; what she said was that the family saw so little of Lanny, and enjoyed his conversation so much; also, that the dangers in Europe, both on land and sea, were so frightful in these times, and what was there in the business of old masters or in that of military planes that made it worth while for him to risk his life?
Margaret Remsen was the girl’s name, and they called her Peggy. Lanny hadn’t seen her for a couple of years, and what a change that time can make in a young woman’s mind! She was a proper young lady of New England, conscientious and studious as anyone in Esther’s family was bound to be; also she was extraordinarily eager and alert to what was going on about her. Had her aunt by any chance prompted her? She knew all about Lanny’s art experting, and also his political experting. She wanted to hear about the extraordinary people he had met, and listened with attention to every word that fell from his lips. Nothing could be more acceptable to the male ego.
Lanny went off and thought it over. Here was one more temptation, one more emotional disturbance. Peggy was related to him only by her aunt’s marriage and not by blood; he was perfectly eligible on that score. Manifestly, she liked him, and manifestly he had seen more of the great world than anybody she was likely to meet in an overgrown river port on Long Island Sound. Lanny wondered if she was going to take the place of Lizbeth in his imagination—or would it be the place of Laurel? She was a sort of combination of the two. She was young, and some day she would have a lot of money, for her father was president of the First National Bank of Newcastle, and her grandfather had founded that institution, which did all the business of Budd-Erling and a good part of Budd Gunmakers. Also Peggy had brains, and had read quite a number of books—something that fashionable ladies talked about more often than they did.
Lanny wondered now and then about the impact on American society of this fresh crop of young females who had got an education and were seemingly determined to think for themselves. From his point of view these young people were victims of a conspiracy of press and radio, of church and school and political platform, to persuade them that the so-called American way of life, the “free enterprise system,” was the only free system conceivable and the only one compatible with democracy. To be sure, it meant plenty of freedom for Robbie Budd, the employer, but for the masses of workers it was the old familiar wage slavery. Now Lanny sat at his stepmother’s luncheon table and heard Peggy Remsen sum up her ideas on the subject: “It seems to me it would be a lot more democratic if the workers made their own jobs, instead of having Uncle Robbie make them all.” Lanny said nothing, for of course such problems lay outside the province of an art expert.
II
The passport was delayed; and Robbie phoned to “War” and was referred to “State.” He phoned to “State,” and was told that the matter was under consideration. That was the way with bureaucrats; they hold matters under consideration until the world comes to an end. So Lanny, who had told himself that his dancing days were done, went to the party in the Newcastle Country Club; he was one of two-score properly dressed gentlemen who danced with Peggy and paid her compliments, all of which she deserved, because she looked very lovely and behaved with gaiety and charm. Lanny had attended just such a party at the home of Lizbeth Holdenhurst, and he told himself that he had broken Lizbeth’s heart, or at any rate cracked it, and now he was a philanderer, and in danger of doing the same thing to his stepmother’s niece.
Finally there came a letter on elegant stationery, instructing him to call upon a representative of the State Department in New York. So he went, and met a man considerably younger than himself who looked like a college instructor, the kind that Robbie Budd especially abhorred. With the most elegant manners Mr. Titherington put Lanny Budd through an inquisition as to what he wanted to do in Europe, and why he considered himself entitled to special favors. This investigation wasn’t supposed to happen at all; F.D. had given special orders to “War” that the president of Budd-Erling was to have whatever passports he requested for himself or his son. Lanny had said: “I suppose that ‘State’ will do whatever ‘War’ requests”: but apparently this had been naïve. Had somebody blundered? Or were there bureaucrats so full of their own importance that they used their judgment concerning orders even from the head of the United States Government?
Lanny was treading on eggs in this office. He couldn’t give the faintest hint that the President was interested in his errands abroad; he couldn’t even refuse to answer questions and say that he would take the matter to higher authority, for that might affront the young man and make a malicious enemy. Lanny knew that all bureaucrats live under siege by newspapermen; some hate them and some love them, but all fear them; and suppose this Mr. Titherington were to say to a reporter friend: “Do you know anything about this chap Lanny Budd who calls himself an art expert and claims the privilege of traveling all over Europe in wartime? He is the son of Robbie Budd of Budd-Erling, and you might find it worth while to look him up and find out what he’s doing.” It might be that some radio newscaster would ask this question over the air, some Nazi agent would make note of it—and that would be the end of a P.A. forever!
Lanny explained with great patience and politeness that he had a mother in Juan-les-Pins, and a little daughter in England. To this the conscientious bureaucrat replied that there were many Americans in positions of the same sort, but unfortunately the State Department had had to rule against all such requests. Still patiently, Lanny explained that he had orders for several paintings in Vichy France, and must go there to attend to them. To this the polite bureaucrat replied that all commercial matters had to be attended to by mail, if at all. Pushed to the wall, Lanny became mysterious, and revealed that there were certain matters having to do with the designs of the new Budd-Erling pursuit plane; certain improvements which had been effected in recent French models and about which Lanny had been promised the blueprints. It was a matter of the greatest urgency, which was why the application had come through the War Department. The persistent bureaucrat wanted to know why the Swiss trip was necessary, and Lanny said that one of the men with whom he was dealing might be in that country.
The upshot of it all was that the application would be taken “under consideration” and that Lanny would hear from “State.” Lanny realized that this Mr. Titherington was only doing what he had been told to do, and it wasn’t fair to blame him for wartime restrictions. Lanny believed in the bureaucrats, as the only alternative to the business autocrats at the present stage of social development. But at the same time it was most exasperating. He couldn’t phone to Baker about the matter, because Baker wasn’t supposed to know his name. He thought of calling upon Professor Alston, who had introduced him to F.D., and must share in the secret, even though he had never spoken to Lanny about it. But the newspapers reported that Charles Alston, whom they referred to as “the fixer,” had that day been flown by plane to join the President on his cruise.
III
So there was nothing to do but wait until F.D.’s return. Lanny decided that he wouldn’t go
back to Newcastle, where Esther and Peggy might be lying in wait for him. Or would they? He decided to take no chances, but to enjoy himself with his friend and art colleague, Zoltan Kertezsi, and see what new things the dealers had to offer, and what, if any, had been added to the museums. Also, he would pay another call on Baldur Heinsch and give him a chance to say whether or not the conspirators were willing to have Lanny Budd know their names and to pass them on to the Duce of San Simeon.
What the steamship official reported was that the heads of the junta hadn’t been able to make up their minds; they wanted to investigate Lanny Budd, and Lanny said that was perfectly natural—unless, they were fools they wouldn’t risk their necks without taking every precaution. In his secret thoughts Lanny wondered whether Heinsch really knew anything, or was pretending to have information as a means of getting some. Lanny changed the subject, and after a while went to call on Forrest Quadratt, and, talking about various persons whom they both knew, he remarked: “By the way, I wonder if you know Harrison Dengue?”
“I have met him several times,” replied the ex-poet casually. He was a well-trained intriguer, and if he was surprised he wouldn’t show any trace of it. “Do you know him?”
“I don’t think I have met him, but my father has told me about him. I should think he would be a useful man to both of us.”
“That might be a good suggestion. Miss van Zandt knows him well, I believe.”
Lanny didn’t say: “I’d like to meet him.” He seldom pushed himself; his role was that of an easy-going person, a sort of flâneur of the arts, and always it was Quadratt who was using him, never he who was using Quadratt. “I see that Senator Reynolds is in town,” he remarked. “There is a character out of a storybook.”