Early next morning the P.A. went again, and there was the same woman on duty. He looked at more books; he was pretty familiar with the contents of the shop by now, and there were many he would have been interested to read, but not standing up, and watching out for Raoul, also for pickpockets. He asked for books on art and on psychic research which he could be fairly sure the woman wouldn’t have; so he struck up an acquaintance. He learned that the store had been here for some twenty years, and that rising prices were good for the trade as long as you had any books left; also that in wartime people read a great deal because they couldn’t have the other amusements they were used to. But he didn’t hear anything about another clerk, or any message for an American customer.
So passed the day. Lanny went to dinner in the hotel dining-room, and made up his mind that as soon as he finished he would return to the store, and whether it was the woman or the man on duty he would remark: “By the way, I was in here some time ago and was waited on by a man—I took him to be a Spaniard—a man somewhat younger than myself.” Lanny would make it sound right by adding: “I asked him about a book by Professor Osty, and he promised to try to find me a copy.” This could involve Raoul in no worse offense than having overlooked a duty. He might lose his job for it, but that wouldn’t be so bad as losing all the money which was squeezing Lanny’s elegant tweed clothing out of shape!
III
But Lanny never returned to that bookstore. In the lobby of the hotel he met a lady.
She was sitting in one of the large, overstuffed, velvet-covered chairs, just where he had to emerge from the dining-room, and when she saw him coming, she rose and stood, obviously waiting for him. So he had a good look at her, and did not find it difficult. She was young—in her mid-twenties, he would have guessed. She was tall for a Frenchwoman, slender, a brunette with very lovely dark eyes and features sensitive and refined. She was simply dressed in a tailored tweed costume, and wore a little beret of the same material. Very much the lady, he would have judged, but nothing showy, no jewels, and if there was make-up it was not conspicuous.
She came toward him and inquired: “M. Budd, I believe?” Lanny said: “Yes.”
“M. Budd, I am secretary to Madame Latour, of an old family of this town, and friends of the d’Avriennes. They have told us of your visit, and that you are interested in old paintings.”
“That is true, Mademoiselle.”
“Those of the d’Avriennes would be difficult to purchase; but Madame Latour has sent me to tell you that she has a collection, not so large but more choice, and she would like very much to have you view it.”
“I am interested, Mademoiselle. Who are the painters?”
“For one, there is a very fine Antoine le Nain.”
“Indeed? Those are not so common. Are you certain it is genuine?”
“It has been viewed by many persons who understand art matters, and I have never heard of any question being raised.”
“Well, that interests me greatly, Mademoiselle.” Lanny didn’t add that the mademoiselle interested him also; she had an unusually pleasing voice, a winning smile, a tout ensemble of desirability. He hadn’t enjoyed the society of ladies for quite a while, except the elderly ones of his mother’s set. The ladies of Vichy had impressed him as harassed and shrill; but here, apparently, was one who had not been touched by the furies of war and conquest. “When may I view these pictures?” he inquired.
“At any time convenient to you. This evening, if you wish.”
“Unless the lighting is good—” he started to suggest.
“You will find the lighting adequate, I am sure.”
“And where is the place?”
“It is a few miles out of town, but an easy drive. I have Madame’s car, and will be happy to take you and bring you back.”
“That is very kind. I am happy to accept.”
Really, as a man of the world, schooled in all the rascalities of Europe, Lanny ought to have stopped to reflect for a few moments, and perhaps to make some inquiry, say of the hotel porter or clerk. There was a great scarcity of men in France, and the women were ravenous and would stop at no device. While there was no superfluity of money, it was very badly distributed, and those who lacked it were ravenous too. To go traveling with a strange lady at night, and with his pockets stuffed with money, was surely no procedure for a wise and cautious secret agent! But this lady was so exceptional, her manner so refined, her expression gentle and sweet, like the kindest of those endlessly multiplied madonnas an art expert had been viewing all over this old Continent. He forgot what had long been one of his maxims, that a spy is chosen because he or she looks as little like a spy as possible.
IV
He accompanied her to the car which was parked near by. It was a small car, and she herself was driving, a circumstance which surprised him, because in France women do not drive as freely as men, and certainly the secretary of a grande dame should have been brought by a chauffeur. However, he couldn’t very well say: “Are you sure you know how to drive, Mademoiselle?” She was businesslike and efficient, and he got in, pulled a robe over his knees, and let himself be carried along the route nationale.
“M. Budd,” said the lady, “what is going to become of our unhappy France?”
It was a subject Lanny was surely not going to discuss—not for an amiral or a maréchal, nor yet for the most charming secretary-chauffeur. “Chère Mademoiselle” he replied, “to answer that would take a learned statesman or sociologist. It can surely be no question for a mere connoisseur d’art.”
“We French,” persisted the lady, “have the idea that you Americans are the wisest and most capable people in the world.”
“Hélas, if there was anyone in my country who was able to foresee the calamities which have befallen Europe, I did not happen to meet him. We are successful at inventing machines, but less so at creating kindness and mercy in the world.”
“My employers and all their friends are haunted by the idea that some day the hordes from Russia are going to sweep over Western Europe.”
“A political lady!” thought Lanny, and he surely wasn’t going to take any line until he knew her. “Many people think that,” he remarked, “but such events seem to me a long way off, and one so young and charming as yourself would be wiser to enjoy the gifts which nature has showered upon her so liberally.”
“Merci, Monsieur—you talk just like a Frenchman!” She flashed him a smile which he couldn’t see in the darkness but which he could hear in her voice.
“I have lived most of my life in France,” he replied. “So it has become second nature. Tell me about yourself, Mademoiselle.”
She told him that her name was Marie Jeanne Richard, and that her father had been a professor in one of the near-by colleges, where she herself had studied. She had become engaged to a fellow-student who had been taken by the army and now was missing, presumably dead but possibly a prisoner of war. “It has been especially tragic to me,” she said, “because I am one of those who had no heart in this war. I have been brought up to admire German culture, and to believe that friendship between Germany and France is vital to the future of both.”
“It is too bad that all the nations cannot be friends,” replied the cautious American. “In Europe they have acquired the bad habit of distrusting one another.”
They had turned off the coast highway and were following one of the small valleys between the mountains. The lights of the car swung here and there, revealing great forests of cork oaks, and as they ascended, of pines. It seemed to Lanny that they were going a considerable distance from Toulon. The paved road came to an end, and the car bumped as it rolled on. Of course there might be some estate up here—the rich have their whims, in France as in America; but Lanny became uneasy and said: “Are you sure you are on the right road, Mademoiselle?”
“Oh, yes,” she replied, “I travel it frequently. It is not much farther now.”
The road had become a mere track, and the ruts were d
eeper. It was more like a wood-road than the entrance to a rich property. When they came to a mountain stream and had to drive through the water, Lanny said with some firmness: “If I had known it was such a journey, Mlle. Richard, I would not have consented to come at night.”
“It is quite near now,” she assured him; “just around this side of the mountain. You will find it an exceptionally beautiful place. Madame Latour is a nature lover and something of a recluse. People come for hundreds of miles to enjoy the view from her lookout tower; but she herself is no longer able to go there, on account of her advanced years. The moon will be up in an hour or so and you will be able to see something of the immense vistas.” That sounded like a proper sort of millionaire eccentric. The more money they have, the more people try to get it away from them, and the less trust they have in the human race. Lanny knew the phenomenon well.
V
The P.A.’s personal interest in this lovely young secretary had begun to wane since she had revealed herself as among the appeasers, a collaboratrice; he decided that he had been neglecting his business, and began to ask questions about the paintings he was to view. The car rolled around a shoulder of the mountain, and from behind a clump of underbrush four men stepped out onto the road, men with black handkerchiefs over their faces and guns in their hands. “Halte-là!” they cried, and leveled the guns. There was a squealing of the car brakes, and a gasp from Marie Jeanne Richard. “Oh, mon Dieu! Des bandits!”
Lanny’s heart gave a mighty thump, but his head still kept working, and he remembered a maxim his father had taught him early in life: “Never forget that your life is worth more to you than all the money you can carry on your person or keep in your house.” He was stuffed with money like a goose with fat; but, it was only five hundred dollars, and he had earned ten times that in a single picture deal. So when the leader of the band said “Haut les mains!” he obeyed, and so did his companion. (“Stick ’em up!” was the American translation.) When the man said: “Sortez!” he clamored out, and so did his companion.
One of the men proceeded to search Lanny; and a surprising thing happened. He didn’t put his hands into a single pocket, but patted all the pockets of the overcoat and then of the coat and trousers, and felt around Lanny’s waist and under his armpits; he wasn’t looking for money but for arms! When he had made sure, he said: “Rien,” and the leader gave the order to tie Lanny’s hands. They had a coil of rope, long, and very strong, as the victim was to make sure before this adventure was over. The man tied it tightly about one wrist and then drew Lanny’s two hands behind his back, crossed the wrists, and bound them together and made them fast; the rest of the rope was for leading. Evidently the man who did the job was familiar with it, for he worked methodically, quickly, and without a word. When he was through the result was painful to Lanny, but thoroughly satisfactory from the point of view of the others.
They searched the woman, politely and not very completely, Lanny thought. They searched the car for arms, and then one of the men turned it around—they had picked a spot where there was room for the purpose. “Entrez,” said the leader, addressing the woman, and opened the car door for her. “We are through with you,” he said. “Go home and stay there, and don’t say one word to anybody about what you have seen. We are the avengers, and our punishment is swift and sure. If you betray us, we will kidnap you and bring you up here and roast you over a slow fire. We will do the same to every member of your family. Comprenez-vous?”
“Oui, oui,” was the reply, in a terrified voice, barely audible.
“Partez,” said the man, and the car rolled slowly down the wet and slippery track.
Lanny Budd’s mind was working as hard as it knew how, for he realized that he was in serious danger. This was no question of losing fifty thousand francs; this might be a question of his life. The affair must be political, and the best guess he could make was that these were men of the underground, the movement which he had been secretly helping to build. He had not been impressed by the little drama which had been played with the woman; he took it that she was an accomplice of the band. She was one of those stern idealists who were springing up all over Europe, wherever the Panzer machine had rolled: people who would not give up their own freedom or that of their native land, people who would fight, and rouse others to fight, and keep the torch of liberty burning. Lanny had come upon another Trudi Schultz, the anti-Nazi heroine whom he had secretly married, and whom the Nazis had murdered in one of their torture camps.
The captive realized this in flashes, but he had no time to dwell on it. He realized that he was in a plight, and might have a hard time thinking and talking his way out of it. An odd quirk of fate, that this danger should come from his own crowd, the people he had been serving, openly or secretly, for a quarter of a century. His knowledge of their ways and their states of mind enabled him to realize the truly frightening nature of his situation. These people were outlaws with a price upon their heads; their lives were grim, and they had no time to waste on formalities. When they seized a wealthy and prominent foreigner, it was because they believed him to be among the most dangerous of their enemies; and having got him, they would hardly turn him loose and let him go out and reveal their secrets. “Dead men tell no tales” is a maxim known to every boy who has ever read a story of pirates, bandits, or gangsters; and all over Europe men of both sides were returning to these desperate moods.
A sudden realization swept over the son of Budd-Erling: how careless and naïve he had been! He had taken every precaution as regards the Nazi-Fascists, but he had seldom taken time to reflect how he must appear to his own friends. The idea was a painful one and he had put it out of his mind. He had gone wandering over Europe, torn by war and civil war—he bland and innocent, a child in a jungle inhabited by fierce beasts. He had not seen the looks of glowering hate, nor heard the half-repressed snarls. He had taken it for granted that everybody thought as highly of him as he thought of himself. That, alas, is something that does not happen very often in this world.
VI
With the utmost politeness he addressed the leader of the band. “Would you mind telling me what this is all about?”—“qu’est-ce que c’est que tout cela?” is the odd formula of the French: “what is it that it is that all that?”
“What is it that your name is?” was the counter-question.
“Lanny Budd,” he replied; he could hardly expect to conceal that.
“Bien,” said the man. “We will tell you everything when we are ready. Allons.”
He led the way and Lanny followed. The rope which bound his wrists had been left long and served to keep him from trying to run away or to throw himself over a precipice. A stout fellow came behind, holding it, and the two others followed with the guns. The leader had a staff in one hand and a flashlight in the other; Lanny could see fairly well by the light, but the man behind him couldn’t see so well, and every time he stumbled or delayed there was a painful jerk at the prisoner’s wrists. They followed a well-trodden path, climbing through a high pass, and when they got to the top of the grade there was a freezing wind blowing. They came down along the side of a deep gorge with the sound of rushing water below. Then began another climb, and it was fortunate that Lanny had been playing some tennis and was not too soft. The penalty of lagging was what might be politely described as a push with the fist of the man behind him.
Over a saddle of mountain, by a path that hardly existed at all. There were traces of light below, and after they had descended and forced their way through a heavy thicket they came upon a tiny glade in a pine forest. There was a small campfire glowing, and two men sitting by it. The leader had already exchanged calls with them, and now the party of five came into the light. There was a log on each side of the fire, and the leader commanded his captive: “Asseyez-vous.”
Lanny’s hands had been chilled in the high passes, and now they felt strangely numb. He said: “I am afraid my hands may be frozen.” The other commanded that he be untied, and the
burly fellow who had charge of the job obeyed without a word. He tied the rope around one of Lanny’s ankles, and sat holding onto it, taking no chances. By the shape and color of this man’s hands Lanny took him to be a peasant. Sitting on the log and gently chafing his hands and wrists, the prisoner had a good chance to study them all. Two he decided must be dockworkers or shipbuilders, men of muscle with hands calloused and scarred. The rest were more probably intellectuals or white-collar workers; one had a strong Ligurian accent, familiar to a resident of the Cap d’Antibes since childhood.
The leader was a soft-voiced but firm-willed man of thirty or so, and there was something haunting about his voice. Lanny couldn’t get away from the idea that he had heard it before, but it must have been a long time ago, he decided. Lanny had been sociable, and must have met thousands of persons here in the Midi. Thinking fast, the most likely place that came to his mind was the workers’ school that Raoul Palma had started, and that Lanny had helped to finance for something like a decade and a half. In the course of that time hundreds of young proletarians and some white-collar workers had sat in classes in a rickety old warehouse repaired and kept clean. They had argued and fought over doctrines and party lines, and had quarrels and splits that had driven the school director and his devoted young wife almost to distraction. Until recent years Lanny had mingled with them freely, called them all “Comrade” and tried to moderate their vehemence. A curious development, if now some zealot among them had decided to punish him for treason to the cause!
Lanny had been dealing with the underground, first in Germany, then in Spain and France; but always it had been at second hand, so to speak, through some one friend whom he trusted. This was the first time he had ever sat in at a secret session. It was more like a scene in a play or a movie than anything in anybody’s real life. All six of the men wore black masks, with two holes for the eyes and a slit for the mouth; they did not remove these, and Lanny got some comfort out of the fact, taking it to mean that they hadn’t definitely made up their minds to dispose of him. At least he was to have a chance to defend himself. He had been thinking as hard as he knew how, and the time had come when he had to match his one set of wits against their half-dozen associated sets.