“Ausgeschlossen! I am a man of my word, and what you have done here is to voice my own thoughts with competence and understanding.”
“Besten Dank, Exzellenz! I have never had a pleasanter compliment in all my life!”
XIV
The master of Europe was so pleased with a gracious friend and unpaid messenger that he invited him to remain for lunch, and took him for a tour of this building which had been designed by the greatest architect in the world and was intended to be the dwelling place of his successors for a thousand years. The visitor was escorted to the enormous drawing-room, built upon two levels so that part could serve as a stage. As an art expert he was impressed by the ancient tapestries which covered one entire wall. He was interested also in the story of the deep and heavy carpet which covered the floor of this apartment; it had been ordered by the League of Nations, but the funds of that treacherous organization had dried up and it couldn’t pay for the treasure, so the Führer had taken it over!
The guest was shown the “green salon,” and other great rooms of which he was not told the names. He inspected immense fireplaces, and the portraits of Prussian generals, also of Teutonic heroes who might have been brought from Bayreuth. He saw a winter garden with red lacquered furniture and tall rubber trees and other tropical plants, some of them in bloom. He was taken through the billiard room, and the lounge which was for the use of the Leibstandarte, those tall, green-uniformed young Nordics who swarmed over the place, and whose joy in life it was to throw up their right arms stiffly and shout: “Heil Hitler!” The Führer never once failed to respond, and never once did it occur to him that an American might find anything comical in this noisy sort of home life. Even in the kitchen—a magnificent apartment straight out of a Hollywood movie—the group of cooks and scullery maids in snow-white costumes flung up their arms and vociferated their greetings.
The dining-room made Lanny think of the council chamber in the Braune Haus of Munich—it had the same sort of red leather chairs with brass nails, a red carpet and cream-colored walls. Over the huge buffer was an appetizing subject, The Feast of Bacchus by Moritz von Schwindt. There were niches containing golden-bronze statues of Adam and Eve, with special lighting effects. The table seated twenty or more; the American guest was placed in the seat of honor, and at his right sat that young doctor who had gossiped with him about events at Berchtesgaden in the days of Schuschnigg and the Anschluss. All the Führer’s staff were young, and all the female members had to be Nordic divinities. At the foot of the table sat Herr Kannenberg the roly-poly Bavarian who ran the great man’s household wherever he was. Good humor oozed from the ex-Kellner like sweat.
Nearly everybody at this luncheon knew the son of Budd-Erling, and excepted him from the hatred they bore for Americans. He was honored with a steaming hot plate of the inescapable noodle soup, a vegetable plate and poached egg like the Führer’s, and a stein of the Führer’s specially brewed near-beer. The great man was fond of sweets, and had a pot of honey which he passed to his guest but to no one else. He beamed his favor, displaying his abnormally small teeth liberally studded with gold fillings. His prominent blue eyes gleamed as he chatted about the cast of The Merry Widow which he had attended the previous night; then about the half-dozen Spitzwegs which he had installed in his Munich residence. Lanny wondered why a slightly satirical painter of the Bavarian middle classes should have appealed to the master of Europe; he guessed it must be part of the master’s efforts to look down upon his recent past.
Lanny wondered if Herr Kannenberg would play the accordion after this vegetarian repast. It might have been intended; but as they rose from the table Hitler espied a minor Beamter whom he had summoned and who was waiting in an anteroom. The Führer strode toward him and burst into one of those tirades of which Lanny had several times been a reluctant witness. The wretch turned a yellowish green and his knees almost gave way beneath him as a torrent of the foulest words in the Austrian dialect poured over him—also a fine spray of saliva. The Führer’s face became distorted and his nostrils flared to an extraordinary width. Strangest of all was the way the storm passed; Hitler would turn sharply on his heel, and behave like an actor who has finished a scene in rehearsal; his features became composed in an instant, and he did not consider it necessary to apologize, or to make any comment upon the startling episode.
To Lanny he held out his hand, saying: “Lebewohl, Herr Budd. I hope to hear good news from you.” The American went out from the presence, wondering with a mixture of awe and disgust if that was how Europe was destined to be governed for the next thousand years. It seemed so at this hour.
14
The Best-Laid Schemes
I
When Lanny got back to his hotel he found a note from Hess, inviting him to spend the night at the latter’s home in the Suburbs. The guest was called for in a bullet-proof car with swastikas on the doors, and on the military chauffeur. Lanny had visited the house before, and had met Frau Hess, tall, severe-looking, deep voiced; she found no incompatibility between National-Socialist Mystik and that of the Vedanta. Lanny had won her regard by telling her about the ideas of Parsifal Dingle and his communicating with the monks of Dodanduwa, both living and dead. Now he brought his report up-to-date, and at the same time speculated about this seeming-odd marriage. Could it be true, as the gossip-princess Hilde declared, that the Führer had commanded this match as a means of putting an end to the rumors concerning improper relationship between himself and his devoted man secretary, co-author of Mein Kampf?
“Out there we shall be safe from the bombs,” Rudi had said in his note. But there were no bombs on Berlin that night, and had not been for three or four nights. The R.A.F. was tapering off, and Deutschlandsender, the propaganda radio of the Nazis, exulted that the foe had found the price too high. Hess, more realistic, said that the nights were getting shorter, and the British planes could no longer come and go in complete darkness. He questioned Lanny about what the American army was managing to achieve in the technique of daylight bombing which they were practicing. Had the visitor heard of the Norden bomb sight? Lanny said that it was the most closely guarded of all secrets, and not even his father knew the principle on which it worked.
Lanny had taken it for granted that the Number Three’s purpose in inviting him here was to find out what the Führer had said; but he discovered that in this he had misjudged the former secretary and most loyal of friends. What Rudi learned, he would learn from his Chief, and would never put himself in the position of trying to go behind his Chief’s back. He did not mention the bright idea of having the President of the United States assassinated. His thoughts were centered upon the coming struggle with the Reds, and the urgent necessity of getting out of the war with Britain before that attack started.
Had the Führer told him that Lanny was permitted to know about the coming move? Anyhow, the Deputy no longer made any pretense that it was a secret. April had arrived, and the Wehrmacht was driving gloriously into the mountainous land of Greece, routing not merely those troops which had soundly beaten the Italians but a couple of divisions of British troops who had been sent from North Africa to their aid. “Not many of those chaps are going to get away alive,” declared Hess; “and as soon as we finish that clean-up, we shall begin moving our troops to the Ukraine. The Russians will know it then if they don’t know it already.”
“Everybody that I talk to seems to know it,” was the P.A.’s reply. “Doubtless the Reds are doing everything they can to get ready, but it won’t be enough.”
“They are a worse mess than the Italians,” was the Reichsminister’s opinion. “On that score I have no worry whatever. But I am deeply concerned about the continuing struggle with Britain, and it seems to me we should at any cost get it over before we embark on a new venture. It has been a basic principle of our strategy, never to let ourselves be involved in a two-front war.”
“The consequences were convincing last time,” replied Lanny.
“I am p
leading with the Führer that we must not commit that blunder again. He agrees to the extent of authorizing me to do anything, absolutely anything, that will avoid the calamity.”
“You have done a good job of converting him. He has asked me to talk to the top people and report if I make any headway.”
“I beg you, Lanny, do not fail us. The thing has become an obsession with me; I cannot sleep for worrying about it. I get no pleasure whatever in the triumphs our airmen win over Britain. I feel as if it were my own property which is being destroyed.”
“You have described my own attitude, Rudi. I go back and forth between the two countries, and they seem to me so nearly the same. They are the two peoples whom I trust. Why must they waste their energies in destroying each other?”
The Deputy Führer leaned toward his guest, his gray-green eyes seeming to shine and his bushy black eyebrows to bristle with excitement. “Lanny, we must, we must find a way to persuade them to be friends, and at least to get off our backs, even if they will not help us. We must not lose a day.”
“I am willing to leave tomorrow,” was the P.A.’s reply. “The Führer has armed me with powerful weapons, and I am eager to try them out.”
II
That was all on the subject for a time. Lanny told about some psychic wonders, made up as he went along. This had the effect of putting Rudi into a warm mood, and after they had a snack before bedtime, he suddenly opened up: “Lanny, I am going to take you into my confidence about a really important matter. I had a communication this morning from one of my agents in London. You understand, we have some there.”
Lanny smiled. “I have probably met some of them, but they were well camouflaged.”
“I am informed that a leading English industrialist, one of their top men, has consented to meet me in Madrid and talk matters over. Unfortunately I am under pledge not to give his name.”
“That’s all right; I’ll probably be told all about him within an hour after I reach London.”
“That won’t do any harm, so long as it is they who reveal it. It is an important sign, and I want to make the most of it. Tell me, how do you plan to travel?”
“I came by way of Switzerland, and I’ll return there and make inquiries as to getting to Lisbon. From there it will be easy, as my father has a firm of solicitors in London who seem able to pull wires.”
“All that will take some time, and it occurred to me that you might like to fly with me to Madrid, and be there to advise me about this man, and perhaps to meet him.”
“That is very kind indeed, Rudi, and ordinarily I should be delighted. But it occurs to me—Spain is a land of intrigue, and everybody there is watched. If I arrived with the Führer’s Deputy, it would be all over town in an hour.”
“I am planning a secret trip. I expect to be smuggled out of the airport and into a palace. If there is any rumor that I am in Madrid, it will be officially denied.”
“I doubt if you can manage it; and anyhow, I couldn’t. There are a couple of newspapermen at the Adlon whom I used to know, and I have had to dodge them. I’ve an idea they have their eye on me and may be trying to find out what I’m here for. If they get the tip that I have flown to Madrid in a Luftwaffe plane—with or without the Führer’s Deputy—they would cable it. As you know, my usefulness depends upon my being taken for an art expert and not as anybody’s agent.”
“What can you suggest?”
“Say that I pay my bill at the Adlon and drive off in a taxi. Then I get out and walk, and pick up another taxi to one of the lesser airfields. You have commercial planes flying to Paris, and I step aboard one of them. Paris is a disorderly place—not even your army can chance that. I am a frequent visitor there, and nobody is going to be surprised to see me. If I say I’m on my way to London, it will be natural for me to take a commercial plane to Madrid. When do you expect your Englishman?”
“Not until next week.”
“Very well, then, that does it. Tell me how I can get in touch with you in Madrid, and how I can write if anything turns up.”
“Ask for Herr knapp at our Embassy. The Führer has told me you are to be Siegfried and he is Woman. Perhaps you had better give me a code name, so that if I communicate with you, you can be sure it is genuine.”
The Nummer Drei Nazi said this without the trace of a smile; but the wicked Lanny Budd had a thought which it was hard for him to conceal. The enemies of Rudolf Hess had given him a malicious nickname, Das Fräulein; now Lanny thought with malice: You shall be Freya! But this was no time for joking, even in one’s thoughts. The secret agent suggested: “Since we have gone Wagnerian, you may be Kurvenal. You remember, in Tristan—der Treueste der Treuen.” The truest of the true!
“Thank you for the compliment, Lanny. And one thing more—I know that you will be put to expense in this matter, and it’s only decent that you should be reimbursed.”
“No, no, Rudi, I don’t want any money. I have no trouble in earning what I need—it’s fun for me. If I take money from any government, I am committing myself, and sooner or later I’m bound to get brand-marked.”
“Never by me! I can put American money into your hands, and nobody but you and I will ever know it has happened.”
“I take your word for it, but truly, I don’t want it. Think of me as a disinterested friend of your country and mine. Some day, perhaps, Göring will make me the curator of that super-museum he plans to establish. Meantime, here is a favor you may do me. I am buying a couple of small paintings which I can conveniently carry out, and the commission on the deals will pay all my expenses. I don’t know whether I need a permit to take them out, but if so you can have your office obtain it for me, along with the exit permit. And get me a permit, if any is required, to have my New York bank cable me ten thousand dollars.”
“All that will be simple,” declared the man of power, making a memo in a little book. “And pray understand: if you find any way by which you can use money to advance the cause we have in mind, don’t hesitate to spend it and let me reimburse you. I have a secret fund, and there is nothing I’d rather use it for. As you Americans say, the sky is the limit!”
III
The American guest was landed at Le Bourget airfield, but did not let himself be driven into Paris in a German staff car; he just took his two suitcases, one in each hand, his portable typewriter under one arm and a roll of paintings under the other—a most uncomfortable load—and started to walk. He seated himself by the roadside, and presently along came a peasant cart, in which, for the sum of fifty francs, he got the privilege of riding into “la ville sans lumière.” It took most of the day, but he didn’t mind, for he had a chance to get acquainted with a French market gardener, and to ask many questions as to what the German occupation meant to the peasants. “Pas si mal,” was the old fellow’s verdict; at least so far as concerned himself, who was over the draft age. For his two sons it was another matter, for they were prisoners in Germany, and les boches kept promising to release them but never did; the French were kept dangling on a string, just to shake more and more cut of their pockets.
This weatherbeaten old laborer possessed a shrewd understanding of the economic situation. The peasants had the land, and the people in the cities, Germans as well as French, had to have their products. Therefore prices were high, and if you were a shrewd bargainer you could bid them still higher. It was a situation as old as Europe; in wartime the people of the cities suffered, and the country people lived on—unless, of course, they had the hard luck to live on or near a battlefield. Civilization had survived by grace of the fact that battlefields were relatively small, and the marching hordes kept mainly to the highways.
The traveler put up at one of the smaller hotels, the larger ones being occupied by the Germans; their uniforms were a common sight, and the French had learned to get along with them, though many women ostentatiously turned their backs when the hated foe passed. By the ingenious device of paper francs the Germans had pretty well cleaned out France, bo
th Occupied and Unoccupied, and food was now strictly rationed. The Parisians were allowed less than a pound of meat per week, and bread, their principal food, was of poor quality; the ration was being reduced almost every month. Ersatz foods, a German device, were coming in. Acorns, nettles, and other garden weeds were being chemically treated to make them edible, and you had “mink butter,” made of tallow and chemicals. “Coffee” was roasted oats and barley; so no wonder the people of Paris were dropping their practice of two hours for lunch. “Back to work!” was the Nazi slogan.
IV
Lanny’s first call was upon his old friend, Baron Eugène Schneider of Schneider-Creusot. He found this one-time munitions king of Europe broken in health and in spirit, and Lanny’s first thought was that he was not long for this world. How futile had been all his efforts and how vain his hopes of “collaboration” to save the two hundred families of France! The sons of these families were many of them prisoners in Germany, or had fled to Vichy or North Africa. The older people for the most part had stayed, and were pathetically trying to keep up social life in spite of constantly increasing handicaps. Foreigners they saw hardly ever, so Lanny rated a dinner party of the old solemn stately sort—a very good dinner, revealing the fact that there was a black market in Paris, maintained by passing bribes to the Nazis, something by no means difficult.
Here came the masters of the Comité des Forges, of steel and, coal and electrical power, the physical resources of France; masters also of that imaginary force which men had created and which they called money, without which nothing else could operate. They all knew Lanny Budd; they had questioned him concerning the German Führer and his purposes, and time and events had shown that what he told them was correct. Now they had a hundred questions, and Lanny repeated what the Nazis One, Two, and Three had authorized him to say. The masters of France found it agreeable, for there was nothing in this world they wanted so much as the overthrow of the Red menace in the east. If there was a single one among them who had any doubt as to the ultimate victory of the Wehrmacht in this war, he did not raise his voice in Schneider’s palace. They considered that Britain was committing suicide at Churchill’s blind behest, and they talked about Roosevelt precisely as the gentlemen of the Newcastle Country Club had done in the days before the fall of Paris had scared them.