“I am not permitted to answer questions, Mr. Budd; but if you read the newspapers, you may get your answer tomorrow morning.”
XVI
At the conclusion of this interview the skeptical Mr. Fordyce informed the American that unfortunately it would be necessary for him to be held under what was technically known as “house arrest.” They would have to ask him to remain in this hotel room until the authorities had had time to consider Mr. Fordyce’s report and decide about the case. The telephone would be removed, and Mr. Alderman or some other representative of Intelligence would remain on duty outside the door. Lanny smiled amiably and said: “What if there is an air-raid alarm?” The unsmiling answer was that Mr. Alderman would accompany him to the shelter. No visitors would be permitted and no mail coming or going; but he would be permitted to order meals to his room, and to have newspapers.
Lanny wasn’t worried about the outcome, for he guessed what it was going to be. Three or four hours later the well-mannered agent returned, and informed him with sincere regrets that it was the decision of the authorities that they could no longer permit him to remain in Britain, or to return there until the war was over, and perhaps later. Politeness required Lanny to show distress, but inwardly he was amused. “How am I to see my little daughter?” he inquired, and all Mr. Fordyce could suggest was that he might take his little daughter to the States, or meet her in some other country if he wished; under no circumstances might he return to the British Isles.
“And how am I to travel?” inquired the undesirable personality.
“That is a matter for your own choice. How do you prefer?”
“I greatly prefer to fly.”
“Very well, it will be arranged.”
“The sooner the better, for me.”
“Quite so, Mr. Budd. What route do you choose?”
“Say by Ireland and Bermuda?”
“Unfortunately, we have no control over Eire. How would Iceland and Newfoundland do?”
“Fine,” said Lanny. “I had a yachting trip by that route twelve years ago.” Lanny was tickled to death, for he was all ready to go and this gave him A-1 priority. Some military man or diplomat would be kicked off, and he would take the seat! And all without having to move a finger!
“You understand,” said the Intelligence man, “the trip will be at your expense.”
“Oh, surely. How shall I get the money from the bank and where shall I pay it?”
“You will be escorted. The plane will undoubtedly leave in the morning. I will notify you as soon as I have made arrangements.”
“Thank you very much,” said the P.A. “Let me add that I appreciate the courtesy you have shown in this unfortunate matter.”
“Not at all, Mr. Budd.”
The agent rose to leave, and Lanny couldn’t resist a small bit of devilment. “Permit me to make a proposal, Mr. Fordyce. A wager.”
“A wager, Mr. Budd?”
“Just a small one. If I am not in England within three months from today, I will remit you a fiver, and you can take your lady to dinner and a show. On the other hand, if I am back again you will blow me to a dinner.”
The other looked at him sharply. Then, after a pause: “I suppose you are meaning to tell me that we are making a mistake in this matter.”
Lanny grinned. “That is something about which I have to leave you to speculate. But how about my wager?”
“I’m afraid it wouldn’t be quite what you Americans call ‘protocol,’ Mr. Budd; but if you do come. I hope you will not fail to let me know.”
Who ever said that the English have no sense of humor?
BOOK FIVE
A Tide in the Affairs of Men
16
’Gainst Female Charms
I
On the day that Lanny left England, the newspapers featured the startling tidings that Rudolf Hess had dropped down upon the soil of Scotland, but not one word about what he had come for, or what was being done with him. So all the imaginations in the world were turned loose. Was he fleeing from the wrath that he saw was to come? Had he quarreled with his Führer, and was he now revealing his Führer’s secrets? Did this mean a break in Nazi morale, and was it the beginning of the end? Or had the Führer sent him? Had the accident of a sprained ankle been the means of unveiling efforts of the old-time appeasers of Britain to make terms with Germany? There were nearly as many guesses as guessers.
And when Lanny’s plane had flown him through the springtime togs of the far north and landed him safely on Long Island, he bought more newspapers and discovered that it was the same in this half of the world. The British authorities had had no more to say; the Nazis had announced officially that the Deputy Führer had for a long time been suffering from a nervous disorder and that his unauthorized flight meant that he was definitely irresponsible. Could that be true or was it just Hitler’s alibi? And what would be the effect of it upon the German people? Certainly it must leave them bewildered and anxious; it must be a great blow to their cause. A madman can talk, and may reveal secrets. What was the Führer’s most trusted friend saying to his captors?
Lanny’s duty, as always, was to phone Washington for an appointment; while waiting for it to be arranged he was free to call his father and report that he was safe. Robbie took only enough time to say how glad he was to hear Lanny’s voice, then asked: “What on earth does this news from Scotland mean?”
“It means that the Nazis were trying to make a deal, and they got fooled.”
“Did Mr. Big know about it?”
“It is possible that he did; I can’t say. I’ll tell you when I see you.” That was all, over the telephone. When the father heard that Lanny was going to Washington, he said: “Don’t fail to stop off and set Reverdy on your way back. We have gone into big business together. He will tell you about it.” Lanny smiled, knowing what “big business” he, Lanny, was supposed to do in Green Spring Valley!
His appointment with the President was for the usual hour that night, and he had barely time to call a taxi and get to the airport. Some large magnificent businessman had been thrown off, and stood there by the plane, fuming and fussing, for he thought that his business was important too, and who the devil had taken his place, and was this a free country or wasn’t it?
That was the way with travel between New York and Washington in these days of undeclared war; the twelve billion dollars voted by Congress had completed a job which the New Deal had begun, of shifting the capital of America from Wall Street to the offices of Washington bureaucrats, and traffic between the two cities had outgrown all the existing facilities. First Lanny couldn’t get a taxi, and then he couldn’t get a room in the Mayflower Hotel, where he usually stopped. After he got a room in a smaller place, he had barely time to bathe and shave, and to get a bite to eat before it was time to go strolling on the street and be picked up by those two men in a car. When he remarked to Baker: “These must be strenuous times in Washington” the heartfelt answer was: “You said it!”
II
So Lanny entered once more that bedroom which had come to be the most interesting spot in the world to him. If it had not been for pictures he saw in the papers, he might have believed that Franklin Roosevelt spent all his time reclining in an old-fashioned mahogany bed with a blue spread, a reading table beside it with a lamp and a stack of documents, a smaller stack on the bed, and often one on the occupant’s lap. Lanny might have believed that the “Governor” never wore anything but a blue-and-white-striped pongee pajama suit, and either a crew-necked sweater or a blue cape. Always he leaned over and held out a firm right hand, and always there was a grin on his features and some joshing remark. He loved his friends and enjoyed seeing them, and he never put on any “side,” or looked solemn unless it was a truly solemn occasion.
This time there was a joke about Lanny’s covering so much of the earth. “The only man in the world who travels more than my wife!” Then the Chief said: “Shoot the works!” and Lanny opened up like one of those
“Chicago pianos.”
First, about Hess. Lanny had reported to F.D. that the flight was to take place; in fact he had been the only one—not even Churchill had known it, and so it was a great feather in a P.A.’s cap. The story he told now fitted perfectly with what F.D. already knew, and the great man said: “You get one hundred per cent score on that job.” When Lanny told how he had been bounced from Britain, the President threw back his head and gave one of those hearty laughs which had helped to keep him alive through eight years of political and military conflict. “Golly!” he exclaimed. “I’ll have to tell Winston about it!” Then he added, seriously: “I’ll fix it so that you can go back and have your dinner with Mr. Fordyce.”
Lanny said: “I hope you can, for England is a sort of base of operations for me. Also, I pass on a lot of news to my friend Rick, and he gets it into the papers in various quiet ways.”
“I talked with Winston just a while ago; he’s an owl, you know, and stays up till all hours. You provided me with a ten-strike on the old boy. I told him two or three weeks ago that Hess was going to fly to England, and he replied that it was a crazy report, and he didn’t even bother to check on it with his secret services. So the news knocked the wind clean out of him.”
Said Lanny: “I take it I’m correct in my idea that his B4 had planned the whole thing from the beginning?”
“Absolutely! They had been writing letters to Hess in the name of Ivone Kirkpatrick, the Duke of Hamilton, the Duke of Bedford, and Lord Beaverbrook, and other important Englishmen. And did Winston give his Intelligence a dressing down when he discovered what they had been up to!”
“Not on behalf of Hess, I hope.”
“No, but of the Englishmen. It wasn’t considered to be cricket to use their names.”
Lanny knew that his Chief liked to talk, so he ventured: “Tell me what has happened since. Has Rudi talked?”
“He’s been interviewed by several of the men who were supposed to be writing to him. They have all been told to play the game, so Hess thinks he is in the midst of important diplomatic negotiations. That is why the matter is being kept so closely under wraps. Don’t you say anything about it.”
“Surely not,” Lanny replied. “It would be bad policy for me even to know about the case—or any case that gets a lot of publicity. Some reporter might get the idea to trace me down!”
III
The most urgent subject at the moment was that of Russia. Lanny reported that it was taken for granted by all the Nazis he had talked to that the attack would begin in about six weeks. F.D. said that his own information confirmed this, the German armies were being mobilized all along the border between the two countries. “I got your message,” he said, “and I had it passed on to Oumansky. He pretended not to believe it, and he still keeps up that bluff; but my guess is he has a bad case of the jitters when he gets alone by himself in the Embassy. Tell me what you think about how that attack will go.”
“Hitler is absolutely certain that he can roll over the Red Army in a month, or two at the outside. I am told that the Oberkommando is divided. Some talk about the enormous size of Russia, and the mud, and then the snow and bitter cold. They remember Napoleon, and have nightmares. Hitler, of course, is the gambler, the plunger—and he is the one who has the last word.”
“What do you think yourself?”
“Your guess is better than mine, Governor. The Red Army men hate the Nazis and will fight like the very devil. But I am worried about their transportation, and about their staff work. So few of their commanders have had experience; and you know, they didn’t show up very well in Finland.”
“They killed off so many of their best commanders, I am told.”
“It’s hard to know what to believe about that. If you accept what the Communists tell you, the men who were shot were German sympathizers, and wouldn’t have been of much use to Stalin in the coming crisis.”
“The Soviets will hold out, whatever happens?”
“Hitler has made that certain by his denunciation of Bolshevism; it’s a life and death matter with every Red leader. They will fight a defensive war, and fall back—all the way to the Urals, if necessary. They will surely not give up.”
“That is what Oumansky assures us. Do you know him?”
“I can’t afford to associate with the Reds any more. I’m a Nazi-Fascist, and believe me, Governor, I couldn’t stick it out if it wasn’t for these visits to you.”
“Well, come whenever you feel like it; the latchstring is out. And by the way, Lanny, didn’t you tell me that Jesse Blackless is your uncle?”
“Yes, my mother’s elder brother.”
“Did you know that he’s in this country?”
“I haven’t heard from him since he skipped out of France.”
“He’s been in Russia. The State Department didn’t want to let him come here, since it appears that he had taken French citizenship in order to get elected to the Chamber of Deputies.”
“I knew that.”
“The case was appealed to me, and I said: ‘Let him come.’ I decided largely on your report that Hitler means to attack them. That will make them a sort of left-handed allies, and we shall have to get our public used to them.”
“Every Communist in the world will be for the war, Governor. I can speak for Uncle Jesse on that, I am sure.”
“He was in New York the last I heard, and I had somebody talk with him. It might be a good idea for you to have a meeting on the Q.T. He would probably tell you more than he would tell a stranger.”
“He always has,” replied the nephew. “He’s a rare old boy, and I got my start in social thinking from him. He’s something of a saint—though he wouldn’t take that for a compliment.”
“We shouldn’t like the saints in the least if we met them at a Washington cocktail party,” remarked F.D. with one of his grins.
IV
The busy man wanted to know about his agent’s program. The answer was: “Unless you have something urgent in mind, I’ll wait until Hitler makes his next move. That will make a lot of difference in the world situation.” When F.D. said: “All right,” Lanny replied: “I’ll have a talk with my Red uncle and if he has anything of interest, I’ll send you a report in care of Baker. Also, I’ll see Forrest Quadratt and tell him a little about Hess. That will impress him greatly and he’ll tell me what he is up to. Do you want me to do anything about those rascals who are plotting to put you on the shelf?”
“No,” was the reply, “I think I have them under observation. Europe is still your field.”
“I promised the Lord of San Simeon that I would keep him informed as to how that little matter was progressing. I might run out there again and see what his mood is.”
“California is a pleasant place to visit,” replied the other, smiling. “But I think that old alligator has passed the age where he talks frankly to anybody on earth.”
“He knows his own heart too well to believe that anybody on earth can be trusted.”
Lanny had his orders, and it was time for him to depart, but the Boss wouldn’t have it that way. “You only come about once in six months,” he said. “Stay and entertain me for a while.”
“I see that stack of documents—” began the visitor, apologetically.
“I can’t tell you how I hate them!” exclaimed F.D., and gave them a little push. “Bureaucrats squabbling over power and precedence! You have to try to administer something on a large scale before you really know human nature: how almost impossible it is to find a man who will do his job and not get into a row with other people who are trying to do theirs.”
“You are doing new things, Governor, and you have jostled people out of their old ruts. It takes time to get them settled in new ones.”
“That’s it. But meantime all they can think of is to come running to me to settle their disputes. They send me long arguments to show why they have to have control of a certain department, and then somebody gets wind of it and rushes to explain why he h
as to have it.”
“Everybody marvels about the way you manage to keep cheerful, Governor!”
“That’s the audience that sits out in the soft, plush-covered seats and enjoys the show. But when you get back into the dressing-room of the star you hear a different story.”
“The show must go on, Governor! And for you there is no ‘stand-in’—as they call it in Hollywood. Surely not now, in the midst of this crisis.”
“My enemies accuse me of loving power, of wanting to be a dictator, to perpetuate myself, and all that stuff. Do you know what I would really like to do?”
“I suppose it would be to retire to Hyde Park and grow Christmas trees.”
“That as a sideline; the real thing would be to write history. I said that to Winston the other night, and he has the same dream. Also, he likes to build brick walls!”
“And Hitler! Do you know what Hitler is longing to do?”
“What?”
“To design beautiful buildings. The only trouble is, they are all big buildings—so big that there wouldn’t be room enough for them all in Germany.”
“I suppose that is what he means by Lebensraum,” countered the President.
V
Next morning Lanny telephoned, as was his duty, to Baltimore, and was assured that the doors of the Holdenhurst home were open to welcome him. He took the train, and was met by the talkative chauffeur, who told him on the way the news of the family and the neighborhood. Most improper, but then Lanny invited it by sitting alongside the man, and by being genial in manner, whereas he should have “frozen” the fellow at the first sign of presumption. But there were big factories in Baltimore, including an airplane plant, all busy with war work and clamoring for more labor; so even the richest and most important people tried to keep friends with their “help.” That twelve billion dollars was making a great difference in American society. And there were more billions to come!