XI
Lanny had approached the porter of the Hotel Adlon, a polyglot and international-minded personage who was accustomed to receiving unusual requests. Lanny handed him a five-mark note and asked him to find somewhere in Berlin a copy of the Bluebook magazine for February. When he came back from the ministerial residence he found it lying on the escritoire in his suite, and he sat down at once to find out what sort of fiction writer Laurel Creston might be. Previously he had seen himself as a hero in plays by Eric Vivian Pomeroy-Nielson, and he had once been caricatured in a skit by a journalist who had been annoyed by the flighty conversation of a young “parlor Pink.” Now the situation had been oddly turned around; Lanny was a near-Fascist, and was called a troglodyte and had his hide taken off by a “Pink” writer. It was an unpromising subject, for editors and publishers in New York as a rule shared the prevailing opinion that the Fascists represented a bulwark against Bolshevism, and it was rarely that any other point of view was suggested in one of the big-circulation magazines.
Laurel Creston had solved the problem by inventing a little comedy-melodrama. Some fashionable Americans had rented a villa on the island of Capri; at least the author had said it was Capri, though it was Sophie’s home in all details, including the hardware lady from Cincinnati whose henna hair was now being allowed to come out gray. Sophie had a loud laugh and a sharp tongue, and to her had been assigned the role which Miss Creston herself had played in Sophie’s home, that of arguing with a fashionable young fop who called himself an esthete, an ivory-tower dweller; but the fictional Sophie called him a troglodyte, a cave-dweller, because he had no social vision and no concern about the squalor and corruption so obvious all about him.
An amused auditor of the dispute was a local Fascist official who might well have been Vittorio di San Girolamo, Marceline’s ex-husband; it was quite possible that Miss Creston had met him, or at any rate had heard the story of how he had stolen three Detaze paintings from the storeroom on the Bienvenu estate. Anyhow, the discussion in the story was interrupted by screams from upstairs—a maid had found a man looting the mistress’s jewel box. The burglar got away, the Fascist official rushed out to look for him—and the climax of the tale came when the official met the burglar in a near-by woods and divided the jewels with him. It was a smart plan they had worked out, a method of punishing an American woman who had presumed to speak blasphemously concerning Il Duce and his new Impero Romano. Being guilty of such an offense, she could hardly expect Fascist officials to work hard to recover her property.
What got this story by with the editors, Lanny guessed, was the vigor of the characterizations and the sharp wit of the dialogue. The climax of the story was carefully prepared. The Fascist official had been so bland and tolerant, you didn’t know quite what to make of it, having got the idea that Il Duce’s followers were inclined to be somewhat arrogant; when you discovered what the official had been up to all the time it came like the snap of a whip, the sort of effect that O. Henry labored to achieve.
Lanny thought, what a lot of activity was going on inside that small feminine head! Here was a writer who knew what she wanted, gathered it diligently, and wove it into a pattern that moved you to ironic laughter. The picture she had drawn of himself of course didn’t worry him; it wasn’t Lanny, but the mask he was wearing, and he didn’t expect any person with social insight to admire it. Quite the contrary, he liked those persons who disliked it—a phenomenon which troubled his mother, who had been so vexed with Miss Creston. “It would be just like you to look her up and fall in love with her!” Beauty had exclaimed. Lanny didn’t intend to go to such extremes, but he thought she would be an agreeable person to know, and he tried to imagine on what terms they might be friends. It would have to be more or less clandestine, for she wouldn’t like his rich and important acquaintances, and he couldn’t explain to them his interest in a writer who so obviously belonged in the enemy camp.
Could he make a confidante of her, even partially? Lanny had considered that problem in connection with other persons he had met. Without exception, those who shared his secret were old and tried friends; he had been bringing them information for years, and they had got used to the idea that he lived a double life. They understood that they must not talk about him, and that if they were questioned, they must shake their heads sadly and declare that he had lost interest in the “cause.” But could he expect any new friend to appreciate the importance of this, and to guard such a secret? And especially a writer, who lived by turning her limited personal experiences into copy? In his hands was a story called “The Troglodyte”; and suppose he should some day come upon a story called “The Secret Agent,” or perhaps “The Spy,” or “The Underground”?
XII
The weather was pleasant, and he didn’t drive to the pension in his car and thus attract a lot of attention. It wasn’t far to the Kaiser-Friedrich Museum, and Miss Creston appeared to be an active person. He gave his name to the maid, and the boarder came downstairs, wearing the same brown plaid coat with a mink collar and tiny hat to match. During the walk he told her that he had read her story, and discussed its literary qualities in a way that pleased her; he didn’t say anything about the personal side of it, and presumably she would consider this very gracious. He appreciated her work, and that is what writers live on. Without it, life is empty; with it, all things become possible. Her cheeks were glowing, and perhaps it was the winter’s cold, plus the exercise; or again, perhaps it was the presence of a personable man—even though he dwelt in a cave!
Presently he was telling her about this great nouveau riche city, and the significance of these monuments to Kaisers, generals, and glory. Most of the ornate granite buildings had arisen in the past three-quarters of a century; it was Prussian taste, and the rest of Germany didn’t like it; the word preussisch had half a dozen meanings in half a dozen sections of the country, all unfavorable. You could walk down the Siegesallée and see the most laughable statuary in the world. This line of conversation might have been taken to have a slightly Pinkish tinge, but Lanny confined it strictly to art.
The Kaiser-Friedrich Museum stands at the head of an island in the middle of the small river Spree. It was built to fit snugly, and looks like a great two-story barge forcing its way up the current. At present the river was frozen over, and skaters were gliding under the bridges; but in summer, Lanny said, you could look out of the museum windows and see the dark water sweeping past, and crude barges loaded with bricks or lumber being poled laboriously by men with dark skins and low foreheads—the descendants of the original Wendish inhabitants of the swamps and forests of Brandenburg. This river had been theirs for centuries and they probably still thought it was theirs, knowing little and caring less about the great civilization which had crowded along the river’s banks and spread out for miles in every direction.
The name of this museum was Hohenzollern, but the soul of it was Dr. Bode, so Lanny explained; a great Kunstsachverständiger, he had lived to be eighty-four, and to be worshiped by art lovers all over Europe. He had made an exemplary collection; and Lanny took his pupil up to the second floor where the paintings were and began those discourses which he had promised. Here were the Defreggers, and he told how he had found a couple of good ones in Vienna, and the Nummer Eins had them at his mountain retreat. They were simple genre paintings of the peasant life which the painter had known and which the statesman loved to contemplate—from a distance. A harmless sort of taste, but the same could not be said for all this personage’s dabbling in art. Lanny lowered his voice and looked about in the Berlin fashion, explaining: “You understand, in this connection it is customary not to name names.”
Also, the Lenbachs. Here was a painter after the German’s own heart. The son of a workingman, he had trained himself by a long lifetime of patient labors. “A combination of boor and courtier,” said Lanny; “he admired the great world, and won his way into it. Wearing a long beard and spectacles, he was interested in men, and painted them as th
ey were in Berlin, proud, cold, methodical, busy, intense, full of thought and cares. He had little interest in their uniforms or broadcloth coats, and didn’t bother much with their hands and feet; their faces were what told the story, and he studied these minutely, willing even to learn from photographs, which most painters regard as an unfair form of competition. You see the stern-set mouths, the wrinkles, the hard eyes, the knitted brows. Bismarck, Graf von Moltke, Prinz Hohenlohe Schilingsfürst, these are the men who were making modern Germany, forcing her to the front, forcing the other states out of her way; men who believed in science, in exact knowledge, in things which they could touch and possess—I am speaking of the master class, of course: the men who took power and held it; not of the dreamers, the sentimental folk who didn’t know what was being done to them or to the world they lived in.”
And the Rembrandts, one of the finest collections of this great master. “He was the first modern painter,” said Lanny; “I mean in the sense that he painted what he wanted to paint instead of what somebody ordered. He paid for it by a life of sorrow and trial. He painted himself often, and so we have a record of what time and suffering will do to a magnificent human countenance.”
Stopping before the portrait of Hendrickje Stoffels: “Here you see the lovely and pathetic young woman who was his servingmaid and became his second wife. That marriage was an offense which his contemporaries would not forgive. We observe the same situation in the life of Beethoven—only it wasn’t the composer but his brother who wished to marry beneath his social station, and it was Beethoven who was horrified and made a great scandal out of it. This strikes us as strange, for we think of Beethoven as a democrat, and fail to realize how castebound the peoples of Europe were, and still are.”
“I am not failing to observe it,” remarked the woman writer. “But what sort of talk is this for an ivory-tower esthete? I don’t believe you are nearly so much of a troglodyte as you try to make yourself think, Mr. Budd!”
Achtung, Lanny!
6
Fighting the Devil with Fire
I
The reduced Marshal departed for Italy with his entourage, and Robbie was left to negotiate with his subordinates. These gentlemen were as polite as possible, and answered all questions except such as were important. They promised to make inquiries, but they never brought the answers, and it became plain that they weren’t going to purchase any more Budd-Erlings and had no authority to decide anything; they were just “stalling.” Robbie said to his son that two could play at that game; he would go home and adopt the same methods with the technical men whom Der Dicke had in Newcastle.
He proposed to stop in London, and make one more try with the brass hats there. They certainly had good reason to be scared by now, and the fact that Robbie was coming from Berlin ought to add to their uneasiness. Would Lanny come with him? Lanny answered that there was nothing he could do to help, and he had learned of some paintings in Danzig that it might be worth his while to inspect; also, he wanted to meet Hitler, if possible, and find out how he was satisfied with the paintings he had bought, and give him a chance to ask for more. Robbie said: “Take care of yourself, driving in this bad weather.”
Before leaving, the Yankee manufacturer had one more talk with the Luftwaffe experts, and the outcome made him more cross than ever. “They think they are making a fool of me,” he said, and added: “Take me for a drive”—which meant that he had something important to get off his mind. When they were in the Tiergarten, on an unfrequented road, Robbie said: “Stop and have a look in the trunk and under the back seat.” The car was kept in the hotel garage, and Robbie had several times wondered whether the Nazis might have some sort of recording apparatus which could be concealed inside or under it.
Lanny made a search, but found nothing; and when they had started again, the father opened up: “I’ve been wondering if I couldn’t find some way to get hold of one of those new superchargers.”
“Gosh!” exclaimed the son. “When did you dream up that one?”
“You understand, I wouldn’t be thinking of such a thing if I hadn’t given Göring full value, and perhaps twice over.”
“I know that, of course.”
“I want it because I’ve a right to it; and everything I’ve heard leads me to believe the thing works on a new principle and may be very important. I’m sure Göring wouldn’t risk a break with me unless that were so. I’d be willing to gamble—up to as much as a hundred thousand freimarks for one of his new models.”
“That’s a lot of money.” (It was about forty thousand dollars.) “Have you any idea how to set about it?”
“I thought it possible you might know the address of some of those Reds you used to meet here.”
“Nothing doing, Robbie! You know, I dropped all that sort of thing years ago. One of the reasons was because I realized how it worried you.”
“Quite so; and I don’t want to get you back in. But if there’s any way you could find one of those people and give him enough money to come to Newcastle, I could handle the matter and you wouldn’t be involved in any way.”
Lanny wasn’t so greatly surprised by this approach; for he knew that his father had worked all his life on the maxim of fighting the devil with fire. Lanny explained: “All those people look upon me as a renegade. They’re bound to have read in the papers about my hobnobbing with Hitler and Göring, and they might even think that I’ve betrayed them to the Gestapo. A lot of them have been arrested, and some killed, and you can be sure the rest are not advertising their whereabouts.”
“I know all that, and maybe I’ll have to put Bub Smith on the job and let him find a couple of good old-fashioned American gangsters to come in and do the job for me. But if you put your mind on it you might think of somebody here who hates the Nazis and would be glad to earn some money to fight them.”
“A name occurs to me, but I’m not sure if I can find the man, or if he’d take such a risk. You know, from the Nazi point of view, it would be high treason, and they’d cut off his head with an ax.”
“No doubt; and I don’t want to get you mixed up in it. You don’t need to tell the man anything at all; don’t even admit that you know what it’s all about. Just give him his traveling money and a bonus and let him get a tourist’s visa and come to Newcastle.”
“I’ll figure over it,” Lanny promised. “We’d better have a password, so that the man can identify himself.”
All about them were the lawns and beautiful trees of Berlin’s famous park. Robbie said: “Tell him ‘Tiergarten.’”
The son assented, and then added: “If I write you that I haven’t had a chance to visit the Tiergarten, you’ll understand that I haven’t been able to find a man, and if I write that I won’t have time to visit it, you’ll understand that I have had to give up.” Lanny had been used to codes of this sort ever since the days before the World War, when his father had worn a belt which concealed a long list of words he used in communicating with Grandfather Budd of Budd Gunmakers.
II
The name which had leaped into Lanny’s mind was, of course, Bernhardt Monck. But he mustn’t let his father know that he was keeping in contact with the German underground; and anyhow, he hadn’t heard from Monck, and had no assurance that he was going to hear. After delivering Robbie to the Tempelhofer Feld and seeing him safely launched into the air, Lanny drove for a while, racking his brains to think of some method of getting hold of the former Capitán. The Budds’ arrival had been mentioned in the papers, but perhaps Monck hadn’t happened to see those papers; he might be elsewhere in Germany, or out of Germany; he might be ill; he might be in the hands of the Gestapo, or buried in a bed of quicklime, Nazi fashion.
The underground couldn’t work very long without money, and sooner or later, if Monck was still alive, Lanny would get a message from him. The thing to do now was to give Lanny’s presence some further advertising. He bethought himself of a Berliner whose card had been presented to him some six years ago: Doktor ph
il. Aloysius Winckler zu Sturmschatten, Privatdozent an der Universität Berlin. This was a Nazi hanger-on who knew how and where to distribute funds, and at the time of the Detaze show in Berlin he had proved himself a competent press agent. Twice since then he had called at the Adlon for the purpose of offering his services, but Lanny had had to tell him that he wasn’t doing any picture promoting.
Now, assuming that the Herr Privatdozent was still alive and in need of funds, there was a service he might render. He was not in the telephone book; but the Reichsmarschall’s secretary could find anybody in Germany in five minutes, and was glad to do this favor for the Reichsmarschall’s friend. Lanny sent a telegram to the address given, and in a very short time the bespectacled scholar made his appearance at the Adlon. Lanny remembered him as wearing a derby hat, and in midsummer a vest clip on which to hang the hat, thus preserving both his comfort and his respectability. Now, in winter, he needed no clip, but held the hat in his hand in the hotel lobby, and his voice was as oily and at the same time as pompous as ever.
Lanny explained: “Herr Privatdozent, I am not sure that what I have to suggest will appeal to you as important. Let me make it clear at the outset that I am not promoting anything, and am not offering to pay you money; but it occurred to me that, with your excellent journalistic connections, you might be interested to write an interview on the subject of the Führer’s tast’e in art, based on what I have learned about him during the time which has passed since I last had the pleasure of cooperating with you.”