“Certainly, I am glad,” she replied, discreetly. He had given her so many warnings as to guarding her words.
“There is a question of when you are to take your departure. I have been asked to urge you to stay a while longer.”
She looked at him inquiringly before she spoke. His eyes traveled toward the door, which put her more than ever on her guard. “Really, Mr. Budd, I don’t know what to say. I have told you my situation.”
“My friends are extraordinarily pleased with the results. Both of them are important men, and decisions of the greatest weight are hanging in the balance. They have asked me to explain this, and beg you to think it over. Don’t be hurried; take your time.”
She stood motionless, watching him, and saw his eyes moving here and there about the room. She understood that it was not idle curiosity which moved him, nor interest in her possessions—which consisted of a brush and comb on the dressing table, and what might have been a small bottle of rouge; also some newspapers and magazines which she had been reading on the bed. The room was in the new wing, recently completed; it was tastefully decorated, but rather small, with a single bed, a chair, a dressing table and a small writing table. The one window was open, and a gentle breeze blew in, laden with the scents of the forest.
He couldn’t guess what might be the arrangements in this room for spying on the occupant. It was conceivable that all rooms in the building might have microphones installed, so that in case of need every whisper might be listened to or recorded. He placed the chair alongside the bed, with the back to the door, so that what he did would not be visible to anyone who might be looking through the keyhole. He didn’t suppose that Hess would be spying on him, but someone else might be, and certainly it would be bad judgment to open the door and catch anybody in the act. The intimate friend of the Führer wasn’t supposed to have secrets, or to suspect that he was suspected.
He seated himself in the chair and made a sign for her to sit near him. “Make yourself comfortable. This is a matter too important to be decided in a moment.”
She seated herself on the edge of the bed—not forgetting that she was a lady from Baltimore, and that he was, after all, a very charming man. She sat calm and gravely erect, as a woman should if she had no interest in such things as love and romance. He had taken a little writing pad from his pocket, also a pencil, and holding both close to his body, he wrote the figure “1,” followed by the words “greatly impressed.” He had explained to her the significance of “Number One,” or “Die Nummer Eins,” and why it was feminine in German, even though it referred to a man. He turned the writing toward her so that she could read it.
He wrote again; this time the figure “3” followed by the word “also.” Then he added: “Army has orders to move into Poland tomorrow midnight.” He heard her catch her breath. “Decision may depend spirits,” he wrote. “You decide.”
So there it was. She sat staring at him now, as if she couldn’t believe it; he nodded his head affirmatively. She took the pencil and pad and wrote: “What do you advise?” In answer he pointed to the last two words already written.
But she couldn’t decide. There were too many problems, too many dangers, too many unknown quantities in the equation. Her hand trembled as she wrote: “Please advise me.”
The sheet of paper was full; he tore it off and laid it on the bed, where she could consult it if necessary. “Do you want another Munich?” he wrote; and waited while she studied this, her forehead wrinkled. At last she took the pencil and wrote: “I can’t face another war.” Lanny, who had been brought up in France, needed no writing materials now; he shrugged his shoulders and made a little gesture of spreading his hands apart. It meant: “Well, all right; if that’s the way you feel, why do you ask me?”
She thought a while longer, with the pale skin of her forehead drawn together in two deep lines. “Why do you expect a Munich?” she wrote; and he in turn: “Br and Fr will give way before 1.” They had discussed this subject, and she was familiar with his thought. “You want war now?” she wrote, and he replied: “I have 2 minds.”
This was literally so. Lanny shrank from the horror as much as she did; but cold reason kept insisting that war was coming sooner or later, and the only question should be: What was the best time for Britain and France? Which side was arming the faster? Which would have gained a year from now? If Britain and France had acted a year ago, they would have had the army and air force of Czechoslovakia. If they delayed another year, they would lose the army and the air force of Poland. Those should be the determining factors to a military mind.
But not many women have such minds. Laurel Creston would be thinking: “I have a chance to postpone it; and if there is delay—even a week’s delay, reason may prevail. Public opinion may be awakened, the conscience of mankind may assert itself. President Roosevelt has asked for that, and what can I do better than to trust his judgment?” The newspaper with the report of the President’s action lay on the bed beside her, its German headlines staring up.
She took the pad and pencil and wrote: “I will risk one more.” Then, after a moment’s thought: “Only one, positively,” and drew a line under the last word. He waited a while, to be sure that was her decision. She nodded her head, slowly but decisively.
“Are you ready to give me your answer?” he asked aloud—and his voice sounded startling, bold, in the long-silent room.
She answered: “I will stay until tomorrow night and give one more sitting. That must be the last, and it must be understood and agreed in advance. We will leave on the following morning.”
“All right, Miss Jones. I will communicate your decision. It will be welcome.”
He tore some sheets off the pad; not merely the one which had been written on, but several underneath, which might reveal the impress of the pencil. He took them into the bathroom, touched a match to them, and held them over the toilet bowl while they burned. When the flame was close to his fingers he dropped them into the water and pulled the lever.
XI
Morning papers were flown to this summer capital from both Munich and Berlin; large bundles in the present crisis, so that no important personage might lack information. Also, there were radios in the common rooms, and little knots would gather about them; it was permitted to these privileged ones to hear the evil voices from abroad—just as certain members of the Catholic priesthood are permitted to read heretical works for the purpose of refuting them. Thus on this morning of crisis army officers and Party officials gloated as they listened to British and French broadcasters worrying over the German-Soviet pact, and speculating as to its possible secret clauses. Pleasant indeed to have your enemies worried and guessing!
These personages talked freely, without paying much attention to a stranger from overseas. After all, since the army was to be on the move at midnight, and Warsaw would be taken or destroyed within a week, what difference could it make? The desire to show off superior knowledge is a common weakness, and one of the Führer’s young aides remarked to the art expert that of course there had been a deal for the division of conquered Poland. The Germans had no use for the eastern half, which had belonged to Russia before the last war; and could the Russians refuse it when the Führer offered to lay it in their lap? A merry joke on the British, who had had their mission in Moscow for a number of weeks now, trying to make a deal to get the Soviets at war with the Führer! Still merrier on the solemn Sir Nevile, who had called here for his letter at the very hour when signatures were being placed upon the pact in Moscow!
All was cheerfulness that morning in the summer capital; at any rate in its early hours. Toward noon, however, Lanny began to notice a change; there was whispering, and some groups did not seem to welcome his presence. He could guess, but he couldn’t be sure till after lunch, when he had a chance for a few whispered words with an SS lieutenant whom he had motored to the Parteitag a year ago. “The order to the army has been called off; we are not to move until further notice.” Lanny exclaimed
: “Also! Was ist geschehen?” But the aide didn’t know. Something had changed the Führer’s mind. It was for him in his wisdom to decide.
Lanny retired to his room and read the newspapers, and afterwards took up extrasensory perception again. It seemed the part of wisdom to keep himself inconspicuous, and this was still more true of his mysterious woman companion. He did not invite her for a walk that day, for it was raining; and they could not talk in her room. Anyhow, he had nothing much to say, for she had established herself as a medium and had been supplied with an abundance of local color and personal details. A skilled fiction writer would need no help from an art expert in making up words for these personages to speak.
XII
So passed a strange day and part of a night. Lanny had a brief talk with Hess, who came to his room and confirmed the calling off of the advance into Poland, and the reason therefor. The Führer had been shaken in his determination; he was wavering in his mind. Some of the older generals were glad of the postponement, but the younger men, the Nazis, were in a fever of disappointment; they had been on tiptoe, hoping soon to go to the front, and now the glory had been snatched from their grasp. Hess said: “I can’t keep my own mind made up. One moment I am glad and the next sorry.” Lanny replied: “I suppose I’d be the same way if I were a German. It’s always easy for a foreigner to be neutral.”
The Deputy explained that the Führer was tied up in an important conference that evening, so it might be late before he could visit the medium. Lanny said she understood that, and would wait patiently. “But don’t fail to let me know how matters turn out, for I am deeply interested.” The Deputy promised and went away.
After that Lanny had nothing to do but try to keep his mind on “critical ratios,” “standard deviation,” “terminal salience,” “mean chance expectation,” and other technicalities having to do with the proof or disproof of extrasensory perception. Under just what circumstances could a man guess the face of a card which some other person was looking at? Could he guess it before the other person had turned it up? Could he guess it while the other person was in another room? Or when he was in another city? Could he call the order of a pack of cards before their being turned? “Down through,” this was called, in the glossary of the Duke experiments; its symbol was “DT”—which had had a quite different meaning in the fashionable society which Lanny Budd frequented.
Really, it was enough to give you the DTs, or the willies, or the heebyjeebies, to read of such experiments and try to realize what they meant. There were people who had called a whole series of twenty-five cards “down through” correctly. More incredible yet, there were people who had called cards before they were shuffled—that is, they had called what the cards were going to be after the shuffling had been done. That seemed like reducing the whole thing to an absurdity, and there were investigators who wanted to revise the laws of mathematical probability in order to avoid having to believe what these experiments seemed to prove. The chances against the things’ having happened by accident were millions and billions and sometimes trillions.
Lanny told himself that here was something even more important to mankind than the question of another World War. Indeed here might be something which made war, or stopped it. Here was a force in the minds of men which might control their decisions without their being aware of it. Could there be more hate in the collective mind of men than love? If so, the collective mind might force the mind of a leader against his conscious will. All sorts of things might be happening to our minds, of which we had no conscious idea.
These were problems with which men would be dealing long after wars and rumors of war had been banished from the earth. It ought to have been easy to lose oneself in reading about them; but in spite of his best efforts Lanny would find that his thoughts had jumped off to Laurel Creston’s room and what might be going on there. Her séance was planned to be a fraud; but suppose she had dropped into a trance again—what might be happening?
Many times Lanny had wished that he might have some psychic gifts himself. How convenient for a presidential agent, if he could read other people’s minds, and see what they were doing at a distance—and even what they were going to be doing next day or the day after! The Duke experiments appeared to show that a great many people possessed traces of the telepathic gift; and now, after an all-day and half-the-night wait, Lanny decided to make another try. He put out his light and lay back on his bed, closing his eyes and concentrating his mind on the idea that his subconsciousness would receive an impression of what was going on in Laurel Creston’s room. He got an impression of her lying on her bed waiting, just as he was waiting; but he hadn’t the least idea that this was psychic, for it was what he had every reason to assume that she was doing. Concentrating his mind in search of a clearer vision, he fell fast asleep.
XIII
He was brought wide awake by a sharp quick tapping on his door. He started up, half dazed, then turned on his light and stepped to the door. He opened it, and faced Laurel Creston, but not as he had ever seen her before or could have imagined her; hair and clothing in disarray, face white and eyes wide with fear. He stepped aside and she entered; she made no sound, only a quick motion of the hand for him to close the door. Then, in a tense whisper: “We must get out of this house at once! The man is mad!”
“What has he done?” demanded Lanny, also under his breath.
“He tried to make love to me—to hold me against my will.”
“Good heavens! Axe you injured?”
“No. I threatened to scream. I said: ‘You’ll have to kill me!’”
“Hush!” Lanny whispered, and then: “Look.” He held up one finger; then he said the word “or,” and held up three fingers. She answered by holding up one. It was Hitler, not Hess.
He had noticed that there was no key in the lock of his room door, and had wondered if this was the case with all the bedrooms, to facilitate spying. He took a straight chair and wedged it under the door knob, pressed firmly between the knob and the floor. Then he signed for Laurel to sit on the side of the bed; he got his pad and pencil and sat by her and wrote: “Danger,” and then: “Was 3 present?” She shook her head and he went on: “We will go. Must have exit permits. I will see 3.”
She took the pencil from him. She could hardly write, because of the shaking of her hand. “Can’t stay alone.”
“Must go,” he replied. “You fix chair.” He pointed to what he had done to keep the door closed.
“Madman—will break in,” was her scrawl.
“Can’t fight him. Moral suasion. 3 will help.”
“Will throw self out of window!”
“I will not go out of hearing. Call out and I will come.”
“I am terrified. Can’t control.”
“No good to run. Police everywhere. Must persuade.”
“Monster,” she wrote; at least he guessed it was meant to be that. Her hands were still shaking, and he took them and held them in a firm grip. At the same time he smiled and nodded his head slowly, as if to say: “It’s all right, it’s all right.”
After an interval he took the pencil and wrote some more. “I can handle. Sick man. Ashamed. He will not come my room. Positive.” That was comforting, and he waited for it to take effect. He added the words: “Return soon.”
She sat with her hands clasped tightly together, as if to stop their trembling, or at any rate to keep it from being noticed. Her eyes were still wild and her lips almost bloodless. “Go,” she whispered.
“Don’t fail to fix door,” he wrote. “Don’t open till I come. Three quick taps, then three more.” She read what he had written, then nodded. He tore off the sheets and disposed of them with fire and water as before. Then he came to the door and removed the chair, opened the door, took a quick glance up and down the hallway, and went out, closing the door softly.
XIV
He went straight to Hess’s room, which he had visited in past times. He breathed a silent prayer that the Deputy would be in
, then a sigh of relief when it proved to be so. “Something urgent, Rudi,” he said, as he came in.
The Nazi had taken off his coat, probably getting ready for bed. His face showed concern as Lanny asked: “Have you heard what happened?”
“What do you mean?”
“Our friend wanted the woman to stay and I guess he was a little too ardent; he has frightened her nearly out of her wits.”
“Pfui Teufel!”
“What makes it so awkward, Rudi—you must understand that she is my woman.”
“Herrgott, Lanny! Why didn’t you tell us that?”
“Well, I didn’t suppose you were interested in my sex life. I was bringing you a medium.”
“You know how the Führer is—when he wants something he wants it very much.”
“Certainly; and I know he’s under a strain right now, and probably not quite himself. No doubt he hated to give up this medium. Was the séance good?”
“Absolutely marvelous, Lanny. Afterwards the Führer told me to go, and I took it for granted that he was going to try to induce her to stay by offering her money. I didn’t dream——” Hess stopped.
“I know, it’s most unfortunate, and I hope he’s not going to be too annoyed. The trouble is, Elvirita has gone just about off her head, and I’m afraid I have to take her away at once.”
“You don’t mean tonight, surely—in this rain!”
“I’m afraid I do. It’s hard for you to understand this woman’s attitude, Rudi. She hadn’t been sensibly taught, like a National-Socialist Mädchen; she is a victim of Puritan education, of prudery and sexual repression. I neglected to warn her—because I knew that if I did she would refuse to come. But I ought to have warned you; I feel guilty for not having done so.”
“It is most unfortunate, Lanny. The Führer could have had no idea that she would take such an attitude.”
“It is especially unfortunate because she is a medium. Such persons are nearly always ill-balanced and overemotional. This girl is on the verge of hysterics; she says she will jump out of the window if I don’t take her away. I must beg you to go to the Führer and ask him to excuse her, and let us take our departure.”
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