“On account of the beer?”
Lanny smiled. “On account of Skoda, which is probably the biggest munitions plant in Europe. Hitler is going to have that, and poor Baron Schneider has guessed it by now, and is sitting in Le Creusot worried sick.”
Lanny told about his talks with the munitions king, and the stag dinner in his Paris mansion. He presented his Chief with a new list of code names. “I don’t like to use important names in my reports, for one can’t trust even the mails entirely, and if a single letter fell into the enemy’s hands it would ruin me. But you can count upon the fact that when I tell you I know something, I have got it from some top man.”
Lanny had prepared a report on his recent visit to England, and what Lothian and Halifax and Londonderry had said about the raid on Austria. He took his hearer to Vienna, but not for long, for Schuschnigg was now a “dead duck” in the American slang—meaning dead not physically but politically. Better to move on to Berchtesgaden and Berlin, where the live duck was quacking. F.D. had listened to Adi Schicklgruber’s recent ravings over the radio, so he could appreciate Lanny’s account of scenes in the Berghof while the Führer had been putting the Chancellor of Austria through the softening-up process. The President with a sense of fun guffawed over Lanny’s imitation of Adi’s bellowings. Bummler—Geilheit—Gesindel—Schurkerei—Frechheit—all those were funny words to an American, even though he didn’t know what they meant.
Lanny added: “Please be careful and don’t tell any of all this to your friends. Remember, the German embassy is very active, and they have a fortune to spend; they know all about you and your jokes, and they have a good idea of what you know about them. If the slightest whisper goes out that you know more than you ought to, they’ll start trailing every American who has ever been near the Berghof or Karinhall—and believe me, there aren’t very many.”
“You are depriving me of some happy hours,” replied the President, “but I get your point, and mum’s the word.”
XV
The President of the United States was never without a sea story or a “whodunit” by his bedside, and perhaps he stole looks into them when he should have been reading grave state papers. Now he listened to a mystery story from real life—the effort to find Trudi Schultz in a Nazi hideout in Seine-et-Oise. That part of a great man which had refused to grow up hung on every word of it, even though he was stealing time from his sleep. When the story came to its bitter climax, tears started down Lanny’s cheeks and he did not try to hide them. The grown-up part of his auditor realized that this was a distillation of thousands of tragedies which were going on wherever the Nazi power had penetrated. The unhappy old continent was getting itself ready for another blood-bath, and nowhere within its confines was there sufficient moral or intellectual force to avert the calamity.
“Believe me, Lanny,” said the President, “I sympathize with your feelings; but my position as I explained it to you remains unchanged. I have to think about the needs and the demands of a hundred and thirty millions of our own people, and I have only a limited amount of time and thought left for those outside.”
“All right, Governor; I have to accept that. But I came to tell you—it means another World War, and we can’t possibly keep out of it. What do you want me to do next?”
“I want you to go right on as you have. I cannot go to these different countries, and your travels are an extension of my eyesight. I renew my offer to put you on my secret payroll.”
“No, I manage to make picture deals wherever I go.”
“Living off the enemy’s country,” said F.D., again with a smile.
Lanny rose. “I ought not to keep you up any longer, Governor. I expect to be at my father’s home for the next couple of weeks, and you could send me an anonymous note, if you wished.”
“I doubt if there will be need of that. Just remember that I’m watching you, to see how your prophecies come true!”
“It doesn’t need any prophet, Governor; it needs only an understanding of German economy, such as I have obtained from Göring and Thyssen and Schacht and others I meet through my father. I repeated to Hitler what I had said to you, that when a man builds a bicycle he has to ride and he can’t sail a boat. Hitler accepted those words as exactly right. He has made the German economy into a war economy, and now he’ll be doing the same for the Austrian economy. It’s nonsense to say that he will stop when he has got the border territories where the Germans live; for what is he going to do with them? He can’t feed the people on machine-gun cartridges and airplane bombs—not even I. G. Farben is equal to that miracle of Ersatz. Even if Hitler should die tonight, Göring or Hess would be driven by the force he has created; they have to go after the potato fields of Poland and the wheat fields of the Ukraine, the minerals of the Balkans, and the oil of the Caucasus.
“That’s quite a program,” said the President, no longer smiling. “Watch him, keep me informed, and trust me to make the best use of the information that I can.”
24
God’s Footstool
I
Lanny thought that he had earned a holiday, and it occurred to him that he would like to renew his limited acquaintance with his own country. He went up to Newcastle, where they would always find a spare room for him, put a car at his disposal, and let him make noises on the piano at reasonable hours.
The town had grown uncomfortably fast; the staid oldest inhabitants looked upon the changes with displeasure, and found the increase in bank deposits and retail sales a poor compensation for the crowds on the streets and the impossibility of finding parking space. They shut themselves up in their old frame or brick mansions and refused to have anything to do with the new world growing up around them: noise and confusion, bad taste, corrupt politics, unmanageable young people. It was the age of the “jitterbug”; a round-faced Jewish musician stood on a platform and wailed on the clarinet, and the young people swayed their shoulders and swung their hips, or sat in their seats with their eyes closed and their lower jaws dehiscent. They listened by radio all over the land, literally by the millions; Lanny listened also, trying to call it music and to find out what it meant to them. The most popular song of the moment was called “A Tisket, a Tasket.” He knew what the first and third word meant, but failed to find the others in the dictionary.
Robbie Budd was partly to blame for conditions in Newcastle, having started a new industry in a town with old and narrow and winding streets; the older Budds—of whom there were many—considered that he should have asked their advice, and they still looked upon him as a headstrong and unsafe man, and were glad they hadn’t put any of their money into crazy contraptions to fly in the air. Right now there was a slump, and these seventy- and eighty-year-olds—and two nineties—all said: “We told you so.” The men among them still referred to Lanny as “Robbie’s bastard,” and looked upon him as a young rapscallion; but they were interested to hear him tell about the wickedness of Paris, London, and Berlin.
Robbie played poker with some cronies every Saturday night, and went out with his wife “once in a coon’s age,” as he phrased it, but otherwise he had no life outside his business. Modern competition called for that, and Robbie glorified it, and was proud of his ability to stand the pace. He had got capable young fellows, including his two younger sons, and drove them hard, and set them an example by knowing every detail of what they were doing. The Budd plant was country and God to them, and the fact that the B-E P12A was now the fastest and most maneuverable fighter on the market was the theme of a song which a girl stenographer had composed and which was sung at banquets, picnics, and other company occasions.
Never would Robbie give up the dream that Lanny would some day be caught by this enthusiasm. Whenever he came, the father would expose him to the contagion and watch for signs that it was taking. He had never been so hopeful as now, for the Pink tinge had faded entirely from his first-born’s conversation, and he showed real appreciation of the place of military planes in a competitive world. Of
course Robbie wanted to know all about his conversations with Göring and Schneider and other business people; as for Adi Schicklgruber, the idea of visiting that ogre’s lair and selling him paintings and buying some for him in Vienna—that was really a tale, and Robbie told it over town, with the result that everybody wanted to hear it, and Lanny became a social lion for the second time—the first having been when he turned up with a twenty-three-million-dollar bride.
People wanted to give him dinner parties in their homes, or at the country club; they didn’t ask him to stand up and make a speech, but they would get him talking and then the rest of the table would fall silent, except for questions. The ladies found him fascinating, and were ready to fall in love with him, and not only the single ones. This was a serious matter in these modern days, for it was no longer a question of coy glances and sighs; these were emancipated ladies, who went right after what they wanted. They would press him too closely while dancing, and try to be led off to one of those nooks which architects had thoughtfully provided; if he showed the slightest interest they would think up some pretext to take him somewhere in a car—each of them had her own—and then anything might happen, and with disconcerting suddenness.
II
Esther Budd, daughter of the Puritans, now several times a grandmother, knew all about her home town and had been obliged to adjust her thinking to the changes going on. In Lanny’s youth she had distrusted him as a product of the Coast of Pleasure, but now she had decided that he had turned out much better than her fears, and she accepted him as “family” in good standing. She knew how strong a hold he had upon her husband’s heart, and she desired to play her difficult role of stepmother with generosity and grace. Lanny had been a grass-widower now for two years and more, a sufficient time for all the proprieties and even some of the dangers. Esther decided that it would be a stroke of statecraft if she could be the means of persuading him to marry in Newcastle and settle down. Already he came two or three times every year, and seemed free to prolong his stays at pleasure.
Esther Remsen Budd was a pillar of society in this city which remained a small town in its mind. Her father had been president of the First National Bank and her brother had recently succeeded to the post. She was tireless in church work and in every form of what was called “good works.” She had been brought up to believe that woman’s place was the home, but since women had been dragged into politics and forced to vote they had better vote well than ill; so Esther had joined a woman’s club and inspired it to take a stand for clean government—which, rather alarmingly, had threatened to bring her into conflict with her husband’s business interests.
They had worked out a compromise, and it had had the rather odd outcome that this tall and gray-haired, dignified and reserved Puritan lady became as it were the political boss of her town. When the time for nominations came around and the local party heads brought Robbie the proposed slate, he would take it to his wife, who would conscientiously investigate the records of every candidate, and if any of them were “too raw,” would cross them off. Of course a secret like that cannot be kept, and power like that cannot be held without a lot of hard work and bother. Deputations would come for this or that, and candidates to make known their qualifications. And then the barbecues and political picnics! “You asked for it!” Robbie would say, with a malicious grin. But the streets were kept clean, and no man who had ever stolen public funds or neglected his wife and children could rise to political favor in Newcastle, Connecticut.
III
Esther’s way wouldn’t be to have a heart-to-heart talk with Lanny, after the manner of Nina Pomeroy-Nielson. In her world these matters had to be arranged with carefully preserved casualness. Esther would try to imagine what sort of young woman would appeal to her difficult stepson, and would invite a specimen to lunch and watch for signs of a spark. If none flew, she would wait two or three days and try another, perhaps at dinner, to make it less obvious. She would make offhand remarks, letting Lanny know who was coming and pointing out her connections and qualifications. There is a saying that in Boston they ask you what you know, in Philadelphia who your ancestors were, and in New York how much money you have. Newcastle lay between Boston and New York, but Esther had the Boston idea and would never speak of money. However, you could be sure that she would never put on the carpet a candidate who didn’t have a decent amount.
So Lanny had every opportunity to become acquainted with what beauty, spirit, and talent the land of his forefathers had to offer. Lovely girls and bright girls, some of them sharing his musical and artistic tastes, some of them astonishingly mature and well informed. One of the loveliest, oddly enough, was the daughter of that Adelaide Hitchcock whom Lanny in his callow youth had been the means of turning out of a role in the country-club performance of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. He had called her a “stick,” and had put in Phyllis Gracyn, who had become soon afterwards a stage queen of Broadway and was now acting maternal roles in Hollywood. That social blunder had been forgiven him; and now—my, how time does fly!—here was Adelaide’s daughter in early bloom, with her mother’s large brown eyes and some of the life her mother had sadly lacked. She was related to Esther and would have scads of money, and when Lanny talked about smart life on the Riviera, she listened entranced. She had been trained for the glory of spending money, principally upon clothes, and wearing them in ballrooms and at dinner tables, and her young heart was a-flutter at the thought of getting started.
What could Lanny have done with such a bride? Leave her here while he went scouting over Europe? Or take her to his mother’s home and leave her there? Keep his opinions from her, or else worry and frighten her as he had done with Irma? Certainly he couldn’t tell her his new occupation; and when the time came that he got into trouble—as sooner or later he was so likely to do—what sort of time would she have then?
The devil of it was, he couldn’t tell either the girl or his kind stepmother, nor could he give them the excuses he had devised for use among the age-old corruptions of Europe. He must be gracious but reserved—which only made him seem the more mysterious and attractive. The eldest son of Budd-Erling became the subject of anxious conferences in many a boudoir in Newcastle and near-by towns. Was he wholly lacking in human feelings? Or did he have some duchess waiting for him in Paris? Or was he perchance looking for another twenty-three million?
IV
Then came to Lanny one of those experiences which befall eligible bachelors, even in the land of the Pilgrim’s pride. He had dined with one of the elder Budds, his father’s uncle; a duty call, to oblige Esther. It was an early meal, to accommodate an old gentleman and his younger but by no means young wife; frugal fare, a “New England boiled dinner,” served on ancient silver plate, in a dining room with a full-rigged clipper ship under a large glass bell, and trophies brought from all the ports of the China seas. Lanny listened to old family stories, necessary to his education; and then, coming home early, looking forward to a quiet read, he passed the central square of what might be called Old Newcastle. In one corner stood the public library, a square brownstone building, long ago the town’s pride and now its embarrassment. Esther was one of the trustees and he knew of her efforts to get an appropriation for a new and more commodious building.
Lights were burning within, and Lanny remembered that he wanted some item of information which the meager resources of his father’s library did not supply. He parked his car and walked to the building; people were coming out, and just as he entered the central room a bell rang and he saw people getting up—it was obviously the closing bell. The clock on the wall showed nine, and he hesitated, and was about to turn and leave when one of the ladies in charge came toward him. She was of that indefinite age which characterizes librarians and schoolteachers; she was slender, and when he thought it over afterwards he guessed that her salary did not permit her to be otherwise. She was obviously very much a gentlewoman. “Can I help you?” she asked, and her voice was in character.
“I am afraid I am late,” he replied.
“A few minutes won’t matter, Mr. Budd.” His picture had been in the local paper, with an account of his delightful occupation and his travels. She would know the vitally important fact that he was a stepson of the great lady upon whom the fate of the new building depended. “I am Miss Hoyle, the librarian,” she said. “By all means let me help you.”
“I am wondering if you have anything on Italian Renaissance painters—the earlier part of that period.”
“We have Vasari,” she replied, “and other works with chapters. I will show you.”
She led him into an alcove, between closely crowded stacks. She showed him a row of books, and stood by while he glanced over the titles. Meantime, somebody was turning off lights in the building but obligingly left this alcove alone. Lanny was interested in the books and glanced hurriedly into one or two; of course he couldn’t fail to be aware of a woman standing close to him, a quiet, self-possessed woman who did not keep up a chatter while he was trying to read, but left him free to make up his mind. When he said: “I think this might serve my purpose,” she took out another and said: “You might find something in this, also.” Only when he was through with his search did she start to talk, and in a few sentences disclosed the fact that she knew a lot about the Italian Renaissance and its painters. He took the occasion to look at her, and saw that she had delicate features, rather pale, with no make-up; dark hair, and large, dark, admiring eyes.
He knew that when she said: “You wouldn’t remember me, but I had the pleasure of being invited to your father’s home to see the Goya which you brought from Spain. That was one of the great events of my life. What became of it?”
Presidential Agent Page 64
