Presidential Agent

by Upton Sinclair

  XI

  Throughout most of Lanny’s life Cannes had been a winter resort, and Juan-les-Pins, on the edge of which the Budd estate was situated, had been a tiny fishing village. But advertising and real estate promotion, plus the cult of sun-bathing, had turned the whole Côte d’Azur into a summer resort as well. New casinos had been built, for gambling and dancing and dining; colored bands had been imported from America, and all night long the thumping of drums and the moaning of saxophones resounded over the Golfe Juan. People did their sleeping in the morning on the sands of the beach or on apricot-colored mattresses laid upon the rocks of the Cap; the men wearing little more than a G-string and a pair of horn-rimmed dark glasses; the women adding a light brassière. Nature hadn’t always constructed them with a view to such exposure, and when you saw them you desired to avert your eyes, but there was no vacant place. Especially was this so when one of the new German excursion steamers arrived and discharged a cargo of a thousand stout Nordic male and female blonds, and they all made a rush for the beaches to eat sausages and drink beer. Lanny fled before such invaders and shut himself up behind the gates of Bienvenu, where he had a little studio with a piano on which he could pound out his discontents.

  The older residents of the Riviera, at least those whom the Budds knew, had their estates with private swimming pools, and so did not have to come into contact with what they politely referred to as “the public.” Here you saw more tasteful costumes, on bodies which had been bred for good looks and carefully tended since infancy; you listened to polite conversation about other people and what they were doing, and about dancing and dining and travel; you played a lot of bridge and gin-rummy, and ate modest but excellent meals served with decorum. It was all extremely proper, but dull after you had come to know it. Now and then you heard talk about a new book or a forthcoming election, and if you were in your secret heart a Pink like Lanny, you observed that the point of view was always that of the protection of this decorous mode of life and the property ownership upon which it was based. Nothing was to be changed, and the idea had better not even be mentioned; for times had become serious, and with Spain only a couple of hundred miles away, it was a case of “Under which king, Bezonian? speak, or die.”

  Now Lanny was going into Spain for the fourth time, and it was undeniably dangerous, and gave great distress to his mother. Paintings, yes—but weren’t there plenty of paintings in France and other parts of Europe? Couldn’t he busy himself with selling Detazes? Beauty could always use her share of the money, and Marceline, his half-sister, was begging for more all the time. By the way, how was Marceline? Beauty reported that the child’s husband was still with the Italian troops in Seville, and the child herself was unhappy in that wretched hot climate, with mosquitoes biting her ankles, and fleas, too; everything topsyturvy in wartime, the price of everything prohibitive, and Marceline cursing the day she had let her one-armed hero come to this place. Couldn’t Beauty force Lanny to send at least some pocket money?

  Beauty knew that she mustn’t scold her wayward son, or try to force him; otherwise his visits to her home might become even fewer. He was obstinate; he had his duties, as he conceived them, and Beauty had to keep his dark secrets locked in her heart. When he came, she was proud of him; all his old friends wanted to see him, he was invited everywhere, and could have been “in the swim” and towed his mother along in his wake; but he had something serious on his mind, she could see at once, and she didn’t believe for a moment that it was picture business taking him into Spain. No, he was going on another of his mad errands, and his mother had to hide her anxiety and let him go.

  XII

  Beauty Budd was married to what she called the kindest man in the world, and one who was firmly convinced that he was married to the most wonderful of women. Parsifal Dingle showed fewer signs of age than anyone of his generation whom Lanny knew; he permitted nothing to trouble him, he loved everybody, no matter how hateful they might be, and when they got into trouble he talked to them about Divine Love, never referring to their past actions, but assuring them that they could have happiness and healing whenever they were willing to open their hearts to receive it. He said his prayers and read his books and papers dealing with the subject of New Thought; also, as part of each day’s routine, he carried on psychic experiments with the Polish medium who had made her home with the Budd family ever since Parsifal had discovered her in New York, eight years ago.

  Madame Zyszynski, elderly, rather dumpy ex-servant, was slow-minded and left it for others to be interested in her rare gift; she would sink back into a chair and go into a trance, and straightway would begin to speak with strange voices and tell things about which Madame herself knew nothing, either waking or asleep. Parsifal was still accumulating notes concerning a Buddhist monastery called Dodanduwa, on an island off the coast of Ceylon, and the monks who had lived there a long time ago; he had written and learned that there actually was such a place, and now he was sending copies of his records to be checked.

  For most of the time, Madame’s “control” had been the spirit of an Indian chieftain named Tecumseh. But recently he had got “tired of talking so much,” he declared, and his place had been taken by a voice named “Claribel,” who said that she had been a lady-in-waiting to the queen of Henry the Sixth of England. She was a poetical lady, and if you gave her any subject, no matter how remote or esoteric, she would burst into a sort of sleepy rhapsody in poetical prose. It might be a vision called up by the words; as a rule it was indefinite, but always it was extraordinary as coming from the mind of this dull Polish woman, whose reading was confined mostly to the pictures in the cheapest sort of papers. Parsifal would go to the encyclopedia and look up the most unlikely subjects, such as “the choragic monument of Lysicrates,” or “the Old Slavic Josephus,” or a fossil called “glyptocrinus decadactylus.” Said Claribel of this last: “With my ten fingers I did shake the world,”—and that was true, since it is true of everything that moves on the earth; but the question was: How did any voice coming out of Madame know the meaning of a long Greek word?

  Trudi Schultz had had sittings with Madame, and in the last of them Zaharoff had appeared, announcing his own death, just after it had occurred and before the papers carrying the news had appeared on the streets of Paris. So naturally Lanny had the thought: “Trudi might come to me!” One of his first procedures upon reaching home was to take Madame into his studio and get her comfortably seated in an armchair, and then wait with pencil poised over a notebook.

  But alas, it wasn’t Trudi, only Zaharoff, an unwelcome intruder at this moment. But Lanny mustn’t show it; no indeed, for it was Tecumseh speaking, and the two-hundred-year-old Iroquois was extremely touchy in his dealing with the grandson of Budd’s; taking exception to his supposed-to-be-scientific attitude, ridiculing him, often teasing him by refusing to tell him the things he most wanted to know. Lanny had learned to be scrupulously polite, talk like a devotee of spiritualism, and omit none of the ceremonies due to a person of royal rank.

  “It is that old man who has guns going off all the time around him,” declared the chieftain. “Such a racket, it makes my head ache! And people shouting that they hate him. Poor tormented old man, he’s always talking about money. What is the matter with him—didn’t he have a chance to fix up his business affairs before he left?”

  “He left rather suddenly,” replied Lanny; “but I know that he made a will. Perhaps he is not satisfied with it.”

  “He keeps crying: ‘Gold! Gold!’ Did he have anything to do with gold? He says ‘gold at the bottom of the sea.’ What is that?”

  “I am sure I have no idea, Tecumseh.”

  “He says it is being covered with sand and mud. It will be lost forever. This old man—Basil, he cries—is that his name?”

  “That is his first name.”

  “He says a human arm floated out in the water and it was from the kitchen—no, he says the Kitchener.”

  “Was that Lord Kitchener? He was los
t at sea.”

  “He says yes; the ship was full of treasure; he, Basil, tried to bring it up. Was he ever a diver?”

  “I doubt it very much.”

  “He says they got some gold, but most of it is still there. He says it is very important; there were war records.”

  “Doesn’t he know the war is over?”

  “It is another war coming. The gold was in the treasure room. It is a fortune for you. The man who can unlock it—his name—I forget the name.”

  This last was supposed to be Zaharoff speaking to Lanny. The voice was still that of Tecumseh, but the words were supposed to come from the “spirit,” and you were supposed to play that game. Lanny said: “You never told me that you had done any treasure-hunting, Sir Basil.”

  “Many things I never told you. I kept my affairs to myself. The name of the man—he is the key-master.”

  “Key-master?” repeated the inquirer. “Do you mean the master-key?”—for Lanny had read a few crime and mystery stories.

  “Key-master,” insisted the one-time Knight Commander and Grand Officer. “He opens all locks. The American. You can find him.”

  “I ought to have some clue to his name, Sir Basil.”

  “Huff—is it Huffy—or Huffner? Tell him there is gold—the greatest treasure—it was for Russia—to stop the revolution—”

  The voice trailed away, and there was silence. Lanny was afraid the old man would fade out, and he asked quickly: “Sir Basil, have you been meeting any friends of mine?”

  “Some of yours, but none of mine,” quavered the spirit.

  “See if you can find one of my friends named Trudi. Remember the name for me, please.” Lanny took that as a tactful way of giving the request to Tecumseh, who might otherwise spurn it.

  “Trudi—Trudi—Trudi—!” It died out in a sort of sigh, and quiet followed. The medium began to stir, then moaned and opened her eyes, and the séance was over.

  “Did you get good results?” she asked, and Lanny told her: “Very good.” That pleased her; she rarely asked more, and he never told her, for that might invalidate later communications. He went away thinking: “A damned strange thing! Kitchener’s arm floating in water, and gold at the bottom of the sea.” He recalled the name of the cruiser, H. M. S. Hampshire, which was reported to have struck a mine in the North Sea during the World War. That was all he had ever heard, so far as he could now recall. He thought: “I wonder if Zaharoff ever did engage in a treasure hunt.”

  He tried several times more with Madame Zyszynski, but all he got was Claribel and her prose poems. When he said “Trudi,” the lady of old England knew that the name was German, but apparently thought it was a milkmaid, and went into a rhapsody about cows, country lanes, and kisses. To be sure, Lanny had walked in country lanes with Trudi, having motored her out into the remote parts of la douce France, and having assuredly not failed to kiss her. Some people might have called that “evidential,” but it wasn’t what the researcher wanted now.

  XIII

  Lanny phoned and made an appointment with the wife of Raoul Palma, who had been running the workers’ school while her husband was in Spain. Lanny gave her some money for the school and learned that Raoul was still in Valencia, in a state of terrible tension over the developments in the war. Lanny said: “I am going in there on picture business.” Julie Palma answered: “Take him a lot of chocolate. They are living on horse and burro meat in Valencia now.”

  He had a couple of Detazes to get out of the storeroom and pack and ship to Zoltan. Then, his last errand, he went to call on the Señora Villareal, one of his clients, who lived near Nice. He had tea with this Spanish lady of the old school, who was in his debt because he had brought some of her paintings out from Seville and she couldn’t imagine how she could have got along without the money. He told her now that he had an opportunity to go into Red Spain. “With money one can do almost anything with that crowd,” he said. “You know how the unfortunate city is being bombed, and it is a ghastly thing that its art treasures should be exposed to destruction. I feel that I should be doing a public service in rescuing some of them.”

  “Surely, Señor Budd; but is it not frightfully risky?”

  “I don’t intend to stay long. What occurred to me is that you might know someone in Valencia who has some especially valuable work he might like to have brought out. It couldn’t be a large one, for I plan to travel by train. I learned the lesson that a car is too dangerous a luxury in a war-torn land.”

  “Oh, Señor Budd, it is such a horrible thing! How much longer can it go on?”

  “I wish I could make a guess,” he replied. “If anybody had asked me at the beginning, I would never have said it could last fourteen months.”

  “There will be nothing left of my poor country!” sighed the lady. “My estates bring me almost nothing, because the army has to have the produce, and they pay in paper money which is without value in the outside world.”

  “Keep it carefully; it will surely be redeemed.” Thus soothingly Lanny addressed a mother who still had one daughter at the age for marriage but who lacked the necessary dot. He led the talk to the subject of refugees from Valencia, and the Señora listed several who owned paintings; they all surely needed money, and presently she telephoned to one and made an appointment for the American expert to call. She spoke of Lanny in the highest terms, explaining that he was no speculator but a gentleman with the best connections; his father was the great manufacturer of airplanes, he was an intimate friend of Mrs. Chattersworth, and so on. That is the way the world is run, and the way Lanny Budd was able to travel to any part of Europe and to earn not merely his expenses but the means of indulging his whims.

  XIV

  He called upon a Spanish grandee—they don’t use the term any more but they have the manners and the ideas. This one was living in obviously straitened circumstances in an unfashionable part of Nice. Señor Jimenes owned lands in the suburbs of Valencia on which oranges were grown, and buildings in the slums for which thousands of laborers had been accustomed to pay high rents. But now everything was in the hands of the Reds, and how could an unhappy grandee hope to maintain his grandeur? He spent an hour or more probing Lanny’s mind and soul, and when finally he had satisfied himself that this was a man of good will, he confessed that he owned a Murillo, representing some ragged little boys playing outdoors; a superlatively lovely and absolutely priceless work. Before his mansion had been seized, he had had a trusted servant carry this treasure away and hide it in a hut near the city. If Lanny could get it and bring it out, the Señor would agree to let him sell it and pay him a commission.

  On account of Trudi, Lanny was in a greedy mood. He said: “Señor Jimenes, those are the terms on which I normally work; but now it is a question of risking my life on an extremely dangerous enterprise. If I, a foreigner, go to visit a former servant of a landlord, I am certain to be observed and very likely to be reported; if they caught me, they would quite possibly find out my record and shoot me as a spy. In any case I might have to pay large sums to officials to get the painting out; I might have to take it directly on a steamer to London or even to New York. The only terms on which I could undertake such risks would be that I had an option to buy the painting outright.”

  “And what would you be willing to offer, Señor Budd?”

  “First, I should have to view the work and satisfy myself as to its authenticity. I do not doubt that you, Señor, believe your little boys to be Murillo’s; but that popular painter had many imitators, and I have many times seen owners of art works deceived as to what they had acquired. My proposal would be that you trust me with an order for the delivery of the painting; if I am satisfied that it is genuine, I will assume all the risks from the moment it is in my hands. I will put the sum of one hundred thousand francs into escrow here, and as soon as the painting is delivered to me I will order the bank to release the money to you.”

  “Oh, but, Señor Budd, the painting is worth many times that much money
! Perhaps a million francs!”

  “Quite possibly, and I am making no attempt to deceive you. What you have to figure on is what the painting is worth in Valencia today; for that is where I would get it, with all the risks of bombs and Reds and crooked officials and firing squads and ship torpedoings—a whole gantlet to be run, and if you expect the full price for the painting, it is surely up to you to do the running.”

  Lanny was used to the spectacle of persons of wealth and rank arguing, pleading, haggling, fighting for their money; the sums were larger than if it was the purchase of suspenders or cabbages, but the technique was the same. Courtesy required that you should listen patiently and never cut any statement short; never take offense, and when everything had been said several times to no purpose, you must rise to leave with great reluctance. It was expected that you would make some small concession, in order that the other party might feel that he had gained something by his labors. In this case, the seller was badly off, perhaps not able to pay his rent; Señor Jimenes actually wept when he contemplated parting with his sole transportable treasure—so he described it—and in the end Lanny weakened and raised his offer to a hundred and ten thousand francs. This was, he opined, a real fortune in France; a man might live on it in modest comfort the rest of his days.

  It was only when Lanny had given up hope, left the house, and was getting into his car that the Spanish grandee called: “Come back, Señor; it is a deal.”

  There was nothing new about that, and nothing humiliating. Lanny came, and with entire amiability prepared the necessary papers. He went away knowing that he had a satisfactory story to tell to Kurt or the de Bruynes or Baron Schneider or General Göring, in case any of them should chance to hear about his going into Red Spain. He would get the money needed for his effort to help Trudi, without having to sell any of the securities which he had stored in his father’s keeping, and which he couldn’t order sold without causing worry to both his parents, and causing them to ask inconvenient questions. His main purpose was, of course, to see Monck but to make a profit incidentally could do no harm.