IX
More gossip. The Fürstin told about the latest developments in the Goebbels ménage. “Did you know that Magda fled to Switzerland?” she asked, and Lanny said: “I heard it.” If he had been playing fair, he would have said: “I met her there,”—and then what a lovely time they would have had! Instead, he allowed Hilde to report that two husky Nazis in civilian clothes had approached Magda in a Zurich hotel and intimated that unless she returned at once something terrible might happen to her children; so she had come back to Berlin, and she and her “Jockl” were living once more in amity, at least publicly. “Arme Frau!” exclaimed Hilde.
A sad world, and the Princess Donnerstein was sorry for all women, herself included. She began telling Lanny about her own situation—concerning which he had learned in the past through Irma. He would have preferred not hearing any more, but to say so would have been rude. Hilde had been married very young, and really a girl didn’t know what she was getting in for; titles and worldly glamour produced a great impression on the young, but they didn’t make for everyday happiness, not if one had a heart. The Fürst was a stern disciplinarian, and expected his wife to obey him as a sort of higher servant. Hilde had spirit and a will of her own; they had quarreled bitterly and now they rarely spoke except in public—just like Magda and her little Doktor. “Of course Günther”—that was her husband—“goes where he pleases and does what he pleases.”
Lanny had no trouble in guessing what all this was leading to. Hilde had considered an American’s state of solitary bachelorhood and was sorry for him. She thought that Irma had treated him badly, and could not understand how any wife had been willing to break with such a husband. She wanted Lanny to know how she felt about him; she was paying him compliments, and he had to be appreciative. Just now Günther was away, attending to business matters of his estates which occupied most of his thoughts; no doubt he had some young woman there—the Prussian aristocrat never had any hesitation about asking for what he wanted, it being an ancient custom.
An eligible bachelor, who had been young for many years and still kept that appearance and feeling, had confronted a number of emergencies such as this, and carried with him an arsenal of pretexts, from which at a minute’s notice he would choose the most plausible. In each case a friendship would be at stake, and Hilde’s friendship was of value to Lanny. He could have told her that his mother had picked out a bride for him; but that might not have made much difference to a lady who was more than slightly neurotic, and whose motto in life was Carpe diem, or, as the German song phrases it: “Pflücket die Rose, eh’ sie verblüht.” To have talked about any sort of moral code would have been to claim that he was better than she was, which would have been insulting and might have ended this valuable friendship.
So now, with the most tender consideration and touching frankness, Lanny spoke of a mysterious weakness from which he had begun to suffer, and of certain treatments he was taking. He hoped that Hilde wouldn’t say anything about this, and for once he could be reasonably sure that she would comply with his request—for how would she be able to explain that she had gained such an item of information? No, she would be sorry for him, and slightly afraid of him, and the friendship would continue on its agreeable platonic terms.
X
The visitor returned to his high-priced hotel, and on its high-priced stationery wrote a note to Professor Bruno Pröfenik, who resided in a fashionable district of the German capital. Lanny explained that he was an American art expert, an old friend of the Führer and also of General Göring. For many years he had been a student of medium-ship and its phenomena, and had heard reports of the Professor’s gifts along that line. He was here for a short stay and would like to consult the Professor as a client and, if possible, to have enough of his time to discuss the many ideas which they had in common. Leaving no chance for misunderstanding, he stated that he was expecting to pay for what he was requesting. He sent this letter by special messenger, and was not surprised when the same messenger brought a reply saying that the busy man would postpone other engagements and receive Herr Budd that evening.
Manifestly, this mystic-master was making a good thing out of his talents, whatever they were. He had a fine home and at least one servant in livery. The first thing you saw in his entrance hall was a Japanese dancing demon, a crouched figure three or four feet high, carved of black ebony polished until it shone like glass; it had malevolent yellow eyes made of topazes, and two rows of white teeth carved from ivory. At the end of the hall was a large niche like a shrine, containing not one god but scores; the Professor had been collecting all over the world idols and sacred images of the religions, ancient and modern, and his display would have done credit to a museum.
The master himself was elderly, and had a long gray mustache and two beards, one drooping from each cheek; this made him look like a Chinese scholar, and perhaps he liked the effect, for he wore a black jacket of Chinese silk with small golden swastikas upon it. His eyes were small, dark, and shrewd, and his expression one of cultivated benevolence. With many bows, and greetings in German with an indeterminate accent, he led Lanny into a spacious study which was like an astrologer’s junkshop, with globes and zodiacal maps and charts, a cabinet with black curtains, a crystal ball, a ouija board, a Tibetan prayer-wheel, a Congo panther-man’s garb and iron claws, a nail-studded cunjur-doll from Haiti, and in one corner a miniature Alaskan totem pole.
On an uncarpeted spot of the polished floor, Lanny observed, marked in black paint, a large double pentagon with a circle outside it. This, so it was explained in course of the evening, was for the enticing and capturing of werewolves—a very ancient practice. Left unexplained was a lovely dark-skinned girl of perhaps fourteen, a Javanese or possibly Balinese, who went about in the comfortably warm study as naked as the day she was born. She brought coffee, and a Turkish bubble-pipe for her master; she evidently understood such orders, but made no sound during the entire evening, so that Lanny wondered if she was a mute. There was an open fireplace with a soft-coal fire in a grate, and a large tiger skin in front of it. When the girl was not doing errands she squatted on this, as motionless as a Buddha, with the reddish light shining on her smooth brown skin.
XI
Seating his guest in an armchair and himself in another, the man of magic expressed his pleasure at receiving a friend of the Führer’s, who was a mutual friend and had had sittings with him. He had never heard of Herr Budd, he said, but would not ask any questions because he desired to cast the visitor’s horoscope before knowing any more about him. The practice of astrology had been forbidden, but doubtless the law would be relaxed in favor of a foreigner and a friend of the great. After casting the horoscope, the Professor would go into a trance—a special kind which he reserved for adepts—and see what the spirits would tell him about Herr Budd’s future, and about his friends, of whom he no doubt had many in the world where we all have a place reserved.
All this sounded well rehearsed, and Lanny decided quickly that here was a smooth and plausible charlatan. But that didn’t mean that he mightn’t have real psychic gifts, and be working both methods according to circumstances. Lanny gave the day and year of his birth, and spent half an hour watching and listening while the astrologer prepared a chart analyzing his character and foretelling his very pleasant future. After that the old man entered the cabinet, drew the curtains, and went into a “special” trance—meaning, of course, one which cost more. There came forth some groans and sighs, followed by an astonishingly large booming voice announcing itself to be King Ottokar I of Bohemia.
The communications this personage gave would indeed have been remarkable if they had been genuine. With only slight delay the spirit of Marcel Detaze announced himself, and gave quite plausible messages for his stepson and his widow and his daughter. Marcel was pleased with the use which Lanny was making of his paintings—though on earth he hadn’t cared very much about either fame or money. He expressed himself as pleased with Beauty’s new mar
riage. He himself was happy in the spirit world, painting many pictures, better than he had ever done, on earth. He had sent Lanny messages whenever he could, and would continue to do so. Also he sent a message to Robbie Budd, to the effect that the military airplane industry had a far greater future than any other branch of armaments production. Robbie was going to be an extremely rich man, and while money wasn’t valued in the spirit world, and especially not by spirit painters, Robbie was helping his own country and Marcel’s as well as General Göring’s. Peace among those three great peoples was to be put upon a basis that would endure for a thousand years.
Most extraordinary; the only thing wrong being that there wasn’t a name or a detail which hadn’t been published in the Berlin newspapers within the past few years, and all the Professor would have had to do was to call up a friend in a newspaper office and ask for the contents of their Archiv on the name of the American Lanny Budd; or, more cautiously, to send his secretary in a taxicab to jot down the data and bring them back. Lanny hadn’t the slightest doubt that something of the sort had been done; but it didn’t bother him, for he hadn’t come here for psychic research, but for an entirely different purpose.
So when the Professor emerged from the cabinet, the sitter told him that his revelations had been amazing and the séance one of the most satisfactory he had ever attended. That made them friends, and they spent the rest of the evening exchanging mystical lore. The Professor soon discovered that this wealthy amateur had really taken the trouble to know what he was talking about; he had a stack of notebooks at home and his memory was stored with significant incidents. His stories were the more impressive because they moved in such exalted circles: Sir Basil Zaharoff at Monte Carlo and Lady Caillard in London, a private yacht cruising in the Mediterranean, palaces all over Europe, a baronet’s son being wounded in war and Chancellor Dollfuss being murdered in Vienna. Yes, Lanny told again that tale which he had made up for the benefit of Adi Schicklgruber. He told true tales which revealed the circumstances of his own life and environment—being willing for a Nazi mystagogue to pick up all the data he wanted.
The Professor did his share of talking. He, too, had had remarkable experiences and achieved extraordinary feats. Strange as it might seem, he, too, had been in contact with the monastery of Dodanduwa in Ceylon, and would be able to establish telepathic contact with it at any time. Yes, there were Germans there, and they were spreading the gospel of the Herrenvolk. Also, the Professor had known Sir Basil Zaharoff in real life and sometimes had messages from him in the spirit world; if there was any message Lanny desired to send, its safe delivery could be assured. Yes, the Professor had tried hypnotism in many forms, and had the power to hypnotize any medium and cause that medium’s astral body to travel to any part of the world, even to Ceylon, and bring back information desired. He could command earthbound spirits as well as those of the celestial regions; in short, Prospero and Cagliostro and Nostradamus were amateurs compared to this National-Socialist wizard, who had all the techniques of modern science at his command—or at any rate all its vocabularies.
XII
Quite casually in the course of this swapping of ideas Lanny introduced the particular item with which he was concerned; putting no special emphasis upon it, and being careful not to dwell upon it too long. “Tell me, Herr Professor, have you ever had the experience of having spirits appear at your séances who seem to be lost, and who come again and again for no discoverable reason?”
“Yes, indeed,” said the wizard—he would never admit there was any experience he hadn’t had. “In the end I manage to find out who they are and what they want, and I give it to them if possible.”
“I have several cases in my notebooks that you might be interested to work over. Shall I give you an example—or am I boring you?”
“Not at all, Herr Budd. It is a pleasure to meet a man who really understands the significance of such phenomena.”
“Well there is a spirit who calls himself Ludi; he was a commercial artist here in Berlin, so he says. He died, a painful death, apparently; I cannot get him to talk about it. And either he does not know his last name or else is embarrassed about it. Whenever I press him with questions he fades away and does not return for months.”
“Possibly he is a fragment of a dissociated personality.”
“That is what I have thought. I ask him why he comes to me, and he answers that he knew me in Berlin. I cannot recall any Ludi or Ludwig who is dead. Of course, I have been about a great deal in Berlin, and have been introduced to swarms of people, sometimes scores at a single Empfang. And, of course, as a stepson of Marcel Detaze I have met great numbers of artists of every sort; we had a one-man show in Berlin about four years ago, and all the artists came, the famous and the humble, and in the course of a couple of weeks I must have met hundreds.”
“Undoubtedly you met this man, and his thoughts became attached to you. You would have been important to him, because you and your stepfather together represented the things he wanted but couldn’t attain to.”
“That might be the way. But I haven’t told you all.”
“Pray go on.”
“A month or two ago there came a woman who says she is Ludi’s wife. It sounds unlikely—that there should be a couple named Ludi and Trudi—one would take it for a vaudeville team. But that is what the woman says: Ludi and Trudi Schultz; but then again she gives the name Mueller, and doesn’t seem to know why she changes. She is looking for Ludi, and he for her, but they never meet.”
“Surely your control ought to be able to arrange that!”
“One would think so; but Tecumseh is a peculiar sort of control. Somehow he understands German, but objects to its being used. Anyhow, he says these two spirits fade out when he talks to them, and he has got tired of them. I must admit I have come to have the same feeling.”
“Perhaps they had some tragedy in their lives; some crime, or suicide.”
“I think that extremely likely. They seem to be harmless creatures, and I try not to hurt their feelings; but they interrupt my researches and make themselves something of a nuisance, especially now that there are two of them.”
“We’ll see what we can find out about them, Herr Budd. Perhaps if we bring them together they will go their way.”
“Spirit hand in spirit hand,” said the visitor, smiling; and then, after a moment: “By the way, Herr Professor, I have been told that you have held sittings with Rudolf Hess.”
“Many times. He is one of my oldest friends—from the days when the Nazi fortunes were not so easy to foretell as now.”
“I can believe that, indeed. I had the pleasure of meeting Herr Hess at the Berghof the last time I was there. I expect to go again before long, and if I see him I will tell him about this meeting.”
“I will send my astral body to make note of what you and he are doing, and will tell you about it the next time we meet.”
“That will be most interesting, Herr Professor. You may count upon my following up this fascinating subject. I realize that I am only a neophyte, while you are one of the masters.”
“A most promising pupil, Herr Budd, and I shall be happy to reveal to you any secrets in my possession.”
The time had come for the visitor to take his departure, and he asked this teacher what was the proper fee for the evening’s instructions. The Professor said he would make no charge, for he had learned as much as he had taught. But Lanny knew better than to take that seriously. He drew an envelope from his pocket and laid it quietly on the center table, alongside the crystal ball. It contained a check for two hundred marks, about eighty dollars; a reasonably good fee, enough to keep any teacher interested. The check was drawn on a Berlin bank, which gave the elderly wizard a further item of information, and put him in position to get more if he thought it worth while. Again Lanny didn’t mind, for he wanted what he wanted, and was prepared to pay.
19
Vaulting Ambition
I
Lanny Budd had a
perpetual problem to wrestle with in his dealings with Adolf Hitler. He hated so to give this most dangerous of living men any information that would be of use to him; but, on the other hand, some information had to be given, otherwise the connection would soon be broken off. Apart from the matter of Trudi, it was surely worth while for a presidential agent to have access to the Führer’s home, and a time might come in the future when it would be of crucial importance.
Manifestly, there could be no such thing as restraining this half-genius, half-madman. If Lanny told him things that were calculated to restrain him, he would become irritated; if Lanny persisted, he would fly into a passion and make a speech two hours long. Afterwards, he would realize that he had wasted his time, and would say: “No more of that Taugenichts!” No, if you wanted to keep the friendship of a mad king, you had to do like the other courtiers—tell him what he wanted to hear. Watch for the signs of what he meant to do, and then advise him to do it, and he would know you for a wise man. The consequences might be terrifying, but there could be no other way. F.D.R. had hit the nail on the head when he said that it would be necessary to give these dictators rope and let them hang themselves.
So when Lanny received his summons to the New Chancellery, he told Adi Schicklgruber pretty much what he had already written to Gus Gennerich: that the Chancellor of Austria was a weak man who blustered. There hadn’t been anything confidential in Lanny’s two talks with him; quite the contrary, what Schuschnigg had said was what he wanted the world to know. Lanny told it to the master of the Nazi world, and the Nazi-master beamed, for it was what he wanted to hear. This agreeable American art expert had gone into the heart of Hitler’s problem, had talked with the key people, penetrated their thoughts, judged their characters—and come out with exactly the opinions that Hitler held. “Why can’t I get my own people to do things like that?” thought Adi—but he wouldn’t say it, lest the agreeable American should get a case of swelled head and start raising his price. Two expensive paintings, a Detaze and a Defregger, were enough!
Presidential Agent (The Lanny Budd Novels) Page 50
