“I have no right to call on you,” said the other, at last. “But I’m in danger, and I thought you might wish to know it.”
“What is it?”
“The police have raided the group with whom I have been working. I went last night to the place where I stay. I always make it a practice to walk on the other side of the street, looking for a window signal indicating that everything is all right. I saw a police van drawn up in front and they were taking people out of the house. I walked on, and I’ve been walking the streets most of the time since. I don’t know any place to go.”
Lanny didn’t need to be told how serious this danger was. “Have you any reason to think the police know about you?”
“How can I tell what they know? I’m sure my leader won’t talk, and we never kept any papers in the place. But one can never be sure what has happened in this business.”
“I’ve been watching the newspapers. There’s been nothing in them.”
“The police would surely not make anything public about spies.”
“How long have you been at this work, Kurt?”
“Only since the armistice. I got into it because of you.”
“Of me?”
“My father has a friend in Switzerland—the man who used to forward my letters to you. After the armistice he asked me to come and see him. He told me he had been doing government work, and offered me an important duty to help the Fatherland. I accepted.”
“How many others of your people know about you?”
“I don’t know for certain. The other side may have had a spy among us. It’s the attempt on Clemenceau that has stirred them up, of course.”
“You must tell me the truth about that, Kurt. It’s been worrying me a lot.”
“What do you mean?”
“Whether you had anything to do with that attack.”
“Oh, my God, Lanny! What put that idea into your head?”
“Well, I have realized that you are trying to stir up revolt here. And it’s fair to assume that some of your agents would be in touch with people like that anarchist.”
“I don’t know whether they are or not, Lanny, but, granting it, we have nothing to gain by such an attempt. It has set us back, it may have ruined everything. I assure you my associates are not fools. Would they want to put Poincaré in power?”
“I can have your word of honor, Kurt, that you and your people had nothing to do with that attack?”
“You have that absolutely.”
“It’s a mighty serious matter for me, you know.”
“I understand that fully. That’s why I walked the streets all day, trying to make up my mind to call upon you. I’m not sure that I have the right to, and if you decline to touch the matter, I’ll not blame you.”
“I want to help you, Kurt, and I will.”
“You know what would happen if you were caught aiding an enemy agent.”
“I’m willing to take a chance on that—provided I know that neither you nor your friends have been destroying life or property.”
“The truth is, Lanny, I have no idea what they did before the armistice. I suppose they were doing everything they could to help the Fatherland. But now they are trying to soften the French government by promoting political opposition. We have such troubles to deal with at home, and why shouldn’t the French have their share?”
“That’s all right with me,” said the French-American, with a grin.
X
They had come to the embankment of the Seine, and were walking along the quais, close together, talking low, with wind and pelting rain to absorb their voices. When a passer-by came, they fell silent until he was gone. Lanny was thinking busily: “What shall I do? Kurt can’t stay out on a night like this.” Already the rain was turning to sleet.
“Let’s get down to the problem,” he said. “I can’t take you to my rooms, because I share them with two other fellows. I can’t take you to my uncle, because the police may have him already.”
“That is true.”
“Wherever we go, we’ll have to take somebody into our confidence. It wouldn’t be decent to introduce you under a false name. One can’t play a trick like that on one’s friends.”
“I suppose not.”
“I believe Mrs. Chattersworth would be sympathetic, but she has so much company, and you’d have to meet people, otherwise the servants would think it strange.”
“The servants will make trouble anywhere.”
“I might get a car and drive you down to Juan; but the servants know you, and have heard my mother and me talking about you during the war.”
“That’s out.”
“I thought of Isadora Duncan, who’s in Paris. She’s an internationalist and has queer people around her all the time. But the trouble is, she’s irresponsible. They say she’s drinking—the war just about drove her crazy.”
There was a pause while he thought some more. “I believe our best guess is my mother. She’s not very good at keeping secrets, but she’d surely keep this one because it means danger for me also.”
“Where is she?”
“In an apartment in a small hotel. Most of the time she’s invited out to meals, but she has breakfast sent to her rooms. She has no servant except a maid, and could find some excuse to get rid of her. That’s the one way I can think of to get you hidden.”
“But, Lanny, would your mother be willing to have a strange man in her apartment?”
“You aren’t a stranger; you’re my friend, and my mother knows how dear you are to me. It would be inconvenient, of course; but it’s a matter of life or death.”
“But don’t you see, Lanny—the hotel people would be sure that she had a lover. There couldn’t be any other assumption.”
“They don’t pay so much attention to that in Paris; and Beauty knows what it is to be gossiped about. You see, she lived with Marcel for years before they were married. All her friends know that story, and you might as well know it too.”
“I only saw your mother for a few hours, Lanny, but I thought she was a wonderful person.”
“She’s been through a lot since then, and it’s left her sort of distracted and at loose ends. She’s only recently got reconciled to the idea that she’s never going to see her husband again. Now she’s figuring how the world may be persuaded to recognize his genius. He really had it, Kurt.”
The gusts of icy rain were blowing into their faces from across the river, and Lanny turned into a side street. “The hotel is up here,” he said.
“You mean to take me there without telling her?”
“I’ll phone and make sure she’s alone. She won’t want you left out in this rain, that I know. Tomorrow the three of us will have to figure out some way to get you out of France.”
31
In the Enemy’s Country
I
President Wilson was back in the United States, taking up the heaviest of all his burdens, that of persuading the American people to accept his League of Nations. He had wrought them into a mood of military fervor, and the war had ended too suddenly. In the November elections, a few days before the armistice, they had chosen a majority of reactionary Republicans, determined to have no more nonsense about idealism but to think about America first, last, and all the time. President Wilson invited the opposition chieftains to a dinner party, and they came, but neither good food nor moral fervor moved them from their surly skepticism. Wilson had, so he told the world, a “one-track mind.” Now he was traveling on that track, and the Senate leaders were digging a wide and deep ditch at the end of it.
Of course the election results were known in Paris, and were one of the factors undermining the President’s position. Both Lloyd George and Clemenceau had consulted their people and had their full consent to the program of “making Germany pay.” Their newspapers were taunting the American President with the fact that his people were not behind him; now they printed the news about his failures in Washington, and on that basis went ahead to rem
ake the world nearer to their hearts’ desire.
Already they had fourteen little wars going—one for each of the Fourteen Points, said Professor Alston, bitterly. They were getting ready for the really big war, the Allied invasion of Russia. The blockade was screwed down tighter than ever; the Allies refused to lift it even from Poland and the new state of Czechoslovakia, for fear that supplies might get into Germany, or that Red agents might get out through the cordon sanitaire.
Clemenceau got out of his sick bed and resumed his place in command of the conference. He sat slumped in his chair, a pitiful, shrunken figure—but try to take anything from under his claws, and hear the Tiger snarl! This statesman aged in bitterness had performed a strange mental feat, transferring all that he had of love to an abstraction called la patrie. Individual Frenchmen he despised, along with all other human creatures; he humiliated and browbeat his subordinates in public, and poured the acid of his wit upon the pretense of idealism in any person in public life. But France was glory, France was God, and for her safety he was willing to destroy everything else in Europe and indeed in the world.
Colonel House was representing the President. The “little white mouse” didn’t have a one-track mind, and hadn’t come to Europe unprepared; he knew the age-long hatreds which made life a torment on that continent. He was trying to placate and persuade, and was sending long cablegrams to his chief about his great failures and his small successes. The staff at the Crillon watched and whispered, and the hundred and fifty registered newspaper correspondents from America hung about on the outskirts, gathering rumors and sending long wireless messages about secret covenants being secretly arrived at.
II
Meanwhile Lanny was taking all the time his chief could spare to run over to his mother’s hotel and try to solve the embarrassing problem of his German friend. First he had the bright idea that Jerry Pendleton was the trustworthy person who would take this charge of dynamite off his hands. Jerry was going back to his regiment; surely he could take with him a Swiss musician friend, and find some pretext, a concert or something, to get him into Koblenz. Let him entertain the regiment! After that it would be easy for him to disappear into Germany, for the American lines were loosely held and peasants and others came freely into Koblenz.
Lanny even worked up a likely story for the lieutenant to tell about how he had met this musician; he phoned to the Hotel du Pavilion—one of the “Y” shelters, where Jerry had been staying—and to his vexation learned that his friend had departed, leaving no address. Next morning came a post card marked Cannes. After all that scolding at the French, and all those doubts and fears, Jerry had gone running off to his girl!
Lanny’s mother wasn’t surprised. Lovers were like that, she declared: full of agonies and uncertainties, embarrassments and extravagances, impulses and remorses; quarreling bitterly, parting forever, and making it up next day. You just couldn’t tell what unlikely sort of partner anyone would pick, or what crazy thing he or she would do. Lanny could understand that a man who had been drilled and disciplined for a year and a half, and had fought through one of the greatest battles in history, was apt to be restless and moody—and very much in need of feminine society.
Lanny sent his friend a telegram: “Don’t fail to see me before you return to duties.” A couple of days later he was bowled flat by a letter from the lieutenant, saying that he was never going to return to his duties, and that Uncle Sam could come and get him if and when he could find him. Jerry was going to marry his Cerise, and settle down to helping run a boarding house without boarders. “Tell those old buzzards to hurry up and sign the peace,” said the ex-tutor from Kansas, “so that tourists can begin coming back to the Riviera!”
Lanny was much worried about this, for he knew that desertion in wartime was a serious matter. He took occasion to bring up the subject with one of the military men at the Crillon, and learned that the army had been severe with the A.W.O.L.’s at the outset, but was becoming less so every day as a matter of sheer necessity. Men who had submitted cheerfully to the draft now considered that their duty was done, and wanted to go home before some other fellow got their girls and their jobs; there were so many deserters in Paris that the M.P.’s couldn’t bring them in nor the guardhouses hold them. Lanny wrote his friend for heaven’s sake to take off his uniform and not show himself in public places until after the peace was signed. Then, presumably, the army would go home and forget him!
Lanny and his mother had also discussed Johannes Robin, prosperous speculator in cast-off armaments. He journeyed frequently to Paris and other places; surely he must know persons at the border, and could arrange to import a competent Swiss musician to play duets with his son! Lanny composed a nice sociable letter, telling the news about himself and his parents, and saying that he hoped to see Mr. Robin when he came to the city, and did he have any plans to come? So tactful was this letter that Mr. Robin missed the point and replied even more sociably, telling how happy his whole family was to hear from Lanny, and all about what they were doing and thinking. Only at the end did he mention that he had no plans to come to Paris just now, but that when he did, Lanny would be sure to hear from him. What Lanny said was: “Damn!”
III
On account of her secret “house guest,” Madame Detaze was compelled to receive her friends in the parlor of the hotel, a circumstance which sooner or later was bound to awaken their curiosity. Only two persons, her brother and her son, were accustomed to come up unannounced; the next afternoon, when Lanny entered his mother’s drawing room, he found his Uncle Jesse seated there. Kurt wasn’t visible, so Lanny assumed that he must be hidden in Beauty’s boudoir. The youth couldn’t get away from the feeling that he was playing a part in a stage comedy. Suppose the German captain of artillery should happen to be seized by a fit of coughing or sneezing—there would be quite a job of explaining to Beauty’s brother!
But this calamity did not befall. With more than one of his twisted smiles the brother told about his adventures with the agents of the Sûreté Générale, who had descended upon him within a couple of hours after the attack upon Clemenceau. Jesse hadn’t heard about the incident, and was caught with a letter half-written on his table—fortunately it dealt with American affairs! The police took him to the Préfecture and gave him a grilling, threatening among other things to expel him from the country. The painter had taken a high stand, declaring that this would make more propaganda than he could achieve by a hundred speeches.
“They wanted to know about my sister and my nephew,” added Jesse. “I gather that few things would please them more than to be able to tie the Crillon up with the attempt on Clemenceau.”
“They all think we’re pro-German,” replied the youth. “Or at any rate they say they do.”
Beauty had been told about the réunion, so Lanny was free to ask his uncle: “Do you know that fellow Cottin?”
“Never heard of him,” was the reply. “I don’t go much with anarchists. It’s my judgment they nearly always have a screw loose.”
Lanny had been taught by his father that all varieties of Reds were in that condition. Said he: “Do you remember a young workingman who came onto the platform at the meeting and shook hands with you?”
“There were several who did that.”
“This one talked to you and you patted him on the back.”
“Probably he was praising my speech,” said Uncle Jesse. “If so, I liked him.”
“Don’t you remember one who wore corduroys?”
The painter searched his memory. “I believe I do. A rather frail chap, looking as if he’d been sick?”
“That was Cottin.”
Jesse exhibited astonishment—and his nephew watched him closely. Was it genuine, or was it good acting? No doubt many comrades of the young anarchist were forgetting him just now. Distrust of his uncle had been so deeply ground into Lanny’s mind that he was never sure if any of the painter’s emotions were genuine.
Beauty interrupted the drama
with some remark about the wickedness of shooting that poor old man who was doing so much for France. This caused her brother to turn upon her with what certainly seemed a genuine emotion. He said that attempts at assassination were foolish, because they didn’t accomplish the purpose desired; but so far as wickedness was concerned, how about statesmen and diplomats who had caused the murder of ten million innocent persons and the destruction of three hundred billions of dollars’ worth of property? And what were you going to say about bureaucrats and politicians who left the poor to stand in line for hours waiting for a chance to buy a few scraps of half-spoiled food at twice the prices charged before the war?
Jesse Blackless was started on the same speech he had made at the meeting. He told about food rotting in warehouses at Le Havre and Marseille, about freight cars rusting idle—and all because speculators reaped fortunes out of every increase in prices. “What does it mean to you that the cost of living in Paris has doubled, and that some foods cost five or six times as much? All you have to do is to ask Robbie for another check.”
“I assure you you’re mistaken,” said Beauty, spunkily—for she had had plenty of practice quarreling with her brother. “I’ve lost ten pounds since I came to Paris.”
“Well, it’s probably due to dancing all night, not to going hungry. I don’t go into the smart restaurants, but I pass them and see they’re crowded all night with bemedaled men and half-naked women.”
“That’s because Paris is so full of strangers. People sit packed at the tables so that they haven’t room to move their elbows.”
“Well, they manage to get the food. But the people I know haven’t tasted a morsel of sugar in four years, and now they stand in the rain and snow for hours for a loaf of bread or a basket of fuel. Is it any more wicked to kill a cynical old politician than to starve a million women and children so that they die of anemia or pneumonia?”
World's End Page 63
