Then to Wickthorpe, to spend an afternoon with his little daughter, and an evening with Ceddy and Irma, and friends whom they called in to hear about “the States.” There had been a hot fight going on in Congress over the issue of the Neutrality Act, which forbade the sale of arms to any belligerent, thus depriving the President of power to discriminate between aggressors and their victims. The effort to repeal the act had been defeated by a close margin—and what did that mean? What could Britain count upon from the great democracy overseas? What was the state of mind of a nation which gave advice so freely and refused any real help? “Get all you can before war breaks out,” suggested the son of Budd-Erling—advice that didn’t sound entirely disinterested!
Lanny found British “insiders” once more in a mood of appeasement. In the excitement after Prague the Government had signed a pact guaranteeing the integrity of Poland; and of course they would stand by their word—but that didn’t keep them from urging Poland to make concessions. Anything to keep out of war! They had worked out a scheme to buy Hitler with a “peace loan” of a thousand million pounds, the biggest in history; he would agree not to spend it on armaments, he would agree to evacuate Prague, and in return he would have a share in the “development” of China and Africa—which meant colonies, of course. The news leaked, and the Government denied that anything of the sort was afoot; the consultations were “private,” a way they had of treating public affairs.
The subject of Russia came up—it could never be left out. The Russians kept on demanding that France should implement the treaty of mutual defense; they wanted such a treaty with Britain also, and they wanted “staff consultations,” to plan what was to be done in case of an attack. A “mission” was supposed to be going, but it was decidedly halfhearted. The Earl of Wickthorpe, who had learned to take Lanny’s opinion seriously, took him into his study after the guests had gone. If Lanny was going to Berlin, would he be so good as to try to find out what was Hitler’s mood, and what the rest of the world had to expect from him?
Lanny explained: “The trouble with reporting on Hitler is that his mood changes so fast; what is true when a letter is written may be false by the time it is read. As well as I can guess, the Führer is in a state of uncertainty at the moment. He’s not sure how far he can go. It depends on what he thinks you mean. When you offer him a ‘peace loan,’ he decides that you are frightened and he goes farther.”
“But, Lanny, we don’t want war!” exclaimed the Foreign Office man. “People are saying: ‘Do you want to die for Danzig?’”
Lanny would have liked to say: “That sounds like Dr. Goebbels to me.” But he checked himself, and remarked: “Whatever they are saying, the Führer knows it.”
II
On to Paris. Lanny had telephoned to Schneider, who was at Le Creusot and begged him to come there. When Lanny explained that he had business for his father in Germany, the Baron said: “I’ll come up to Paris. I must hear about America. I can’t understand it.”
Here was one badly worried capitalist; his keen mind kept him aware of his country’s peril, but his will was falling into a state of paralysis; he couldn’t be sure which of several dangers was the greatest. France must at all hazards keep out of war; a whole generation had been wiped out in the last bloodbath, and another such would bring French culture to an end. But the Nazis were such difficult people to get along with! They had behaved abominably in the matter of the Skoda plant; and what if they did the same with the Schneider properties in Poland and in the Balkans—and still worse, if they made a deal with the damnable Communists! What did Lanny think was the truth about these rumors? Once more Lanny promised to find out and report.
He called up his Red uncle and invited him for a drive. Jesse, now entirely bald, and wearing no hat, was a conspicuous object, so his nephew took him through obscure streets; his beloved proletarians might recognize him, but they wouldn’t recognize Lanny! The painter-deputy stuck to his story that the rumors of a deal between Hitler and Stalin were enemy slanders; but Lanny noticed that he was beginning to hedge a little—perhaps without admitting it to himself. What was the proposal which the capitalistic powers put before the Soviet Union? To give help in a defense against the Hitlerites, but without having access to Polish territory, the only route there was! Let Britain and France make up their minds which side they wanted Russia to fight on; and let them do it soon!
Lanny went to lunch with the de Bruynes. The father was away, possibly pursuing his pleasures, even at his advanced age. The two sons took Lanny to the Jockey Club, and heard the agreeable news about Budd-Erling—though of course with no reference to the dole. Stockholders like to hear about large orders, and these Frenchmen enjoyed it especially, knowing that la patrie had been allowed to purchase American Army planes and might get a share of this new order. The père de famille would call on General Gamelin as soon as he returned. Denis fils had just had a talk with Colonel de Gaulle, an officer who believed in the future of airplanes and tanks, and was deeply concerned over France’s weak position.
The talk ranged over the problem of Europe’s future, and Lanny was interested to note the beginning of a rift in the thinking of these two brothers. Charlot, the younger and more impetuous, hated the Leftists so that he seemed to have forgotten the existence of foreign enemies. Charlot renewed his feelings every time he looked into the mirror and saw the scar which he had got in a street battle with the Reds. He was still the Cagoulard, ready to overturn the government by violence, and refusing to worry about what Hitler might be doing in the meantime.
But the elder brother, like Baron Schneider, had noted what happened to Czechoslovakia, and it had frightened him. Maybe, after all, Adolf Hitler wasn’t the white knight sent by Providence to slay the dragon of Bolshevism; maybe he was a German, first and last, and still believed what he had written in a book more than fifteen years ago, that German safety required the annihilation of France. The two brothers had been arguing about it, and they wanted Lanny’s opinion. When that happened, anywhere in the world, the art expert sought refuge in the topmost story of his ivory tower. Who could guess what was in the mind of any man who had gained power? That was a problem for psychologists and perhaps for statesmen, but surely not for one who traveled about booking for beautiful paintings!
III
Zoltan Kertezsi was in Paris, and he agreed readily to Lanny’s proposal that he should take charge of a Detaze show in Baltimore. It would be a good thing for him because his expenses there would be paid, and he would get ten per cent on whatever picture sales were made. He said that as things appeared in Europe right now, it might be wise to have the Detaze works in the United States. Even if there was war in Europe, people would still want to look at good paintings in America, and Zoltan would be glad to take those pictures on a tour and show them in half a dozen of the big cities.
Lanny had already telephoned his mother from London and told her of the project and made sure of her approval. Now, he called her again and told her to get Lanny’s former tutor and old friend, Jerry Pendleton, to take charge of the packing and shipping of the paintings. Having done that job before, Jerry knew the ropes. He would have the pictures insured, and he would rent a truck and accompany the precious freight to Marseilles and see it safely aboard a steamer—better two steamers, half and half. There might be a freighter direct to Baltimore.
Beauty wanted Lanny to come to the Riviera, but he told her he had important business with General Göring. The mother said: “Do see Marceline. I am worried about her. I don’t like the idea of that German.” So Lanny drove to the elegant apartment near the Parc Monceau where the night-club dancer had taken up her residence. He had never seen her so blooming; and when he told her what their mother had said, she burst into poetry. “Oh, Lanny, I have never been so happy! Oh, Lanny, he is the most wonderful fellow! Never, never have I had the least idea of what it means to be in love!”
“I thought you thought you were in love with Vittorio,” he had the bad taste to
remark.
“Ugh!” she exclaimed: “Don’t humiliate me!”
“Has Oskar offered to marry you?”
“I don’t want him to marry me, I want him to love me. He has made the whole world over for me.”
“Once,” persisted the half-brother, “you told me that the next man who loved you was going to pay.”
“Poor Oskar can’t,” was the reply. “He has only his salary.”
There wasn’t any more for Lanny to say. Once upon a time—it seemed a long time—he had warned her against a Fascist, and she had paid no attention to him. Now he was not in position to warn her against a Nazi. He felt in part responsible, having introduced her to Oskar von Herzenberg and having appeared to be endorsing him and his cause. It was more of the price Lanny had to pay for being a secret agent. He himself couldn’t have a wife, and his half-sister had been thrown to the Nazi wolves.
There is a German saying: “When you are with the wolves you must howl with them.” So Lanny in the wolf’s den asked about the Herzenbergs, and spoke of them as his intimates. Lili Moldau was a charming actress, and the Graf was one of the shrewdest diplomats in Europe. What did he think about the present situation between Germany and Poland? Marceline replied that she refused to be concerned with the tiresome subject of politics: Oskar bored her to death with it. Lanny, thinking quickly, remarked: “It’s an important subject to Robbie right now, because if there is going to be war his business will expand, and it’s important for him to know so that he can put in orders for materials in advance. He begged me to find out all I could and cable him.”
“I suppose that is the right way to look at it,” remarked the dancer. She wouldn’t need to be reminded that Robbie had been paying her mother a thousand dollars a month for forty years—and that came close to half a million if you figured it up.
“Moreover,” explained Lanny, “it’s important to you and me, for I have just arranged with the Holdenhursts in Baltimore to ship the Detazes there and have a show next October. That ought to bring big sales; but I’m afraid if there’s a war it will be knocked out.”
“Oh, dear!” said the half-sister. “I’d be glad to get some extra money! I’ll tell you what—let’s have a dinner party, just us five, and I’ll keep quiet and let you pump them all you please.”
“I won’t have to pump, because I have things to tell the Graf that he’ll be glad to hear, and he always talks freely in return. The only trouble is, I have a date with Marshal Göring and I have to hurry. Do you suppose you could get it up for this evening? I’ll be glad to pay for it.”
“I have a date with Oskar. I’ll find out if the Graf and Lili can come.” She picked up the telephone, and it was a date.
IV
Having time to spare, Lanny called up Kurt Meissner, to tell him the news about Robbie, and about his meeting with Emil and Emil’s family. Kurt said: “Can’t you come over? Otto Abetz is here, and you ought to know him better.”
Lanny drove to Kurt’s apartment, and met the dutiful and agreeable secretary and the devoted man-servant; also a blond, reddish-haired German of about Lanny’s age. Handsome and agreeable Otto Abetz knew everybody who was anybody in Paris; he lectured at the Cinéma Bonaparte, in the Place St. Sulpice, and all fashionable society came to hear him, especially the ladies. He had a French wife and called himself “pro-French,” and his purpose was to bring about a rapprochement between French and German ideas, ideals, and political affairs. He had once called himself a “Christian democrat,” and apparently had believed what he preached; at any rate he had learned to look into your eyes—especially if you had a lady’s eyes—and speak in a persuasive voice the most beautiful and noble words imaginable. The ladies of the ancien régime—tout le faubourg St. Germain, they were called—all adored him. Lanny had even heard his praises sung by his old friend Olivie Hellstein, Madame de Broussailles, a member of the Jewish banking family, whose uncle had been murdered by the Nazis, almost in Lanny’s presence. Rick had a saying concerning the English appeasers, that class was more than country; here in Paris Lanny observed that it was more than race.
Otto Abetz was now Ribbentrop’s man in France, and distributed money to editors, publishers and writers. Nothing dishonorable about it, for writers have to live, and if you have important ideas and want them promoted, you surely have a right to pay someone to assist you. Kurt was doing the same, and from hints that Lanny had been able to pick up in the course of twenty years Lanny guessed that Kurt’s funds came from the Generalstab of the Reichswehr. Apparently all Nazi agents had orders to co-operate with one another, so Kurt and Otto were friends, and now Kurt was helping Otto to become acquainted with an art expert who was known throughout Germany as the Führer’s friend and admirer.
No butter had ever melted in Herr Budd’s mouth when he didn’t want it to. When he met a new Nazi, he was the most agreeable person that Nazi had ever met. He did not boast about his intimacies in the hierarchy, but assumed that the other person would know, or would find out. He considered what this person would most like to know, and then poured out information in a flood. He had just come from New York, Washington, Baltimore, Detroit; he had taken the trip with Forrest Quadratt as his guest, and apparently it had been a money-raising and information-collecting expedition on behalf of Mein Kampf—not the book, but the cause. Two Nazi agents in Paris were eager to know how it was progressing in these far-off great cities. They had read of the congressional vote on the Neutrality Act, and took it as a tremendous victory for their battle. They wanted to know if Roosevelt was actually insane, and Lanny repeated the expressions he had heard in the country clubs, which proved that he was.
And then London. Herr Budd would tell them, in confidence—Kurt being one of his oldest friends—exactly what the British Foreign Office was doing and planning; what it wanted, what it feared, how it had best be approached and placated. When two Germans thought it over later they might realize that they hadn’t learned anything especially new; they would take that to mean that Herr Budd had failed to allow for the efficiency of the German secret services.
The important thing was, he didn’t ask a single question, or display any improper curiosity. So, in the course of an afternoon, Otto Abetz talked freely about various personalities who belonged to the Comité France-Allemagne and who, when they spoke of war between the two countries, regularly used the phrase l’irréparable. Lanny could tell what Schneider and de Wendel and Juan March and Michelin had said on this subject—and even Sir Basil Zaharoff from his grave. As a result, he had a new Nazi friend, and the next time he came back to Paris he might expect to receive a delicately phrased offer of remuneration.
V
Returning to his hotel, Lanny dressed for the evening and played host in a small cabinet particulier in one of the fashionable restaurants. There was Seine Hochgeboren, elegant and suave, and his lady who had studied so carefully the arts of keeping herself young; Marceline, who, being only twenty-two, had never had to give thought to that subject; and the blond Oskar with his pink cheeks, the left one scarred, and his elegant Leutnant’s uniform. He and Marceline spent the evening looking at each other, and Lili listened to her protector. Perhaps she had been told to keep quiet, for the Graf wanted to find out things from Lanny, as Lanny wanted to find out things from him.
The host told about New York, Washington, and the other cities, all over again. Being a P.A. involves much boredom; it is like trolling in the ocean—you may have to wait a long time for a strike, but when you get one, it may be a five-hundred pounder. The Graf was interested in Henry Ford, Father Coughlin, and Gerald L. K. Smith; also in the country-club gentlemen and their conversation. He wasn’t so crude as to ask whether the President of the United States was insane, but he said, apologetically: “Some of us found his telegram to the Führer slightly gauche.” Lanny replied: “It made me blush.”
Again London, and the Foreign Office, and what was worrying them; especially the possibility of a Russo-German entente. Speaking to an ol
d friend, Lanny could report that he had discussed this most delicate of questions with the Führer himself, and the Führer had stated what he wanted Frenchmen and Englishmen to know regarding his attitude: that he was nobody’s fool, and that no move was excluded from the diplomatic chessboard.
“Certainly not,” replied Herzenberg. “The difficulty lies in what the Russians demand: the Baltic states, and Poland at least as far as the Curzon Line. We do not exactly fancy them as next-door neighbors.”
“They had all that territory once,” replied Lanny; “and as you know, nations, too, have memories.”
“Ultimately, Herr Budd, it is a question of power. Some people can make their dreams come true, and others not.”
“I don’t know whether Washington is a good source of information as to Berlin,” remarked Lanny, skirting a dangerous subject; “but the report there is that Herr von Ribbentrop had his bags packed for a trip to Moscow.”
“It doesn’t take long to pack one’s bags,” replied the Graf, suavely, “or to unpack them again, if the weather happens to turn unfavorable for an airplane flight. Speaking for myself, and not as an official, I should regard any sort of arrangement with the Reds as a calamity. I believe that if we are given six months more we can win a genuine understanding with France and bring about the abolition of the hateful Russian alliance.”
“In that I am inclined to agree with you, Graf. You have made many friends in Paris, and it is purely a question of when they can gain power. Would you be willing for me to quote your opinion to the Führer?”
“I possess only a slight acquaintance with the Führer, and must be careful not to be put in the position of going over the heads of my superiors.”
“I understand the situation, my friend.” Lanny wouldn’t add: “I know that Ribbentrop wants war, and you don’t.” Instead he explained: “I talked with Kurt Meissner and Otto Abetz, and they are equally optimistic as to the prospects in Paris. May I tell the Führer that this appears to be the general opinion of his representatives on the ground?”
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