V
In the morning the clouds had blown away, the air was washed clear, and the Alpine peaks were shining like Christmas cards with tinsel on them. They breakfasted in heavenly peace, like two soldiers who have been through a battle and escaped unscathed. They continued on their journey, and the contrast of the scenery with what it had been on the previous day made them feel that they had escaped from the caverns of Niebelheim into the bright land of freedom. When they were far enough from the border not to fear attracting attention, a lady wearing a man’s overcoat emerged from a car and entered a shop, explaining that her traveling bags had been stolen. An odd sensation to be without so much as even a toothbrush in the world! It was a revelation as to the complications of civilized life—to discover how many things you had to have.
Laurel Creston, a considerate person, stopped only for the real necessities. Lanny had told her that he was bound for Paris upon a matter of importance—not saying that it was to find out what the French would do in the event that Hitler should declare Danzig a part of his German Reich. He asked about her plans, and drew from her the fact that she had been too greatly upset to make any. Poor little woman, she had been trying gamely to achieve her independence, and had succeeded, but now her affairs had been knocked galley-west; not merely all her clothes were lost, and the money she had had in her trunk, but her manuscripts, except for those of which copies had been mailed to editors.
“The first thing,” Lanny suggested, “is to cable each of those editors to hold the manuscripts until you send a new address. The next thing is to be frank with me and tell me how you are fixed for money; I have more than I need, and there’s no reason for you to worry.”
“I have money in the bank at Baltimore,” she assured him, “and I surely don’t mean to impose on you any further.”
“Put it this way,” he replied. “I have discovered one of those white blackbirds, a good medium. I hope to experiment with her and to learn a lot. Peace of mind is necessary to her work, and it is to my interest to see that she has it.”
“When do you wish to try an experiment?”
“Ordinarily I would say as soon as you feel fit. But I have some matters pressing upon me. I have to go to Paris, from there to London, and then possibly to New York—it depends upon the war. In any case I ought to be back in a month or six weeks, and then, if you are free, I will come wherever you are.”
“Perhaps it might be a good idea if I stayed in Switzerland for a week or two, until I get myself together and make some plans.”
“I have an idea,” Lanny said. “My mother’s home on the Riviera is a lovely spot, and there is an abundance of room there. My mother is a hospitable soul and would be delighted.”
“But I barely know your mother, Lanny!”
“In that playground of Europe people drop in and drop out again, and nobody bothers about where they have come from, or what they are doing, except having a good time. The important person in this case is my stepfather, who is the most uniformly kind human soul I have ever known, and a devout student of the occult. To him you would come as a messenger from heaven; he would find out all about your psychic powers and help you to develop them. He is another kind of white blackbird, a genuine saint, and you would find him a welcome contrast to the Nazis.”
Lanny talked about Parsifal Dingle, his healing powers, and the extraordinary impression his persistent kindness had produced upon even the most worldly on the Côte d’Azur. The stepson had already told about Madame, and about the monastery of Dodanduwa in Ceylon, whose monks had appeared in the old woman’s trances. He said: “It will be interesting to have you sit with Madame and then Madame with you, and see if you get Tecumseh or Claribel, and what Madame might get from you. Parsifal would be delighted with such an opportunity and would make elaborate records, which might perhaps be published by the Society for Psychical Research in London or New York.”
“All this sounds very interesting,” admitted the woman. “How would you arrange it?”
“I can stop in the next town and get my mother on the telephone. It is my duty to call her every now and then and let her hear the voice of her only son. I can tell her about you, and, if you wish, you can hear her voice, telling you that Bienvenu means ‘Welcome’!”
VI
However, things are rarely that simple in the haut monde. Before they reached the next town, Lanny remembered that Laurel Creston had once called Beauty Budd’s son a “troglodyte,” and in Beauty Budd’s hearing! Beauty in return had called her conduct “insolence”—not to her face, but driving home with Lanny and Marceline. For things of that sort Beauty had the memory of an elephant; and besides, it had been only a year ago. Also, there was all that smart crowd to be considered—so free and easy in their manners and morals, and also in their conversation. What would be said of an anti-Nazi fiction writer turning up at the home of a woman whose son was a friend of the Führer?
Motoring through mountain passes and alongside sparkling blue lakes, Lanny entered upon a carefully worded explanation. “I have admitted to you the fact that I do not like the people of the Berghof, and that is a secret I have not entrusted even to my mother or my father. The reasons I am not free to reveal; I can only tell you that when I am in the company of the idle rich, I take the attitude that I am an art expert, turning my specialized knowledge into money—something they respect me for. When I meet Nazi-Fascist sympathizers, I give them to understand that I am one of them, and when they hear that I have visited the Berghof, they talk freely in my presence. This is a matter of the utmost importance to me, and I must never permit anything to interfere with it.”
“I understand, Lanny, and you may count on my keeping your secret.”
“What I have to ask is that you will keep some of your own secrets, also. It would not do for an outspoken anti-Nazi to be a guest at my mother’s home; it would cause gossip, and interfere with my intimacy with Juan March and the Duque d’AIba and Lord Londonderry and Lord Beaverbrook and the rest. You can write what you please, of course, provided you keep it locked up—the police will not raid Bienvenu. You can publish it under the name of Mary Morrow, provided you don’t talk about it. But in your conversation I would ask you to become a lady troglodyte for the time being. You are a writer, interested in human nature, and bored by political questions. Could you do that?”
“But I have already talked to friends on the Riviera!”
“That was a year ago, and you can say that you have come to know Europe better. The wealthy take it for granted that people have eccentric notions when they are young, and as they grow up they acquire what is called common sense. As it happens, you have a perfect cover; you have suddenly discovered that you are a medium, and are greatly excited about it. Parsifal has invited you to come to Bienvenu for some tests, and you and everybody else are so curious about the results that nobody bothers you about politics.”
“Suppose I never go into another trance, Lanny. Suppose it happened that, one time, perhaps because I was frightened.”
“Even so, you have your story. You were in a pension in Switzerland—I wouldn’t say anything about having been in Germany, because that might cause questions to be asked and inquiries to be made. Just wipe all that off the slate. I’m certain that it wouldn’t do you any good to try to get back your money or other property from Berlin; the money has been stolen, and the clothes are being worn by the mistress of some Gestapo official. You would only bring troubles upon your head—investigations, and possibly publicity.”
“I have already made up my mind as to that. It is forgotten.”
“All right then. You were in a pension in Bern, let us say, and the people were dabbling in psychic matters and you went into a trance; afterwards they told you what you had said—make up some story, not Uncle Cicero, of course, for he is dead along with Miss Jones. You remembered what you had heard about Parsifal Dingle’s interest in the subject, and you decided to come and put yourself in his hands and see what use could be made of
your gift. That is all consistent, and will give the playboys and girls so much to talk about that they won’t ask what you think about Hitler or Roosevelt.”
“All right,” said Laurel. “I will follow that role. Incidentally, Lanny, I perceive that you must have been making up roles for quite a while.”
“Since about the age of four,” replied the grandson of Budd Gunmakers, a bit disconcerted by her shrewdness. “I used to sit as still as a little mouse and listen while my father was telling my mother how to persuade the Duchesse du Diable to invite the Ruritanian Minister of War to a luncheon, so that my father could sell him a thousand light machine guns.”
VII
That evening, which was Sunday, they arrived in Bern, and from his hotel room Lanny got his mother on the telephone. “Oh, Lanny, where are you? And what are you doing?” Before he had time to answer the second question, she rushed on: “Are we going to have a war?”
“I don’t know, darling.”
“Oh, I can’t live through another war! I refuse to stand it!” And then: “What has got into the world? It seems that everybody has gone mad.”
He waited while she poured out her feelings. He had been through World War I with her: Marcel’s desperate injury, his disfigurement, and his final disappearance; then all the blessés and the efforts to help them; then Kurt’s peril as a German agent in Paris, and her flight with him—yes, Beauty had had her share of war, enough for one lifetime. “Oh, Lanny, you wouldn’t get into it, would you?”
He told her No; America would surely keep out this time. He told her he was going to Paris and then to London, and would call her from there. He added: “I have just had an interesting experience: I have discovered a medium, a young woman who beats even Madame, I think. Parsifal will be crazy about her.”
“Lanny, are you getting into another horrid affair?” demanded a mother to whom love had always stood as Number One among human phenomena.
“Nothing of that sort, old dear. She’s a perfect lady, and very self-contained. She’s a niece of Reverdy Holdenhurst.”
“Oh!”—a large and voluminous syllable. Then: “Where did you meet her?”
“I met her at Sophie’s, and so did you. Do you remember the woman writer who called me a troglodyte?”
“That woman, Lanny?”—a tone of dismay.
“She has changed her political ideas, and admits now that I am right. So that’s all ancient history and you must forget it. The important thing is that she has discovered that she’s a medium, and produces most important phenomena. Do you remember Otto Kahn?”
“Yes, of course.”
“Well, I have just listened to a talk between him and Sir Basil in the spirit world, the most convincing thing you could imagine. Parsifal will be enraptured, and will want to try her and Madame together. I want you to invite her as a house guest and let him make a series of tests.”
“But why don’t you come, Lanny?”
“I have a picture deal on—I’ll tell you about it later. Take my word for Miss Creston—you will find her an acceptable person, and all our friends will be crazy to have sittings with her.” He went on in that vein for a while: a medium would be a social distinction—especially when she came from an old Baltimore family, and had promised to behave with propriety.
“Lanny, have you got yourself mixed up with her?” demanded the mother, who had become so regardful of the proprieties in her near sixties.
“Nothing of that sort, I give you my word. She is a prudish person, I believe, though I haven’t made any inquiry. She is staying at a hotel here; she heard a lot of talk about psychic phenomena and became interested; then she tried an experiment, and made the discovery that she went into a spontaneous trance and didn’t know what she had said in it.” An interesting example of how to walk on a tightrope of fact over an abyss of falsehood!
Beauty said: “All right, of course; send her.” And then: “Oh, something ought to be done in this dreadful crisis. Can’t you talk to some of the influential persons you know?”
“I expect to talk to Schneider tomorrow evening. I’ve been doing all I can.”
“Lanny, what people need is a moral rebirth; we are frivolous and heedless and selfish people. We ought to learn to love one another, and teach our children a religion of service.”
“Yes, old dear,” said the dutiful son. He knew that this was Parsifal Dingle speaking through Parsifal’s wife. For something over twelve years Lanny had been watching the change in his mother’s vocabulary, and he found it touching, but at the same time he couldn’t restrain a smile at this so unforeseeable development in a one-time “professional beauty.”
VIII
Lanny and Laurel parted that night, because Lanny wished to make an early start next morning. She would go first to the shops to get herself a presentable costume, and then she would apply to the Embassy for her papers; this, presumably, would require inquiries of Washington and involve delays. Lanny put into her hands most of the money he had with him—he could get more in Paris, he told her. She tried to thank him for his many bounties, and there was a little unsteadiness in her voice. He hastened to tell her that it was nothing, he was happy to have served her, it was worth a lot of trouble to find a new medium. He put it on that basis, because he knew human nature as well as his mother did, and he feared the sort of scene his mother had feared. He couldn’t afford anything of the sort in the midst of a world crisis.
He stepped into his car, on a bright fresh morning with traces of winter beginning in these high regions. He passed around the long lake of Neufchâtel, and through the Jura mountains into France; another of his all-day drives, with only one stop for a bite of lunch and a fresh supply of essence, as the French call it. He had telephoned Schneider, setting an hour for arrival and promising to come directly to the Baron’s home. The Baron was the one who would know what was happening in la patrie, and would part with his information in exchange for Lanny Budd’s.
Meantime, turn on the radio and catch up with events. Having watched this new force in human affairs from the days of its infancy seventeen years earlier, Lanny knew the stations of Europe, their designations and wave lengths, their voices and their official minds. From Switzerland and Holland you could get facts; from Britain, facts, but carefully filtered; from France, a mixture of facts and falsehoods always colored by propaganda; from Germany, falsehoods with now and then a few facts to lend plausibility, and everything for the promotion of National Socialism. You listened to it because, with practice, you could learn from lies as well as from truth; what the Nazis wanted their people to believe revealed surely what they were up to.
Hitler, in Berlin, had provided a plane to fly Sir Nevile Henderson to London. Evidently, he had some new proposal; the Hearst papers in America published what they claimed was the substance of it. The French papers reported rumors of an exchange of correspondence going on between the Führer and the French Premier. The British BBC announced that Chamberlain would address the Commons on the morrow. The Nazi stations broadcast more stories of torturing and castrating of Germans in the so-called Polish Corridor; the Swiss stations reported denials of the charges by Warsaw. Each hearer believed what he chose.
IX
The Baron had delayed the dinner hour, awaiting his guest. Impeccable French politesse forbade him to press questions upon the guest until he had eaten; but when they retired to the study, Lanny paid for his meal by laying bare the mind of Adolf Hitler, his Deputy, his household, his military and official staffs. An incredible thing, that a man of this lowly origin and disordered mentality should have accumulated such power, should have subjected seventy million of the world’s most progressive people to his volcanic will. Schneider couldn’t believe it; few in France could believe it—skeptical, libertarian, individualistic France! The Baron listened, as if to another of the Arabian Nights’ Enchantments. There had been some two or three thousand of these nights already, and not all the magic of the East or the psychic research of the West enabled one to g
uess how many thousands more there would be.
Schneider’s questions revealed the state of his own mind. The German-Soviet deal had completely floored this man of great affairs. He took it as a complete vindication of his position, that the Franco-Soviet alliance had been utterly worthless, a trap for his country; but now that he had been proved right, he was not happy, but on the contrary in a state of utter confusion. Poland was a broken reed, and the whole of the Balkans was so much grain, ripe for the Nazi-Soviet harvester. The cordon sanitaire was gone, and France and Britain faced the barbarians alone.
The munitions king was in such a state of distress that he even wanted an American expert to tell him what to do. At this late hour he hadn’t made sure what part airplanes were going to play in war; what trust he should put in the word of half a dozen elderly French generals, who declared the Maginot Line absolutely impregnable, the French army the finest the world had ever seen, and alarmist talk about air power merely enemy effort to frighten Marianne into giving way to the dictators. “Tell me frankly, Mr. Budd, what will satisfy Hitler?” And of course Lanny had to say: “I fear that question is beyond the power of the Führer himself to answer. His appetite grows with what it feeds on.”
Said the Baron: “Many of my associates have become convinced that if we grant his demands for parts of western Poland, we shall simply see in Warsaw what we saw in Prague. Then, they say, it will be Alsace and Lorraine.”
“I have never heard the Führer mention those provinces,” replied the American. “His grievance against France is that its press is irresponsible, it insults him and makes ideological war upon him.”
The Baron shrugged his shoulders. “My papers surely do not insult him. But what can we do about the others?”
Lanny wanted to say: “The Führer will tell you.” But he knew it was no time for a jest. In reality, Schneider needed no telling, for he had backed the efforts to overthrow the Third Republic, and the first proposal of the Cagoule had been to suppress the newspapers of the Left. But that effort had failed so ignominiously that the munitions king no longer referred to it, and perhaps considered it a mistake. What had happened at Prague, and to the value of his shares in the Skoda plant, had caused him to shrink back, and to talk about the need of solidarity among Frenchmen.
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