“Yes, I once had the pleasure of inspecting it.”
“There is a story which might amuse you. One morning about three years ago the wife of Denis fils called me on the telephone, in a state of great agitation. The police had raided the château and arrested the father and were looking for the sons. I was to warn the sons, and also to take charge of some incriminating papers. I did my best; I put the papers in my suitcase, and tried to think where they would be safe from the Deuxième Bureau. It happens that I knew Graf Herzenberg of the German Embassy rather well, and had discussed with him and his associates the best way to promote a reconciliation between his country and yours. I drove out to his home, the Château de Belcour, and demanded his protection. He was greatly distressed—for of course it would have been more than embarrassing if he had been found assisting a conspiracy to overthrow the French Republic. But he couldn’t quite bear to turn me out, and I stayed overnight. Next day, after I had read the newspapers, I decided that the scandal would blow over quickly—the polititians of la salope had too many crimes on their own consciences to prosecute our friends.”
“You diagnosed the situation correctly,” replied the Admiral. “If we had succeeded at that time, the history of Europe would have been far different.”
“There is one report which I have often wondered about, Monsieur l’Amiral: that you had planned to put those officers of the Fleet who supported the corrupt regime on board the Jean Bart and take her but to sea and sink her.”
“I meant it, absolutely. We could have spared that old battleship, and that kennel full of Red dogs would never have been missed by my service.”
“I perceive that you are a commander who knows his own mind,” commented the art expert genially.
IX
It was a great day for a collector of inside stories. The Admiral of the Fleet produced his large bottle of Pernod Fils and poured himself a swig, which lighted up his piercing dark blue eyes. His visitor took a smaller swig, enough for sociability, and listened while the half-Breton, half-Gascon, told how he had proposed to march an army over the Pyrénées and put an end to the Spanish civil war before it had got fairly started. How different history would have been if that simple and straightforward action had been taken! But les cochons rouges had forbidden it; and the same when Russia had begun her attack upon Finland. Darlan had been concentrating upon the building of light units for his Fleet, and had proposed using them to sink or capture all Red merchant ships at sea, and thus force the Kremlin criminals to give up their raid. He had wanted to save Norway by an all-out attack upon the German Fleet and transports on their way to the invasion. He wasn’t surprised by it, he said: he had had full information; but in that tragic hour he had been under the command of the British Admiralty, which was one of the reasons he hated them so heartily and used so much fancy profanity when he mentioned them.
The visitor said: “Monsieur l’Amiral, my father is deeply concerned as to his course in this crisis, and many of his friends have to make up their minds what attitude to take. I am returning to the States very soon, and influential persons will be asking me: ‘What is the program of the Vichy authorities, and how can we help?’ What am I to tell them?”
“Say that I am trying to save France, M. Budd. I am in the position of a driver of an automobile who has his two front wheels hanging over an abyss. My first care is to keep the rear wheels from following, and my second is to get the front wheels back.”
“A vivid simile, Monsieur l’Amiral!” It was no time for a smile, and Lanny said it gravely.
“I have the Fleet in my keeping, and I intend to guard it. I have been well warned, having seen the dastardly treachery of which my supposed allies are capable, and they will not catch me off guard again. Next time, our sailors will not fire into the air, as they did at Mersel-Khébir. Also, we serve notice to our false friends that France is not going to be starved. We intend to protect our right to trade; we shall bring food from North Africa, and phosphates, and shall sell them to the Germans, because we have to in order to survive. Our duty is to France, and not to any other nation, or to either side in this war. La patrie is going to be restored.”
“That is the hope of every right-minded man, mon Amiral.”
“It will be a different France, I promise you. The Maréchal and I are of one mind on the subject—you have seen that we have buried the so-called republic; both the chamber and the senate have abdicated their power and we are now the French State. That does not mean dictatorship—on the contrary we welcome the aid of every patriotic and Christian Frenchman; but we intend to purge the traitors and the Red dogs—les cochons rouges—the men who got us into the vile Russian alliance, a treasonable piece of statecraft which led directly to this war. I assure you that if I can have my way they will pay to the last scoundrel—and I won’t waste even one battleship on them; I’ll hang them from every limb of the plane trees that shade this hotel.”
The visitor gave the assurance: “That reply will be satisfactory to my father and to all his friends.”
X
The rumor had spread on wings of magic that there was an American millionaire in town, wishing to purchase old masters. In times of anguish such as this many persons were in need of cash, and some who had what they thought were valuable paintings wrote letters or came to call. Lanny went on inspection trips to ancient manor houses, damp and moldy even in midsummer, with narrow windows whose heavy curtains were rarely drawn back. He was a fastidious judge, and wanted only the best. Most of the time a glance would suffice and he would say: “I am sorry, that wouldn’t do. Have you anything else to show me?” Rarely he would say: “What do you ask for that?” When the reply was: “What would you be willing to pay?” he would counter: “It is for you to say what you think the painting is worth. If I agree, I will pay it. I never bargain.”
In one of the depressing mansions in which he was glad not to have to live he came unexpectedly upon a Boucher, a characteristic work of that gay and fashionable painter, an artificial-pastoral love scene out of the eighteenth century. His friend and client, Harlan Winstead, had been desiring such a work for years, and in this disturbed time he had authorized Lanny to use his own discretion. Lanny examined the painting carefully, and verified the signature; then he asked: “What is the price?” The reply was: “A million francs,” which sounded enormous, until you translated it into ten thousand American dollars. Lanny said: “I am sorry, but that is out of the question.” The elderly black-clad lady with the gentle voice and feeble chin looked depressed, and asked for an offer, to which Lanny replied that he feared her ideas were hopelessly out of line with his.
Between looking at other paintings he went to a bank in Vichy and identified himself. In his bank in Cannes he kept a large account for just such emergencies, and this he explained to the Vichy banker. In France people like to see real money, and checks are rarely taken; but from Americans anything can be expected, and for a small commission the banker agreed to make the inquiry by telephone and hand to this elegant and plausible stranger a package containing sixty of those new and crisp ten-thousand-franc notes which the Vichy Government was printing—mostly, alas, for the German conquerors!
With these in a pocket over his heart Lanny returned to the lady in the ancient ivy-grown mansion. It was something he had done probably a hundred times before, in France and elsewhere on the Continent, and rarely had his psychology proved to be at fault. The sight of actual cash was far more effective than talk about it or printed figures in a letter. Lanny said that he had inquired of his American client what he would be willing to pay—and this was literally the truth, even though the inquiring had been done several years ago. Lanny added that his was a generous offer, considering the uncertainties of the time, and that there were no strings attached to it, and no uncertainties; here was the cash, fresh from the bank in the lady’s home town, and she might easily call the banker on the telephone and make sure it was real money.
He did not tell her the total,
but proceeded to count it out before her eyes. Like a fascinated rabbit’s, the eyes followed his hands from one pile to the other; and when he had come to the grand total, six hundred thousand francs, he added as a climax: “And you may keep the frame, which, unfortunately, I have no way to transport.” That might seem absurd, but it wasn’t; the frame was very good, and it was here, and much bigger than the painting. It was a sort of lagniappe, as the storekeepers in New Orleans call it, and while Vichy France did not have this custom, it had the same understanding of human nature.
The lady was so worried that the tears came into her eyes; she had to phone first to her brother, and then to the banker. In the end she accepted the offer, and signed the bill of sale which Lanny laid before her. He took the painting out of the frame and rolled it up; it was not too large to be carried comfortably, and he would get an oilcloth cover to keep it safe. He drank a cup of the lady’s coffee and listened politely to her stories of the ill behavior of the refugees who swarmed about her place; then he drove off in his taxi, comfortable in the knowledge that his ten per cent commission would pay all the expenses of this journey. He sent a cablegram to Harlan Lawrence Winstead, Tuxedo Park, New York, telling what he had; and this was meant not only for the client but for censors and police spies as well.
XI
Gone, perhaps forever, were the happy days when the grandson of Budd Gunmakers and son of Budd-Erling had his fancy sport car, and when essence could be bought at any roadside filling station. Lanny had left his car in England, for Rick to turn over to the army; and now every move was a problem—the transporting of a hundred and sixty pounds of man, and perhaps fifty pounds of suitcases, plus a portable typewriter and an old master wrapped in oilcloth. Train travel was a nightmare, for there were literally millions of people who wanted to be somewhere else, and the Germans had taken most of the locomotives and cars of every sort. A bicycle had become the fashionable mode of conveyance, but wouldn’t carry Lanny’s load. A peasant cart, yes—but it would have taken a week from Vichy to the Cap d’Antibes.
What you did under the circumstances was to consult your hotel porter, whose business it was to know “somebody.” “Oui, oui, Monsieur, c’est possible; mais ça sera très difficile—et très coûteux.” Lanny replied, “Oui, je comprends, mon bonhomme; mais il me le faut absolument.” So presently the functionary reported that he had found a man who had a car, and could get the necessary permit to buy government essence—but at a price fearful to mention. Wherever there are government restrictions, there begins to develop at once a “black market”—because the rich must have what they want, and cannot imagine a world in which money has lost its power. So it was with Lanny Budd; he agreed cheerfully that he would pay seven francs per kilometer for the rental of the car and driver, coming and going; that he would pay one hundred and fifty francs per liter for the bootleg essence, both coming and going; also for the driver and pourboires. He would pay part of all this in advance to a man for whom the porter vouched.
So in the early morning there drew up before the door a Daimler which had been an excellent car in the year 1923. The driver was one of those homicidal maniacs whom Lanny had seen racing taxicabs about the streets of Paris. How he had got this car he didn’t say, and Lanny didn’t ask; he listened to horror stories about the flight from les boches, and the panic of massed civilians on the roads of France being bombed from the air. Once the man was satisfied that this wealthy American was a friendly listener he proclaimed himself un enfant de la révolution, and talked so freely that Lanny wondered if he might not be a member of the leftwing group of which Raoul had spoken.
They rolled southward across the central plateau, past many of those strange round hills called puys, which are extinct volcanoes, often with small lakes on top; and presently; they turned toward the east, and came into the wide valley of the river Rhône, familiar to Lanny from earliest childhood. It has been the highway for invading armies since the days of the ancient Romans at least, and if Lanny had had any of those powers of prevision which he so eagerly investigated in others, he might have seen the army of one or two hundred thousand “G.I. Joes” who would be marching up this route nationale within four years and as many weeks. But no, Lanny told his chauffeur that he could make no guess whether “Uncle Shylock” would come again to the rescue of Marianne; the majority of Americans had adopted as their political motto “never again”; and anyhow, it would take them a long, long time to match the Wehrmacht.
They rolled down the slowly descending valley, and had a late lunch at an auberge near Avignon. Lanny discovered that his companion had never heard the names of Abélard and Héloïse, and he told the sad story of the priest who had been castrated for making love to a prelate’s niece. The enfant de la révolution replied: “Merde! They should do it to them all!” Lanny decided that it would be no use telling his companion about religious art works in that ancient city.
They took the highway eastward, away from the river, and in due course were on the Riviera, winding through the red Estérel mountains, plainly visible from Lanny’s home. He had listened to the story of a Paris street gamin, hating the flics and dodging them while committing every petty crime on the police calendar. In return he told about the life of a little boy who played with the fishermen’s children on the beach at Juan, and had everything in the world that his heart could have desired. The contrast was glaring enough to require no comment, and Lanny made none, for he was surely not going to reveal his point of view to a man who would go back to Vichy and repeat every word this unusual traveler had spoken.
Instead, he figured up the account he owed and had an understanding about it. In the falling twilight they drove through the blacked-out city of Cannes and along the familiar boulevard leading to the Cap. Here were the gates of Bienvenu, and the dogs rushing out barking wildly. Here came José, the lame butler from Spain, and Lanny’s mother in the doorway, waiting. He counted out the money, with a bonus for cheerful conversation. Meantime the butler collected the luggage, including the roll of oilcloth, a familiar sight. Lanny got out, and the car chugged away, and that was the end of Lanny’s first bootleg journey—by no means the last on this war-torn Continent!
2
Though Every Prospect Pleases
I
Four days before the French signed the armistice with Germany, the armies of Il Duce had advanced into the French Riviera and all along the boundary running to the north. Perhaps that was all Hitler would let him have; perhaps the Führer was expressing his contempt for his brother-in-arms, and setting a value upon his services. Or could it be that Mussolini had been afraid of the French Armies, still unrouted in this region? To put it more exactly, was he afraid to reveal to the world how little the common man of Italy was interested in fighting the common man of France, so much like himself?
Anyhow, Il Duce had got only as far as the edge of Monaco, a matter of a few miles; he held that wide strip of French mountains known as the Alpes Maritimes, and could amuse himself building fortifications in them, or perhaps coming to shoot capercaillie—only he had grown too fat for any sport. Lanny had vivid memories of this district, and of the grouse as big as turkeys which lived in the forests. He had been driven there in boyhood, when his mother had come to visit Marcel Detaze in the army, at the beginning of World War I.
Cannes and the Cap were safe, at least for the present; they weren’t going to be Italian and they weren’t going to be German, and everybody was pleased. Beauty Budd was one of the few who had refused to worry, for she said that the Italians were very good dancers, and the Germans spoke both French and English, and always they had mutual friends in Berlin and Munich. Really, did it matter very much, so long as people behaved correctly? Mr. Dingle, her husband, said that God was everywhere; and Mr. Armitage, husband of the Baroness de la Tourette, said that the trains would soon be running on time again, and prices would become normal when the discharged soldiers got back to work.
There had never been such crowds in the hist
ory of the Riviera. People had come by train and bus and motor car, bicycle and horse and donkey; tens of thousands had walked all the way from Northern France, having but one thought in the world, to get as far away from bombs and shells as possible; they had come until the Mediterranean stopped them. They were sleeping on the ground, on the beaches, in the parks; when it rained they would crawl under any shelter that was near. It was hard indeed to own a beautiful estate like Bienvenu, and keep on saying “No” to those whom you called “nice” people, those with whom you had dined and danced and played bridge and baccarat.
Beauty Budd, who had a kind heart, couldn’t do it; and the result was that Bienvenu had become a village all by itself; guests would come and prove to be permanent—for where else could they go? Both the Lodge and the Cottage were crowded. A scion of one of the “two hundred families” was living with his bride in the studio which Beauty had built long years ago for Kurt Meissner and his piano; the instrument had been spoiled by sea air and was now used for a table and general catch-all. An elderly Belgian diplomat and his wife were camping in the rear part of Lanny’s studio, the storeroom which had held the Detaze paintings; these, thank God, were safe in a bank vault in Baltimore, insured for half a million dollars.
All these people had to have food; and poor Beauty would decide that they weren’t getting enough, and would invite them to a meal at her own residence, called the Villa. Fortunately she would never lack food, having been la dame of this estate for almost forty years. Leese, the peasant woman who had been her cook most of these years, had more grandnieces and grandnephews than you could keep count of, and they all knew where to get the highest prices for the best of their produce. What else could you do with money these days? Beauty had the best money in the world—American dollars—coming to her all the time, because every once in a while Lanny would sell another Detaze painting, and mention casually in a letter that he had deposited one-third of the amount to her account in a New York bank. Smart people had a saying: it was nice work if you could get it; all Beauty had had to do was to find a painter of genius and marry him, and to take care of him until the Germans killed him.
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