Presidential Agent Page 13

  The children had their supper earlier and apart, and the young wives listened while the men of the household discussed the state of public affairs. The franc was declining again, labor was seething with revolt, and la patrie was in dire straits. For all of it they held the “Reds” responsible; and by this term they meant anybody who expressed dissatisfaction with the existing economic system or proposed any change which would weaken the control of the country by the present owning class. More than any other person they blamed Léon Blum, the Jew, whose utopian dreams were a subtle camouflage for the scheme of that oriental race to seize the mastery of the world. “Better Hitler than Blum!” was the cry of the conservatives. They didn’t really mean that, of course; they were just trying to say the worst possible about a Socialist vice-premier.

  Frenchmen were going to keep their country French; they were going to preserve the Catholic religion, the institution of the family, and the private property system; they were going to teach the young to be loyal to la patrie and the ideals which made her great and kept her so. Because the democratic system put the ignorant mob in control and put the country at the mercy of venal unprincipled politicians, that system was accursed and must be abolished. The de Bruynes had put their faith in Colonel de la Roque, who had promised action. Because of Charlot’s efforts at action as a member of the Croix de Feu, he bore an honorable scar across his face. But now, Lanny learned, they had lost faith in their former leader; he had yielded to the blandishments of the politicians and had pledged his organization to a fraudulent device known as légalité.

  The de Bruynes were at the point of espousing the program of the Cagoulards, a sort of Ku Klux Klan of France. The noblest, the best names in the land had been enlisted in that cause; arms were being smuggled in from abroad—for since Blum had been able to put through his cunning scheme to nationalize the munitions industry, it was no longer so easy to get them from French factories. Depots were being established at strategic points all over the country; officers of the Army and especially of the Air Force were being won over, and le jour was being prepared. The Third Republic would be dumped into the dustbin of history, the rascal politicians would be jailed, and a committee of responsible persons would restore order, stabilize the franc, and bring back prosperity to la patrie. Denis named the persons: Pétain, Weygand, Darlan, Chiappe, Doriot—the very same men whom Jesse Blackless had listed.

  A few years ago Lanny would have said that his old friends had gone mad; but he had seen Hitler come, and after Hitler anything was possible, even probable. What he said now was: “What will Hitler be doing while you are carrying out this program?”

  “It will take only a few days,” replied the eager Charlot, who talked more than he should, seeing that he was the youngest of the men. “No longer than it took Hitler to move back into the Rhineland.”

  The père de famille added: “We have very positive assurances that Hitler will find nothing to object to in our program. Why should he? He has said many times that he has no quarrel with France, except for the Russian alliance, which commits us to the anti-Nazi side, as well as to every evil that plagues our domestic life. It is either we or the Communists, and the decision cannot be delayed much longer. One more series of strikes, and the situation may get entirely out of hand; the Reds may have our factories and repeat everything they did in Russia.”

  “How soon will the concrete in your pillbox be set?” inquired Lanny of the young engineer. He meant it playfully, but the answer was given without a smile: “It was poured three weeks ago. That is enough time for safety.”

  VI

  “Baron Schneider dines with us tomorrow,” said Denis. “Do you know him?”

  “He was in my home when I was a boy,” replied Lanny, “but I don’t suppose he would remember me. He knows my father, of course.”

  That was Schneider of Schneider-Creusot, famous throughout the world. Since Zaharoff had retired, he had taken over the title of munitions king of France. But not content with that high rank, he had aspired to be emperor. That was always the way, apparently; when you owned so much, why shouldn’t you have the rest? The advantages of large-scale management were so obvious, and likewise the painfulness of letting somebody else get profits which might be yours. Baron Schneider of Schneider-Creusot was getting close to his end, but his hands itched as Zaharoff’s had done and he could not keep them from reaching out and clutching at power.

  “I think he expects to persuade me to join actively in his CSAR,” remarked Denis.

  “Doubtless he needs your moral support,” responded Lanny, tactfully, and added: “He probably won’t want me present.”

  “I’ll tell him you’re to be trusted. You of course understand the highly confidential nature of what we are discussing.”

  “Cela va sans dire,” replied the American. He had a distaste for lying, and never told a whopper unless it was absolutely unavoidable. By way of a diversion he added, quickly: “I suppose it’s all right if I tell Robbie.”

  “Of course,” assented Denis. “Robbie is going to have to do something of the sort himself before long.”

  It was natural for Lanny to wish to know all about the great man he was to meet, so he asked questions about the Baron Charles Prosper Eugène Schneider, who had a German name but belonged to a family which had been in the business of manufacturing munitions in France for just about a hundred years. “As long as Budd Gunmakers,” remarked the American. “Our family has lost its heritage, and I suppose the Baron feels that he has lost his.” This was a reference to the recent nationalization procedure.

  “He owns more plants outside of France than in, so he’s in no danger of starvation.”

  “How many, do you suppose?”

  “It must be over three hundred. He has formed a colossal holding company, the Union Européenne Industrielle et Financière.” Denis himself had formed such a company, though on a far smaller scale; he went on to sing the praises of the cartel, as it was called—the “vertical trust,” the greatest of all social inventions, according to the Frenchman. It was an institution which would continue from generation to generation, and give society the benefits of mass production without any of the risks incidental to the system of inheritance. “The managers will always be competent technical men, so it doesn’t matter whether the owners know anything about the business or not. The owners can go off and get drunk if they want to.”

  “That seems helpful to everybody but the owners,”—so Lanny would have liked to say, but it was the sort of remark which he had learned to choke back into his throat. “Is Le Creusot the biggest of his plants?”

  “I think Skoda, in Czechoslovakia, is bigger. It has been French policy to build up the defenses of the cordon sanitaire, to protect not merely France but all Western Europe against Bolshevism. Schneider has built great plants also in Poland.”

  “I always understood that Skoda belonged to Zaharoff,” remarked Lanny.

  “Zaharoff wanted to sell, and Schneider was ready to buy. You know how these great enterprises are built; it’s purely a matter of having credit.”

  “Oh, don’t I know it!” replied the son of Budd-Erling. “I went around with my father while he was raising the money for his start.”

  “Your father didn’t keep enough for himself,” commented one of the father’s investors. “He should have started by getting control of some bank. That way, you get thousands of investors without the bother of going to call on them; they don’t even know what they’re investing in. That is what Schneider did, and you can be sure he kept a sufficient share for himself. He built up this huge cartel in the last thirty or forty years; the family business was comparatively small before that.”

  “Naturally he wants to hold on to it,” remarked Lanny; to which his host replied: “Vraiment.”

  VII

  Baron Schneider of Schneider-Creusot proved to be a dapper and most elegant aristocrat in his late sixties. He wore a neat little white mustache, and had that feature which had struck Lann
y about Zaharoff—a prominent nose, like an eagle’s. Robbie had said: “It is used for smelling money.” Like Zaharoff, the Baron was soft-spoken and mild of manner; no doubt, when he smelled money and was demanding it, he would scream, as the eagle does, and as Robbie had said Zaharoff would do. But Lanny had never heard Zaharoff scream, nor did he ever hear Schneider.

  A munitions king was by virtue of his job the man of intrigue, the man who pulled wires behind the scenes of history, putting up the money to protect his properties both at home and abroad. Since this protection had to be intellectual and political as well as financial, Schneider had purchased Le Temps and Le Journal des Débats, the two newspapers of Paris most influential with those who governed Europe, and whom the Baron must persuade if he was to have his way. Since his business was on an international scale, his intrigues had to be the same. It was not enough for him to control the government of France; he had to make sure of those countries with which France was allied and for which he was providing magnificent new machinery for the manufacture of the machinery of killing. Having bought so many politicians in his day, the Baron could hardly be blamed for taking a cynical attitude to the breed; now, since they were refusing to stay bought, he could hardly be blamed if he had decided to get rid of them.

  That was why he had come to have dinner at the Château de Bruyne on a Sunday evening; not because he was interested in the dinner, or impressed by a modest estate, but because Denis, who had begun by owning the taxicabs of Paris, had come into control of other enterprises, including a couple of banks. His sons were active rightists, and the Baron, being old, needed some who were young. He addressed Denis by that name and Denis called him Eugène. He was embarrassed to find a stranger present, and directed his conversation to this stranger, giving him an opportunity to reveal his point of view. Lanny, knowing the ways of the world, took occasion to say: “I believe you know Emily Chattersworth, who has been a sort of godmother to me.”

  Yes, indeed, the Baron knew this leader of the Franco-American colony, and how during the World War she had taken leadership in aiding the French blessés. Denis, who also knew the ways of the world, mentioned that Lanny had had unusual opportunities to know both Adolf Hitler and General Göring personally. The Baron was quick to reveal his interest, so Lanny explained how in boyhood he had been a guest at Schloss Stubendorf, and had come to know a young German who had been one of “Adi’s” earliest converts and had visited him in prison after the Bierkeller Putsch in Munich. Thus Lanny had been taken several times to meet the Führer of National Socialism; the last time he had seen him was at Berchtesgaden two years ago.

  The Baron warmed up quickly. He had sent emissaries to both Hitler and Göring, it turned out, but what they had brought was of necessity formal stuff; they had met the Führer and the Chief of the Luftwaffe on dress parade, as it were. Schneider wanted to know what sort of men they really were, their private lives, their weaknesses, and possible ways to reach and influence them. Evidently the new munitions king of Europe looked upon the son of Budd-Erling as something of a “find”; he occupied most of the time at dinner in drawing him out on the subject of the National Socialist German Workingmen’s Party and what it meant to France.

  What was Lanny to say? He might have stated flatly: “In my opinion the Führer is definitely psychopathic. His whole being is dominated by irrational phobias. First of all he hates the Jews, and after that come the Russians, then the Poles, then, I think, the French. It may be the Czechs come ahead of you, I’m not sure. He has said in his book that the annihilation of France is essential to the safety of Germany, and there can be no doubt he means it; he didn’t mind saying it, because he has a sort of double cynicism: he tells the truth in the certainty that that is the last thing anybody will expect or believe. He is infinitely cunning, and will make you any promise, for the reason that no promise means anything to him. He has only one faith and one idea in the world, and that is the Germans as the master race, destined to conquer the world under himself as the inspired Führer. That is the magnetic pole to which his being turns, and the one thing you can count upon in dealing with him.”

  That was the truth, but it was surely not what the munitions king wanted to hear. Was Lanny there to convert him? Could Lanny have converted him? It seemed most unlikely. If Lanny had said it, the Baron would have made up his mind that the American guest was some kind of Red or near it. He would have dropped the conversation, and after dinner would have requested the opportunity to talk privately with Denis; Lanny wouldn’t have heard a word of the things he wanted to hear, and as a presidential agent he would have been the world’s worst flop.

  So, following his usual practice of telling no falsehood where it could be avoided, he explained that “Adi” was a complex personality, highly emotional, and that his actions were difficult to predict. He had written bitterly about France, but had shown in other cases that he could change his policy when his interests required it. In Berchtesgaden he had assured Lanny that he desired friendship with France, and that the only thing which stood in the way was the treasonable alliance with, Russia.

  “Précisément!” exclaimed the Baron. “We may find Hitler hard to trust—but surely not so hard as Stalin!”

  “Malheureusement, I have not had opportunity to know Stalin,” replied Lanny. He said this with his best smile, and the young de Bruynes helped him out by laughing as if it were an excellent mot.

  VIII

  So now the son of Budd-Erling was not merely a left-handed member of the de Bruyne family, but also of the Cagoulards, the “Hooded Men.” When the meal was over they adjourned to the library, where the ladies tactfully refrained from coming, and for two or three hours the five gentlemen discussed the state of Europe and the part which France was playing and about to play therein. First in their thoughts was Spain, which the Reds were trying to get into their clutches.

  “I had occasion to be in Seville last spring,” remarked Lanny, “and to visit General Aguilar, just returned from the Jarama front. He was quite sure the Reds would not be able to hold out beyond the end of this year.”

  “They have all been free with their promises,” responded the Baron. “The Reds can hold out so long as they are allowed to get arms from Russia; and it is going to bankrupt us all if it is allowed to continue. Ten billion francs is my guess at the amount of the bill.”

  Lanny wanted to be sympathetic with the so-nearly impoverished armaments maker, but he was afraid of sounding sarcastic. He managed to think of something apposite: “It is too bad that Zaharoff had to die before he saw this victory. He told me he was contributing his quota.”

  “Basil was inclined to be optimistic when telling about himself,” remarked Eugène, dryly. “I can assure you from personal knowledge that he set his own quota, and the rest of us thought it was far from adequate.”

  Lanny smiled again. “The old gentleman always pleaded poverty; you would have thought he was on the verge of actual hunger. He became one of my father’s heaviest investors, but I personally never had any sort of business dealings with him, so we were able to remain friends. He even came to see me after he was dead.”

  Naturally, the Baron looked startled and Lanny felt it was permissible to laugh. “You may have heard that Sir Basil used to visit spirit mediums, in the hope of receiving communications from his deceased wife. I happened to know one such medium, and in a séance she reported that the spirit of Sir Basil was present, and was crying for his duquesa, but couldn’t find her because she was ‘twice dead,’ whatever that could mean. It was the first news I had had of the old gentleman’s passing, which had taken place a few hours previously, so naturally I was startled.”

  “It is strange how those things happen,” commented the old gentleman’s successor.

  IX

  However, Baron Schneider hadn’t come there to learn about spiritualism. He had come to plan for a repetition of the Spanish coup, but with more finesse and better management, so that civil war could be avoided, and la patr
ie might become an equal partner of the German Führer, instead of a vassal, as Spain was bound to be. The Baron was emphatic about that; he had received assurances on it and talked freely about the program. It was a most respectable conspiracy; the names involved were literally holy, since they included high dignitaries of the Catholic Church, whose publications, all the way between Warsaw and Brooklyn, were repeating stories about Spanish nuns having been soaked in oil and burned by the Spanish Reds. The name of Marshal Pétain was the most honored in the French army, and that of Admiral Darlan in the navy. There were a score of other high generals and naval officers involved, to say nothing of politicians, including ex-Premier Laval. Schneider called the roll, because he had come to enlist the de Bruynes and to have the père de famille promise an adequate “quota” without having to be asked for it.

  There was one question which Lanny wanted to have answered; the most delicate of questions, to be approached with infinite tact. “Permit me to venture a suggestion, Baron Schneider. It happens that the piano virtuoso and composer Kurt Meissner is one of my oldest friends; in fact, he lived in my home on the Riviera for many years after the war, and is accustomed to say that he owes his career to the support which my family gave him. He has been in Paris for some time, and I have reason to feel sure that he would be interested in what you are now planning.”