Presidential Agent Page 14

  Lanny was aware that this statement would appear naïve to the great man, and he wanted it to be just that. Said the Baron: “I thank you, M. Budd; it so happens that I enjoy the honor of Herr Meissner’s acquaintance. He has given me valuable help in the organizing of our Comité France-Allemagne.”

  “What I have in mind,” continued the double-dyed intriguer, “is that Kurt is one of the Führer’s intimate friends, plays music for him frequently and enjoys his confidence. He would be the best of persons to put your proposals before Hitler and to explain your point of view.”

  “Your suggestion is excellent, M. Budd, and I am indebted to you for it.”

  The other continued: “I hope I am not intruding, Baron,”—knowing, of course, that the Baron would be forced to say that he wasn’t. “The subject is delicate, and I am merely making suggestions, to which you need not feel compelled to reply. I realize that Hitler has even more reason to desire a change of government in France than in Spain, for France is his neighbor, and is extending credits to Russia, his one permanent enemy. If Hitler is finding it worth while to put up billions of francs to support General Franco, it seems to me he would be financially interested, as a cold business proposition, in securing a government in France which would promise to seal the Spanish border and stop the present flow of supplies to the Reds. Wouldn’t it seem so to you, monsieur le Baron?”

  Eugène Schneider’s keen dark eyes were fixed intently upon this presumptuous American’s, as if he were reading every one of the thoughts written upon the mental scroll behind them. Lanny knew that trick well, and knew that a skillful rascal must meet the gaze with one equally firm. At last the munitions king replied: “M. Budd, the subject is, as you say, one of great delicacy. I can only tell you that that aspect of the matter has received our careful consideration.”

  “I respect your reticence, Baron. I am told that the decline of Doriot’s influence is due to the fact that he has been accused of receiving German funds, and has apparently not felt in position to deny it. All I wish to say is that I have known Kurt Meissner since boyhood, and there is a certain warmth of intimacy one attains then that can never be entirely reproduced in later life. Let me tell you, in the strictest confidence, that Kurt was a secret agent of the Generalstab, operating in Paris at the time of the Peace Conference. Prior to that he had been an artillery officer, and was wounded, and lost his wife and baby because of war privations; so you can understand that it is difficult for him to love the French. He came into Paris in civilian clothes on a false passport, and as it was still wartime, he would surely have been shot by your police, who were on his trail. My mother helped me to smuggle him into Spain and thus saved his life, something which Kurt has acknowledged many times. I tell you all this so that you may understand why he would trust me more than he could ever bring himself to trust any Frenchman.”

  “Your story is most interesting, M. Budd.”

  “What I have in mind to say is that if the suggestion meets with your approval, I should be happy to talk over with Kurt the plans we have been discussing tonight and to bring you his reactions and advice.”

  The cautious magnate turned to his host. Having been a member of the haut monde of Paris all his life, the Baron was no stranger to the practice of la vie à trots, and must have heard rumors as to the situation in the de Bruyne household years ago. “Eh bien, Denis?”

  Said the père de famille: “I could not think of a better method of procedure.”

  “You understand, M. Budd,” said the other, “you are dealing with the most inviolable secret of our movement. The political life of all of us depends upon its being preserved religiously.”

  “You do not have to tell me anything about that, Baron,” replied Lanny—again avoiding an outright lie. “I have lived the greater part of my life in France, and I understand your political relationships fairly well. Also I have enjoyed the confidence of a number of your statesmen, and have never betrayed it.”

  X

  Lanny’s first action on returning to his hotel was to call Kurt Meissner’s apartment. He hadn’t seen Kurt for more than a year, and the composer’s pleasure when he heard his friend’s voice seemed unfeigned. “Come to lunch,” he said, and Lanny replied: “Sure thing.”

  The presidential agent sat at his little portable and typed out a detailed account of the Cagoulard conspiracy to overthrow the French republic. He didn’t say how he had got this information, but he wrote: “This is first-hand and positive.” He gave the names of the persons involved and the program, signed it “103,” addressed it to Gus Gennerich, and put it into the mail.

  To himself he said: “F.D. won’t believe it.” But of course Lanny couldn’t help that; it was his fate to be living in a time when so many things were unbelievable, even after they had happened.

  Kurt lived in a fashionable apartment, suitable to his station in the musical world. He had a man-servant to wait on him, a shaven-headed Silesian who had fought under him all through the war and still kept military discipline; the man probably added spying to his other duties, and Lanny got the impression that he disapproved of having foreigners around. Even when Lanny talked about his visit to the Führer, Willi Habicht refused to relent; perhaps he thought the Führer oughtn’t to keep such company. Or perhaps it was just that the servant was naturally glum, the result of having fought victoriously for four long years, and then discovering at the very last moment that he was unaccountably licked.

  Also there was a secretary in the apartment, a Nordic blond young lady, a devoted Nazi, brisk and efficient. Lanny was left with little doubt concerning her double role in the household. Kurt had a wife and several children at home, and now and then went back and begot another. In the old days he would have considered it his duty to be true to that wife, but now there was a new Weltanschauung. The Nazi world was a man’s world, and the first duty of woman was to submit. Kurt’s superiors would undoubtedly see to it that he had a trustworthy German companion, so that he might be proof against the wiles of seductive enemy ladies. No Mata Haris this time; at least, not working on the Germans! Perhaps also—who could say?—it might be one of the duties of Ilse Vetter to check on Kurt’s activities and report now and then.

  If so, she could have nothing but good to say; for Kurt was competent, he had the best connections, and he was laboring with single-minded devotion to break down the intellectual and moral defenses of Marianne and bring her into the orbit of the New Order. So true was this that Lanny had come to find his boyhood chum quite intolerable; that long lean face which he had once found grave and even priestlike now seemed to him fanatical, touched with madness. The phrases of abstract philosophy and ethics with which Kurt had so impressed Lanny in his boyhood now sounded hollow to his ears; for of course there could be no general or universal truth in the mind of any devotee of National Socialism. For him the good, the true, and the beautiful were limited to Germany and Germans, and for other peoples and individuals the words were a fraud and a snare. Perhaps in the deeps of his heart Kurt might still have affectionate memories of the little American boy whom he had undertaken to inspire and guide; but if so, he would regard those feelings as a form of weakness to be repressed. Lanny, like everybody else both inside and outside Germany, would be used for the furtherance of Adolf Hitler’s dream of glory, and every word that Kurt spoke and every attitude he assumed to the son of Budd-Erling would be for some carefully studied purpose.

  All right, since that was the game, Lanny would learn to play it. He would keep his friendship with a respected German musician, and speak no word to him that did not have some carefully studied purpose. For many years Lanny had never voiced his real ideas on political and economic subjects in Kurt’s presence. He had made a cautious withdrawal from the field, saying that he realized he was out of place there; he had become an art expert, in Kurt’s eyes a money-making art dealer; he had become a dilettante in all the arts, and if Kurt chose to assume that he was playing around with ladies such as the Countess of San
dhaven, that was Kurt’s privilege and did Lanny no harm.

  In recent years the playboy had been dropping hints that he was following along the path of least resistance, and being impressed by the phenomenal success of Adi Schicklgruber—but of course never calling him by that humiliating name. Adi, the former army Gefreite and derelict painter of picture postcards, had become not merely the master of Germany but the master politician of Europe. He had compelled all the world to talk about him, to heed his words, and to tremble at his frequent rages; he had sent his armies into the Rhineland and now had it securely fortified; he had restored conscription in Germany and was now militarizing the entire Fatherland. He had got away with both these dangerous moves, in spite of all the threats of his enemies and the fears of his own General Staff. Wonderful man! A twentieth-century Napoleon! If Lanny was impressed, that was a part of his role as a weakling, and if Kurt looked down upon him for it, that was what all Nazis did to all the rest of the world.

  XI

  During the luncheon with Kurt and Fräulein Vetter, Lanny told the news of his mother and father, and of Rosemary and her paintings. He told about his last trip into Spain, saying nothing about Alfy, but making it a picture-buying expedition, in course of which he had met many of Franco’s officers and witnessed the triumphs of Franco’s arms. That he should have been thrilled by them was a proper role for an American playboy. General Franco’s class was Lanny’s class, and Lanny had slipped back into his proper place in society.

  Afterwards, alone with Kurt in the study, and with the secretary’s typewriter clicking busily in the next room, Lanny opened his mind completely and revealed the changes which had been taking place in it. Kurt had been right all along, and Lanny had been blundering for the greater part of his life. Kurt had been right about the Versailles Treaty, he had been right about reparations and the cruel inflation which had been forced upon Germany; about the Schieber and the Jews, and above all about Adolf Hitler, from the first time they had heard him speak in Munich. Lanny had trusted the Reds, and had found that they were unworthy of his trust; he had hoped for some sort of humane social order in France, but had come to realize that the French democracy was hopelessly corrupt, that the Russian alliance was a device of political rascality, and that the only hope for the French people lay in co-operating with the New Order which Adolf Hitler was successfully constructing.

  Of course Kurt was pleased. He said that he had been deeply wounded by the separation from Lanny, who had been like a brother to him in past times. He clasped Lanny’s hand, and said that this news had restored his youth to him; he said: “My family will be happy; Heinrich Jung will be happy; the Führer will be happiest of all!”

  Did Kurt mean all that? And would he continue to feel that way after he had had time to think matters over? Lanny could never be sure on this point. It was obvious that Kurt would have acted this way, whether or not he believed in his old friend’s sincerity. He had probably long ago passed the stage where he gave full faith to anybody, or to anything that anybody said. He would watch his old friend and weigh the chances for and against; Lanny would do the same, and they would continue their intimacy so long as it served the purposes of both.

  XII

  The time had come for Lanny to reveal the business which had brought him here. He had, he said, news which he thought would be of special interest to Kurt. Last evening he had been in conference with Baron Schneider at the home of the de Bruynes. Kurt knew all four of these persons, but now he pretended to have had no idea that they were engaged in a conspiracy to overthrow the government of their country. A most extraordinary thing! A proof of the decadence which prevailed in France! “I always told you that, Lanny. It was the reason I couldn’t bear to live any longer on the Riviera, in spite of all your dear mother’s kindness.”

  “Again you were right, Kurt! That world was falling to pieces.”

  “Do you mind if I make notes?” Kurt asked; and when Lanny consented, he jotted down the names of all the army and navy officers who were in command of the “Hooded Men,” and the great manufacturers and landowners and bankers who were putting up the money to pay for the hidden stores of arms. Lanny wasn’t naïve enough to believe that all this was really news to the German; Lanny’s guess was that Kurt was riding in the very center of this whirlwind, perhaps even directing it. But Kurt would be glad to check his information by so high-up an authority as the munitions king of France, Czechoslovakia, Poland, Belgium, and other countries. Every detail was important; and of course it was good to know that poor blundering Lanny Budd had at last seen a glimmer of the light. No doubt that he could be made use of, though of course not in the ways he naïvely supposed.

  Lanny went on to explain his bright idea. “If it has been worth while for the Führer to put up so much money for Spain, he might wish to do the same for France, and make sure of success at the outset. Of course I understand that you may not feel free to discuss such matters with me, and I’m not suggesting that you should. I told the Baron I would take the matter up with you, and report what you said if you wanted me to—though of course there’s no reason why you shouldn’t get in touch with him direct. If you send anybody else, you’ll have to vouch for him, because a man like Schneider doesn’t talk unless he’s perfectly sure about the person’s credentials. I doubt if he’d have talked before me if he hadn’t known my father and if the de Bruynes hadn’t vouched for me.”

  Very tactful of the American, but at the same time a trifle self-important; telling Kurt how to handle his most secret negotiations; taking it for granted that Kurt was engaged in such affairs, something which Kurt had never admitted to Lanny, or to anybody but fellow-members of the service. In short, something of what the Americans call “a buttinski,” and the Germans ein zudringlicher Geselle.

  But of course Kurt would take pains not to let Lanny see any trace of such feelings. He would be deeply grateful and assure an American playboy that his revelations were of the utmost importance; however, Kurt could do-nothing but pass them on to the authorities in Berlin who handled such matters. He would promise not to mention Lanny in the report, and if Lanny got any further information he could be sure that Kurt would be grateful and would deal with it in the same ultra-confidential way.

  From all this Lanny learned that Kurt wasn’t going to trust him, but just use him. Kurt wasn’t even going to admit in plain words that he was a Nazi agent! All right; Lanny was keeping his secrets also. It would be a duel of wits, and let the best set win.

  “By the way, Kurt,” said the art expert, “there is a favor you can do me. Do you know Graf Herzenberg?”

  “I know him fairly well.”

  “I’m told he’s connected with the embassy. He has leased the Château de Belcour, and I’m told there are some interesting old French paintings in it. Have you been in it?”

  “Many times. I noticed some paintings but didn’t pay any special attention to them.”

  “Emily has given me a letter to the Duc de Belcour, and I’ve no doubt he’ll be willing for me to view them; but of course it will have to be subject to the Graf’s approval.”

  “I’ll speak to him about it, if you like.”

  “As soon as possible, please. I have to go into Spain again, to see some paintings there.”

  Said Kurt, as if the idea had occurred to him for the first time: “You do really know quite a lot about painting, don’t you, Lanny?”

  “Some people gamble their money upon it,” replied his friend. “And that includes the commander of your Air Force!”

  6

  Blondel Song

  I

  Why was Lanny Budd taking so much trouble to get inside the Château de Belcour? He asked himself the question many times without finding an entirely satisfactory answer. His head told him that Trudi probably wasn’t there; but on the other hand, his heart told him that she must have been there; they surely wouldn’t have two prisons near Paris. Said head: “If she is still alive, she is in Germany by now.” Said heart:
“I want to see the place where she was.” Said head, with a trace of mockery: “Do you want to sing a song outside her dungeon, like Blondel, the minstrel of King Richard the Lionhearted?” Heart replied: “I went and looked at the old palace where they had Alfy, and I found a way to get him out. Perhaps I might do it again.” In the most vital of men’s concerns, heart usually wins over head, and this is reprobated by a school of philosophers who call themselves realists, materialists, monists; on the other hand it is sanctioned by another school who call themselves idealists, Platonists, mystics.

  The mail brought Lanny a note from the secretary of the Duc de Belcour, saying that so far as Monsieur le Duc was concerned it would be entirely agreeable for M. Budd to inspect the paintings, but that the decision necessarily rested with the occupant. A few hours later Kurt called up, to report that he had made an appointment for Lanny to visit the château at three o’clock the following afternoon. Lanny thanked him cordially, and called Zoltan, who with his customary efficiency had got a lot of Information about the art contents of the building. He retailed this to his friend, but said that unfortunately he had an appointment for the hour Kurt had set. This suited Lanny, who couldn’t foresee what situations might arise and might have a hard time explaining them to Zoltan.

  Five minutes before the appointed hour, Lanny’s automobile halted before the entrance to these very splendid grounds. He gave his name to the porter who, he observed, was a German. The gates swung back, and he drove between two rows of ancient beech trees. In the back seat of his car lay Trudi Schultz, bound and gagged; at least, so Lanny visioned her. His head said: “Perhaps!” and his heart said: “Oh, God!”