Presidential Agent (World's End Lanny Budd #5), by Upton Sinclair.

The title gives away the next theme of this fifth volume in the World's End series, and the story jumps right to it, rather than attempting to pick up exactly where the last volume left it, as usual. The connections are made as and when by Upton Sinclair, in this series anyway. And here, Lanny Budd meets his old mentor and boss Professor Alston in the hotel in N.Y. where he has a room, presumably because Shore Acres is no longer an option, not at the moment when Irma's new marriage is fresh, anyway; and as the two talk, professor Alston who has been close to President Rosevelt - FDR - suggests he speak with the President directly, makes a call, and an appointment.
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Lanny takes in the ambience, of the locale and the residence and the person. He was impressed positively. 

"“You would be amused to hear of the efforts they made to trap me, after I was elected and before I was inaugurated. The country was in the midst of a panic, and if only I would consent to meet with Mr. Hoover and give him some idea of what I wanted done! The scheme was, of course, that I should be assuming responsibility, taking the panic over as my panic instead of my predecessor’s. I let him have it all, up to the very last moment.” 

"“It took nerve, and I admired yours.” 

"“You can’t imagine the pressure; it never let up, and hasn’t let up yet. They persuaded me into a World Economic Conference in London right after the inauguration, if you remember, the idea being to preserve the gold standard and fix all currencies at the then-existing levels. France and Britain had devalued their currencies and wanted to keep the dollar at the old level, so they could take over the trade of the world. When I realized what it was all about I dumped the chess-board, and I don’t expect ever to be forgiven for it. You doubtless know the sort of stories they tell about me.” 

"“I have had them straight from the horse’s mouth.” 

"“I am supposed to be drunk all the time, and in spite of my physical deficiencies I maintain a large harem.” 

"“Have you heard the one about the psychiatrist who died and went to heaven and was invited to psychoanalyze God?” 

"“No. Has that something to do with me?” 

"“St. Peter explained that God was suffering from delusions of grandeur—He thought He was Franklin D. Roosevelt.” 

"The President threw back his head and laughed heartily; he put his soul into his enjoyment of a joke, and it was a good thing to hear. Lanny remembered that Abraham Lincoln had sought the same kind of relief from too many burdens. 

"“Just now,” said the Chief Executive, “I am in the midst of the hottest fight yet, brought on by my efforts to reform the Supreme Court. Those nine old gentlemen in their solemn black robes have blocked one after another of our New Deal measures, and the whole future of our program depends upon my efforts to break that stranglehold. I have called for an increase in the number of the justices, and this is called ‘packing the court,’ and is considered the opening wedge for Bolshevism. There is nothing the enemies of this plan will not do or say.” The President told some things they had done, and after one tale of senatorial skullduggery he asked: “What do you think of that?” 

Lanny said: “I think it shows you are almost as indiscreet as the previous Roosevelt.” This brought another burst of laughter, and after it they were friends."

Lanny told him about Spain, about the war being really invasion, and about the Spanish rulers et al being unlikely to not bring back dark ages to Spain if brought back due to failure of democracies of West in helping the republic. FDR explained his difficulty in leading the country where the party was a troika and rest virulently against, and the troika harnessed to factions pulling in completely different directions. 

"“Mr. Roosevelt,” remarked the visitor, “what you say is almost identical with what Léon Blum has told me. He carried an election on a program of domestic reforms, and is very proud of having pushed them all through. But he had to pay the price which the reactionaries exacted—no aid for Spain. I have warned him in vain—what good will it do him to nationalize the armament industry of France while Hitler is permitted to arm and prepare to overwhelm him? What will be the position of France with a Fascist Spain at her back door and German submarines using harbors on the Atlantic and the Mediterranean?”"

"“The American people will believe that when they see it; and meantime there’s no use in you or me trying to tell it to them. I can say to Congress: ‘These are dangerous times, and we must have ships and planes to defend ourselves,’ and I can get away with that; but if I should say one word about defending the interests of any other nation or group, I would raise up a storm that would bowl me over. Believe me, I know my master’s voice, and when I hear it, I have no choice but to obey. If you want to save Spain, persuade your French friends to stick out their necks; or better yet, persuade Mr. Chamberlain and his Cabinet, the real authors and sustainers of the Non-Intervention policy. If the British cannot see that it is their fight, surely nobody can ask me to take it on my shoulders.”"

Lanny was about to take his leave, but FDR said professor Alston had suggested he make use of Lanny's abilities, and Lanny protested that he'd love to but couldn't.

"“There might be things you could do for me in Europe, and they wouldn’t have to be ‘regular.’”" 

Lanny informed the President succinctly about his real work and private life, and thus the necessity of shielding his real persona and any possibility of a connection with the President whom he'd love to work with, since German agents were bound to be everywhere and he was a known figure due to his previous marriage. In this, incidentally, the recapitulation of previous parts is complete, since he's already spoken about his prior background and peace conference days. 

FDR told him they would meet confidentially and exclusively without anyone else except his man knowing, and immediately arranged it. 
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Lanny proceeded to drive upstate and meet his clients, finishing with Murchison in Pittsburgh who flew him in a three seater to Adirondacks. 

"Set down at the Washington airport on Monday morning, Lanny got busy on the telephone and gave the password. “Gus” told him to call again at noon, and when he did so the order was to be at a certain street corner at a quarter to ten that evening. It happened to be raining, and Lanny with overshoes and umbrella stood watching the speeding traffic, standing back far enough from the curb so as not to be too badly spattered. A car drew up, and the President’s bodyguard looked out and nodded."

Lanny met FDR privately and confidentially, and talked to him about France, Germany, and more. 

"“Robbie thinks the fat general is making a grave mistake by building short-range fighter planes when he should have bombers to bring England to her knees. But Hermann only laughs and winks. What he means, of course, is to put troops ashore in England and fly those planes from English fields.”

"“How can he do it while the English control the seas?” 

"“He expects to do it by parachutes, and by submarines and dive-bombers sinking the British fleet. He figures that it won’t take long to ferry troops across twenty miles of water, and they will be specialists, with weapons the like of which has never been seen in the world before.”"

FDR kept him on. 

"“Tell me about Hitler,” said the President; so Lanny described that strange portent, half-genius, half-madman, who had managed to infect with his mental sickness a whole generation of German youth. 

"“Years ago I made a remark in a woman friend’s hearing: ‘There will be nothing to do but kill them.’ The remark horrified her so that I promised never to make it again. But it is literally true; they are a set of blind fanatics, marching, singing, screaming about their desire to conquer other peoples; it is their God-given destiny, and they have no room for any other idea in their heads. They have a song: ‘Today Germany belongs to us, tomorrow the whole world.’ The German word for belongs is gehört, while the word hört means hears; so in Germany they sing ‘belongs to us’ and abroad they sing ‘hears us,’ which sounds less alarming. That is typical of the Nazi technique. Hitler has written in his book that you can get any lie believed if you repeat it often enough; and especially if it’s a big lie—because people will say that nobody would dare to tell one as big as that. It is no exaggeration to say that he has made Germany into a headquarters of the Lie; he has told so many and so often that nobody in his country has any means of distinguishing truth from falsehood.”"

"“People here make a grave mistake,” Lanny said. “They think of Nazism as a reactionary movement, an effort of the capitalist class to put down labor and the Communists; but Nazism was a revolutionary movement—that is the only way any movement can get power nowadays. Hitler promised the redistribution of landed estates without compensation, the abolition of what he called ‘interest slavery,’ the whole program of populist revolt.” 

"“We had such a man in this country—Huey Long.” 

"“I’m sorry I didn’t meet him.” 

"“Believe me, I did! He was all set to be my successor. He once had me waked up at one in the morning to give me hell over the telephone from Baton Rouge for some appointment he didn’t like. I refused to cancel it and he was my mortal enemy forever after.” 

"“There will be others like him,” replied Lanny, “unless we solve the problem of poverty in the midst of plenty. The German middle classes, the little men like Hitler, were being wiped out, and he offered a millennium, also a scapegoat, the Jews. When he got the votes, he took them to the big industrialists and sold them for more campaign funds.” 

"That aspect of the movement had few secrets for Lanny, because his father, a steel man himself in those days, had heard the German steel men talking about the sums they were turning over to their new political boss. “Thyssen alone put up five million marks.”"

Lanny explained the realities behind, as he'd come to grasp. 

"“It is really Hitler who is directing it?” 

"“It is the technical men of German industry, and the officers of the general staff of the Wehrmacht. They are probably the most highly trained military men in the world, and of course it is herrlich for them, because for the first time all German industry, both capital and labor, does exactly what they, the members of the Herrenklub, direct. Emil Meissner, Kurt’s brother, is a member of that club. He was doubtful of Schicklgruber, the demagogue, but now he worships Hitler, the inspired master of the German destiny. I have seen Emil rise from lieutenant to general in less than twenty-five years, and today he is probably the happiest man I know; he has everything exactly the way he wants it. The Communists, the Socialists, the democrats and pacifists are all dead or in concentration camps; every good German is hard at work, living frugally and investing his savings in government bonds; and all the money the wizard Schacht can create is going into the building of that bicycle I was telling you about a while ago, the machine on which the German Army is going to ride to world mastery.” 

"“It is a terrible picture you paint, Lanny.” 

"“I assure you, Governor, I am no painter. I am only a transporter of paintings. When I come on one that seems to me worth while, I bring it to this country and show it to my friends. The most important one for you to look at is the picture of this German war machine being tried out in Spain. Hitler is sending his tankmen, his artillerymen, and above all his airmen there in relays; nobody stays more than three or four months, just long enough to learn the new techniques of swift and deadly mechanized war; then he goes back to Germany, and tells it to his superior officers, and on the training fields in the Fatherland he teaches it to hundreds of others. The Italians are doing the same, but they’re not so good; they don’t really like war and nobody can make them. But the Nazis like nothing else, and the result is going to be that they will have a large army of trained and eager professionals, while all the other peoples, except perhaps the Japanese, will be bungling amateurs. The Nazis are training some of their stormtroopers right here in America; I have seen them in New York, and they may be doing it even in Washington. You tell me you can’t prevent what is happening in Spain, Governor, but surely you ought to be able to do something in America.” 

"Said the President: “I think I can assure you we’re not entirely overlooking that part of our duty.”"
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Lanny visited his father's home and the Budd Erling plant, and heard him; he visited Hansi and Bess and met their little boy Freddi, and Hansi's parents. Johannes talked to him freely, and his family's politics no longer bothered him. Lanny had enough to report already, and did. 

"Lanny drove them all in to the concert, which was held in a hall on the East side, its purpose being to collect funds for the aiding of Jews who had escaped into the countries bordering on Hitlerland. The place was packed to the doors with Jewish men and women, some of them old but most of them young, a few bearded but most smooth-shaven, a few well-to-do, but most poor. Jews of all sorts and sizes, but mostly undersized; Jews with dark curly hair and some with red; Jews with Jewish noses, but many who might have been taken for Russians or Poles or Hungarians or Italians or Spaniards. They had been mixed up with all the European tribes for a thousand years, but alas, it hadn’t done them any good."

Here the author goes into a diatribe that's church propaganda from pulpits for most of two millennia, for a convenient handshake with Rome around seventeen centuries ago, to escape persecution by turning on the relatives of the one god church was attempting to enforce by every possible means including lying, cheating, fraud and mass murders called inquisition. This propaganda coupled with terror has succeeded so well, most under its spell never stop to think how obvious a fraud it is, but it's nothing less. Fact is, Rome occupied Israel and Judea, and people were executed via crucifixion every day for very little, and blaming the occupied colonial subjects or vilifying them while exculpating the invading colonial regime is the most convenient game, no different from blaming females for being victims of physical attacks including murders. In both cases it's merely convenience of targeting the weaker, blaming the vanquished and generally a prejudice in favour of the bully. 

Funny the author doesn't see it, whether about Jews regarding the crucifixion blame or about India, particularly Hindus, regarding anything; in the previous volume he repeatedly refers to Hindus as strange while describing Buddhist monks of Ceylon as dark Aryans, but Buddha was a Hindu and a Prince from India and never separated as such from either the land or it's culture any more than most - who weren't converted by invaders - ever did, and Buddhismis counted as separate from mainstream India only for convenience of the conversionist invaders who adopted the Macaulay doctrine of using every possible lie to decimate India so 1857 war of independence does not recur. And Aryan is a term borrowed by West and deformed to the extent of twisting it to mean something never originally meant, from Indian word in Sanskrit, Aarya, which has to do with enlightenment of inner self and civilised conduct, with no regard to any physical colours. 

But of course West has only a contempt for any people subjugated as much as for women for the same reason, and respect for non colonial occupied people such as China is generally greater, hence the lack of recognition by this author that Hindu is where the very word Aarya and therefore Aryan stems from, and neither Ceylon nor Buddhism nor dark physical skin are relevant more than India and Hinduism as the mother culture. 
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Lanny visited his daughter who was now at Wickthorpe lodge while Wickthorpe castle interior was being redone to suit Irma, and he was given a cottage on the estate. His purpose was dual, the daughter and the Wickthorpe set. They talked freely before him. 

"Intelligence Service, most secret of all organizations, was turning in one report after another showing that the German Air Force had outstripped the British; also, that the German Navy was disregarding its pledged word to limit construction to one-third of the British. Prime Minister Chamberlain, who believed in business and called it peace, was solving the problem by sticking the reports away and forgetting them. But Anthony Eden, Foreign Minister, was on the warpath against this course, and Sir Robert Vansittart, the highest permanent official of the Foreign Office, was backing him up.

"Gerald Albany, the embodiment of propriety, would probably not have mentioned this delicate subject in the presence of an American; but Lanny let it be known that he had heard about it. So then they talked. Ceddy declared that the trouble was due to the inability of some statesmen to face frankly the fact that Hitler had made Germany into a great power, and that she was again entitled to cast her full vote in the councils of Europe. Irma supported him, speaking with that new assurance which had come with her title. It was her idea that her new country should make a gentleman’s agreement with Hitler covering all the problems of Europe, and should use this as a lever to force France into breaking off the Russian alliance. Thus, and only thus, could there again be security for property and religion. Lanny, listening to her emphatic phrases, thought: “She is still quarreling with me in her heart!”"

Here the author is obliquely establishing a little Cliveden Set. 

"Russia now had an alliance with France, but didn’t know whether to trust it or not, and the British didn’t know whether the French meant it, and whether they should be encouraged to mean it or to sabotage it. French policy, unlike the British, did change with the government, and that was a bad thing for the French, and for their friends and backers. Many persons in Britain took the position that the question of Russia was not merely a political issue, but a moral one; they refused to “shake hands with murder.” Gerald Albany, a clergyman’s son, was among these; but Ceddy spoke cautiously, saying that in statecraft it was not always possible to be guided by one’s moral and religious ideas. “We should have had a bad time at the outbreak of the last war if we hadn’t had the aid of Russia; and surely the hands of the Tsar had bloodstains enough.”"

Funny how convenient it is for the author and his aristocratic British characters, both, to forget that British massacred far more in India than the reds in Russia did their own aristocracy; whether that's racism or merely a question of being recognised by Europe as aristocracy is a matter of making excuses, since there is Wickthorpe admitting that the Czar's regime did kill people, and those were poor. Hence too the lack of a vigorous denunciation of nazis by West until discovery of the concentration camps post WWII, for Jews were just as Asian as India, and so West understands racism against them.

The author introduces Lord Beaverbrook as a dinner guest at Wickthorpe;  

" ... heard this powerful British publisher maintain that the British and French governments were favoring the Spanish Red government so outrageously that it amounted to driving Italy and Germany to war against them. “It will come, and we shall be to blame for it,” declared Lord Beaverbrook, who had once been plain Max Aitken, company promoter of Canada. He had made a million pounds there, and now he owned The Daily Express and the Evening Standard, and from his state of mind you would have thought that the Bolsheviks were in the act of laying siege to these valuable properties."

"The Italians and the Germans, who had intervened in Spain from the first hour, meant to go on intervening, while steadily denying that they had ever thought of such a nefarious action. Lanny had heard a story of a Kentucky Colonel who knocked a man down, and when asked: “Did he call you a liar?” replied: “Worse than that; he proved it.” That was the situation before this Committee, which refused to receive complaints from individuals, but couldn’t prevent representatives of the Soviet government from proving that the Italians and the Germans were systematically sending in troops and matériel to General Franco. Then the Italian and German delegates would fly into a fury and fight their share of the war in London."

"France, patrolling the French frontier with Spain, demanded that Portugal should patrol its frontiers, through which Italy and Germany were pouring in supplies; when Portugal refused, France withdrew her patrol officers and left her highways open into Spain. .... Franco alone could not conquer his people; if “Non-Intervention” were actually enforced, the Fascists would be licked. Italy and Germany were determined that this should not happen. At any and all costs, their man was going to win."

And British 

"Obviously they couldn’t permit the Reds to build themselves a fortress on the Atlantic seaboard, enclosing all Europe in two prongs of a pincers. The British owned immensely valuable properties in Spain—Rio Tinto copper, for example, indispensable in making munitions—and certainly they didn’t want strikes and Red commissars in those mines. On the other hand it might be fatal in wartime to have German submarines based on the Atlantic, and France enclosed in a pair of Nazi pincers. On the whole it seemed best to let the two sides fight it out and exhaust each other, and then a compromise government could be set up, the sort the British could lend money to. The only trouble was, neither side was willing to admit that it was exhausted; this was a war to the death, a kind which is bad for trade and every sort of vested interest."

Lanny would listen, say little except a question here and there, and fix things in memory. 

"Alone in his room, he would type out the data and address them to Gus Gennerich, not putting the letter in with other mail that went out from the castle, but saving it to be posted in a public box."

Lanny visited The Reaches, saw Alfy, talked to Rick, told him he had a new contact he couldnt mention but could still go on giving Rick information,  and told him about the Wickthorpe guests. 

"“The Beaver is on the warpath, privately as well as publicly,” commented the playwright. “They call him flighty, but you notice that he never wavers from loyalty to his fortune.”"

He saw Rosemary for the painting Adella Murchison might purchase, fended off her queries and invitations, and set off for Paris where Trudi was.

But Trudi was gone. 
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This begins another painful part where he cannot search publicly for the wife that has been abducted by nazis, tortured and beaten to death, but must continue his charade to sympathise with her murderers even as he searches for her, for his work and hers will suffer to no avail if his real self and private life are exposed. And so Lanny is alone again, and has been robbed by nazis of yet another loved close person. 

Lanny called his mother, but there was no letter. He called Rick who offered to come, but there was no point. Trudi had discussed this possibility and asked him to wait, and above all, not betray his role, but go on working to defeat the evil. 

"Paris was full of refugees from both Germany and Italy; Jews especially, but also Socialists, Communists, democrats, liberals, pacifists, every sort of idealist; all quarreling among themselves as they had done at home; all insisting that their way was the only way to fight Fascism-Nazism. These refugees smuggled news out of Germany and Italy and smuggled in what they called their “literature”: newspapers, pamphlets, leaflets. And of course their enemies were fighting back with fury; the Hitlerites had their little Gestapo in Paris, and Mussolini his little OVRA; Dr. Goebbels had his Personal Department B, and the SS had their Braune Haus. German agents came under every sort of disguise: scientists and journalists, teachers of music and languages, students, traveling salesmen, importers, laborers, even refugees. Agents would be trained to pose as leftists; they would be sent to concentration camps in Germany and beaten there, so that the other prisoners would see them and word would go out to the underground that they were all right; then they could “escape” to Paris, and be welcomed by the anti-Nazi groups, and be in position to collect names and addresses of the “comrades” both at home and abroad. The former would be shot, and the latter would be intimidated and silenced by whatever measures it took."

"Just a month or two ago Mussolini had arranged the murder of his two leading opponents among the refugees, Carlo and Nello Rosselli, editors of the Italian-language anti-Fascist newspaper in Paris; they had been kidnaped and beaten to death in the woods—the same method which had been used in Rome to get rid of the Socialist editor Matteotti, soon after Il Duce had seized power. Lanny had been there at the time, and his efforts to tell the outside world about it had caused his expulsion from the new Roman Empire. Now the newspapers of Paris had been full of the Rosselli story and it had even reached Connecticut. It was bad publicity for both Fascism and France; it served to alarm the outside world, and the police certainly wouldn’t want any more of it."

He could have made a scandal by going yo police, press, and headlines across the world screaming his wife was kidnapped by nazis, which would bring in Budd, Budd Erling and Barnes, Wickthorpe and more for weight behind him. But that would serve the nazis, for they would get what they were searching, the source of funding behind Trudi. As it is she had promised she'd never reveal his name, but how long coukdnt she hold out under torture?

"If the torturers managed to break the secret, they wouldn’t be apt to kidnap the son of Budd-Erling, but they might slug him on some dark night and it would be an ordinary case of robbery; they might force his speeding car off the road and it would be a lesson to other reckless drivers." 

"Quietly, methodically, mechanically the Nazis did that to people; they did it to long strings of men and women, one after another, until the whippers were dripping with sweat, until they became exhausted and had to be replaced. The victims would fall unconscious and be dragged away and dumped into another room, piled sometimes on top of one another. A wholesale procedure, the mass production of suffering, intended to terrorize all Germany, and then the whole continent of Europe. Heute gehört uns Deutschland, morgen die ganze Welt! 

"They had called in their eminent physiologists and psychologists to tell them how to humiliate and degrade human beings, to break their wills and subject them to the National-Socialist will. They built chambers of concrete of a carefully devised crookedness, so that a human being could not stand up or sit down or lie without having sharp corners sticking into various parts of him; they would throw him in there and leave him for days, for weeks. They would bring him to an inquisition chamber and strap him in a chair with a bright light glaring into his eyes, and there they would question him, with relays of inquisitors, giving him not a moment’s rest for days and nights. At intervals they would burn his flesh with cigarettes or stick slivers of wood under his fingernails to liven him up and make him more attentive. They had ascertained scientifically the exact amount of heat and humidity which would reduce the human will to impotence and turn the mind to putty. 

"Now they had Trudi Schultz somewhere, and were putting her through that sort of ordeal. Doubtless they would rape her—why not? It was one more way to horrify and shock a woman, one more way to subjugate her, one more way to impress her with the might and majesty of the Neue Ordnung. They made a sort of ceremony out of it; both Freddi and Trudi had described such scenes: the Stormtroopers in their shiny black boots and shiny leather belts lined up awaiting their turn, dancing with amusement, cracking their jokes and roaring with laughter; the women victims, also awaiting their turn, compelled to witness unspeakable obscenities, sometimes fainting with horror and having buckets of water dumped over them so that they might miss nothing. 

"If all that didn’t cause them to talk, their loved ones would be brought in and tortured before their eyes; a child one day, an old mother or father the next. “Nun, sag’! Wer ist’s, was ist’s?”—whatever the inquisitor wanted to know. With Trudi it would be just two things: “Who gave you the money?” and “Who got it from you?” Perhaps they already knew the latter; perhaps that was how they had got Trudi. Or perhaps they would pretend to know; they would tell her that her comrades had betrayed her, and why should she continue to spare them? They would have an endless string of devices, psychological as well as physical; they would never give up until they found out who had been putting up the money for the hundreds of thousands of anti-Nazi leaflets and pamphlets that had been smuggled into Naziland."

"Trudi’s comrades had informed her that there was a Prussian nobleman connected with the Embassy, a man of wealth who in the normal course of his life was entitled to reside in a fine château. He had rented in the environs of Paris an historic place with splendid grounds and a high spiked fence around them. No residence of such pretentiousness would be without its wine cellars, and in these places the Nazi agents could carry on their operations under the shelter of diplomatic immunity. Of course they couldn’t do it wholesale, but they could handle a special case—and one was enough for Lanny’s imagination."

"He went out and walked the pavements of Paris in the small hours of the morning; then he came back, and lay down on the bed without undressing; he had managed to exhaust his body but not his mind, and he lay with his eyes closed, thinking every terrible thought possible about Trudi. Did he doze, and then awaken? He would never be sure. People would tell him in after years that perhaps he had been asleep all the time; but he knew that he was awake and in full possession of his faculties. A strange feeling began to creep over him and he opened his eyes slowly, and there at the foot of his bed was what appeared to be a trace of light, a sort of pillar of cloud, so faint that he couldn’t be sure whether it was the first glimmer of dawn coming in at the window. But dawn doesn’t come and gather itself into one spot, nor does it make one begin to shiver. The thought flashed over Lanny: “It’s happening again!” 

"It had waited twenty years to happen again. Twenty years ago to this very month Lanny had lain in bed in his father’s home and had had this same feeling, and seen a pillar of light turn into the form of Rick, who had been flying in battle over France. One of the most vivid memories of Lanny’s whole life, something he could never forget if he lived to be as old as Methuselah. Hundreds of times he had wondered if it would happen again, but it had never happened. 

"This time it was Trudi; standing there, full size, dim, but otherwise real as life; wearing a plain blue gingham dress with which Lanny was familiar, a dress for which she had paid perhaps twenty-five francs, less than a dollar; with her blond hair drawn back tightly from her forehead and doubtless hanging in two braids—though Lanny couldn’t see these, because she was facing him and never moved. She was two or three feet from the foot of the bed, looking at him, slightly downwards; her face pale, her expression gentle, sad, not to say grief-stricken."
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Zoltan Kertezsi "had been to Salzburg for the festival and now arrived in Paris. ... They talked about politics. Zoltan despised that vile world, but just now there was so much murder in the air of Europe that the smell of it reached even to the highest ivory-tower dweller. The urbane and gentle art expert described the plight of Salzburg, famous for its baroque architecture and its music festivals, conducted, as it were, just below the entrance to an ogre’s den. Hitler’s retreat at Berchtesgaden was a couple of miles up in the mountains, barely across the Austrian border, and now the Führer was summoning the statesmen of various small nations and setting forth his demands—which meant in every case that they should cease their resistance to Nazi agents who came in as tourists and occupied themselves with throwing the affairs of the country into turmoil. Every day Hitler felt himself stronger, and with each concession he wrung from others he was stronger yet."

Lanny asked Zoltan Kertezsi if he could get them to Chateau de Belcour, giving business as reason, soon because he had some business to conduct in Valencia. Lanny went to see uncle Jesse Blackless. 

"A story had come to the deputy’s ears, and he was collecting evidence with the intention of blowing it wide in the Chambre. The Cagoulards, the “Hooded Men,” who had been beating and murdering their opponents, were preparing their final coup to overthrow the French republic and set up a dictatorship of the Right. They had got arms from both Germany and Italy, and had them hidden in hundreds of places all over the land. 

"It was the Franco procedure all over again, and among the conspirators were Marshal Pétain, the hero of Verdun, and General Weygand, who had been Foch’s chief of staff; also Chiappe, the Corsican head of the Paris police, and Doriot, former Communist leader said to have sold out his party and bought himself an estate in Belgium with money got from the Nazis. CSAR was the name of this group—Comité pour Secret Action Révolutiormaire—and their funds were coming not merely from abroad but from anti-labor forces in France, including the tire manufacturer Michelin, and Baron Schneider, the armaments king. Again the parallel with Spain; Franco having got his funds from Juan March, ex-smuggler who had become tobacco king of that country, and his guns and tanks and planes from Hitler and Mussolini."

Lanny spoke to him about his problem without giving away the personal connection. 

"And by the way, Uncle Jesse, here’s a story that may be of use to you. I have heard a report that the Nazis have a château not far from Paris, where they take people from the underground and hold them. Do you know anything about it?” 

"“I have heard such stories more than once, and I don’t doubt them. Manifestly, the Nazis aren’t going to let the underground operate without hindrance.” 

"“The story I was told is quite specific. It has to do with the Château de Belcour, which has been leased by someone in the German embassy. The person who told me doesn’t want it talked about at present, because he believes they have an important prisoner there, and if they are alarmed, they’ll take the prisoner into Germany.” 

"“I’ll see what I can find out,” replied the Red deputy.

"“And one thing more,” added his nephew; “I want to go to Valencia on a picture deal. Can you get the visa for me?” 

"“Any time you say,” replied the uncle, who had close connections with the Spanish embassy in Paris because his party in Spain was collaborating in the national defense."

Lanny visited Emily Chattersworth and asked her to give a letter of introduction to Duc de Belcour. He visited the de Bruyne family. Denis picked him up, and on the way informed him that the house, Chateau de Bruyne, now had fortification. 

"When they reached the château, Denis took his guest and showed him a perfect little “pillbox” of reinforced concrete with firing-slits on all sides. It stood on a knoll which commanded the rest of the estate and a valley slightly below it. Only the wall with the vines and fruit trees stood in the way, and Denis remarked, casually: “We shall have to blow that up, of course.”"

"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."

Schneider was visiting the next day, and they brushed away Lanny's suggestion to keep out of the way. They didn't mind him telling Robbie, of course. 

"“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.”"

"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."

Lanny answered his queries about Germany fitting with expectations.  They talked about Spain, and about Zaharoff.

"Baron Schneider ... 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 patrie 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."

Lanny mentioned Kurt, his own relationship, and question of whether the baron had considered German funding support through him, which the baron wasn't asserting. Lanny asked if the baron wished him to approach Kurt, and the baron asserted after consulting Denise. Lanny called Kurt on returning to his hotel and got invited to lunch next day. 

"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."

He spoke to Kurt. 

"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 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."

Lanny asked for an introduction to Graf Herzenberg who was in residence at Cheateau De Belcour, having rented it, for inspecting the art collection of the Duc de Belcour. He visited the Chateau, and met an SS officer, Leutenant Rörich, and takèd to him about art, politics, and more. He professed interest in French architecture and asked the officer to accompany him around. They talked of meeting later. 

"Lanny drove until he was a safe distance from the château, and then drew up in a shady spot by the highway, got out his notebook and pencil, and made maps and elaborate notes of every detail he had observed of the building and grounds, both inside and out. Then he drove on; and the Trudi-ghost said: “You are wasting your time. You cannot help me, and you will risk getting caught. Go to Spain.” 

"Lanny, mannish and stubborn, replied: “I am going to help you. Even if I go and get Monck, it will be to help you.” 

"The Trudi-ghost countered: “Monck will put you in touch with the underground, and you can give them the money.” 

"Lanny, who liked to have his own way but usually gave in when some loved person kept insisting, replied: “Oh, all right, all right; I’ll go.” It was like still being married."

"There was a fresh crisis. The Franco invaders who absurdly called themselves “Nationalists” had been trying to get belligerent rights from Britain and France, and failing in this, they had sought to establish a blockade by means of submarines; they were sinking British and French and other neutral vessels seeking to enter Loyalist ports. That of course was “piracy” in the eyes of all neutrals, and it had provoked the first signs of real determination on the part of Britain and France. They had jointly announced that they would sink all submarines in those waters, and they had meant it—with the result that the mysterious pirates suddenly ceased operations about the coasts of Spain. ... It was well known that when Hitler had given orders to the Wehrmacht to march into the Rhineland, the General Staff had been afraid of the move, and Hitler had conceded the point that if the French offered resistance, the Germans would at once retire. It would have been the same with Italy in Abyssinia, and it would be the same in Spain, if only England and France would decide to grant real neutrality and let the Loyalist government buy arms like any other."

Lanny drove South and veered towards Le Creusot, home of Baron Schneider, and talked to him over lunch about his conversation with Kurt. Schneider asked him to ask his father to see him. "“Stop by and see me whenever you are passing this way,” said the master of the Crucible and the Glasshouse." 

Lanny went to Bienvenu and saw another Spanish grandee who owned a Murrillo in Valencia, and made arrangement to purchase it at sight if it were in fact a Murrillo. He took a train this time, along the Riviera coast and another connecting one onwards in Spain to Valencia. 

"Few people went to Valencia who didn’t have to, for it was bombed frequently and its defenses were inadequate. It had been the seat of the government ever since the siege of Madrid had begun, ten months previously; now the government was planning to move to Barcelona, so people on the train reported; some departments had already moved. The Italians were pressing in the south, while Franco, with his Moors and Requetes and another large Italian army, was fighting a great battle up on that River Ebro where Lanny had once hidden his car while the Fascists were searching for him. Franco was getting a thumping defeat, so reports indicated, and everybody was exulting in this success."

He didn't want publicity this time, and went with Raoul who met him at the station. "The people of Valencia had no gasolina, and were eating their horses and burros ...", but they got a cab, there were a few. Lanny spoke about his need to meet Bernhardt Monck known to others as Captain Herzog, who Raoul said was on the Belchite front. 

"We are taking foreign journalists continually; but if you went along, they would know you, and they wouldn’t see any reason for not mentioning you.” Raoul called the roll—it was a roll of honor—of American writers who had made the cause of the Spanish people their own, and who were now or had recently been in Valencia: Ernest Hemingway, Vincent Sheean, Dorothy Parker, Elliot Paul, Louis Fischer, Anna Louise Strong, Albert Rhys Williams. They had taken a long and perilous journey in the cause of conscience. They turned their hearts’ blood into burning words in the effort to overcome the dull inertia of the masses, to awaken the people of America to the meaning of this rape of democracy."

Lanny knew them, so it wouldn't do to get recognised if he was seen. 

"“Couldn’t you get somebody to smuggle me up there?” 

"“But that’s not done in wartime, Lanny. You’d be a spy, and might get into serious trouble. It would certainly mean publicity.” 

"“To be suspected as a Fascist spy wouldn’t be so bad from the point of view of what I’m doing. Much better than being a friend of the Reds.”"

"Finally Raoul said: “The best thing is to be open about it. I will go to my chief and ask permission to get El Capitán Herzog on the telephone. Unless he is at the fighting front, that should be possible. I will say to him: ‘Lanny Budd is in Valencia and wishes to see you.’ If he will say to my chief: ‘Please send this man to me,’ it can be done, I am sure. Perhaps I can get permission to go as your escort.”

"While Raoul went to carry out this commission, the visitor went for a stroll about the city of the Cid. It is more than a thousand years old, and many of its buildings have been made out of the stones of a previous city a thousand years older; ancient Roman ruins, such as Lanny had been used to seeing in the neighborhood of his childhood home. The less ancient Valencia was built in part by the Moors, and has blue and white and golden domes like Istanbul and other places of the Levant. Like all Spanish cities it had dreadfully crowded slums, and its modern industries were carried on in buildings ill-suited to the purpose. Now these industries were in the hands of the workers, who were learning to run them under penalty of being conquered by Franco’s Moors, which meant death for the men and worse than death for their wives and daughters. 

"Italian and German bombers came over at frequent intervals. The interference was pitifully inadequate, and they could come down and pick their targets. They chose places where there might be crowds, for their purpose was to terrify and break the spirit of the population. What they achieved was to fix in the minds of all a black and bitter hatred of their class enemies, whether native or foreign. The outside world called this the “Spanish civil war,” but no worker in Spain ever thought of it as anything but an invasion by foreign Fascists who were pledged to put down and enslave the workers of all Europe and keep them as slaves for the rest of time. Spanish landlords and great capitalists and high prelates of a degenerate Church had hired this crime and paid for it by pledging the national wealth of Spain, the iron ore and copper and all the products of the soil. Foreign troops were doing the fighting, and the weapons were without exception of foreign manufacture—including all the planes which swarmed in Spanish skies and blasted Spanish homes and tore the bodies of Spanish women and children. Some day there would be justice! Some day there would be vengeance!

"Lanny didn’t see any of the torn bodies, for they had been carted away and put underground; but he saw the blasted homes by hundreds. The bombs were not big enough to destroy whole blocks, but enough to send one five-story tenement sliding down into the street, or perhaps to blow out the front walls and leave it like a set in a modernistic play, with several rooms exposed: a dining room with a table for the family to sit at, a bedroom with a bed for lovers to lie in, a crib for the resulting baby to sleep in. Sometimes the damage was recent, and gangs of men were clearing away the rubbish, taking down loose cornices and tottering walls; sometimes the ruins were still smoking—for the bombers dropped incendiaries, and many stone buildings had been gutted and left mere shells.

"Amid all this ruin the people went grimly about their daily tasks. They were drably clad, the men mostly in well-worn black blusas. Lanny never saw anybody smile, even the children, unless he caused them to do so by being a wonderful señor Americano, asking questions and distributing centavos. He looked like a “class enemy,” but did not behave so, and everybody on the Loyalist side knew that there were a few simpáticos, especially from that wonderful land across the sea where every worker owned a motorcar and sent back money to his impoverished relatives. “La tierra de tíos ricos,” a peasant had once said to Lanny; the land of rich uncles!"

Raoul got permission for the two of them to go, they were able to get a car and fuel, all set. 

"Belchite lies in Southern Aragon, something over a hundred miles north from Valencia. It is rather barren hill country, and the front there represented a noose drawn by the invading armies from the west of Madrid to the north and around to the east and southeast. If they had been able to come southwest from Belchite, they would have cut off Madrid from connection with the outside world; if they could have come southeast to the coast, they would have cut both Madrid and Valencia from Catalonia, dividing the Loyalist territory in half. They had marched boldly in full sweep, with one or the other of these plans in mind; but the free men of the Spanish democracy had stopped them cold, and now Raoul brought the latest news from headquarters and was all but dancing with delight. The battle of Belchite, the greatest victory of the war!"

Lanny preferred to drive after dinner, and they drove through night to stop at Lerida - where they had stopped the first time deciding which way to proceed - and found a room, setting out after breakfast. 

"They bought bread and fruit—for the nearer they got to the front the scarcer food would be. 

"On the familiar road toward Saragossa they passed those sights of war which Lanny had learned to know so well. The road was worn and rutted, and the dust of vehicles made a reddish-gray fog around them and ahead. Out of this fog emerged trucks carrying wounded men back to the bases, and slow-plodding peasant carts taking families and their belongings away from destruction. Very young children and old people rode, while the rest walked alongside; the men wearing short black trousers and hempen sandals, the women much-worn dresses, invariably black. Sorrow enveloped them, old and young, but they had that patient dignity which characterizes the Spanish people, inured through centuries to every known kind of suffering."

Raoul planned to talk to soldiers about their own education while Lanny met Captain Herzog. 

"The government program called for teaching every soldier to read and write, and nothing else could have reconciled a pacifist and idealist to the manifold horrors of civil war. “Even if the Fascists should win,” he said, “that is one thing they will never be able to undo.”"

Lanny met Captain Herzog who led him under a tree clear of underbrush and with a clear view in every direction, and as before, said they better speak German. Lanny informed him that Trudi was missing, and he needed to make contact with the underground. He also informed him that he had been married to her for over a year. Monck was instantly understanding and gave his sympathy. 

"“She was a magnificent girl; one of those who should be at the head of the German government, instead of the monsters and madmen who have seized the power.”

"“You think there is no chance that she may be alive?” 

"“Alive? Yes, quite possibly; but better dead.” 

"“I wrestle with myself day and night. I ought to be doing something to save her. But what can I do?” 

"“What can anybody do, except to make war on the Nazis? Here, right now, we are having the satisfaction of putting a number of them where they can do no further harm. We are fighting what is called a holding action; the longer we can keep them busy in Spain, the more time we give the rest of Europe to awaken to its peril. The Nazi-Fascists did not expect this, I assure you, and it has deranged their plans not a little. It may be they will learn what is in the souls of free men and women, and be more hesitant in attacking the next democratic government. At least, that must be our hope.”

"Lanny realized that he had come to the place of consolation, if any such there was in the world. The noise which filled this air was of a giant sausage machine, grinding up Nazis; here the self-called master-race were being met by the only measures that counted with them, the only argument they understood. If you really wanted to get rid of Hitlerism, these were the weapons and the techniques. The thing to do was concentrate your attention upon them, forgetting everything else. 

"“You must understand, Herr Budd,” went on the Capitán, “I have been seeing men die in Spain for more than a year; men of conscience, of fine minds, many who were or might have become artists, writers, scientists, teachers—intellectuals of all sorts. They didn’t have to come here and die; they might have lived quite safely elsewhere. I get to know them, I share their lives—and then in a fraction of a second I see their faces shot off, their guts blown out by a shell burst. I have to go on and leave them; the enemy is out there, and my business is with him. So you must understand, I have got used to death, and I spare my own feelings. There is a limit to the attention I can give to any one person, no matter how worthy.”"

Monck insisted Lanny must carry on his role, and that he would visit as soon as he got leave after battle of Belchite, but Lanny asked for another contact, and identification in case Gestapo had got him too. Monck said he was another Oranienburg inmate, tortured, and described his injuries and persona. Lanny and Monck established how they might communicate in code, and lanny asked if it was ok to speak a little longer. Monck assured him this was so, even if Lanny looked bourgeois. 

"“This war has received a great deal of publicity, and you would be surprised how many tourists have thought of it as a spectacle for a summer’s holiday. By one or another ingenious scheme they wangle a permit to come; they are writers, lecturers, painters, motion-picture directors or actors; sometimes they are businessmen who have goods to sell which we urgently need. Their wives wish to be able to go back to—what are the names of those strange towns in America?” 

"“Podunk, for example?” 

"“To Podunk, and say that they have heard the rumble of the cannon and smelled the smoke of powder. They show up here, and have to be fed even though the troops go hungry. They find it highly educational—until they get too close, and the wind brings the stench of human bodies rotting in this blazing Spanish sun. Then they have an attack of nausea and decide that battlefields and picnic grounds are not the same.”"

Lanny told him about Chateau Belcour and the likelihood that Trudi was still held captive there, and that he wanted Monck to undertake the rescue personally. He promised, against such an attempt, to bring out Monck's wife and children and keep them safe as long as it took him to join them. Lanny discussed his ideas about a rescue. Monck pointed out the gaps. 

"“You are speaking as a member of the leisure classes, Genosse Budd. You are accustomed to having your own way, and are annoyed by the idea of having to submit to law. But you must remember that I am a Socialist and a so-called Red fighter, and we are not privileged to break the laws of France or any other country; if we do, the police are prompt to proceed against us, and what is still more important, the capitalist press leaps to put all the details on the front page. You must bear in mind that our comrades of the underground in France are in that country as guests, and have to proceed with the utmost circumspection. The reactionaries are ceaseless in their watch to get something on us, to support the demand that we be expelled from the country. We face the fact that if crimes are committed against us, the police manifest very little interest, but if we dare to reply with a counter-crime, every form of power in the land rises up in wrath against us.” 

"Said Lanny: “All that you tell me is right, and it means just one thing—that in whatever we plan to do, we must not fail.” 

"“In other words, the perfect crime!” replied the officer, smiling for the first time in this colloquy."

Lanny and Raoul returned to Valencia and lanny, having collected the Murrillo after satisfying that it was genuine, departed to Marseilles on a French steamer, safe due to British and French patrolling in the region. 
...............................................................................


At Bienvenu there was a letter from Rick from Geneva. 

"The British Indian ruler, Aga Khan, reputed to be the richest man in the world, was to be chosen President of this Eighteenth Assembly. He was a Moslem god, but the most modern of divinities, owning a famous racing stable and contributing twenty-five hundred quarts of champagne for the Geneva festivities. He spent most of his time on the Riviera, where Lanny had met him many times; he had admirable manners, and gave priceless jewels to the ladies who won his favor."

In Paris he met uncle Jesse Blackless, this time using the maneuver he used with Trudi rather than visiting him openly, and found out that Jesse's agent had established himself in the village near Chateau Belcour and had met a villager who had heard a woman captive while in transport as it had broken down on road. They discussed a rescue, and Lanny proceeded to U.S. to sell the Murrillo and get more business, having called Kurt and told him about his meeting with Schneider. 

Lanny chose the German steamer Bremen and found that Forrest Quadratt was on it. 

"Like all the Nazis, Quadratt was convinced that the mass of mankind was made up of dolts and imbeciles who had to be given orders and made to obey. He considered that the Germans were the proper people to take charge of Europe and bring it out of the Middle Ages. The British had their huge empire, and should be content with that and not make Germany the victim of their jealousy and greed. As for the United States, they were the people who most resembled Germans, and should be their spiritual brothers, as they already were their blood brothers—owing to the vast immigration of Germans, who had brought most of the new country’s culture. Let America be content with the Western Hemisphere, upon which the Germans had no designs whatever. If you asked Quadratt why the German propagandists were so active in all South American countries, he would answer that their attitude was purely defensive, a result of America’s having deprived Germany of her hard-won victory in the last war."

Lanny told Quadratt about the right wing movement in France. 

"Quadratt pretended to know all about it, but obviously he knew very little, and Lanny let himself be deftly led to make revelations; the Nazi agent enjoyed getting the better of anyone, and the presidential agent enjoyed watching a smooth psychological trickster doing his stuff. Lanny was sure it couldn’t do any harm for Quadratt to possess this information, and it was a way of getting a Nazi to unveil his innermost soul."

They discussed same of U.S. and in neither case did Lanny mention personal contacts, but only those sure to be known.

"The son of Budd-Erling went on to discuss some of the more prominent public enemies of the New Deal: Mr. Henry Ford, who had spent a fortune to awaken Americans to the menace of Jewish Imperialism; Colonel McCormick of Chicago, lavish in subsidizing those groups which were struggling to keep America out of European affairs; Mr. Hearst, who had interviewed the Führer just recently, and whose newspapers were the Rock of Ages for all friends and sympathizers of National Socialism; Mrs. Elizabeth Dilling, who ran a sort of volunteer intelligence service and had a dossier on every man or woman who had ever given aid or comfort to Moscow. Lanny said he hadn’t met any of these persons, but would like very much to meet Hearst and the wife of Ford for business reasons, since both were noted for their interest in painting. Did Quadratt know of any way to bring him together with either of these highly inaccessible persons?"

Lanny went to Chicago to meet the client for the Murrillo, which went well, and called Gus when he was back in N.Y.. Lanny met FDR as before and told about Trudi, Belcour and discussed the state of affairs In Spain.

"“This raid is the beginning of a war on civilization, and it won’t stop until the last bastion has been knocked out. The best military brains in Europe are planning it and this time they aren’t overlooking anything.”"

About German agents,

"You must know that the Germans have half a dozen organizations doing their secret work in the Ausland; Goebbels has one, and I’m pretty sure that Göring has his own; Rosenberg, the supplier of the official Nazi religion, has his, and so have the SS, and the Gestapo, or Secret State Police. The old army, the Reichswehr, has perhaps the biggest of all. Those officers are exclusive, and they look upon the Nazis as upstarts and intruders; it’s all for the Fatherland, of course, but the old army has its own way of doing things, and keeps its own secrets."

Lanny made a suggestion. 

"“It is primitive barbarism employing all the techniques of modern science. That makes it the most dangerous movement in human history; the last upsurgence of the beast in man against the restraints of civilization. The first step in fighting it is to understand it, and that is where you can help more than any other man. For in addition to being the most powerful executive in the world, you are the greatest educator in the world. And don’t think that is just taffy—you can talk to twenty or thirty million Americans any time you wish, and sooner or later what you say reaches every literate person in the world.” 

"“You want me to warn them about the Cagoulard conspiracy?” 

"“No. The French people would resent your claim to know more about their affairs than they do. I don’t mean even that you should name the Nazis, or the Fascists, or the Falangistas, or any other group. But surely, as the spokesman of the world’s leading democracy, you can warn our people that the dictatorships which are spreading over the world are an evil force, the enemy of every freedom-loving man and woman. Surely it is your duty, as the leader of the free world, to speak out against aggression, and say that some way must be found to quarantine the aggressors and make it impossible for them to disturb the peace and order of the world.”"

FDR thought about it, and agreed. 

"“You are right, Lanny. I believe I will do it. It will raise merry hell, but the time has come for speaking out. I am scheduled to leave for a trip to the west and I shall be making several speeches. Would you like to write one of them?” 

"All the savoir faire that Lanny Budd had acquired in a leisure-class lifetime failed him at that juncture, and he blurted out: “Me, Governor?” 

"“I have a lot to do, and the mark of a good executive is never to do anything that he can get done. You have your mind full of this subject, and why not get it off? I don’t say that I won’t change it a lot; but you make the first draft.” 

"“O.K., if you say so.” 

"“Let us get the key phrases on paper without delay. Do you use a typewriter?” 

"“Yes.” 

"“All right, there’s one over in the corner. Turn on the light and imagine yourself the greatest educator in the world. You are going to write a few sentences which all literate people on earth will read and give thought to.” 

"“My God!” exclaimed the son of Budd-Erling. “If I am able to hit the keys straight!” 

"This amiable great man was not above being pleased by his visitor’s naïveté, and he had learned to take his multiple duties with a flavoring of gaiety. “Don’t use too violent language,” he cautioned. “Remember your responsibilities!”"
...............................................................................


Lanny wrote the speech and sent it through Gus, and visited Newcastle. Later he checked what Zaharoff had said in a seance, about gold buried in ocean, a keymaster, etc, and to his surprise found a locksmith whose name checked, and was the very person who had dealt with the treasure buried under the ocean, most of it still there. 

The author repeatedly goes on about seance, mediums and there being something more than mere clever tricks or even telepathy, without saying so; even at this point, he has Lanny wonder how an illiterate polish servant could have known any of the story. This forced stand of straddling the fence gets tiresome. 

Lanny got the locksmith Hofman to come to Paris with him with meeting Madame Zyszynski the upfront story, added to something of work at Bienvenu, but he was bringing together a team for rescue of Trudi, only, it seems rather slow, despite Lanny's repeated thinking aloud about her not surviving it that long. In Paris he checked with Jesse Blackless about how far the plan was. It was progressing well. Hoffman got startling results at the seance, and so wanted several every day, and kept a notebook.

Lanny had invited Rörich and reminded him, asking him to bring a friend. He entertained the two young SS officers with champagne and more, pretending to be drunk and steering the conversation to where he got them to admit they took prisoners and tortured them in Paris, including women. 

This, amongst his other meticulous preparations that have taken longer than a month, seems like the author was copying a U.S. law enforcement agency pattern where one has to show reasonable doubt for a search warrant, rather than a conspirator and a husband in love who would rush to break in and rescue the poor wife immediately. 

And this is only matched by the author and the protagonist repeatedly sympathizing with Germany against France regarding Versailles treaty, even though the author shows the German side to be fraudulent as far as the posing goes - they spent gold on spies distributing it to cause disturbance in France, but did not pay reparations to France; they forced far harsher treaties at every victory against every land they conquered, but protested vociferously at a fraction of it imposed on them; they screamed about the allies being unfair about disarmament but had their own caches hidden in Catholic monasteries, and brought it out for fascists to beat everyone else to death. 

One has to wonder what exactly he is defensive against, a charge by the German population of U.S. that he was anti German, which is a primary cardinal ultimate sin according to German mindset, however much they insist on superiority of German everything which is supposed to be the only faith? 

Lanny set it up so Monck would be the one to plead for Hofman's help rescuing a friend, Trudi, from nazis. 

"Persuading an ordinary American to believe things like that was a long job of education. Monck had to tell how Göring and his followers had set fire to the Reichstag building in order to blame it on the Communists and justify their campaign of terrorism. He had to tell about the “Blood Purge” and what that meant—that Hitler, who had got power as a radical agitator and then had sold out to the big steel and munitions interests of his country, had murdered in cold blood some twelve hundred of his own followers who had tried to stick to their old program. He had to tell how the Nazis had killed the premiers of Austria and Rumania who had opposed them; likewise the king of Yugoslavia and the foreign minister of France. Hofman had read about these events, but had hardly realized their significance and had already forgotten them. America was such a well-behaved land, and so far off!"

..............................................................................


Lanny's plan depended on him spending a night at the Chateau, and he even met Graf Herzenberg, but wasn't invited. Just as Monck's furlough was running out, the scandal broke. 

"... Corsican of Fascist sympathies, Due Pozzo di Borgo, had fallen out with Colonel de la Rocque, tough leader of the Croix de Feu, ... Colonel had got nine million francs from Pierre Laval and had purchased Le Petit Journal ... Duc had published the charge that the Colonel had received money from the French Foreign Office to build up his organization; the Colonel had replied with a suit for libel, and now the issue was being fought out in the courts ... André Tardieu, recently Foreign Minister of the French republic, and testified that he had indeed paid public funds to Colonel de la Rocque for the upbuilding of the Croix de Feu, and that Pierre Laval, recently Foreign Minister and then Premier, had done the same. ...  Dormoy, Minister of the Interior, was charged with the duty of protecting the republic from its enemies at home; and upon opening the portfolio he found that it contained full details of the doings of the Hooded Men and their plot to overthrow the government; the sources of their funds, and what amounts they had spent for guns in Germany and explosives in Italy; where these supplies were stored in several hundred secret places throughout France, and exactly when and how they were to be used. ... Dormoy put all this before the Cabinet, and there resulted one of those seismic disturbances which go on day after day, shock after shock ... Dormoy, blackbearded friend of the people, destined to be murdered by the Nazis in a few years, may have foreseen his fate and resolved to make the most of his time, warning the workers and peasants of the peril in which their Third Republic stood. Rumors began to appear in the papers, and little groups of men to meet and argue on street corners and in wineshops, as they do in democratic countries ..."

Lanny had a telegram from Robbie that he was arriving, but got a call from Annette de Bruyne that her husband Denis Jr was arrested, that the family was in danger and so was he. He called Denis de Bruyne to warn him, but Charlot wasn't to be found. Lanny saw the opportunity to seek refuge at the Chateau Belcour. He did so, and argued successfully with Graf Herzenberg, finally using his personal visit to Berghof and relationship with its owner to make the Graf give in about a couple of nights of sanctuary. He launched and dined with the household, sans Herzenberg who was in Paris, and made friends with the dogs in between before retiring to the library to read, after playing music for them till eleven. 

"He had promised her that he wouldn’t endeavor to find her; but perhaps she would understand that this promise was beyond his power to keep. Would that worry her, or would they have broken her spirit to the extent that she would want to be rescued?

"Lanny recalled the seven men with whom he had just dined. All were “gentlemen,” in the sense that they had good manners, they ate their food properly, they listened to Beethoven and Wagner, they smiled and discussed world events. Then they went down into the cellars of this building and applied physical and mental tortures to a woman, to break her will and reduce her to a cringing wreck, an imbecile or a gibbering idiot! They did it, not because they were savages at heart, but because they had been taught it as a duty; they had been drilled in a creed of diabolism, the vilest perversion of faith and morals since the Spanish Inquisition. 

"Lanny had taken up a feud against it, and was leading a raid upon it. But he was not at one with himself, because he doubted the wisdom of his course. He had got himself into a position of danger, and was getting two other men into a position even worse. If they should get caught, he would have three persons to worry about instead of one, and he would have a long and costly campaign on his hands. Trudi might forgive him, but could he ever forgive himself if he destroyed his position of advantage in the struggle against the Nazi terror? Cold reason told him that at this moment he ought to be in Berlin, finding out what he could regarding Hitler’s intentions as to Austria. He ought to be dancing with some diplomat’s wife or mistress, picking up gossip, instead of being shut up in a room by himself, holding a book in two hands which trembled, looking at his watch every minute or two, then listening to make sure it hadn’t stopped running. Verily, “Time travels in divers paces with divers persons,” and right now Lanny Budd was the one for whom it “stands still withal.”" 

Lanny, Monck and hofman were able to carry through their plan, but didn't find Trudi. They found, hiwever, Paul Teicher, whose name was mentioned in a seance. Lanny hypnotised him and was able to question him, and was able thus to find that Trudi had been there, but never talked, so had been taken to Germany, and Paul was tortured for having tried to help her.  

"In that cell, or in one of the others adjoining, she had spent something like three months, being whipped and tortured by those half-dozen cultivated monsters with whom Lanny had eaten meals and might have to eat more."
..............................................................................


Lanny left next morning. Robbie arrived, And wanted to visit the De Bruyne men, but Lanny dissuaded him. Robbie got in touch with Baron Schneider and they were promptly invited to a soiree and a private lunch the next day. 

"Robbie laid the paint on thick, and Charles Prosper Eugène Schneider looked at the picture and shivered deep within his soul. Yes, even though he knew the game as well as the son of Budd Gunmakers, having been taught it by his father and grandfather—and he was older than Robbie. 

"France’s deadly rival had outdistanced her, and was leaving her hopelessly behind. Germany had become that which every gunmaker in the world had dreamed all his life, a country putting everything it had into armaments; reducing the wages and lengthening the hours of all its workers and bidding its munitions men to build all the plants they could, in the certainty that they would receive all the orders they could fill, and keep their machines going at full speed twenty-four hours every day, Sundays and holidays included. Most favored of all was the Air Force commander who, while he looked like a comic stage character and dressed like one, was at the same time one of the most competent executives in the modern world, driving his subordinates with a whiplash and getting the orders of his Führer carried out with utter loyalty and no scruples.

"What he said was denunciation of the wretched system of prototypes to which the French air ministry was committed; the economical illusion, the pinchpenny insanity of having models of the very best planes, and the means of making them quickly, and imagining that that was national security! 

"“You can’t fight battles with mating-jigs,” said Robbie, dryly. 

"“Of course not! And now these politicians have taken over my plants, having no idea how to pay for them and at the same time asking me how to run them! We have all this confusion and miserable wrangling—and right in the midst of the gravest peril our country has faced since Sedan.”

"Robbie said he had given first chance to his own country, and then to the French and the British; he named the men he had approached and who had turned him down. “That left me no recourse but the Germans, if I wanted to keep in business.” 

"“Of course, of course,” said the Baron. “It is too bad you did not come to me. I had some power in my own country at that time. Now I am not allowed to do anything, or to own anything except bonds. I am supposed to be laid away upon a shelf. But being a man of action, I am not happy there, especially when I learn what Thyssen and Krupp von Bohlen and the rest of them are doing.” 

"The munitions king of Europe went on to explain that he could not persuade the French air ministry to buy enough planes of French manufacture, and it was even less possible to persuade them to buy foreign planes, for then to the reluctance of a semi-pacifist government to spend money would be added the opposition of great French private interests.

"“I have to think of myself as an outcast from my own country,” declared the great man, sadly. “I have to go abroad in order to save France from itself.” He explained that he still owned Skoda, which was in the town of Pilsen, and the Czechs still granted him the right to make goods and to buy and sell as he pleased. Would Robbie be willing to manufacture a hundred fighter planes for immediate delivery in Czechoslovakia, and would he go in on some sort of arrangement to send his experts to that country and assist in establishing a factory for the manufacture of Budd-Erlings? 

"Robbie of course was delighted to get a large order, and said that because of his sympathy with the Baron’s cause he would give it priority over everything else. He would be proud to be associated with so distinguished a concern as Skoda in the fabricating of planes, and would make the Budd-Erling patents available. But the Baron must understand that certain features of the Budd-Erling were protected by General Göring’s patents, which were not under Robbie’s control. 

"The Baron sighed and said it was too bad that the Germans had got ahead on everything; it looked as if the French would have to make friends with them, willynilly. “I have been talking on the subject with this well-informed son of yours. It is a question whether their Führer is a man whom we can trust. What do you think, M. Budd?” 

"“My son has had the advantage of knowing Herr Hitler personally,” replied Robbie, cautiously. “I have not.” 

"“Eh, bien, M. Lanny?” 

"Said Lanny: “Anyone would be assuming a grave responsibility who gave advice on that subject, M. le Baron. All that I can say is that you have to make up your mind to be either an ally or an enemy. It is not possible to be half-way between.” “It is extraordinary what discretion this young man possesses, M. Budd, and what an insight into our French situation.” 

"Robbie was surprised, for he had never given his son credit for such valuable possessions. He remarked, deprecatingly: “Lanny has lived all over Europe, and has had unusual opportunities to hear opinions.” 

"“One can hear all sorts of opinions in my drawing-room, M. Budd; the problem is to sort them out and select those which are sound. I should be glad if your son would come to see me now and then and tell me what he has learned; and this applies to you also, for I perceive that you are a man who has foreseen how the world is moving and has placed himself in a strategic position.”

"Lanny had mailed a set of notes to Gus Gennerich, calling attention to the fact that his previous account of the Cagoulard conspiracy had been sustained in every detail; also predicting that there would be no prosecutions, and that the share of the army and air force in the conspiracy would be hushed up. Later he sent a memorandum confirming his statement that the Nazi embassy had a château near Paris where they held and tortured anti-Nazi Germans, and suggesting that it might be well for the F.B.I. to look into the rumors that such Germans in New York had been kidnaped and spirited on board the Bremen and other steamers. 

"Now he prepared a summary of the state of the French air force as compared with the German; adding that he had got this direct from Mr. Tailor and it could be accepted as authoritative. Going over all this in his mind, Lanny decided that it constituted a good week’s work for a presidential agent. If all hundred and three of them turned in as much copy, F.D. would have his hands full indeed.

"As usual Robbie had invited his son to accompany him to Germany, and this time the son accepted."

Lanny met Kurt for his purpose. 

"“I expect to stay a while, because I’ve been neglecting Hermann’s picture business and he may want me. We’ll get Heinrich Jung, and have a regular old home week. Perhaps we can call on the Führer.” 

"“I’ll see if it can be arranged,” said Kurt. “He’s likely to have his hands full very soon. Schuschnigg has been making a lot of trouble and may have to be taught a lesson.” 

"It was an indiscretion, of course. Kurt was human, in spite of being an exemplar of the master race, and he couldn’t resist the temptation to show an adoring friend and pupil how much he knew about his great leader’s purposes. Lanny would get off another rush note to Gus, saying that there was reason to expect an invasion of Austria in the new year."
...............................................................................


Beauty and her friends, Sophie and Emily Chattersworth, got together once again to find a suitable wife for lanny, and he was invited by Emily Chattersworth to lunch with the mother and daughter at Les Forets. He entertained them, and invited them to a concert next day in Paris by Hansi and Bess. He was told to drive Mary-Ann Everly, and he told her he was pledged and not free to fall in love with her. He spoke to her seriously. 

"“I am taking a great liberty, I know; but I have lived most of my life on this old continent, and I really know what I am talking about—far more than I am able to tell. Take my advice, see all you can while you are here, and try to understand what you see, but then go home and don’t come again. And above all, don’t ever think of marrying any European man.” 

"“You really think they are that bad?” 

"“There are noble exceptions, but your chances of finding one of these, or of recognizing him if you found him, would be slim. In general, European men do not feel about women as you would expect, nor about love or marriage. But that is not the main thing I have in mind; I mean what is coming to Europe and its people. Don’t tie your fate to it, and don’t give your heart to anyone whose fate is already tied to it, as mine is.” 

"“You mean another war?” 

"“I mean a series of wars and revolutions that may not be over during your lifetime. You may live to see this great city laid in ashes, or bombed to dust and rubble. You may see the same thing happen to many other cities, and half their populations killed, if not by war, then by plague and famine.” 

"“Oh, how horrible, Mr. Budd!” 

"“I’m not free to tell you what I know; you just have to take my word that I have special information that has caused me to say to my best friends: ‘Get out of Europe and stay out.’” 

"“How soon do you think this will begin?” 

"“Within a couple of years at the outside. It may be next spring; it depends upon circumstances which are beyond anyone’s control or guessing. When it comes it will be like a series of strokes of lightning, and I’m not sure that three thousand miles of ocean will be enough to protect anyone from them. But go back to Philadelphia, and marry some man of your own set that you have a chance really to know.”"
...............................................................................


Robbie and Lanny flew to Berlin and stayed at Adlon, and were invited promptly by Furtwaengler to visit his boss. 

"This fat Hermann had been trained for killing since early youth, and probably through his childhood had been taught worship of the old German heroes who had made killing their sole business on earth and had then been carried off to Valhalla to have their reward in the form of unlimited barrels of beer and barrel-shaped maidens."

If this description by the author is the authentic German mythology, it must have been copied to the other abrahmic religion's concept of rewards in paradise, with added proviso of exact number of maidens and their virginity stipulated in the promise of heaven. 

Lanny told him about having taken refuge at Chateau Belcour and Graf Herzenberg objecting strenuously, not believing Lanny was helping Hermann Goring, and shocked at the suggestion of calling him to confirm. Hermann wanted the papers Lanny said he had tried to protect, and lanny said he'd handed them back. 

"Somewhat to Lanny’s surprise, Robbie referred to Baron Schneider as one of the backers of the Cagoule; that was a weighty secret, ... along with those of Michelin the tire man and Deloncle and General Duseigneur and Comte Hubert Pastré and the rest; not forgetting Pétain, marshal of the army, and Darlan, admiral of the navy. Lanny could see the Reichswehr marching into Paris as a result of those pencil marks which the Kommandant of the German Air Force was scribbling on a pad of paper. Robbie could see it, too, though probably not so clearly. He had made up his mind that he didn’t care, provided he could keep America out of it, and have Budd-Erling put to work on a big scale for America’s protection. That was Robbie’s philosophy in a nutshell; take care of your own house, and to hell with Europe!"

"Hitherto when Lanny had come to Berlin with his father he had had affairs of his own; but now he seemed to have nothing to do but accompany Robbie everywhere, listen to Robbie’s conversation, and ask questions about what he saw. This was a most gratifying development to the father, and brought back to life a dream which had died long ago—that his first-born might decide to follow in his footsteps and take over part of his burdens. Robbie’s two sons by Esther were active in the plant, and he had no fault to find with them, but they didn’t have Lanny’s imagination or his knowledge of world affairs. Robbie had to be careful not to show these feelings at home, but Lanny knew what was in his heart, and was touched by the older man’s willingness to explain everything, his pleasure in his eldest son’s company and in the fact that the dangerous Pink tinge seemed to have faded out of the son’s mind.

"So Robbie had talked freely about Big Steel and Little Steel, about Alcoa, the great aluminum trust, and the various power combines allied with it; about Standard Oil of New Jersey and its arrangements with Germany concerning patents on the making of artificial rubber; about the du Ponts and their sale to Germany of the discoveries of their vast research laboratories. All these matters concerned Robbie, because they had to do with airplanes in one way or another. Planes had to fly faster and higher, they had to be stronger and at the same time lighter—the safety of the country, the mastery of the world, might depend upon ten-miles-an-hour difference in speed, or a .50-instead of a .30-caliber machine gun. 

"At the moment the Germans had the fastest fighter, but Robbie had a new one in the “mock-up” stage that was going to knock them all cold. Robbie’s only problem was to get the money to complete this new model, without having to run into debt and risk losing his company to some Wall Street syndicate, as had happened in the sad case of Budd Gunmakers. A distressing thing to come here to Germany and see the research men with all the resources of a great government behind them, and to know that at home people were asleep, and leaving the burden to be carried by a few farsighted individuals, nearly all of them “little fellows” like Robbie Budd!

"The General sent Furtwaengler to escort his guests and show them the wonders of the newly completed D.V.L., the institute for aeronautical research. To Robbie it was one of the great experiences of his life; ... these people had built a wind-tunnel in which they could test their models for speeds up to four hundred miles an hour. (Three hundred and twenty was the best that Robbie’s new model was expected to produce.) They were training their men in air-reduction chambers, accustoming them to electrically heated suits and oxygen pumped into their lungs, so that fighter planes could get on top of bombing planes, even those equipped with sealed cabins and superchargers. Air war was going to take to the stratosphere, and the nations that didn’t get there first would never get there; they would be licked in the first day, or night, of combat. 

"Most of these improvements were foreseen, but they were supposed to belong to the future; the Germans, however, were going to turn the future into the present. They could do it because their men at the top had the vision; because Göring had been a flyer, and had gathered his old buddies about him and put them in charge. These men knew what air war was, and what it might be; they had been licked once, and knew why, and how to get ready for the next time. All German science, all German discipline, all German wealth, were being directed to this end, so that when Der Tag came along, the German army should have an air cover to protect it, first to drive its enemy out of the skies and then to crush his defenses and enable the Wehrmacht to march where it would. 

"Meantime, in the other countries, what? ... Muddle, muddle, muddle! The Royal Air Force was good, what there was of it, but its control was in the hands of men who still thought in terms of the last war; men who had never flown, and who looked upon airplanes as a convenient but uncertain device to enable army commanders to find out what the enemy ground forces were doing. Brass hats on the land, and on the sea admirals loaded with gold lace, pacing the bridges of great battlewagons with magnificent dignity and resenting airplanes as lawless, impertinent, and bad form. 

"In France it was even worse; their air force was a pitiful farce, and their program of nationalization in the face of the German threat was lunacy. As for America, that was a story which Robbie had told his son a hundred times. We had an air force of the right size for a Central American republic, and after a manufacturer had met a hundred different kinds of tests, most of them three times over, and had filled out forty-seven blanks in quintuplicate, and had been insulted half a dozen times by men who knew one-tenth as much about planes as he did—then he might get an order for ten units and the promise that Congress would be asked to budget twenty more, but a subcommittee would cut it out."

Lindbergh was in Berlin at the time. 

"Herr von Ribbentrop, the Nazi champagne salesman who had been made ambassador to England, saw an opportunity to make use of a naïve middle-western American for his propaganda. The Nazis were getting ready to fight, but of course didn’t want to fight if they could frighten the world into giving them what they wanted. It suited them to have the world believe that Germany possessed overwhelming might in the air, and a tall, dignified, and honest young Swedish-American was picked out as the trumpet to blow this news to the world. 

"“Lindy” was invited to be General Göring’s guest, and apparently he found it possible to enjoy living in the General’s country. He came a number of times, and was received with every honor, and even given a decoration. All doors were open to him and all secrets revealed—or so he was made to believe. He flew his lovely young wife in their small plane over Germany, and saw that all along the Swiss and French borders the Germans had built an airport every twenty miles. He was escorted through giant factories, and estimated that Germany was building twenty thousand planes a year, and could double the number at will. He examined the planes and decided they were better on the whole than those of any other nation. He had not been forbidden to tell these things, and since they seemed important he told them freely, and persons in other countries who didn’t want to face the facts were greatly annoyed."

Lanny listened to Robbie and Lindbergh discussing aviation and realised to his surprise that he'd come to his father's point of view about necessity of U.S., France and England buying large quantities of planes and be ready for any eventuality. He listened and noted various details for his next report. 

They were driven to Karinhall in Schorfheide forest with Göring, in his limousine, and he told them about visit by Lord Halifax. 

"Said Robbie: “I believe they will let you have a few things, provided you can convince them that nothing British is involved.” 

"“We have given them that assurance many times,” replied the host. “There are Belgian and Dutch and Portuguese colonies of which we might reasonably claim a share. As for the people of German speech and blood who have been cut off from us by the Versailles treaty—we simply do not understand why the British are so determined to keep them in exile. If the British cannot endure to see Germany grow strong again, they will have to enforce their idea with some something more powerful than Anglican High Church prayers.”"

Lanny had a talk with the current Mrs Göring, Emmy Sonneman, who had been theatre and screen artist, was beautiful and placid, and now expecting. She asked about why he and irma had separated and divorced, and spoke about her wishing everyone was happy, but she had several Jewish co-workers and friends who needed her help and she tried her best but couldn't help so many. She asked his opinion about German regime's policy on Jews and lanny was diplomatic but truthful, and she found him sympathetic. 

"“Hermann feels the same way,” replied Hermann’s wife. “If he had the power, he would put extremists like Streicher out of office. He tells me that you have Jewish relatives, and made some effort to help them get abroad several years ago.” 

"“That is true,” Lanny admitted. “Hermann was very kind to me indeed.” Long practice had taught this presidential agent to keep a straight face while listening to statements which tempted him to irony. Hermann der Dicke, like many another man in a high position or a low, was telling his wife the truth but not the whole truth; he surely wouldn’t want her to know that this magnificent Karinhall was full of art treasures which he had wrung out of Johannes Robin by torture in the cells of the old red brick police prison on the Alexanderplatz.

"Said the first lady of the Fatherland. “I go to my husband and ask him for exit permits for this Jewish artist and that, and he gets them for me. But he has so many problems and works so hard, and I hate to burden him with more cares. A man has a right to be happy when he comes to his wife, don’t you think?” Yes, Lanny thought so; also, he thought the former star was being extraordinarily indiscreet, and that he was on a spot and must be extraordinarily cautious. He replied: “I am hoping that now, when the Party is so securely in power, these unfortunate incidents will diminish.” 

"“I fear it will be exactly the opposite, Lanny. The Party is in power, but our problems are by no means solved. The lower elements take pogroms as a sort of sport; and some of them make money out of it, too, I have been told.”"

Robbie came and talked to her about salaries of artists, and Lanny wondered if Emmy would help about Trudi, but he decided it would be risking exposing his support; later in their room, wrote on a paper to tell Lanny not to speak with her so much, and Robbie reminded Lanny of the story told by Fürstin Donnerstein about 

" ... a dentist who had known Emmy Sonnemann in the small town of Heilbronn where she had been born, and had written her a letter congratulating her upon her splendid marriage. In the course of the letter he had named a total of eighteen different persons in the town, telling the news about them. All these persons, plus the loquacious dentist, had been arrested by the Gestapo and brought to Berlin, where they had been held and cross-examined for weeks. Not one of them had any idea what it was all about; and when the ordeal was over, they each received a hundred marks and carfare to their homes, with the injunction to say nothing about what had happened to them.

In Berlin Lanny met Heinrich Jung. 

"Heinrich had that peculiar Jekyll-and-Hyde quality of the Germans, which made it possible for him to be a warmhearted and amiable friend, and at the same time capable of most shocking cruelty. Heinrich himself had never committed any murders, but he justified them all as serving the great German purpose, and Lanny could never doubt that if the Führer should give the order, Heinrich would draw a gun in the Hotel Adlon dining room and shoot off the top of Lanny’s head. He wouldn’t enjoy doing such a deed, but he would know that it was necessary; otherwise the greatest man in the world wouldn’t have commanded it to be done.

"Americans had their own job to do, and a full-sized one; the greater part of their continent was still in the hands of others, and the Nazis granted them full rights to it. There were some who were even willing to concede South America, also; Heinrich avoided that question, because the Germans were strong there, and what the Germans had got they had to keep. The greater part of American culture, all that was best in it, had been contributed by the Germans, and that was one reason why Heinrich could feel so cordial to Lanny Budd; Lanny was part German, and the Herrenvolk could take him in, and his countrymen could become equal members of the future ruling group—that is, of course, after the Jews and the poisonous Jewish influences had been eliminated from their country.

"Heinrich had attended the Parteitag at Nuremberg in September, a five-day jamboree which was for every Nazi what the pilgrimage to Mecca is to the devout Moslem. Heinrich described all the ceremonies, ... Heinrich had learned at Nuremberg an entirely new history of Germany, and of the rest of the world in relation to Germany; he didn’t know any other history, and he never read any book, magazine, or newspaper except Party publications. Lanny had to exercise the utmost care never to say anything that would clash with this friend’s firmly rooted ideas."

Heinrich spoke about bringing back into Germany the Germans left outside the borders. 

""From Gdynia and the Corridor, all the way to the south of Austria, and even into parts of Hungary and Yugoslavia.”"

Robbie and Lanny were invited for an evening at home of Fürstin Donnerstein and met Thyssen, who had supported the nazi when upstarts to the tune of millions. 

"“I don’t sell much steel abroad these days, but they have to let me sell a little, in order that I may have the money to buy postage stamps and other things that require cash.”

"He had dreamed of making tractors and promoting German agriculture, but instead he was commanded to make cannon and tanks, and for these products he had to take treasury notes, which were promises to pay on the part of the Nazi government, and were good inside Germany for the reason that all other German big businessmen were in the same plight as Fritz. That was the reason he looked as if he wanted to cry, and why he risked his freedom and indeed his life by making snide remarks to an American manufacturer who was still free to produce what he wanted to produce—even though he wasn’t always sure that he could sell it after it was finished!"

Lanny later came upon Robbie talking to Herr Doktor Horace Greeley Hjalmar Schacht, Finance Minister to the Nazi regime; he wasn't happy. 

"Dr. Schacht’s country was heading straight for bankruptcy, and the highest financial authority in the government was as helpless to prevent it as the humblest German laborer who received paper marks in his pay envelope and hastened to spend them at the nearest Kolonialwarenladen."

Later they walked back, and spoke low in the deserted avenue. Lanny explained their lies to his father:- 

"“The fat fellow is thinking about the immediate situation—the moves which are planned against the border states during the next year. He wants to bluff England and France just as Mr. Big in Italy bluffed them over Abyssinia, and as they are both doing over Spain right now. But our financial Doktor is a long-term man, and his idea is to persuade you that the whole thing is a house of cards and is bound to collapse of its own weight. That being so, the democracies can go on taking things easy, and won’t have to arm, or fight for their lives—until it’s too late.”

"What these people want now is to be let alone for two or three years more, and then they’ll be ready for anything that can happen.” 

"“You still hate them like poison, don’t you, Lanny!” 

"“I understand that my father is here to get contracts, and I’m helping him. But it’s no good letting you fool yourself, and when you ask me questions, I tell you how I see it. That’s strictly between you and me, now and in future, of course.”

"Robbie Budd left for home; he would spend his Christmas on the steamer. Kurt arrived in Berlin on his way to Stubendorf, and called Lanny at the hotel, inviting him to come along. But Lanny said No. He had already met Graf Stubendorf in Berlin, and no longer had any sentimental feelings about the Schloss or the Meissner family either; they were all German, and getting ready for war, and full of Nazi rage and Nazi propaganda shams."

Heinrich arranged the meeting, and meanwhile Lanny visited Fürstin Donnerstein as promised for a chat. 

"Hilde had to know about her friend Irma, and why she and Lanny had broken up. He ... explained the differences between his temperament and Irma’s, giving the latter the benefit of all doubts."

Hilde had news, and took precautions against being overheard before talkin, after tea was brought in. 

"“Jupp” at last had got what was coming to him—from a screen comedian who had objected to nothing more serious than Jupp’s having forced the actor’s young wife to submit to his advances. 

"The popular Gustav Frölich had lain in wait for Jupp and given him a sound drubbing; whereupon Jupp had appealed to Himmler, who had had the actor thrown into jail; whereupon the actor’s friends had rallied and given Jupp an even more complete working over, so that now he was laid up, giving out that he had been hurt in an auto accident. Herrlich! The Moscow radio had got the story and broadcast it last night—had Lanny happened to be listening? Die ganze Welt listened to Moscow these days—it was the only way you could get the truth about Berlin. Magda Goebbels, the little doctor’s wife, had got the facts that way, and now she was giving Jupp a third licking, the worst of all. Unschätzbar!"

They talked about the couple, whom Lanny had met. 

"“Ach, ja, but does he have to be such a Raubtier toward young women?” Hilde got up and went to the door of her drawing-room, opened it, and then came back. “This wretched deformity has the whole stage and cinema world at his mercy; it is part of his propaganda department, and every young and attractive actress must come to his bachelor apartment in the Rankestrasse and submit to whatever indignities he cares to inflict. And poor Magda has to hear about it over the Moscow radio—not to mention all the anonymous letters.” 

"“The last time I saw her was at the Berghof,” said Lanny. “I thought I had never seen an unhappier-looking woman.” 

"“She greatly admires Die Nummer Eins,” replied Hilde, who even in the privacy of her own home was afraid to say the word Führer. “Some say she goes there to pay the little doctor off; aber—it would be better not to say, even if one knew.”" 

Hilde spoke more about story of Magda, but Lanny reminded her that he was close to Göring and couldn't talk about them. The talk turned to seances, mediums, et al, and Hilde spoke about Hanussen. 

"Hanussen was an astrologer, and some sort of Genie, people said; when he went into a trance he foamed at the mouth, and the things he told were often quite terrifying. It is true that he predicted the death of Die Nummer Eins—but after all, we have to die some time, nicht wahr?” 

"“Why was he killed?” 

"“It is one of our dreadful stories. He became wealthy, and loaned large sums to Graf Helldorf, who was one of the first of our Prussian nobility to take up with the Nazis, and became president of our Berlin police. He is a gentleman of more extravagant tastes than his estates warrant; also he is one of those whose Liebesleben is somewhat different—I was going to say from the usual, but perhaps I had better say from the non-Nazi. Anyhow, Hanussen made the mistake of letting Helldorf give him notes; and when the sums had grown very large and the first of the notes was due, Göring had the Jew-astrologer killed, and the notes have never since been presented at any bank.”

"“Do you know if Adi consults such people at present?” 

"“I’ve heard no mention of the subject.” 

"“I’d be much interested to know. I take these psychic matters seriously, and I am wondering to what extent his powers are derived from subconscious forces. He might use hypnotism without even realizing it; and it may be that his extraordinary self-confidence is due to his conviction that he has some kind of supernormal support.”

"“I’ll see if I can find out for you,” replied the Princess. “One has to be careful asking questions about these matters, of course.”"

Lanny was invited for a shoot with Göring and thought of Trudi, wondering if she were alive, as he played music after dinner. 

"“Dead men tell no tales” has been the creed of tyrants and criminals since the beginning of human time, and the formula includes female as well as male saints and reformers."

Lanny went with Heinrich Jung to the new chancellory to meet adi, and noticed that it was monumental as per Berlin ways, larger than the old chancellory used by the Hohenzollerns. He spoke with adi who asked why Lanny hadn't sold him a Detaze yet, and asked him to select one priced by him at thirty thousand marks, not the highest price quoted by lanny but close. Lanny turned the conversation to seance and told about Madame Zyszynski, Zaharoff and more. He mentioned that in one seance he had heard about murder of Dollfuss.

"“An amazing story, Herr Budd; truly, it deserves to rank with Swedenborg’s clairvoyant vision of the great fire which destroyed so much of the city of Stockholm. You know that case, I suppose?”"

Lanny said he had, and waited. Aid denied that he had anything to do with the murder of Dollfuss, the Austrian leader.

"“Basically it is quite simple. The Austrians are German people, and belong to the neue Ordnung which I am establishing. Some of them have been misled by false propaganda, originating in Moscow or other poison centers; but as soon as the Austrians understand what I am doing and planning, they will see where their true interest lies, and nothing will be able to keep them out of my Reich.”

"Lanny had laid a train of powder and set fire to it, and now all he had to do was to sit and watch it burn. He knew from previous experience that whenever the Führer got started, he became spellbound by his own eloquence, by his clear and logical train of thought and the vision of the wonderful things he was going to do with Europe when he had got it. His plans were so rational, so perfect, that no man could reject them when he understood them, and no man could fail to understand them when they had been explained as the Führer was explaining them now. That some men preferred what they called “liberty” to what the Führer called “Ordnung” was a sign that they were men of abnormal minds, and such minds could not be tolerated; if they refused to be convinced, there was nothing to be done but to exterminate them. That was a messy business, and the Führer was strongly disinclined to it; what he wanted was for people to submit peaceably, and he wanted this especially in Austria because German blood was sacred in his eyes. He wanted this clever American to confirm his own conviction that the mass of the Austrian people would be pleased to come in with their German brothers, and would repudiate the little group of self-seeking aristocrats, headed by Schuschnigg, the Jesuit-educated Chancellor who was in alliance with the Mediterranean and therefore racially inferior Mussolini."

Adi turned the conversation to Vienna, art and casually asked Lanny to get him a good representative Defregger, remarking

"“Vienna is an interesting place just now,” continued Adi, with seeming casualness. “Unless I am misinformed, important events are impending there.”

""If at any time you should find yourself in Vienna, and be in position to meet some of the key people, I should be interested to know your reaction to them. In making the suggestion, I assume that men in your position, and that of your father, have an immediate interest in the effort I am making to keep Bolshevism from spreading into Western Europe.”

"There was no way Hitler could say what he wanted to know about Austrian affairs without revealing what he didn’t know, and what he feared. He wouldn’t say why he wanted his information, but that wasn’t necessary, for Lanny could be sure that his purpose in life was not the collecting of Austrian painters. The fact that he was so direct and so urgent meant that the crisis was coming to a head. The fact that he didn’t trust Mussolini, with whom he had made a deal only a few weeks ago, meant that he was thinking of exploding the Italian windbag and wondered whether the explosion would kick back in his own face. The list of those Austrians whom the Nazi Führer didn’t trust proved to be a complete roster of those now active in the country’s public life, and the things he wanted to know about them were like a row of big letters on an illuminated signboard, spelling one single word: “ANSCHLUSS.” To give its full meaning in English would require a dozen words: “Invasion, and incorporation of the Austrian republic into the Nazi Third Reich.”"

Lanny told him he was going to Switzerland on business and then would proceed to Vienna to do adi's bidding, about Defregger and information. He took a train to Geneva, wrote a report and mailed it, and was free to attend Hansi and Bess who were giving a concert in Geneva and another in Zurich. He had xmas dinner at home of his ex colleague from the peace conference who now worked at the League of Nations, Sidney Armstrong, and his secretary, now wife, Janet Sloane, with their three children.

"This serious-minded, middle-aged chair-warmer with the round, rosy face and horn-rimmed spectacles blamed most of the world’s present woes upon America’s failure to join the League and put its immense influence upon the side of law and order. He deplored the bloody conflict in Spain, but insisted that the Communists were in full control in Valencia, and thought that when Franco had won, as he was bound to, he would settle down and become a conservative statesman. He had hoped the same from Hitler and Mussolini, and was waiting to see the decent elements in those countries arouse themselves and take control.

"To Lanny he was a mine of information about the various personalities prominent in international affairs. Occasionally he would say: “Don’t you think so?” and Lanny would reply, discreetly: “I haven’t your sources of knowledge, Sidney,” or: “You are the one to tell me,”—and found that this satisfied the permanent official. After an afternoon and evening, Lanny was in position to return to his hotel and prepare another report for Gus Gennerich—important and interesting, but without a single ray of sunshine in it."

Lanny met Hansi and Bess discreetly, avoiding being seen with them, since Nazi spies were everywhere.

"Lanny did not visit two Red musicians on the train, but sat quietly reading a safe book on the psychic researches of the sound and racially respectable Baron Schrenck-Notzing. In Zurich he went to a separate hotel, and then phoned for Hansi’s room number, and went to it without giving his name at the desk. They had their meals in the Hansibess’s rooms, and Lanny went into the adjoining room while the waiters brought the trays. None of these precautions seemed excessive to the musicians, for they knew the Nazi spy system, and that only their international reputation kept them safe from harm. Anybody might be a spy or worse, and when this Red pair were driven to the concert hall, their agent accompanied them and had two able-bodied male friends along with him. Such was life in a city which lay only a dozen miles or so from the Nazi border.

"Lanny was sitting in the lobby of his hotel, reading the news from Vienna in the local German-language newspaper. He chanced to look up as there passed him a slender, blond-haired woman; her blue eyes met his brown, and both gave a start of recognition; then she passed on swiftly, and went to the desk and got her key and disappeared into the elevator—called also the lift, l’ascenseur, der Fahrstuhl—for Zurich is a city where you are never sure what language you are speaking. If you go south, you will have Italian thrown in; if you go east you will hear a Tirolean dialect which will puzzle you unless you know German very well; in remote valleys you will hear varieties of Romansh, a language which has come down from ancient Latin.

"Lanny sat thinking about Magda Goebbels. She it was, without question; and what was she doing in Switzerland? The last time he had seen her was at Hitler’s retreat, Der Berghof; he had thought then that she was the unhappiest-looking woman he had ever seen, and he thought the same now. He could not say that she was pale, for the ladies do not leave themselves that way; but she was as thin as ever, and haggard and harcelée. She was out of Germany—and did it mean for good?

"Lanny wasn’t much surprised when a bellboy brought him a tightly sealed note, and he read, in English: “Dear Mr. Budd: Could I have the honor of a brief talk with you? Room 517.”—and no signature. He said to the boy: “No answer,” and sat for a while in further thought. She wasn’t likely to be a spy; she had troubles enough of her own, and would be wanting advice, help, money—or possibly just to pour out her heart. To listen to high-placed, unhappy ladies was surely part of a presidential agent’s job; and Lanny was free to do it, for this was international Switzerland, and not America, where high-class hotels catering to the family trade maintain a guardian angel on every floor to make sure that no gentleman enters a lady’s room unless he is registered as the lady’s husband or father or son. Here no one would pay any heed if Lanny entered the elevator and stepped off au cinquième or Nummer Fünf, and went to a certain door and tapped gently."

Magda did not wait for formalities and spoke.

"“I have never forgotten how you told me the story of poor Johannes Robin and his terrible trouble. You may not know it, I was brought up by a Jewish family and have a host of Jewish friends; you cannot imagine what I have suffered to see their plight and to be helpless to do anything about it. Now my own turn has come—I am in the most awful distress, Herr Budd.”

""I have nobody to blame but myself for the wreck of my life. I have been a vain and silly woman. I had a kind husband, and a most elegant estate in Mecklenburg; my every whim was indulged, but I did not have sense enough to know that I was well off. I was taken in by formulas, by high-sounding phrases. I had dreams of glory, I thought I was going to make my mark on history—in short, I was ambitious. ... I suppose you know what sort of man I am now married to. All the world has heard it over the radio.””

"“I cannot stand it any more. I am prepared to die rather than stand it. I have brought my dear children out of Germany, never to return. I have nobody to help me but my two maids, and I desperately need advice. Where are we to find safety? ... What has been told over the radio is not the hundredth part of it, Herr Budd.””

The author here has Magda Goebbels, after telling Lanny how she divorced her first husband to follow the hero of the Nazi movement, reveal foul secrets about her husband and his boss, and asks for his advice and help for sake of the children. That much of it is true in that she did try to leave is beyond doubt, and was unlikely due to reasons of political and social nature alone, would probably be a good guess. If she did say any or all of this to someone, and lanny is the composite of many characters who did hear, see, say and go through what the author describes, all that's entirely possible, but not quite stated so by him.

Lanny suggested she travel through France to England, and have Irma, now lady Wickthorpe, help her. As he left he spotted a Nazi agent, and sped to his floor to pack and leave immediately, and sent a message to Hansi that he had to leave for a reason.
.............................................................................


Lanny went to Vienna and contacted an old aristocrat, Graf Oldenburg, whom he had bought a small painting from, for a client, during his last visit. Word spread and invitations poured in. After the war the Austria-Hungary empire breaking up into several pieces had impoverished the once glittering city and the regime had gone from monarchy to socialist to a third variety of fascism in the region, and the once wealthy aristocracy was not so wealthy. Eventually Lanny met Shuschnigg and was invited for a talk. 

"Seine Exzellenz explained that it had long been the desire of the Austrian people to join with the German people in friendship and on equal terms; but to be dragged in by force, and to be governed by such rowdies and gutter rats as the Nazis were hiring here in Vienna—that they would fight bis zum Tode—to the death. They would never submit to it, niemals, niemals—the Chancellor spoke the word a dozen times in the course of his declaration, and Lanny wondered, whom was he trying to convince, his visitor or himself? Surely he couldn’t expect to convince Hitler at this long range!"

Lanny met the German ambassador, Franz von Papen. 

"It soon became evident that Papen was concerned to know what Lanny was doing in Vienna; evidently he didn’t believe it was to get prices on Defreggers and photographs of those whose prices were right. Lanny explained that Vienna was a delightful city to live in; the music was of the best, the conversation sophisticated, the ladies beautiful—and the dollar commanded a great advantage over the schilling. To all this Fränzchen smiled assent, and probed more persistently. Whom had Herr Budd met that pleased him especially?" 

Lanny mentioned a couple of people, two attractive women who were involved with two opposite fascist leaders. 

"Lanny knew that Papen himself was a Catholic, so he ventured no comment upon the ingenious devices whereby Holy Mother Church denies divorce to her humble devotees, but can always find a pretext upon which to grant an annulment of a marriage to the heiress of a great fortune—to say nothing of a statesman who was in position to protect the funds which the Church had gained by the sale of such favors to rich ladies. Lanny asked politely how the matter stood now, and learned that the annulment had been approved by the ecclesiastical courts of the city and of the nation, and that a favorable decision was now hoped for from the Rota Court in Rome."

"He collected masses of information and sorted it out in his mind, trying to decide what to believe. He had learned that where freedom of the press has been abolished, rumors thrive like weeds in a garden. One starts, and spreads from mouth to many ears, and next day comes back in a form such that its own creator would not recognize it. Never had the son of Budd-Erling heard so many wild tales as in Vienna under a benevolent Catholic dictatorship. No way to check them, for always the people who knew the truth were people you couldn’t ask. This circumstance caused Lanny to miss what might have been a remarkable “scoop."

An old acquaintance came, and tried to tell Lanny about something urgent that he needed to tell the authorities. 

"The story had to do with that Committee of Seven, the Nazi activists who made their headquarters at Nummer vier, Teinfaltstrasse, and were about ready to bring affairs in Austria to a head. Their plan was the old reliable one of provocation; they were going to organize a riot in front of the German embassy, and then blame it upon a prominent anti-Nazi, a member of the Austrian Legion. Ambassador von Papen would be shot, and this of course would excite indignation in Berlin, and divisions of the Reichswehr which were near the border would march in.”

Lanny said he couldn't meddle. 

"Tears came into the eyes of this poor sick man. He pleaded that he was thinking about the safety of his country, and what could he do, even by risking his pitiful life?"

"Lanny might have told this tale in an unsigned letter and sent it off by airmail to Rick. But he doubted its truth, and spent several days wondering what net of intrigue somebody might be trying to spread about his feet. Then all at once the cafés of Vienna were buzzing with the news—only partly told in the controlled press; the police had raided the headquarters of Dr. Tavs and seized a mass of documents proving a conspiracy of the Nazis to stage a raid upon their own embassy in Vienna. Several different revisions of the program had been found. The one to shoot Ambassador von Papen was signed “Heinrich Himmler,” and included the idea of blaming it on the Communists. The one to have the Reichswehr divisions stationed near Munich march in was signed “R.H.,” which people agreed meant Rudolf Hess.

"The information which Lanny had collected was not so confidential that he was afraid to mail it, of course unsigned. A letter to Gennerich, saying that Austria would be annexed to Germany in the course of the next month or two; that Schuschnigg threatened to resist, but almost certainly wouldn’t; that Mussolini knew what was coming, but would pretend not to, because for him to know was too humiliating; that it was the definite policy of the British government to permit this coup to happen, while publicly protesting against it; that Britain wouldn’t let France do anything, even if she wanted to, which she didn’t. Lanny sent a carbon copy of this report by air mail to Rick, and then took a train for Berlin. 

"Back at the Adlon, he might have communicated directly with the Führer, but as an act of courtesy he consulted Heinrich, who had been his means of access hitherto. Heinrich thanked him, but said it would be better for Lanny now to make his own approach; it wasn’t a good thing for a subordinate to know too much about a great man’s affairs, or to seem to thrust himself in where he wasn’t needed. The cautious official didn’t know anything about mediums and spirits, and maybe the Führer wouldn’t want him to. This much advice Heinrich would give: Better to wait a day or two, for again there was trouble in the Parteileitung and important persons were in a bad temper. 

"Whenever this was the case, the person to call upon was Hilde von Donnerstein." He visited, and got some social news. He asked about any mediums in Berlin and got the name of Professor Bruno Pröfenik, whom he contacted and met for a session, but there was nothing that emerged that wasn't published in newspapers available in Berlin. Lanny introduced casually, amongst the tales about the seance he had attended and written notes about, the subject he all along intended - by saying that a spirit of someone called Ludi had been coming and going in the seance, looking for his wife Trudi, and now Trudi too was doing so, but Lanny couldn't recall meeting them as Ludi claimed. Bruno Pröfenik said he'd find out by his trance and so on. 

Lanny met adi and gave him the summary of his meeting with Shuschnigg. 

"Hitler ... exclaimed: “My generals are not to be convinced that Britain and France will stay quiet.” 

"“I have heard, Herr Reichskanzler, that your generals took the same position when you wished to move your armies into the Rhineland, and again when you started rebuilding the Reichswehr.”

"I am forced to waste my energies arguing with men who have been brought up to obey rules, and who have never had an original impulse in their lives. I tell them: Empires are not made in that way.”"

He wanted to send Lanny with a message, but Lanny declined, saying such an act would destroy his role as an art dealer who could meet people everywhere. Hitler asked what Britain would do in case of his Austrian union plan proceeding, and lanny said that depended on his future intentions. 

"I have said to every statesman I met that my abhorrence of Jewish Bolshevism is fundamental, and the duty to destroy it is the first of all duties I recognize.” 

"“Do you authorize me to say that for you, Herr Reichskanzler?” 

"“Indeed I do, and I will be grateful to you for the service, as for so many others.”

"Lanny said abruptly: “By the way, Herr Reichskanzler, shall I report on the matter of the Defregger?” 

"“By all means,” was the reply, and Lanny opened up a portfolio he had brought. He had gone to some trouble to get photographs of half a dozen paintings of which he approved, and now he spent an enjoyable half hour, delivering his suave lecture and hearing his client’s responses.

"He liked all these paintings, and said that he would be glad to own them if he could afford it. Lanny, who wasn’t thinking about commissions right now, remarked: “The prices of two or three seem to me excessive, and I would advise you, if you are thinking of going into Vienna, to wait until you are established there, and I might be able to do much better for you.” He grinned, and the future world conqueror began to laugh and slap his two knees; he looked at Lanny and went on chuckling, rubbing his thighs. So clever and so disinterested an agent deserved his reward, and the Führer demanded: 

"“What about that Detaze?” 

"“I have been thinking it over, Exzellenz, and what I want to do is to pick out half a dozen of our best landscapes and either send them or bring them to you and let you make a choice. I will return to the Riviera and attend to that errand now, if you like; and if you are still in the mood to try experiments with my Polish medium, I might bring her back with me. She is an old woman and is not used to traveling alone, especially in a foreign country.”

“I am interested in what you have told me about this woman, Herr Budd; but I have to remember that I am the head of a state, and that what I do is an example which millions follow. I must on no account have any publicity to the effect that I am dabbling with spirits.”

"“It occurs to me that Herr Hess might be the one to invite Madame Zyszynski. Presumably he would do that if you asked it. ... Madame could come to Berchtesgaden as his guest, and you could give it out that you have no interest in her. If she was in the house and you wished to see her, that could surely be arranged without attracting attention.” 

"“Jawohl,” said the Führer; “bring her along. You see how it is—I am represented as a self-willed man, doing whatever he pleases, but in reality I am a slave to my German people, and am not master even in my own house.”

"“You belong to history, Herr Reichskanzler”."
..............................................................................


Lanny returned to Paris and reported to Zoltan Kertezsi about sale of a couple of Defreggers without naming the client.

"In the mail awaiting Lanny was a letter from his father, saying that he had made an advantageous deal with Baron Schneider and it would help him over a really desperate time. So Lanny would be doing a filial duty in having lunch with the Baron. 

"He called at the Paris mansion. When he mentioned that he had had talks with both Hitler and Schuschnigg, the munitions king wanted to hear every word that they had spoken, and there was no reason why he shouldn’t hear most. He was especially pleased with what Hitler had said concerning Russia; the pleasure lasted half-way through the meal, but by that time he had begun to wonder, could he believe it, and what did Lanny think on that point? Lanny said: “I would say you may believe it so long as you can make it to Hitler’s interest to act upon it.” This, of course, was according to the code of a man of great affairs. 

"In return for Lanny’s frankness the Baron brought him up to date on French affairs, which were in a turmoil. The Chautemps cabinet had been forced out, and Blum had been trying to form a “National Ministry.” Schneider said he had put his foot down; he wanted unity in France, but not under Socialist auspices, conferring prestige upon that dangerous party. So now there was another Chautemps cabinet, this time with the Socialists excluded .... Nothing had been done to punish the Cagoulard conspirators, except that they were still under confinement; the extreme rightist press was hailing them as martyrs, mass meetings were being held in their defense, and Lanny carried off as souvenir a leaflet headed: “Libérez les de Bruynes!” He wondered who had paid for the printing—Schneider, or Denis himself, or possibly Graf Herzenberg or Kurt Meissner? Lanny still didn’t feel that it was the part of wisdom for him to visit the prisoners, but he drove out to the château to call on Annette."

Lanny explained to her that he couldn't do more being a foreigner. He managed to contact Trudi's old contact who had returned, to give money, and then flew to England. Rick met him at Croydon, and lanny told them everything. Rick said Lanny must give up thinking she could be alive, but Lanny said he had to know. 

"The “appeasers” had won all along the line. As regards Spain, the “Non-Intervention” farce was continuing, and while France had been forced to close her border again, Mussolini and Hitler were sending the Franco crowd all the men and supplies they needed. Hitler would be allowed to expand his borders, provided only that he didn’t take anything British. Reaction ruled the world, and the masses of the people weren’t even allowed to know what was being done to them."

Nina drove Lanny to Wickthorpe and Lanny could see Irma in her new career as Lady Wickthorpe, her castle with forty bedrooms now modernised. 

"Only one rival to dispute her future, another American, Nancy Astor; and Irma had the advantage, because her home was both comfortable and venerable, whereas Cliveden was merely comfortable. 

"It was in truth a public service to maintain a great establishment with all the comforts of a hotel, where persons of importance could come for stays long or short and discuss the problems of the Empire.

"Certainly it was a privilege for Lanny Budd to have the freedom of this establishment. Lanny the man might not be entirely happy here, but Lanny the presidential agent was in his element. He listened to Montagu Norman, governor of the Bank of England, one of the most secretive men in the world, discussing with Gerald Albany the financial techniques by which recalcitrant foreign statesmen were compelled to serve the purposes of the Empire. Baron Schneider accused the British of having caused the collapse of the franc, and “the Governor” wasn’t saying anything about it except to the right people. He took it for granted that the son of Budd-Erling, just back from a visit with Hitler, was among these."
...............................................................................


Frances had a separate wing of the Wickthorpe castle for herself. 

"Ceddy could never take Lanny’s place and was too busy to try. His lordship was like the proprietor and manager of a great hotel in which Frances lived, while Lanny was the Prince Charming who traveled all over the world and brought back delightful stories.

"There were horses and dogs, sheep and deer, rabbits and pheasants on this great estate. There was a French governess, and the child jabbered away to her father, reciting one of La Fontaine’s fables. There was a piano teacher for an hour every day, and she played her little pieces for a tolerant judge. Most important of all, there was snow on the ground, and they had a grand time pummeling each other. She couldn’t have a pony ride, because the damp snow would ball up under the pony’s feet and he might stumble and throw her; but Lanny could pull her about on a sled, and if she fell off, that was a grand adventure to tell her mother about. 

"Grandmother Fanny, for whom the child was named, had broken her ties with Long Island, and she and her brother had a “lodge” of their own on the estate. The place at Shore Acres was for sale; but who would have the money to buy it? especially now when it appeared that New Deal spending was coming to the unhappy close which everybody had predicted for it, though nobody seemed to have anything to take its place. Just now had come a strange development: a would-be purchaser, the most unforeseeable and incredible of bidders, a large labor union proposing to use the property as a home for its superannuated members! They were actually offering one and a half million dollars, and half a million was cash which they had in their own bank! Word of this horror had got out among the fashionable neighbors, with the result that Irma and her mother had been deluged with cablegrams and letters of protest, and now the neighbors were subscribing to a syndicate to preserve one of the most select of New York’s suburban districts. Really, it was a kind of blackmail, and everybody looked at his neighbor, wondering who would be the next to turn up a walking delegate with a yen for high-class real estate. 

"Frances had heard talk about this, and wanted Lanny to tell her what was so bad about these people. Then she wanted to know: “Papa, will I be an English girl?” He told her: “You will be whatever you want, and you will have plenty of time to decide.” He had an idea that the world might change a lot in the next ten years. Stocks might continue to slump and income taxes to rise; the Barnes fortune might cease to be such an impediment to independent thinking. It might even be that Wickthorpe Castle would come on the market, and some British labor union might have a hundred thousand pounds in its own bank!"

Lanny flew back to Paris and drove to Bienvenu, and Beauty wanted every detail about Frances, complaining that she didnt have her as much as the other grandmother. But while she could have had her own lodge at Wickthorpe estate any time with servants provided, she was needed by Emily Chattersworth at Riviera for the season, and later they'd flock to England for another season where she'd divide her time between Frances and Margy. 

"Visiting at Bienvenu were Lanny’s half sister, Marceline Detaze, and her husband. Marceline had returned because she was going to have a baby; a girl likes to have her mother around at such a time, and Marceline was for the moment less the self-assured and willful playgirl. But her chronic want of money continued, and it was agreeable news to her that Hitler was paying a high price for a Detaze; one-third of this price would be hers, and when would he pay? She started her old refrain: Why couldn’t her brother take a little time off and sell a lot of those paintings, as it would be so easy for him to do? 

"Lanny knew that it was Vittorio who was putting her up to this; it meant that Vittorio was gambling again—if indeed he had ever stopped. He would make glib promises, but what did any promise mean to a Fascist? Evading them was a part of that creed which they called sacro egoismo."

Lanny packed half a dozen Detazes and set forth with Madame Zyszynski who was thrilled, to Berghof . 

"Lanny had time for one look about, enough to see that the construction work which had been going on in the autumn of 1935 had been completed, and the simple châlet once called Haus Wachenfels now had a long two-story wing added on each side, so that guests would never again have to sleep in tents."

Madame Zyszynski was led by a maid to her room and provided every comfort, time to rest, and food, while Lanny was taken to his room, and after a bath he went to the main hall. He met Hess. After introducing himself, he talked about mediums, and since Professor Bruno Pröfenik had said he'd send his astral body to Berghof to see what they did when they met, Lanny suggested they do something he couldn't imagine. He suggested wrestling. As they wrestled, adi entered. 

"Lanny wasn’t sure that his Deputy would have enjoyed such an experience either, and was glad that Hess was able to hold his own so well. When they quit, they were both of them breathing hard, and their Führer said, indulgently: “You are still nothing but boys, both of you.”"

When Lanny had been taken to his room, what struck him was resemblances of standard comforts of leisure class life, and similarly resemblances in their attitudes, across the world. "The average man of wealth and power took the same attitude toward politics the civilized world around. Details and techniques might differ, but what the rich and great wanted was to keep what they had. That was why Robbie Budd could travel to Paris and Berlin and get along so well with Baron Schneider and General Göring; that was why the movement which had started in Italy had spread so swiftly to Germany and Poland and Rumania and Austria and Spain, to Brazil and the Argentine and Japan; why the Führer’s agents could report to him a continuing spread of his propaganda in France and Britain, and in the great democracy which called itself the sweet land of liberty. Those who had property and enjoyed privileges wanted to hold onto them, and when they found labor beginning to organize, call strikes, and use the ballot in its own interest, the masters began to look about for a strong private police. “Fascism is capitalism plus murder,”—so the leftwing Rick had declared after his first interview with Mussolini, eighteen years ago."

"The household in which Lanny was now a guest appeared to be even more decorous than the average. Its master ... was so gracious to everybody at the long table, including three women secretaries, that Lanny had to keep saying to himself: “This is the murderer of Trudi, and of Ludi, and of Freddi Robin.” 

"Not that he had killed them with his own hands; but he had established the system and given the orders which included them and thousands of other victims. He was planning at this time the murder of a nation of six or seven millions, and the various generals and officials who came here were giving information and getting instructions bearing on this project. Yes, it was like visiting in the home of Beelzebub, known as the Father of Lies. He, too, no doubt, had a modern and perfectly appointed residence, and his manners were above reproach; but at what moment would the floor crack open and flames and the smell of brimstone burst forth?"
...............................................................................


Hess wanted a seance with Madame Zyszynski, so he went and lanny joined the others watching It Happened One Night, a favourite of the boss.

"When the showing was over, Hess was pacing up and down in the great hall; he took the guest by the arm and led him away, saying: “The Führer also wishes to hear my report.” They went quietly to Hitler’s study, which was on the second floor, at the front. Seated there before the fireplace, the Deputy said: “Herr Budd, this is really remarkable. Are you certain that nobody has told that old woman my name?”

"Lanny replied: “I cannot be certain of that. I can only tell you that I haven’t told her, nor told anyone else but you and Herr Hitler. If she got your name, it could only have been from someone in this household.”

"“That could not have happened, I am sure.”"

"The Nazi Nummer Drei proceeded to describe the spirits with whom he had spent the past hour. The first had been a certain Franz Deek, or some such name—Tecumseh was never good at foreign names. Dieckhoff, it was, and Hess had forgotten him, but the spirit brought him to mind; he had been one of those SA men who had aided Hess at the time of the Putsch, some fifteen years ago. Hess had not marched in that ill-fated parade through the streets of Munich; it had been his job to kidnap two of the ministers of the Bavarian government, called by the uneuphonious names of Schweyer and Wutzelhofer. The pair had been forced into automobiles and carried off into a near-by forest; they had been blindfolded and stood up to be shot, but had been spared, and carried off to another forest, and stood up again—a form of torture which had been meant to frighten them so that they would obey Nazi orders in future.

"“We were naïve in those days,” remarked the dark Deputy; “we hoped that we wouldn’t have to kill many people.”

"Now had come this Franz, or his spirit, reminding the Deputy how frightened he had been when he realized that his opponents were still on top in Munich. At his trial Hess had declared that he never had any intention of killing the two ministers; but Franz knew otherwise, and in the séance joked with him about it. The whole thing had been amazingly convincing. The spirit had spoken with a good Bavarian accent, and Hess wanted to know, did Madame know any German? Lanny replied: “Only a few words that she has heard me use. The spirits use her vocal cords.” Ordinarily he would have added: “At least, that is the theory,”—but now he was taking the spirits at their own valuation.

"A remarkable sitting, indeed. There had come a World War comrade, one who called himself Hans, and had been with Hess in the trenches at Verdun, and been killed a few minutes after Hess had been shot through the lungs. Hess didn’t remember him, but then, there had been so many—fed into that year-long inferno like meat into a sausage grinder. This man had produced evidence, for he had quoted a line of a poem which Hess had written in the trenches. “He, Franzmann,” it began, which in English is about the same as: “Hey, Frenchie!” It told this Frenchie in simple language the brute facts about Lebensraum: the Frenchies had the land, but the Germans needed it in order that they, instead of the Frenchies, might survive."

Adi wanted a seance, too, but Lanny said that Madame Zyszynski needed to rest, and he could have it the next day. The three sat and talked.

"God was a force, said the religious Adi, speaking here in the intimacy of friendship; God was the greatest of personal forces and likewise of social forces. Adi knew the former, because when he retired to his chamber he called upon this force to give him courage and vision, and it responded. Adi knew the latter, because he called upon this force in the hearts of the German people, and got his response in the form of national enthusiasm, will, and power. It was the duty of the seer, the mystic, to make that force real in his private life, and it was the duty of the statesman and the general to bring it into action in the masses. When you had those two personalities in one, then you had a really great leader, the man of destiny, the Führer of the Volk and the maker of history—“such as God has chosen me to be,” said Adi Schicklgruber, not vaingloriously, but humbly. He never quoted the Hebrew Bible, and perhaps had never read it; ....

"Adi was in a constructive mood; he was not fighting his enemies, but building new states, empires, worlds. Said he: “The greatest man who has lived before me is Mohammed.” Lanny was startled by this, for in thinking over the Führers of the past he had decided that Mohammed was the one whom this one-time sub-corporal and painter of picture postcards most closely resembled; and of course when Adi called the Arabian prophet the greatest man who had lived so far, it was the same thing as saying that he bore the greatest resemblance to Adolf Hitler. The Nazi Führer explained his prototype: a self-made man who had found God, and had not been content merely to preach Him, but had laid down His law and seen that it was obeyed; in other words, a holy book in one hand and a sword in the other."
.............................................................................


Lanny was shown art treasures and the architecture of the Berghof area next morning, and later adi took him towards his new project, to show him Kehlstein. After dinner adi wanted to visit Madame Zyszynski and Lanny got her ready, and sat next door in Hess's apartment with him, discussing Bruno Pröfenik, when there was a disturbance and Hess was called. Lanny went to Madame Zyszynski and had to soothe her, she was in pain and asked who the terrible man was whom she found screaming as her trance broke abruptly. He managed to calm her and left her resting. A maid in his room whispered to him that it was Geli. 

"Greta Raubal had been the child’s name, and Hitler had called her Geli, pronounced “gaily.” She was the daughter of his half-sister Angela ... She was blue-eyed and fair, a tall Nordic blond according to Adi’s ideal; she was gentle and submissive, and he, wildly jealous, ruled her with the whip which he liked to carry, even in public. “When you go to woman, forget not the whip,” Nietzsche had written, and Adi had read or at any rate heard of this philosopher, another tormented dreamer on the road to madness. 

"There had been no happiness between uncle and niece, only fear on the girl’s part and in the end a desire to escape. But if any man came near her, Hitler drove him away in fury. Otto Strasser told of such an experience; but people distrusted Otto, knowing that he hated Hitler as the murderer of Gregor, Otto’s older brother. Another Party member, employed as a chauffeur, had learned the story and blackmailed the Führer to the tune of twenty thousand marks and an important Party position; this had been an especially unkind cut, since the Führer had praised the man in Mein Kampf as one who had defended him in the Saalschlachten. “My good Maurice!”

"Geli had tried to get away and go to Vienna to study music, and the uncle had flown into one of his hysterical tantrums; he had sent the mother away, and the girl had been found on the floor of her room with a bullet through her heart. This had been shortly before Hitler had become Chancellor, and in Munich he was a powerful man. Göring had flown to the scene and there had been no police investigation; it was called a suicide and hushed up. The body had been buried in Vienna, in consecrated ground—which could hardly have happened if the priest had not believed that someone had killed her. Subsequently, Gregor Strasser had stated that the priest on his deathbed had pointed out this fact to him."

"The son of Budd-Erling realized that in his desire to ascertain the fate of his wife he might have gravely imperiled his privileges as a presidential agent."

A limousine arrived, and Lanny saw Magda Goebbels arrive, he was startled, unsure if it was a coincidence or if she was summoned. The Detazes arrived and there was a show for everyone. Aid wanted to buy them all. Lanny protested.

"“Are they for sale, Herr Budd?” 

"“Yes, but—” 

"“Very well; I Want to buy them. What is the price of the six?”

"They finally compromised on a price of a hundred thousand marks, a handsome enough figure. Lanny wondered more than ever. Had the great man some errand in mind, or was this just a retaining fee for a high-class agent? Lanny was familiar from childhood with aristocratic methods of hiring; he had listened to innumerable conversations between his mother and his father, and had watched Robbie’s devices, such as playing a very poor game of poker, or making a wager on some preposterous thing, such as that the day was Thursday when he knew it was Friday. Adi’s method was dignified and honorable in comparison, and perhaps Lanny was oversuspicious; but he could not believe that the Führer of all the Germans would ever do anything that did not contribute in one way or another to his world purpose. 

"The steward was instructed to obtain a draft on a Paris bank to the honor of Herr Budd, and Lanny was invited to go over to the Bechsteinhaus and see to the proper hanging of the masterpieces. Paintings considered to be inferior were taken up to the bedrooms—a custom prevailing among wealthy art collectors. In his bedroom in the Berghof Lanny had three very commonplace specimens of contemporary German painting, and he wondered if Hitler had been personally responsible for their choice.

"Franz von Papen showed up from Vienna and was closeted in his Führer’s study. Other personages kept arriving, generals three or four at a time, and no effort was made to keep an American visitor from learning that the screws were being tightened on the Austrian government; Lanny even heard the designations of various Panzer units which were being moved to the border. He took the precaution to ask Hess if he was by any chance in the way, and the answer was, not in the least; the Führer esteemed it a great favor to have the two guests in his home.

"The Deputy himself was having a sitting with the medium every evening, and was reporting results to his chief.

"Adi was in a struggle with practically his entire military entourage; all the trained intellectual power of the Wehrmacht, which he was making into the greatest army in the world. These were the heirs of Germany’s greatest tradition; they had spent their lives preparing themselves to carry it on—and now came this upstart, this Gefreite, a sort of sub-corporal, or private first class, setting his authority against theirs, and bidding them commit an action which they considered dangerous to the point of madness."

Keitel, Ribbentrop and Reichenau arrived, and a stream of others including various professors. Shuschnigg arrived with his entourage, and they were closeted in the study with adi, but the whole household could hear the booming screaming they were getting for hours, with a break for a simple lunch.  

"What Adi was demanding was to have Seyss-Inquart, Führer of the Austrian Nazis, become Minister of the Interior, in charge of the police. If the demand was refused, the German army would march. Schuschnigg backed and filled, and finally said he would have to phone to President Miklas in Vienna. This he was permitted to do, and came back reporting that nothing could be decided without a full Cabinet meeting. At this Adi’s screams of rage rang through the house; this was eine Ausrede, this was eine Schurkerei, this was eine Frechheit! He shook his fist in the unhappy Chancellor’s face and told him that he and his verdammtes Kabinett had forty-eight hours in which to make up their blödsinnigen—imbecile—minds.

"All this Lanny heard, and shivered a little while Hitler told what he would do to the members of the Austrian government if they compelled him to use force. It bore a startling resemblance to what the son of Budd-Erling had just been reading in the encyclopedia under the title “Islamic Institutions.” Unbelievers were invited to embrace Islam, and if they did so, their lives, their families, and their property were protected. If they refused, they had to fight, and if they were defeated, their lives were forfeit, their families liable to slavery, and all their goods to seizure. Such was the code, ..."

Jihadists have been enforcing the code for well over a millennium and half, including through the timeline described here. 
..............................................................................


Austrians finally were allowed to leave, and Hess said they had to go to Berlin, and asked Lanny to come and bring along Madame Zyszynski, but Lanny made his excuses, saying the weather didn't suit her and he'd come later, after depositing her at Bienvenu. Marceline had a son, Vittorio had won money at gambling, and Repubic of Spain was losing. 

"Lanny tried to hold himself to the facts; but one of these facts was that relief map, showing the German-inhabited lands which Adi meant to take into his Third Reich. Austria would be the first bite; the second would be the Sudetenland, and the third the Polish Corridor. Meantime Spain was becoming a Fascist state, and a future flying field and submarine harbor for the new Mohammed. “Get ready to meet that,” wrote “P.A. 103.”"

Lanny told his mother not to tell Marceline how much money was made by the recent sale of the Detazes, and dole it out little at a time, since Vittorio would take it and gamble it away. He met the Italian comrades of Vittorio and heard facts about Spain, and sent off another report. He drove to Paris, and his visit to Berghof helped his standing in both the art world and with the local Nazi agents, so he gathered more to report. He met the de Bruyne family, and due to Robbie's letter stressing importance thereof, Baron Schneider who was so impressed he wanted Lanny to meet his associates to tell them. 
...............................................................................


"Adolf Hitler summoned his tame Reichstag into session, a device which he used when he wished to address the world. The Reichstag had two things to do: first, to hear him make a long speech, and second, to vote its endorsement of everything he had said. This vote never failed to be unanimous—since any member who presumed to voice disapproval would be sent off to a concentration camp before that afternoon’s sun had set.

"He set forth at length his undoubtedly genuine loathing for the Soviet Union. “We see in Bolshevism more now than before the incarnation of human destructive forces.” It was not the poor Russian people who were to blame for this world calamity, he said. “We know it is a small Jewish intellectual group which has led a great nation into this position of madness.” And then those Germans on the outside, who had been separated from the Fatherland by the wicked Versailles Diktat. “In the long run it is unbearable for a World Power, conscious of itself, to know there are racial comrades across its border who are constantly being afflicted with the severest suffering for their sympathy or unity with the whole nation, its destiny, and its philosophy.”

"This was a question of philosophy at the moment, for Adi wanted the British Tories to keep quiet while he got Austria into his grip, and then he would take up the next subject with them. But he gave an idea what that was; for when Adi got going, it was hard for him to stop, and when any one of his phobias was mentioned it became impossible for him to control his feelings. He always delivered these tirades extemporaneously and had never yet been known to read a prepared speech. The British press was presuming to criticize his ultimatum to Austria; this was called “freedom of the press” in Britain, and it meant “allowing journalists to insult other countries; their institutions, their public men, and their government.” The Führer gave plain warning that he wasn’t going to stand this. “The damage wrought by such a press campaign was so great that henceforth we shall no longer be able to tolerate it without stern objections. This crime becomes especially evil when it obviously pursues the goal of driving nations into war.”

"The British public might have foreseen the result of such misconduct; but the Führer saw fit to tell them in plain words. “Since this press campaign must be considered as an element of danger to the peace of the people, I have decided to carry through that strengthening of the German army which will give us the assurance that these threats of war against Germany will not some day be translated into bloody force.” So there it was! Germany was being forced to arm by the British press, and nobody could ever again say that Germany had wanted to do it. Nor was there any use talking any more, so long as the press was free to build up a public opinion, and statesmen in democratic lands had to do what public opinion demanded. Said Adi: “Under these circumstances it cannot be seen what use there is in conferences and meetings as long as governments in general are not in a position to take decisive steps irrespective of public opinion.”"

Lanny drove to Calais and crossed to England to drive on to Wickthorpe.

"Anthony Eden, chief object of the Führer’s attack, had resigned from the British Cabinet. That would be taken in Germany as an act of submission; in Britain it was taken as a protest against the Prime Minister’s course—a very decorous and reserved protest, in the British manner. The Prime Minister received it “with profound regret,” and tried to make it appear as a protest against Italy’s continued breaches of the Non-Intervention Agreement in Spain." Secure in his majority of two to one, "Chamberlain stood firm in his policy of “appeasement”; at Wickthorpe there were discussions.

"There had been some sort of understanding with the Nazis—perhaps not in writing, just a gentlemen’s agreement with men who rejected that classification. There were hints of it in Hitler’s speech; he had said that Germany’s colonial claims would be “voiced from year to year with increasing vigor”—which of course was “double talk” for the statement that they weren’t being pressed at present. That was the thing which the British ruling class would never stand for—having Hitler become strong overseas, and establish airplane and submarine bases. On land they might have to let him have his way, provided he didn’t go too far—but how far would he go?"

Lanny had spent over a week at Berghof and there was no doubt, Irma was surprised at his popularity in her social set and uncertain if he'dchanged.

"There were mass meetings in Albert Hall, and huge crowds in Trafalgar Square in spite of unsuitable weather. Mobs shouted against the murder of the Spanish people’s government, and British freedom of speech and press was used to print and circulate leaflets, pamphlets, and books denouncing the Fascists and warning of the wars they were preparing. The small ruling group which controlled public policy was being denounced under the name of the “Cliveden set,” after the very elegant country home of the Astors. Of course these people vigorously denied that they exercised any such power, and even that there was any such set; Rick in one of his caustic articles had written: “They deny there is a Cliveden set, but will they deny there is a Cliveden sort?”"

Lanny wondered if Irma being upset was due to attention Nancy Astor got. He drove to The Reaches and was free to talk, about adi and Magda Goebbels and Trudi. "The fact is now that we’re at war, and have to feel the emotions of war and make the sacrifices of war. The Nazis are not going to be overcome except by men who are as stern as they, and as determined to prevail. There’ll have to be a lot of anti-Nazi fanatics, and some of them will be women who think more about saving their comrades than they do about making their husbands happy. Isn’t it so, Rick?”"

Lanny telegraphed Hess and received a reply that the appointment with Pröfenik was in two days, so he took a train from Calais and stayed at Adlon although he was invited as a guest by Hess. The Austria play was going on

"The Austrian Minister of the Interior and Public Security granted to the Nazis of Styria the right to wear swastikas and to shout “Heil Hitler!”—and then the Cabinet of which he was a member canceled the order. He went to Graz and reviewed fifteen thousand Nazis, many of them in uniform and all giving the Nazi salute in what was an illegal parade. Nobody who knew the Hitler movement could doubt what this meant."

Lanny and Hess visited Pröfenik and were surprised by emperor Franz Joseph followed by Zaharoff appearing in the seance . Then Ludi and Trudi supposedly appeared, but there was nothing that Pröfenik couldn't have found out. "Lanny asked if the Professor had tried to send his astral body to the Berghof, and the old man said that he had done so, and had seen Lanny and Hess gazing out over the mountains, and also at something which looked like playing cards—which they hadn’t done. No mention of French wrestling!"

Hess didn't think much of the seance, but asked Lanny about the Shultz couple, and lanny said he couldn't recall such people, but might have met them while giving a talk to commercial artists, and possibly mentioned to Pröfenik about their having wandered through a seance in Berlin. Lanny asked if their names were on a commercial artist association register, and Hess wondered about Trudi's alternative name Mueller and wondered if it were due to their being political, in which case he said he could find out.

"“No bother at all. I’ll tell my secretary to call up the police in the morning, and if there are or were any such persons I’ll have the data within an hour.”

"“I never expected to have the help of the Gestapo in my psychic researches!” chuckled the son of Budd-Erling."

Lanny waited in his hotel room in the morning, read papers and got ready.

"The mail was brought to his room; also a cablegram, which proved to be mysterious and puzzling. It was from New York, and read: “Honored relative will call”; the signature was: “Bessie Budd Host.” Lanny could figure out that meant Johannes Robin and wondered what was wanted of him. Hess's secretary called asking him to come to his office, and he informed them he will come immediately since he had appointment to lunch with Göring, which  made Hess come immediately to the point when Lanny arrived. He had traced the Shultz couple.

"“I find we have a long record on these people, and of the blackest sort. They were Social-Democratic agitators, Marxists of the reddest dye, over a period of ten years or so.”

"“The man was caught early, and committed suicide in Oranienburg. The woman got away, and caused us trouble for three years or more. She was center of a well-organized seditious group. She took the name of Mueller, and several other aliases—I won’t tell them to you, because it might be interesting to see if you can get them through Madame or any other medium.”

"“By all means! What happened to the woman?”

"“She fled to France; but recently she made the mistake of coming back into Germany. She died in Dachau two or three months ago.”

"Lanny had time enough to walk to the Ministerial Residence, and he needed it to work off the grief and rage which possessed him. No forecast, no accumulated imagining, could equal the reality of knowing that Trudi was gone forever; that his efforts of the past six months had been futility, and his hope of seeing her again was vain.

"He told himself that it was war; Trudi had been a prisoner of war, and they had treated her according to their code. They had waged war upon her in their dungeons, first in Paris and then in Dachau, trying to break her spirit, to force her to betray her party and her friends. In this they had failed, Lanny was sure; the fact that he was here, a free man in Berlin, and about to enter the home of the Nazi Number Two, was proof enough of that. With all their ingenuity, their knowledge of physiology and psychology applied to breaking the human will, they had not been able to break Trudi’s. She had won that war—or so she would feel, and Lanny must train himself to feel the same.

"The Nazi religion was for one nation, one Herrenvolk, which aspired to rule all others. They called themselves a “race,” but that was just a piece of nonsense which their fraudulent scientists had invented to make themselves more important; there was no such thing as “Aryan”; there was only German, and even that was open to question. The correct word was Prussian, or more precisely East-Elbian—a little group of proud and bigoted aristocrats whose power was based upon the ownership of huge estates, in a part of Europe where the armies of Napoleon had not penetrated to break up land monopoly. These proud Junkers, nearly all of them high-ranking military men, were using Adi Schicklgruber the gutter-rat as their newest tool, their rabble-rouser and mob-deceiver, and when they were through with him they would send him to join his tens of thousands of victims."

Lanny had to keep his appointment with Göring, who again wanted to pay him, but Lanny insisted on refusing.
...............................................................................


Lanny got a call asking him if he'd heard from Host, and met the caller in another hotel. It was Rahel's brother, Aaron Schönhaus. They went out, and got into Aaron's car and drove. Rahel's parents were unable to travel. 

"They had both been frantically begging Aaron to take his children and emigrate to America; he had money put away, and at any time the Nazis might seize him and torture him to make him give it up. At last he had yielded, and Johannes had managed to get the passport visas. Aaron had paid the necessary bribes here in Berlin and had his exit permits."

""I have made my own way in the world, and earned what I have by hard work. I don’t see why I should turn it over to my racial persecutors if I can help it. ... Under the Nazi law I’m allowed to take out only fifty marks, and that wouldn’t get me and three children very far toward New York. But here is this car, which represents a good chunk of money. I’m guessing that you didn’t drive into Germany this time. ... This car costs about five thousand marks when it’s new, and it ought to bring at least half that in Belgium or Holland. That would be enough to take me and my children to New York and keep us there until I get to work. Nominally the car doesn’t belong to me; I have a gentile friend who is so kind as to keep it in his name. He would sell it to you—that is, you wouldn’t have to pay any money, but take his receipt for twenty-five hundred marks and the car would be yours. You would drive it to any place you say outside Germany, and I’d meet you there and pick it up.”” 

Aaron had guessed Lanny not bringing a car from reading in mittag about his arrival in the morning, weather being not convenient for overnight driving alone. Lanny had a couple of paintings to transport, so this suited well. Lanny wondered about legality, but Furtwaengler called in the morning about his boss wishing to sell another painting, and assured he'd fix up paperwork without bothering his boss about small matters, when lanny said he'd a chance to buy a car at a reasonable price so he could take the paintings out. Aaron fixed up to meet Lanny in Amsterdam. 

"It seemed delightfully simple. Promptly at eight in the morning Lanny paid his bill and had his bags and his carefully wrapped art treasures carried down to the door. There was Aaron, looking like a humble deliveryman, with the car and the bill of sale duly signed. He tipped his hat respectfully and walked off, while Lanny saw his belongings properly loaded. What more natural than that this important American should have bought a car in which to transport himself on a not too raw and windy day in March? He tipped the bellboys and the magnifico of the door, and they all bowed and smiled, and away he went. 

"“For God’s sake, drive carefully,” Aaron had said, “for this will be all I have left in the world.” Lanny had attached no special importance to this remark, answering lightly that he had motored all over Europe since his boyhood—how many hundreds of thousands of miles he wouldn’t attempt to figure."

Lanny crossed the Dutch border and stopped to eat at a small tavern, parking by the curb. 

"Some careless driver, or perhaps one swerving to avoid a pedestrian, had struck Aaron Schönhaus’s car at the front, on the driver’s side, farthest from the curb. At first glance Lanny thought it must have been a terrific crash, for the bumper had been badly bent and the fender crumpled like paper. Whoever had done it had not waited for explanations or apologies; even in well-ordered and law-abiding Holland they had hit-and-run drivers! A few spectators, mostly children, stood looking at the damage. 

"Lanny’s first thought was, had the wheel or the axle been bent? In so serious a crash it was to be expected. But then he saw something that he had never before observed on any automobile in his driving experience: where the fender had been crumpled and the enamel knocked off, there was a bright yellow gleam, such as belonged to no metal used in the manufacture of vehicles. And the bumpers, which are usually of steel with a handsome finish of nickel—where they had been hit the outside finish had been knocked off, and there was the same gleam, which could be only one thing in this world: Gold! Gold fenders and gold running boards painted over with black, and gold bumpers painted with some sort of silver—that was the car which Aaron Schönhaus had prepared for his near-relative to drive out of Naziland under permit from the Field Marshal in command of the German Air Force! “By heck!” said Lanny Budd to himself—again and then again."

He drove off, having realised the crash wasn't serious, and as long as he drove nobody would look.

"Manifestly, the first problem was to cover up that secret. Coming to a town of larger size, Lanny hunted up a paint shop and bought a small can of black enamel and one of silver paint, also two small brushes. Already another crowd had gathered about the car; he left them behind, and outside the town stopped at an unfrequented spot and carefully covered all the exposed surfaces of the gold. He knew that the wind would help to dry the paint, and meantime it would gather dust and look less new and shiny; he would no longer have a treasure car, but just one which had been run into—a sight to be gazed at, but not with revolutionary thoughts, such as of wrenching off a piece and sticking it into your pocket!"

Lanny drove slow to avoid another accident. 

"Lanny guessed that the outside appendages of this car, when made of the ordinary material, would weigh at least a hundred pounds. He knew that gold weighs two or three times as much, so it was safe to guess that the clever Aaron had managed to smuggle out of Naziland well over a hundred and fifty thousand dollars! 

"How had he achieved the making of these parts? It couldn’t have been an easy matter, for they are not hammered out by hand but stamped by great machines. It would have to be done where there was an electric furnace, and perhaps in the plant where the car had been made. A group of workmen might do it at night; it would be risky, and involve the payment of a lot of money—to say nothing of the problems of purchasing and turning over to workmen such an amount of gold. Somehow the job had been put through; and Lanny promised himself an interesting story on the morrow. He might have considered that Aaron had played a rather shabby trick upon his near-relative, but he decided to overlook that. He had “got away with it,” and no doubt Aaron meant to offer him a fee—which he wouldn’t take."

Lanny stayed at the hotel he'd promised to meet Aaron, telling the garage attendant he'd not bother with repairs until he was home. He waited next day, but no call, no message and no Aaron came. 

"Silence like this, a complete blackout, could mean only one thing—that the Nazis had grabbed the unfortunate Jew as they had grabbed his father-in-law at the outset of their Regierung. There just wasn’t any possibility that with all that treasure at stake, its owner would have failed somehow to get word to its trustee. ... In the case of Johannes and his family Lanny had gone into Germany and worked hard to help them; but he couldn’t do that again. His situation had changed and he was no longer a free man."

He drove to Calais so crossing was short, not overnight, drove to The Reaches and discussed it with Rick. Obviously it could only be melted for gold and sold, and Rick promised to attend to that. Lanny would take a bank cheque and hand it over to Rahel, and tell them to not mention his name. 

"The English newspapers were full of the details of sensational events in Austria. Schuschnigg had resigned, and the Nazi Seyss-Inquart had assumed authority. “Tourists” who had been visiting Vienna had suddenly turned into SS Standart Neun und Neunzig, and occupied the public buildings of the city. All night Nazi mobs had been parading through the streets, screaming “Sieg heil!” and the battle-cry of Anschluss, which was “Ein Volk, ein Reich, ein Führer!” The new government invited German troops into Austria to preserve order—and that, of course, was the “legality” which was Adi’s special fetish. At dawn the long motorized columns crossed the border at various places and sped toward the capital. Later that Saturday the Führer himself entered by way of the town of Braunau, where he had been born; the people strewed flowers in his path and hailed him as their deliverer. He visited the graves of his father and mother and told the assembled crowds that he was carrying out “a divine commission.” To Rick and Nina Lanny said: “Mohammed!”

Austria lost identity and name, and a new plebiscite was in the offing. 

"And meanwhile the plundering and killing of Jews would go on all over the newly conquered land; women of refinement would be compelled to take off their underwear and get down on their knees and scrub the pavements and gutters with the garments. Thousands were fleeing to the borders, but only a few got across, and many committed suicide. 

"And not only Jews, but all of Adi’s political opponents—for he had no forgiveness in his nature and the idea of chivalry never crossed his mind. Schuschnigg was a prisoner, undergoing torture and destined to be driven insane. A former Vice-Chancellor and Commander of the Heimwehr was murdered, along with his wife and son and even his dog. Other opponents were murdered and called suicides. The men who had killed Dollfuss became national heroes, and the Nazis of the Ostmark were put in command of concentration camps and charged with the duty of tormenting their former jailers. Things like that had been happening in this part of Europe as far back as history goes, but never had there been anything so scientifically organized. It wasn’t long before Feldmarschall Göring issued an order to stop the private robbery of Jews, explaining that this was a prerogative of the government and must be carried out “systematically.”"

Lanny drove to Wickthorpe and met the Wickthorpe visitors. 

"Lanny learned that Ribbentrop had come to London in one of Germany’s fast bomber planes, only three days before the march into Austria, and had been wined and dined while carrying on “exploratory negotiations” for a permanent understanding between Germany and Britain. He had talked with Ceddy Wickthorpe and Gerald Albany, and told them about his session with Halifax on the previous day, also with the Archbishop of Canterbury, whose endorsement of the Nazis as the future destroyers of Bolshevism was no secret from anybody at either Wickthorpe or Cliveden.

"On Friday, with Hitler’s troops poised on the border and ready to roll at dawn, the Nazi champagne salesman had seen the King, and had lunched at Number 10 Downing Street with Prime Minister Chamberlain. Among the guests had been Lord Londonderry, who was Göring’s chum and perhaps the most ardent pro-Nazi in England; Sir Samuel Hoare, the friend of Franco; Sir Alexander Cadogan, pronounced Cadúggan, Undersecretary of State; also Lord Halifax and Sir John Simon and the wives of all these."

Several of these expressed shock about invasion of Austria, saying they hadn't expected action and thought it had been exploratory talks. Lanny went back to The Reaches. Rick's family had a man who did the work on the car Lanny had brought, and Rick saw to it that it was kept honest, and then there was marketing. Nina had a good talk with him about how he could overcome the communication problem if he met the right woman. He took a Cunard liner, and handed over the money to Rahel who received him with the Robin family. He went off to Washington D.C..
..............................................................................


"“Tell me what’s coming next, Lanny.” 

"“Undoubtedly the Sudetenland.” 

"“Was that taken from Germany?” 

"“No, it belonged to Austro-Hungary; but Hitler tells the world that it was Germany’s, and that he is determined to have it back.” 

"“What has it got?” 

"“Minerals and forests, and positions vital for military defense. His excuse is a lot of Germans there.” 

"“A majority?” 

"“It varies from district to district, from village to village; it’s all mixed up as if it had been shaken out of a pepper-pot."

The President asked how long before it happens, and lanny said six months, during which the nazis could digest Austria, get ready and threaten to lay Prague to waste, having practiced in Spain and knowing exactly what they could do, as they did to Guernica and other cities of Spain. 

"“Horrible, horrible!” exclaimed F.D.

"“The whole civilized world will say it, but that won’t worry Adolf Hitler. He would love to destroy Prague, because it is full of monuments of Czech culture, which he despises. But he won’t bomb Pilsen.” 

"“On account of the beer?” 

"Lanny smiled. “On account of Skoda, which is probably the biggest munitions plant in Europe. Hitler is going to have that, and poor Baron Schneider has guessed it by now, and is sitting in Le Creusot worried sick.”"

Lanny told him about his visits to Berghof, Wickthorpe and more, and asked him to not repeat any of it even to friends, since Nazi agents were active and there weren't that many visitors to Berghof or Karinhall. FDR agreed. 

Lanny told him about his efforts to locate, possibly rescue, Trudi, and his tears were running as he came to the end. The President understood that this tragedy represented what millions in Europe were going through, but he again repeated that he couldn't do more than his responsibilities to his people allowed, and lanny said he could expect another world war that U.S. couldn't keep out of. FDR asked him to go on doing the valuable work, and again offered to put him on payroll, but Lanny preferred to make money in his business as he traveled. 

""I expect to be at my father’s home for the next couple of weeks, and you could send me an anonymous note, if you wished.” 

"“I doubt if there will be need of that. Just remember that I’m watching you, to see how your prophecies come true!” 

"“It doesn’t need any prophet, Governor; it needs only an understanding of German economy, such as I have obtained from Göring and Thyssen and Schacht and others I meet through my father. I repeated to Hitler what I had said to you, that when a man builds a bicycle he has to ride and he can’t sail a boat. Hitler accepted those words as exactly right. He has made the German economy into a war economy, and now he’ll be doing the same for the Austrian economy. It’s nonsense to say that he will stop when he has got the border territories where the Germans live; for what is he going to do with them? He can’t feed the people on machine-gun cartridges and airplane bombs—not even I. G. Farben is equal to that miracle of Ersatz. Even if Hitler should die tonight, Göring or Hess would be driven by the force he has created; they have to go after the potato fields of Poland and the wheat fields of the Ukraine, the minerals of the Balkans, and the oil of the Caucasus." 

"“That’s quite a program,” said the President, no longer smiling. “Watch him, keep me informed, and trust me to make the best use of the information that I can.”"
.............................................................................


Lanny visited Newcastle and was again a social celebrity due to his visit to Berghof. His father showed him around at the plant, still hoping to get him to work with him. Esther had come to respect him, and tried matchmaking, but Lanny couldn't go through what he had with Irma, and now it was more serious. 

He happened to meet Miss Priscilla Hoyles who worked in the public library when he went in and she helped him, and in the process he realised that she knew about paintings and more, and she mentioned that his Goya and Hansi Robin's concerts were significant in her life and that of the town. He took her for a drive, but the questions complicating any relationship needed to be resolved beforehand, before proceeding further into a relationship which had to be necessarily respectable, so he left with a promise of meeting next time he came over from Europe. 

Lanny visited Hansi and Bess and told them about Trudi, and left copies of her photograph with them, having destroyed the will. He visited Robin family and made excuses for not doing more to help looking for Rahel's brother and his children, or her parents. 

Lanny went to N.Y. and again was in demand on social circuit, people of wealth asking if they could have national socialism succeed in U.S.. 

"Departing from one of these Park Avenue parties, Lanny walked to his hotel. ... Crossing a side street, he heard the shout of a crowd, and looking toward Lexington Avenue saw the gleam of torchlights; he stood listening to volleys of sound, and then turned and strolled in that direction. Curiosity, not altogether idle, for it was worth while to know what was going on in this city whose population exceeded that of whole lands such as Sweden and Austria, now the Ostmark. New York was the center of the publishing industry, and impulses which originated here were spread quickly over the three million square miles of America. April was not the time for elections, and this must be some sort of propaganda meeting—Red or Pink, Black or Brown, White, Gray, Silver, Gold, Green, or Purple—there was hardly a shade of shirts or pants which did not have social significance in these frenzied times. ... he saw a banner: “Christian Front,” and realized that this was American Nazism, and the orator a candidate for the attention of the Wall Street and Park Avenue gentlemen. 

"This one clearly had the qualifications; personality, voice, energy, cunning—and, above all, hate! Hate for everybody and everything that the poor man, downtrodden and ignorant, believed to be his oppressors and his enemies: hatred for the money power, the idle rich, the educated and cultured; hatred for the government, the New Dealers, the bureaucrats, the politicians; hatred for the Reds, the Communists, the Socialists; hatred for the foreigners, the niggers, and above all, the Jews. Roosevelt was a Jew, and his government was a Jew government. The New Deal was the Jew Deal: Morgenthau and J. P. Morgan, Felix Frankfurter and Frances Perkins, Baruch and Ickes—the tirade scrambled Jews and non-Jews, and nobody in the crowd knew or cared; they yelled for the blood of each one in turn. 

"“Is this America?” demanded the orator, and the answer came like the hissing of snakes: “Yes! Yes!” Then: “Are we going to give it to the Jews?”—and the answer like a thunder clap: “No!” “Are we going to restore it to Americans?” “We are! We are!”"

There were pamphlets and more, sold in English and German, and lanny bought some. 

"The paper sellers were busily hawking their wares. There was a table loaded with pamphlets and books, prominent among them the Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion. A strange social phenomenon that! An impecunious lawyer in Tsarist Moscow had adapted this document from a French work of fiction; the original version had had nothing to do with Jews, but the revised version was taken as gospel and had become a hate-weapon of Nazis all over the world. Henry Ford had distributed hundreds of thousands of copies, and wherever his cars traveled people learned on the authority of the world’s richest man that the Jews had a secret international organization plotting to destroy Christian society. Later on the Flivver King had taken it back, but few people knew that, or cared. From other literature for sale at these tables you could learn that the Jews had a rite which required the blood of freshly killed gentile babies."

Lanny found himself walking with one of them. 

"“We allus go to Times Square after meetings. We get the the-ay-ter crowd, and sometimes we teach the sheenies a lesson. Come along, if you want to see the fun.”

"Lanny wanted to see everything, and wanted to learn all he could about a “Christian Fronter.” An Irish-Catholic boy, raised in the slum known as “Hell’s Kitchen” and educated in a parochial school, Mike Raftery had been told by his priest that the bloodthirsty “Rooshians” were trying to destroy Holy Mother Church, and that they were all Jews, or at any rate Jewish-inspired. He had not the least difficulty in believing that Jewish Bolsheviks and bankers were in a common conspiracy to dominate the world; he had but the vaguest idea of what bankers did or what Bolsheviks believed; he had learned from Father Coughlin’s papers that the bankers gave money to the Bolsheviks for the undermining of the Catholic religion and the American Constitution. Now he had shifted to the paper of “Bully-boy Joe,” which was new and even more violent. “Speeches ain’t enough,” said Mike. “We gotta have action; we gotta make them kikes pipe down.” 

"What constituted “action” Lanny saw quickly enough. Reaching Times Square, the sellers spread out on the various corners made by Broadway and Forty-third Street. They began screaming: “Buy the Christian Mobilizer! Save America! Down with the Jews!” ... When a Jew came along—preferably a poor one—a seller would approach him. “Buy a Christian Mobilizer—read all about the dirty sheenies!” If he didn’t stop, the seller would try to step on his toes; if he did stop, the seller would poke the paper under his nose. “Save America from the kikes!”

"This went on night after night, Lanny was told; and it surprised him, for he had read little or nothing about it in the papers. The New York “cops” were in good part Catholic, and there was no law against their reading Father Coughlin’s paper; they came from the same slums as the paper sellers, and in their boyhood had spit upon many a “Christ-killer.” The mayor of New York was part Jewish, and was in an awkward position because he was a liberal and had been preaching freedom of speech all his life. The newspapers of New York lived upon department-store advertising, and reports of violence and especially of racial and religious violence were bad for trade; a large part of the buyers who came to the city were Jewish, and what if their wives became frightened and persuaded them to go elsewhere? As for Lanny Budd, playing the good Samaritan in the theater district would surely have been bad for his business."
.............................................................................. 


Lanny called Forrest Quadratt and was invited.

"The host had written a shelf of books, including a defense of the Kaiser, whose left-handed relative he was supposed to be. He was a smallish, near-sighted man, suave and gracious, caressing in manner. He had a sweet little wife about whom Lanny wondered, what did she make of the Nazi doctrines concerning her sex? Lanny had the suspicion that both husband and wife had Jewish blood, but this of course would never be put into words.

"The other guest was a tall Prussian aristocrat with a round blond head, wearing a monocle and introduced as Kapitän von Schnelling. He had commanded a U-boat during the World War and been one of those who sank their vessels at Scapa Flow. He had most formal manners, and knew Stubendorf, Herzenberg, the Donnersteins, all Lanny’s high-up friends in the Fatherland. What he was doing in America was made apparent during the course of the evening, and Lanny realized that he was dealing with a really important man and a shrewd one."

Lanny's credentials were established by his long visit to Berghof, and the detailed descriptions thereof that he provided them.  

"So the Kapitän could see no reason for secrecy, and talked frankly about his responsibilities in America. He was a sort of inspector-general, making a survey of Nazi educational work all over the country, and at the same time lending his prestige and cultivated intelligence to the task of influencing highly placed Americans. He had completed a tour of nearly two months, in the course of which he had visited a score of cities, all the way from Seattle to Palm Beach, as he put it. He was greatly pleased by what he had found; in most cases the propaganda was in excellent hands and the results most encouraging; America was ripe for a fundamental social change, and with hard work and wise guidance there was every reason to expect that the strong German elements throughout the country would play their full part. The main trouble, as this polished Junker saw it, was the reluctance of the Nazi partisans to Americanize themselves; they wanted to follow the Nazi ways, and to force these ways down American throats, which couldn’t be done. The Bund had been ordered to change its make-up, and to print the swastika in red, white, and blue. All this was hard, especially in the hinterlands.

"This highly trained aristocrat spoke English without a trace of accent, and had no difficulty in “Americanizing” himself. He was here for America’s benefit, he declared, to give the country a chance to profit by the lessons which had been learned in Germany. ... He had spent the better part of a day with Henry Ford, an unusual privilege, and found him in a generous mood. He had spent an evening with Colonel McCormick and found him, as he said, “most congenial.” The same for Lammot du Pont in Wilmington; “a really powerful man, with whom we have done a great deal of business, as you know.” The same for Mr. Rand, of Remington-Rand, in Connecticut, who had recently had a painful experience with a great strike, and was bitter as a result.

"There was a convenient American arrangement known as the “franking privilege,” by which congressmen could send out mail free of charge; there was no limit upon it, and some had even shipped their furniture and liquors by that method. Ham Fish had turned over the matter to his secretary, and the secretary had given Quadratt the use of it, a device whereby unlimited Nazi speeches, pamphlets, and books could be distributed to the American people at their own expense. The ex-poet urged his Junker friend to realize the importance of this, and told about a publishing house which he had set up in a small town of New Jersey. It was carefully camouflaged to look American, and Quadratt showed his guests several books which he had written under pseudonyms and published through this concern.

"The “inspector-general” of the Nazis had been invited to meet some of what he called the “key personalities of the American movement.” This was to be on the following evening, and Quadratt offered to get an invitation for Lanny, who accepted with pleasure. The Käpitan never made public speeches, he said, but was glad to talk confidentially with the leaders, and especially those who were in position to put up the funds, so essential to the building of any new movement. The gathering was to be in the home of a Miss van Zandt, on lower Fifth Avenue, now mostly pre-empted by the dress-making and book-publishing industries."

Lanny met an assortment at the home of the very rich Miss van Zandt, including a white Russian, Anastase Andreivitch Vonsiatskoy-Vonsiatsky, a publisher, Seward Collins, a Georgian from confederate South, Lawrence Dennis, and more, including a major-general Moseley from army and Lieutenant-Commander Spafford from navy. 

"One of the women guests at this high-class social event delivered Lanny to his hotel, and on the way remarked that if the wealth represented there were totaled up it would amount to a couple of billion dollars. Lanny went to sleep in a state of deep depression, and next morning, to cheer himself up and to pacify the Trudi-ghost he put a thousand-dollar bill in an envelope, together with a typed unsigned note: “To be used for the combatting of anti-Semitism in New York.” He mailed this to a liberal clergyman of the city, the same to whom, more than a year ago, he had turned over the profits from the sale of the Goya painting. Before sailing for Europe, the secret agent wrote a report to his Chief, concluding with these words: “America has everything that Germany had during the period that Hitlerism was in the egg.”"
...............................................................................


Lanny took a steamer to Le Havre, and a train to Calais, to drive to Paris. He met Zoltan. 

"Franco’s armies had cut their way to the Mediterranean, thus dividing the Loyalist forces in two. Everybody agreed that the government’s position was hopeless; that is, everybody except the Spanish people, who refused to realize that they had to become slaves. In spite of continual bombing of cities and killing of thousands of civilians, the Valencianos and Madrileños went on fighting desperately in their sector, and the Barcelonese in theirs—something considered irrational and exasperating by all members of the governing classes of Europe. The British and the Italians, having come to an amicable agreement on this and other subjects, put pressure on the French and forced the closing of the border once more. Red Catalonia would be starved until it came to its senses—or rather to British and Italian senses. 

"A part of the agreement had been over Abyssinia: Mussolini’s triumph was to be legalized, and the 101st League of Nations Council proceeded to pass what was in effect an act of suicide, the renunciation of its last hope to prevent war. In harmony with the hypocrisy of the time, it would do this in the name of peace, and the ultra-pious Lord Halifax was chosen as the man for this job. “Great as is the League of Nations,” he announced, “the ends it exists to serve are greater than itself and the greatest of those ends is peace.” His white Lordship was answered by a frail little black man who looked oddly like a Jew, Haile Selassie, Negus of Abyssinia: “The Ethiopian people, to whom all assistance was refused, are climbing alone their path to Calvary.”"

Lanny went strolling in Paris looking at art galleries, and in one he found a Detaze he had never sold. He called Beauty,  and after asking her, told her to say nothing until he was there. The art gallery proprietor agreed to lock away the work until he heard from him. Lanny promptly set off for Bienvenu and arrived late at night. Beauty and he looked, and definitely one, possibly more than three, paintings had been taken. They had the same guess, Vittorio. Lanny cautioned her to say nothing for now. He checked with the seller in Nice who told the story, asked him to get back all three paintings so stolen, and promised to reimburse the money. He confronted Vittorio, who caved in when Lanny was about to call police. Lanny laid down the law. Vittorio was to leave France if he did not wish to be identified as a thief. 

"“I don’t know the exact name for the method by which you have been getting your gambling money from my mother and her daughter, and I don’t want to bandy words with you. I simply tell you that unless you agree to take the night train to Marseille and a steamer for Cadiz, you will spend tonight in the Cannes jail.”"

Vittorio attempted everything from apology to appealing sentimentally to blackmail to threat, but Lanny was equal to it all, and he left. Marceline was given a car to meet him at port and she had the choice to go, but hadn't been told about his theft and expulsion, and that would remain unless he tried to return. 
...............................................................................


They were at Sophie's on an evening when two cars drove up up and stopped. 

"One of this company appeared to be different from the rest. For one thing she had no make-up, and for another she wore glasses, which no smart lady will do if she can see to walk down the street without them. This one was of the indeterminate age between twenty-five and thirty-five, a small, birdlike creature, quick in her glances and speech. Lanny had never seen her before, and her name, Miss Creston, told him nothing."

She looked at everyone, didn't drop her gaze when returned, and having looked around the room, got up and looked at the books. 

"It happened that somebody mentioned Hitler, and a speech he had just made denouncing the mistreatment of Germans in the Sudetenland. What did the man want, and where was he going to stop? One of the company remarked: “Ask Lanny; he knows him.” Another, a stranger, interjected: “You mean, personally?” The reply was: “He was a guest at Berchtesgaden just recently.” 

"That brought Lanny into the spotlight, and the lady with the glasses stepped in and joined him there. Turning from the books, she exclaimed: “My God, do you mean one can actually visit that man?” 

"Said Lanny, mildly: “One can, if one is properly introduced.” 

"“And how does one get introduced?” 

"“Well, it happens that the Führer is an admirer of my stepfather’s paintings, and I took some there and he bought them for his guest house.” 

"“Oh! It was a business matter!” 

"“Partly that, but social, also. You would find him a quite charming companion, I assure you.” 

"“I suppose he’s fond of little children, and all that!” 

"“It happens that he is especially fond of children.” 

"“And how does he have them prepared?” 

"For once Lanny wasn’t quick on the uptake. All he could say was: “How do you mean?” 

"“I mean: How are they cooked? What sauce are they served with?” 

"The company had stopped all other conversation to listen to this colloquy. Polite persons all, they must have been taken aback, even as Lanny was. However, he managed to smile, and replied: “It happens that he is a vegetarian. The only babies he eats are chicks before they have begun to be; in other words, a poached egg on his boiled vegetables. But he will serve you baby lamb or calf if you desire it.” 

"The woman stood there, as conspicuous as if she were making a speech; and nobody offered to interrupt this duel. “Tell me, Mr. Budd,” she said; “do you approve of this charming vegetarian’s political procedures?” 

"“I am an art expert, Miss Creston. I help to find beautiful paintings, mostly for American collections. I have found that it is necessary for me to deal with people who have all sorts of political opinions, and I try not to force mine upon them.” 

"“But you must have a few opinions of your own, don’t you?” 

"Rather awkward for Lanny Budd, who couldn’t afford to have the members of this group go out and say that he had evaded such a challenge. This duel was something to be talked about, and would be talked about all over the Cap before the day was over—it was after midnight. He had to make a flat answer, and it had to be one which would satisfy the Fascists and Nazis who swarmed on the Coast of Pleasure. Said the son of Budd-Erling: “I used to have political opinions when I was young; but when I arrived at years of discretion I found that they disturbed my digestion and my judgment of art works. So now I confine myself to my chosen profession and let more qualified persons run the world’s business affairs.” 

"“And if you found that one of these persons was getting world power by means of wholesale murder and lies, that wouldn’t disturb you in the least?” 

"“I am afraid, Miss Creston, I should have to remain in my ivory tower, and leave it for you to deal with that dangerous person.” 

"“Ivory tower, Mr. Budd?” snapped the woman. “It seems to me you might better call it a cave, and yourself a troglodyte.” 

"You could feel the shock run through that well-bred company—for that word had a terrible sound, even though not many knew its meaning. Lanny still took it amiably. Said he: “My understanding is that the troglodyte was a hairy man, and I could hardly qualify for that.” 

"This gave the company a chance to laugh, and broke the tension. The ladies started to talk very fast about something else; and Miss Creston, realizing that she had said a mouthful, returned to her seat."

On the way home, Lanny asked about her, Beauty said she was a writer from N.Y. related to people she'd arrived with. Beauty told him it was like him to fall for her instead of the sweet relative of Sophie they had tried to get him to fall for, and he said one never knew how sweet young ones would turn out, for example Marceline - who promptly demanded her third of Detaze inheritance. 

Beauty was set to visit Wickthorpe for summer to be with Frances, but now she had Marceline who wished to join Vittorio in Seville and her baby son, Marcel,  couldn't be left alone. Marceline insisted Beauty stay back. But meanwhile there came letters to Vittorio, and finally one to Marceline, informing there was a woman in Cannes expecting his baby. Marceline had no doubts and screamed in language shocking her mother.

"When Marceline had got over her hysterics, he thought it the part of wisdom to tell her the reason why her husband had so suddenly departed for the wars. When Marceline heard that, she decided that she had been made a fool of by all the members of her family, and that from this time on she would look out for herself.

"She was the child of Marcel Detaze, and somewhere within her was steel. She dried her tears and put war paint on her face, and announced that she was ashamed of her lack of self-control, and from this moment on nobody would see her shed a tear. What she wanted was a divorce from Vittorio as quickly as it could be arranged under the French law. Mlle. Lafitte would presumably serve as a witness, and in that way might earn the money to have a baby. “After all, I’m sorry for the poor brat,” remarked the bitter young wife, and then winced, realizing that her own precious infant had the same father. 

"Lanny thought it over and decided that this was a matter for the family lawyer in Cannes. He consulted this gentleman, who invited the restaurant cashier to his office and found her amenable; she agreed to receive the sum of two thousand francs a month for a period of a year in return for her testimony that she had been seduced by the Capitano. She had some notes in his handwriting, and the lawyer pointed out to her that she would not be compromising her claim against the officer; after the war was over he would presumably return to his homeland, and she might follow him there and bring suit for the support of the child. So everything was “jake,” as Robbie Budd would have said if he had been present. The suit was filed, and notice sent to the ex-aviator; then the daughter of Marcel Detaze said to her mother: “Let’s give a party right away, a good one, and invite all our friends, so that I can show them I’m not down and out!”"

Sophie gave the party, and Lanny danced with Marceline at this second debut, and the society applauded them over and over, understanding Marceline's defiance and admiring. Marceline danced, she always had known this is who she was. Next day she had an offer from a night club in Cannes, and Beauty was shocked, pointing out Marceline shouldn't compromise her position, she was a Budd and a Detaze. Marceline agreed to the first dance for charity and thereafter for supporting herself and Marcel, pointing out that Beauty had been a model. Lanny spoke to the club owner, and negotiated the business terms for Marceline, saying she should be given spotlight and he'd only join the first week for charity, and she ought to be advertised as daughter of Marcel Detaze.  

Marceline was a sensational success, and carried on further negotiations after picking another partner whom Lanny trained in the afternoons. She was no longer Lanny's problem. 

"All he could do for her now was to help her think up new ideas—for of course she wouldn’t want to go on doing the same old things. She wanted to know about Isadora, and how she had made such a sensation. There would be no “Red” nonsense in the career of Marceline, of course, nor would she waste herself getting drunk, or trying to start a school and teach children; enough if she could teach herself and one indispensable man. When the winter season came, she would want to go to Paris; and what would be the best place for her début, and would Lanny try to pull some strings for her? Emily would give her an engagement at Les Forêts; and what: about Baron Schneider, and the Due de Belleaumont, and Graf Herzenberg, and Olivie Hellstein? Marceline would accumulate a cardfile, like her brother; and Beauty would begin pulling strings—just as she had done for Robbie’s munitions, and then for Marcel’s paintings, and then for Lanny’s old-masterings!"
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"Lanny was not entirely idle politically. He met influential Fascists on the Riviera, and listened while they discussed their plans for the undermining of the North American states and the taking over of those in South America. As soon as Franco’s rule was secure—and it couldn’t be long now—his state would become the motherland of a new Spanish-American empire, built upon the Fascist formula. Spain had always been the cultural center for these lands, and Spanish Fascism, standing upon a firm Catholic foundation, would not antagonize the somewhat primitive peoples of South America as Nazism had done. This was explained to the Norte Americano by a Spanish bishop in exile to whom Lanny listened attentively, giving the Most Reverend Father cause to hope that his listener was on the way to becoming a convert. Afterwards Lanny went home and wrote a report—but not for El Papa.

"At Sophie’s Lanny ran into Charles Bedaux, Franco-American millionaire who had been one of the guests at Baron Schneider’s dinner in Paris. ... After talks with him, Lanny had a long report to write.

"Also Lanny read the newspapers of London and Paris, which reached him one day late, and watched the slow preparation of that tragedy which he had foretold to F.D.R. Poor compensation to be able to say: “I told you so!” Rick sent him a beautifully written article about the people who had maintained for many centuries the ancient kingdom of Bohemia, and now had built the modern republic of Czechoslovakia, and were trying to protect it in the midst of many angry dictatorships. Lanny had never visited Prague, but he had seen pictures of that romantic old city and had imagined it while listening to Smetana’s tone poem of the River Moldau. In Paris he had met Professor Masaryk, son of a coachman and a cook, who had begun as apprentice to a locksmith and a blacksmith, and had ended at the age of eighty-five as founder and president of the most liberal democracy on the Continent. His foreign minister and successor, Beneš, pronounced Béhn-esh, was a peasant’s son, one of the few diplomats of Europe who said that he spoke the truth and spoke the truth when he said it.

"The Germans in Czechoslovakia were citizens with equal rights and liberties, and that suited most of them; but not the Nazi agitators and terrorists, who had money, arms, and propaganda literature in an unending stream. The Hitler borders had been increased in length by the taking of Austria, and the position of the Czechs was exactly that of a soft woolly lamb in a boa-constrictor’s mouth. ... Henlein came to London and was received by the leading Tories, and spent a week-end at Wickthorpe Castle. Rick wasn’t invited there any more, but living not far away he heard the gossip, and wrote that Chamberlain had definitely decided to deliver the Sudetens as the price of peace in Europe. Hitler declared that this was the last demand he had to make on the Continent, and the British Tories wanted desperately to believe him. 

"But they had reckoned without the Czechs, who thought something of their liberties and didn’t intend to be given away. When the Nazi armies moved toward their borders, the Czechs mobilized and announced their will to fight. The French were pledged to come to their aid, and the Russians were pledged to join the French. Europe hung on the verge of war, and Hitler wasn’t ready for it; he backed down, his first big defeat—and Lanny imagined the rug-chewing that must be going on in Berchtesgaden, and wished he had stayed to see the show. But that joy in his heart didn’t last very long; he knew that Adi would never give up his purpose, and Rick wrote that the Tories would give up anything that wasn’t British. Lanny burned letters like these, taking no chance that they might somehow fall into the hands of his enemies."
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Lanny drove Beauty and Parsifal to England, since Marceline now had a career and could manage, stopping at Le Creusot on the way. Robbie was interested and Lanny too for a different reason, his reports to FDR. 

"What this elderly hawk-nosed moneymaster believed and desired affected the destinies of every Frenchman alive, and of millions of other persons who had never even heard his name. It seemed to Lanny Budd a defect in education for democracy, that the people knew so much about the politicians and so little about the men who made the politicians and paid their fares on the bandwagon."

Schneider told Lanny about his man in Berlin calling him in small hours to tell him in code about British and French having a row with German top and British citizens being arranged to return home by train.

"“Mon dieu, could I let Hitler have Skoda?” exclaimed the Baron. The answer was, “Jamais,” so he had routed Foreign Minister Bonnet out of bed and told him that France must definitely announce its support of Prague."

Schneider asked Lanny about Hitler, and Lanny suggested he read his book, which Schneider found a most original idea. Lanny told him about Hess.

"All this was of importance to Robbie Budd, since his deal with the Baron involved Pilsen and its great Skoda arms plant. The first thing Lanny did on reaching Paris was to type out an account of the munitions king’s distracted state of mind, and mail one copy to his father and the other to Gus Gennerich. He had already warned Robbie that war could not be postponed more than a year or two, and that Robbie’s financial arrangements should be based upon that certainty. It was a sign of the changing times that Robbie now took such advice seriously."

They drove through to Calais, not stopping in Paris to watch the ceremonies around the newly crowned king and queen of England visiting, and went strait to Wickthorpe, Beauty to join Frances, and Lanny had more significant other visitors at sicko meet and report about, apart from playing with his daughter. Lanny knew Captain Fritz Wiedemann who had been at Berghof during the Shuschnigg visit. 

"Captain Fritz Wiedemann was a large, powerfully built fellow with heavy dark eyebrows and lantern jaws; a fanatical Nazi, but also a suave man of the world. From him Lanny had made certain that he knew exactly what was going to happen to Austria—in fact, he had been one of the military men called in to tell the Austrian Chancellor what was going to happen to him."

Gerald Albany had just returned from a highly confidential meeting with Hitler, Ribbentrop, and Göring, and Wiedemann's visit was  bringing answers. Lanny had read official denials in papers that Wiedemann's visit had diplomatic significance, which meant the opposite.  

"British diplomatists proceeded upon the formula that a lie was an untruth told to a person who had a right to know the truth, and the British public was not included in that sacred roster." 

Halifax was to travel to Paris with the royal visit, which meant he was taking German proposals to French. Lanny knew Albany, Ceddy and so on wouldn't do talking in his presence, and he needed them to be not on guard when with him; he established his credentials by speaking casually to Wiedemann about Hess's seance with Madame Zyszynski. 

Irma was expecting, and they visited Beauty while the diplomats talked after dinner in the study. After they returned Lanny found that Wiedemann was leaving with Albany, so Ceddy relaxed with Lanny. 

Lanny began by asking why British wouldn't be decisive one way or another, and Ceddy said they weren't and didn't want to be ready for another war. Lanny led by being open about telling him him that he'd get full information from various people he met anyway, and only wondered if Schneider should be concerned about Skoda. Ceddy said he could tell him that Britain wasn't going to war over Czechoslovakia and France would have to do so alone. 

Lanny went to his room and sent off a report to the President that the republic of Masaryk and Beneš was going to be fed to the Nazi wolves . 

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Reading this series, sometimes it's hard to keep history separate from the characters that are devices, but here in this part the author says, speaking of all that had already gone on and suffered by Europe and Asia, 

"And now it seemed that what had happened so far was merely a shadow of holocausts and desolations ahead."

Which is startling, since this volume was published in midst of WWII, and most of U.S. or even Europe wasn't quite so aware of the scale yet. Not until the liberators witnessed the concentration camps post WWII were anyone other than Jews and nazis aware of the holocaust, and it took the meticulous German paperwork not yet destroyed as per orders due to their fighting and carrying on till end, that made the allies aware of the scale. 

But this author was aware, albeit only mentioning a few characters suffering directly, and his protagonist likewise is aware, despite just a glimpse here and there. 
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Lanny could no longer meet Rick openly, but instead they drove to lake district to be able to meet and talk. Lanny took Frances to Margy's home to go with Beauty for a visit, and she was thrilled. He met more people, and returned to Wickthorpe. Zoltan was in London, he asked Lanny if they could take care of some business in Germany, and so they went to Berlin. While Zoltan inspected art, Lanny met Goring who thought his boss ought to hear what Lanny said about Britain,  so he had him flown over. Lanny spoke to him, and was invited to stay on. He witnessed part of Czechoslovakia crisis, when Franck was given a dressing down. Hess told him he wished Lanny had brought Madame Zyszynski. 

He got a letter forwarded from Berlin, Hilde Donnerstein invited him to Obersalzberg and he walked over from Berghof. In course of exchanging social news, Hilde spoke of a Berlin astrologer named Riminescu, and thought it might be worth meeting him. Hess said it was a good idea, and so Lanny went to Munich. 

Riminescu cast his chart and looked worried. He held Lanny's hand, closed his eyes, and then told him a number of things, that he was American but born near, that he was wealthy, and that he'd been married twice. The last was known only to four people, and lanny denied it. Riminescu told him he would die in Hong Kong, and they argued about whether he would go there, having been told. Lanny discussed his work, and Riminescu needed help, so Lanny suggested he might send a person of influence who could help. He returned to Berghof and told Hess. 

When he became certain of information due to staying there and hearing things, he took leave to revisit Riminescu but drove via Switzerland and mailed his report to FDR with a copy to Rick, and drove to Munich. Riminescu had been picked up by Gestapo, put up at a top hotel and asked to prepare twelve charts. Lanny guessed one, and told him not to tell this to anybody else. He gave him his address at Bienvenu, and told him to contact when out of Germany.

Back at Berghof Lanny began to get clear insights into young nazis, and even their leader when he too Lanny to Kehlstein and spoke. He viewed himself, matter of factly, as a combination of Napoleon, Bismarck, Wagner and Karl Haushofer. Back at Berghof Lanny was invited by Hess to join them at Nuremberg for the party day, where blood flag was part of the ritual, blood being important in German mythology. He had to wait until it was over and then only could he make his excuses to his hosts in the name of business, so he could send off reports from across the border. He told them that adi had no intention of leaving alive anyone in the world who might differ. 

He arranged to meet Zoltan in Munich and meanwhile kept track of the Czech situation. Neville Chamberlain was flying to meet the German leader. Lanny went to meet Riminescu, but he and his secretary had disappeared. Lanny thought he'd get a letter some day, but never did. So Lanny and Zoltan looked at paintings, and met Baron Zinszollern, who told about Munich over lunch. When asked, he hadn't heard of Riminescu, but told about Miss Elvira Lust on Nymphenburgstrasse, and Elsa whom all the bigwigs consulted. 
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On 19th of September the radios blared the ultimatum given to Czechoslovakia by British and French, and Lanny paced his room. Then he wrote to Hess who invited him to Berghof. Lanny saw Unity Valkyrie Freeman-Mitford, daughter of Lord Redesdale and sister of Diana Moseley. Hess didn't conceal his dislike. Lanny met adi and counseled against war. He preferred to not accompany them to the next conference, at Godesberg, which ended with British and French declaring they could not take responsibility of advising Czechoslovakia to not to mobilise. Hungarians and Poles put in demand for their piece of Czechoslovakia. Russia warned Poland, Czechoslovakia and France mobilised, ... Lanny guessed that Hitler had demanded right to occupy Sudetenland immediately. He made a speech from Berlin, heard by Lanny and Zoltan over loudspeakers at Oktoberfest, calling Czechoslovakia a lie perpetrated by Beneš, that Germany had no other probkems and this was the last claim by Germany. 

"Every partly of light went out of Oktoberfest."

Neville Chamberlain was making a speech in the parliament and a message arrived in midst, that he read to them, he'd been invited by Hitler for another conference. He wept, the parliament cheered and wept, the queen mother wept,, all wept in relief that there was to be no war. The British delegation was put up at the same hotel as Lanny and Zoltan, and Lanny warned Ceddy that the rooms were certain to be bugged, and that the British shouldn't give in. Ceddy said decisions had been taken. Lanny congratulated Ceddy on having been presented with a son by Irma, and Ceddy was called away. 

Czechoslovakia was handed over by the powers for a kill and Beneš resigned, Poland occupied Teschen and Hungary it's own piece of Czechoslovakia,  and Germany occupied Karlsbad and Pilsen. Lanny visited Goring in his Obersalzberg chalet and was played a recording of voices of the two leaders at conference. He was horrified, but later unsure if it was genuine. Lanny visited adi in his Munich home, and was able to extract a personal prediction from him that next on agenda was Poland, and he assured Lanny it was a matter of six months. 

Lanny decided to return to Berlin to pick up a painting he'd found a client for, and the night before he left was what came to be known as Kristallnacht. He witnessed the atrocities against Jews perpetrated across Germany as he drove from Munich to Berlin. He wrapped up his work and drove across Belgium to Paris, and having mailed his report, flew to England to arrive at Wickthorpe . 
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The author mentions here the news about Lindbergh and the Cliveden set in their being pro German, the news about their affecting the policies or attempts thereof, and their denials of it all. Lindbergh being impressed with state of the art and ready for war air force of Germany, and people generally being against war, whether British people or German, parliament or Cliveden or generally U.S. or Lanny, is but natural though, especially in post air warfare era, and Upton Sinclair does mention that as well. 

And whether in those times with Hitler taking advantage thereof, or most other epochs when jihadists and Mongol hordes did the same, the dilemma faced by anyone peace loving is the same, whether one gives in to the war monger, the noisy party neighbour, the screaming brat, the provocative manipulating shrew, or descends to their level to war, scream, and win on their terms. Battles forced on Gods by warring demons are always of this nature. 
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Lanny took a steamer to N.Y. and called Gus Gennerich to fix an appointment with the President, but Gus Gennerich had died and there had been no way of letting him know. However, a procedure was in place, and Baker was the new contact. Lanny met FDR and his frustration at being able to do so little was helped by the wider perspective and focus he came to. FDR talked about Lincoln, and Lanny saw the two world leaders he had met on opposite sides, Hitler aligned with forces of dark and FDR with Light, as he came upon Lincoln memorial walking after the meeting. 
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