Lanny said he was sure that Seine Exzellenz must be a lover of art; he assumed that the new furnishings in the official residence— that great black table and the gold velvet curtains—must represent Seine Exzellenz’s taste. The staff officer admitted that this was so, and promised to mention Detaze to the great man. Lanny said that during the past three months he had been in London, Paris, New York, Cannes, and Vienna; the young Nazi, who had never been outside of Germany, was impressed in spite of himself, and wanted to know what the outside world was saying about the Führer and his achievements. Lanny said he was afraid they were not getting a very fair picture; apparently the National Socialist representatives abroad were not serving their cause too efficiently. He told of things he had heard, from various persons having important titles and positions; also of efforts he had made to explain and justify— the latter being in reality things that he had heard Lord Wickthorpe say. Lanny added that he had some suggestions which he would be glad to make to Seine Exzellenz if this busy man could spare the time to hear them. The young staff officer replied that he was sure this would be the case.
Not once did Lanny mention the name of Robin. He wanted to see if the Oberleutnant would bring it up; for that would give him an idea whether Göring had taken the staff officer into his confidence. Near the end of the evening, while Irma was off practicing her German on the tall and rather gawky country lady who was the Frau Oberleutnant, the officer said: "By the way, Herr Budd, did you ever hear any more from your young Jewish friend?"
"Not a word, Herr Oberleutnant."
"That is certainly a strange thing."
"I had been hoping for some results from the inquiries which you were kind enough to say you would carry on."
"I have done all that I could think of, Herr Budd, but with no results."
"It was my idea that in the confusion of last spring, various groups had been acting more or less independently, and the records might be imperfect."
"I assure you we don’t do things that way in Germany, Herr Budd. In the office of the Geheime Staats-Polizei is a complete card-file covering every case of any person who is under arrest for any offense or under any charge of even the remotest political nature. I don’t suppose that your friend could have been arrested, say for drunk driving."
"He does not drink and he does not drive, Herr Oberleutnant. He plays delicately and graciously upon the clarinet, and is a devoted student of your classics. If you should give him the beginning of any quotation from Goethe he would complete it and tell you in what work it was to be found."
"It is really too bad, Herr Budd. If there is anything you can suggest to me"
"It has occurred to me that the young man might be in some place of confinement outside of Prussia, and so might not appear in your police card-file. Suppose, for example, that he was in Dachau?"
Lanny was watching his dinner companion closely; but if the officer smelled the rat, he was a skillful actor. "Your friend could not be in Dachau," he declared, "unless he were a Bavarian. Being a Berliner, he would be in Oranienburg or some other place near by. However, if you wish, I will cause an inquiry to be made through the Reichsregierung, and see if anything can be turned up."
"That is most kind of you," declared Lanny. "It is more than I should have ventured to ask in a time when you and your associates have your hands so full. Permit me to mention that while the young man’s name is actually Freddi, some official may have assumed it to be Friedrich, or they might have listed him as Fritz. Also it is conceivable that some one may have set him down as Rabinowitz, the name which his father bore in the city of Lodz."
The staff officer took out his notebook and duly set down these items. "I will promise to do my best, Herr Budd," he declared.
"Perhaps it will be better if you do not trouble Seine Exzellenz with this matter," added the visitor. "I know that he must be the busiest man in the world, and I do not want him to think that I have come to Berlin to annoy him with my personal problems."
Said the staff officer: "He is one of those great men who know how to delegate authority and not let himself be burdened with details. He has time for social life, and I am sure he will be interested to hear what you have to report from the outside world."
Said the undercover diplomat: "I got some reactions of the British Foreign Office to Seine Exzellenz’s speech in Geneva. Lord Wickthorpe was really quite stunned by it. You know how it is, the British have been used to having their own way of late years— perhaps much too easily, Herr Leutnant. I doubt if it is going to be so easy for them in future!"
22. Still Get Money, Boy!
I
IT WAS Lanny’s hope that as soon as his arrival was announced in the papers he would receive some sort of communication from whoever had taken the trouble to write that Freddi was in Dachau. He was careful in his newspaper interviews to declare himself a non-political person, hoping that some of his former acquaintances among the Social-Democrats would take the hint. But the days passed, and no letter or telephone call was received. Lanny had got from Rahel a list of Freddi’s former comrades; most of them would probably be under arrest, or in hiding, "sleeping out," as it was called, never two nights in the same place. Before trying to meet any of them, it seemed wiser for Lanny to try out his Nazi contacts. It would be difficult to combine the two sorts of connections.
He went to call on Heinrich Jung, who burst into his customary excited account of his activities. He had recently come back from the Parteitag in Nürnberg; the most marvelous of all Parteitage—it had been five days instead of one, and every one of the hundred and twenty hours had been a new climax, a fresh revelation of das Wunder, die Schönheit, der Sieg hidden in the soul of National Socialism. "Honestly, Lanny, the most cynical persons were moved to tears by what they saw there!" Lanny couldn’t summon any tears, but he was able to bring smiles to his lips and perhaps a glow to his cheeks.
"Do you know Nürnberg?" asked Heinrich. Lanny had visited that old city, with a moat around it and houses having innumerable sharp gables, crowded into narrow streets which seldom ran straight for two successive blocks. An unpromising place for the convention of a great political party, but the Nazis had chosen it because of its historic associations, the memories of the old Germany they meant to bring back to life. Practical difficulties were merely a challenge to their powers of organization; they would show the world how to take care of a million visitors to a city whose population was less than half that. Suburbs of tents had been erected on the outskirts, and the Stormtroopers and Hitler Youth had slept on straw, six hundred to each great tent, two blankets to each person. There had been rows of field kitchens with aluminum spouts from which had poured endless streams of goulash or coffee. Heinrich declared that sixty thousand Hitler Youth had been fed in half an hour—three half-hours per day for five days!
These were specially selected youth, who had labored diligently all year to earn this reward. They had been brought by special trains and by trucks, and had marched in with their bands, shaking the air with songs and the great Zeppelin Meadow with the tramp of boots. For five days and most of five nights they had shouted and sting themselves hoarse, making up in their fervor for all the other forty-four political parties which they had wiped out of existence in Germany. Only one party now, one law, one faith, one baptism! A temporary hall had been built, accommodating a small part of the hundred and sixty thousand official delegates; the others listened to loud-speakers all over the fields, and that served just as well, because there didn’t have to be any voting. Everything was settled by the Führer, and the million others had only to hear the speeches and shout their approval.