Also, it means that the spirit of Freddi Robin possesses the whole of Bienvenu. The frail little fellow looks like his father, acts like him, and keeps him in everybody’s thoughts; even the visitors, the guests. Everybody has heard rumors that Johannes Robin has been deprived of his fortune by the Nazis, and that his grandchild is here, a refugee and pensioner; everybody is interested in him, asks questions, and starts talking about the father—where is he, and what do you think, and what are you doing about it? The fate of Freddi Robin overshadows even the Barnes fortune, even the twenty-three-million-dollar baby! Bienvenu becomes as it were a haunted house, a somber and serious place where people fall to talking about politics, and where the frivolous ones do not feel at home. Irma Barnes certainly never meant to choose that kind of atmosphere!
III
There wasn’t anything definite the matter with Lady Caillard, so far as any doctor could find out; but she had got her mind thoroughly made up that she was going to join her "Vinnie" in the spirit world, and sure enough, in the month of January she "passed on." The funeral was held, and then her will was read. She had left to her friend Mrs. Parsifal Dingle her large clock with the gold and ivory bird that sang; a pleasant memento of "Birdie," and one about which there would be no controversy. The medium to whom the Vickers stock had been promised got nothing but a headache out of it, for the directors of the huge concern were determined to protect Sir Vincent’s son and daughter, and they worked some sort of hocus-pocus with the stock; they "called" it, and since the estate didn’t have the cash to put up, the company took possession of the stock and ultimately the legitimate heirs got it. There was a lot of fuss about it in the papers, and Lanny was glad his mother and his stepfather were not mixed up in it.
With the proceeds of their dramatic success Nina and Rick had got a small car. Rick couldn’t drive, on account of his knee, but his wife drove, and now they brought the Dingles to the Riviera, and stayed for a while as guests in the villa. Rick used Kurt’s old studio to work on an anti-Nazi play, based on the Brown Book, the stories Lanny had told him, and the literature Kurt and Heinrich had been sending him through the years. It would be called a melodrama, Rick said—because the average Englishman refused to believe that there could be such people as the Nazis, or that such things could be happening in Europe in the beginning of the year 1934. Rick said furthermore that when the play was produced, Lanny would no longer be able to pose as a fellow-traveler of the Hitlerites, for they would certainly find out where the play had been written.
Lanny was glad to have this old friend near, the one person to whom he could talk out his heart. Brooding over the problem of Freddi Robin day and night, Lanny had about made up his mind to go to Berlin, ask for another interview with General Göring, and put his cards on the table, saying: "Exzellenz, I have learned that my brother-in-law’s brother is a prisoner in Dachau, and I would like very much to take him out of Germany. I have about two hundred thousand marks in a Berlin bank which I got from sales of my stepfather’s paintings, and I have an equal amount in a New York bank which I earned as commissions on old masters purchased in your country. I would be glad to turn these sums over to you to use in your propaganda, in return for the freedom of my friend."
Rick said: "But you can’t do such a thing, Lanny! It would be monstrous."
"You mean he wouldn’t take the money?"
"I haven’t any doubt that he’d take it. But you’d be aiding the Nazi cause."
"I don’t think he’d use the money for that. I’m just saying so to make it sound respectable. He’d salt the New York funds away, and spend the German part on his latest girl friend."
"You say that to make it sound respectable to yourself," countered Rick. "You don’t know what he’d spend the money for, and you can’t get away from the fact that you’d be strengthening the Nazi propaganda. It’s just as preposterous as your idea of giving Göring information about British and French public men."
"I wouldn’t give him any real information, Rick. I would only tell him things that are known to our sort."
"Göring is no fool and you can’t make him one. Either you’d give him something he wants, or you wouldn’t get what you want. He has made that perfectly plain to you, and that’s why Freddi is still in Dachau—if he is."
"You think I have to leave him there?"
"You do, unless you can work out some kind of jailbreak."
"I’d have to pay somebody, Rick—even if it was only a jailer."
"There’d be no great harm in paying a jailer, because the amount would be small, and you’d be undermining the Nazi discipline. Every prisoner who escapes helps to do that."
"You think I did wrong to help Johannes out?"
"I don’t think that made much difference, because Johannes would have given up anyhow; he’s that sort of man. He thinks about himself and not about a cause."
"You wouldn’t have done it in his place?"
"It’s hard to say, because I’ve never been tortured and I can’t be sure how I’d stand it. But what I should have done is plain enough-hang myself in my cell, or open my veins, rather than let Göring get hold of any foreign exchange to use in keeping his spies and thugs at work."
IV
Rick talked along the same line to Mama and Rahel; he was the only one who had the courage to do it. He spoke gently, and with pity for their tears, but he told them that the only way he knew of helping Freddi was by writing an anti-Nazi play. He bade them ask themselves what Freddi would want them to do. There could be no doubt about the answer, for Freddi was a devoted Socialist, and would rather die than give help to the enemies of his cause. Rahel could see that, and said so. Mama could see it, also—but couldn’t bring herself to say it.
"Consider this," persisted Rick. "Suppose that what Göring wanted of Freddi was to betray some of his comrades. It’s quite possible that that may be happening; and would he pay that price for his freedom?"
"Of course he wouldn’t," admitted the young wife.
"Well, money’s the same thing. The Nazis want foreign exchange so they can buy weapons and the means to make weapons. They want it so they can pay their agents and carry on their propaganda in foreign lands. And in the end it adds up to more power for Nazism, and more suffering for Jews and Socialists. These Hitlerites aren’t through; they never can be through so long as they live, because theirs is a predatory system; it thrives on violence, and would perish otherwise. It has to have more and more victims, and if it gets money from you it uses the money to get more money from the next lot. So whatever resources we have or can get, have to go to fighting them, to making other people understand what Nazism is, what a menace it represents to everything that you and I and Freddi stand for."