In the evening the expedition entrained for Calais; four more of them now: Irma and her husband, her maid and her Feathers—who, as Irma said over and over, was a fool, but a good one, doing all the errands, the shopping, and telephoning; keeping the accounts and getting hopelessly mixed up in them; talcing her scoldings with tears, and promising to reform and doing her best, poor soul, but not having it in her, since she had been brought up as a lady, and thought about her own ego more than she could ever think about her job.
There were now twice as many boxes and bags, and twice as much fuss, but carried on in low tones, because Irma was strict about having the dignity of the family preserved. It was a conspicuous family, and there were reporters at the station to see them off and to ask about their proposed trip. Millions of people would read about their doings and get vicarious thrills; millions would admire them and millions would envy them, but only a small handful would love them—such appeared to be the way of the world.
VII
Next morning the party emerged on the station platform of the ancient seaport and bathing resort. They waited while Lanny got busy on the telephone and ascertained that the yacht had not yet been reported. They were loaded into taxis and taken to the Hotel du Commerce et Excelsior, where the mountain of luggage was stacked in a room and Feathers set to watch over it. A glorious spring day, and the family set out to find a point of vantage from which they could watch the approach of the trim white Bessie Budd. Irma and Lanny had a memory of this spectacle, never to be forgotten: the day at Ramsgate when they had been trying to get married in a hurry, and the yacht and its gay-spirited owner had provided them with a way of escape from the dominion of the Archbishop of Canterbury.
Now the yacht was going to transport them to Utopia, or to some tropical isle with an ivory tower on it—any place in the world where there were no Nazis yelling and parading and singing songs about Jewish blood spurting from the knife. Oil-burning vessels make no smudges of smoke on the horizon, so they must look for a dim speck that grew gradually larger. Many such appeared from the east, but when they got larger they were something else. So the party went to lunch, fourteen at one long table, and it was quite a job getting them settled and all their orders taken and correctly distributed. Belonging to the important classes as they did, neither they nor their servants must do anything to attract attention to themselves in public, and this was impressed on a member of the family even at the age of three. Hush, hush, Baby!
They sat on the esplanade and watched all afternoon. Some of them took a swim, some looked at the sights of the town—the four-hundred-year-old bastion, the citadel, the church of Notre Dame with a painting by Rubens. They bought postcards and mailed them to various friends. Every now and then they would inspect the harbor again, but still there was no trim white Bessie Budd. Again they had tables put together in the restaurant, and the fourteen had supper; they went out and watched till dark—but still no sign of the yacht.
They were beginning to be worried. Johannes had set a definite hour for leaving Bremerhaven, and he was a precise man who did everything on time and had his employees do the same. If anything unforeseen had turned up he would surely have telegraphed or telephoned. He had specified in his last letter what hotel they should go to, so that he would know where to look for them. They had sailed so often with him that they knew how many hours it would take to reach Calais, and it had been planned for the yacht to arrive simultaneously with the train from Paris. She was now twelve hours overdue.
Something must have happened, and they spent time discussing possibilities. Private yachts which are properly cared for do not have machinery trouble in calm weather, nor do they butt into the Frisian islands on the way from Germany to France. They travel as safely by night as by day; but of course some fisherman’s boat or other obstruction might conceivably have got in the way. "Tire trouble!" said Lanny, the motorist.
VIII
When it was bedtime and still no word, he went to the telephone and put in a call for the yacht Bessie Budd at Bremerhaven—that being the quickest way to find out if she had taken her departure. Hansi and Bess sat with him, and after the usual delays he heard a guttural voice saying in German: "Dieselmotorjacht Bessie Budd."
"Wer spricht?" inquired Lanny.
"Pressmann."
"Wer ist Pressmann?"
"Reichsbetriebszellenabteilung Gruppenführerstelhertreter." The Germans carry such titles proudly and say them rapidly.
"What are you doing on board the yacht?"
"Auskmift untersagt," replied the voice. Information forbidden!
"But the yacht was supposed to sail yesterday!"
"Auskunft untersagt."
"Aber, bitte—"
"Leider, nicbt erlaubt"—and that was all. "Sorry, not permitted!" The receiver clicked, and Lanny, aghast, listened on a dead wire.
"My God!" he exclaimed. "Can the Nazis have seized the Bessie Budd?" Hansi went white and Bess dug her nails into the palms of her hands. "Why would they do that!" she exclaimed.
"I don’t know," answered Lanny, "unless one of them wanted a yacht."
"They have arrested Papa!" whispered Hansi. He looked as if he was about to keel over, and Bess caught him by the shoulders. "Oh, Hansi! Poor Hansi!" It was characteristic that she thought of him. He was the one who would suffer most!
It was as if a bolt of lightning had fallen from the sky and blasted their plans, turned their pleasures into a nightmare of suffering. Utter ruin, doom without escape—that was the way it appeared, and none could think of anything to say to comfort the others. More than thirty-six hours had passed since the scheduled sailing, and was it conceivable that Johannes would have delayed that length of time to get word to his friends? If any member of the family was at liberty, would that person have failed to communicate?
Just one other possibility: they might have been "tipped off" and have made their escape. They might be on their way out of Germany; or they might be hiding somewhere, not daring to wire. In the latter case they would use the method which they had already resorted to, of an unsigned letter. If such a letter was on the way it was to be expected in the morning.
"I’ll try Berlin," said Lanny. Anything to break that dreadful spell of inaction! He put in a call for the Robin palace, and when he got the connection, an unfamiliar voice answered. Lanny asked if Johannes Robin was there, and the stranger tried to find out who was calling; when Lanny gave his name, the other started to put him through a questioning as to his reasons for calling. When Lanny insisted upon knowing to whom he was talking, the speaker abruptly hung up. And that again could mean only one thing: the Nazis had seized the palace!
"I must go and help Papa!" exclaimed Hansi, and started up as if to run to the station right away, or perhaps to the airplane field if there was one. Lanny and Bess caught him at the same moment. "Sit down," commanded the brother-in-law, "and be sensible. There’s not a thing you can do in Germany but get yourself killed."
"I certainly must try, Lanny."
"You certainly must not! There’s nobody they would better like to get hold of."
"I will go under another name."