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reminding himself that these young men had been reared on Mein Kampf; he had to keep
reminding his wife, who had never read that book, but instead had heard Lord Wickthorpe cite
passages from Lenin, proclaiming doctrines of political cynicism which sounded embarrassingly
like Hitler's.
VII
Heinrich Jung also had earned a right to hospitality, so he and his devoted little blue-eyed
Hausfrau were invited to a dinner which was an outstanding event in her life. She had
presented the Fatherland with three little Aryans, so she didn't get out very often, she confessed.
She exclaimed with naive delight over the wonders of the Hotel Adlon, and had to have Irma
assure her that her home-made dress was adequate for such a grand occasion. Heinrich talked
N.S.D.A.P. politics, and incidentally fished around to find out what had happened in the case
of Johannes Robin, about which there was no end of curiosity in party circles, he reported.
Lanny could only say that he had orders not to talk. A little later he asked: "Have you seen Frau
Reichsminister Goebbels since our meeting?"
Yes, Heinrich had been invited to tea at her home; so Lanny didn't have to ask who had
manifested the curiosity in party circles. Presently Heinrich said that Magda had wished to
know whether Mr. and Mrs. Budd would care to be invited to one of her receptions. Irma
hastened to say that she would be pleased, and Heinrich undertook to communicate this
attitude. So it is that one advances in die grosse Welt; if one has money, plus the right clothes
and manners, one can go from drawing-room to drawing-room, filling one's stomach with choice
food and drink and one's ears with choice gossip.
Hugo Behr, the Gausportführer, had expressed his desire to meet Lanny again. Heinrich,
reporting this, said: "I think I ought to warn you, Lanny. Hugo and I are still friends, but there
are differences of opinion developing between us." Lanny asked questions and learned that some
among the Nazis were impatient because the Führer was not carrying out the radical economic
planks upon which he had founded the party. He seemed to be growing conservative, allying
himself with Goring's friends, the great industrialists, and forgetting the promises he had
made to the common man. Heinrich said it was easy to find fault, but it was the duty of good
party members to realize what heavy burdens had been heaped upon the Führer's shoulders, and
to trust him and give him time. He had to reorganize the government, and the new men he put
in power had to learn their jobs before they could start on any fundamental changes. However,
there were people who were naturally impatient, and perhaps jealous, unwilling to give the
Führer the trust he deserved; if they could have their way, the party would be destroyed by
factional strife before it got fairly started.
Heinrich talked at length, and with great seriousness, as always, and his devoted little wife
listened as if it were the Führer himself speaking. From the discourse Lanny gathered that the
dissension was really serious; the right wing had won all along the line, and the left was in
confusion. Gregor Strasser, who had taken such a dressing down from Hitler in Lanny's
presence, had resigned his high party posts and retired to the country in disgust. Ernst Rohm,
Chief of Staff of the S.A. and one of Hitler's oldest friends, was active in protest and reported to
be in touch with Schleicher, the "labor general," whom Hitler had ousted from the
chancellorship. A most dangerous situation, and Hugo was making a tragic mistake in letting
himself be drawn into it.
"But you know how it is," Heinrich explained. "Hugo was a Social-Democrat, and when the
Marxist poison has once got into your veins it's hard to get it out."
Lanny said yes, he could understand; he had been in that camp a while himself; but there
was no use expecting everything to be changed in a few months. "You have two elements in your
party, Nationalism and Socialism, and I suppose it isn't always easy to preserve the balance
between them."
"It will be easy if only they trust the Führer. He knows that our Socialism must be German
and fitted to the understanding of the German people. He will give it to them as rapidly as they
can adjust themselves to it."
After their guests had left, Lanny said to his wife: "If we want to collect the dirt, Hugo's the
boy to give it to us."
VIII
Mama had agreed with Lanny and Irma that there was nothing to be gained by telling the
family in Paris about Freddi's disappearance. They could hardly fail to talk about it, and so
imperil the fate of Johannes. It might even be that Hansi or Bess would insist on coming into
Germany—and the least hint of that threw poor Mama into another panic. So Lanny wrote
vague letters to his mother: "Everything is being arranged. The less publicity the better. Tell
our friends to go to Juan and rest; living is cheap there, and I feel sure that times are going to
be hard financially." Little hints like that!
Beauty herself didn't go to Juan. Her next letter was written on stationery of the Chateau de
Balincourt. "Do you remember Lady Caillard? She is the widow of Sir Vincent Caillard, who was
one of Sir Basil's closest associates in Vickers. She is an ardent spiritualist, and has published a
pamphlet of messages received from her husband in the spirit world. She is immensely impressed
by Madame, and wants to borrow her for as long as Sir Basil will spare her. He invited me out
here, and we have had several seances. One thing that came up worries me. Tecumseh said: 'There
is a man who speaks German. Does anyone know German?' Sir Basil said: 'I know a little,' and the
control said: 'Clarinet ist verstimmt.' That was all. Madame began to moan, and when she
came out of the trance she was greatly depressed and could do no more that day. I didn't get
the idea for a while. Now I wonder, can there be anything the matter with your Clarinet? I shall
say nothing to anybody else until I hear from you."
So there it was again; one of those mysterious hints out of the subconscious world. The word
verstimmt can mean either "out of tune" or "out of humor." Beauty had known that "Clarinet"
meant Freddi, and it was easy to imagine Tecumseh getting that out of her subconscious mind;
but Beauty had no reason to imagine that Freddi was in trouble. Was it to be supposed that
when Beauty sat in a "circle," her subconscious mind became merged with her son's, and his
worries passed over into hers? Or was it easier to believe that some Socialist had been kicked
or beaten or shot into the spirit world by the Nazis and was now trying to bring help to his
comrade?
Lanny sent a telegram to his mother: "Clarinet music interesting send more if possible." He
decided that here was a way he could pass some time while waiting upon the convenience of
Minister-Prasident Goring. Like Paris and London, Berlin was full of mediums and fortune
tellers of all varieties; it was reported that the Führer himself consulted an astrologer—oddly
enough, a Jew. Here was Lanny, obliged to sit around indefinitely, and with no heart for social
life, for music or books. Why not take a chance, and see if he could get any further hints from
that underworld which had surprised him so many times?
Irma was interested, and they agreed to go separately to different mediums, thus doubling
their chances. Maybe not all the spirits had been Nazified, and the young couple could get ahead
of Goring in that shadowy realm!
IX
So there was Lanny being ushered into the fashionable apartment of one of the most famous
of Berlin's clairvoyants, Madame Diseuse. (If she had been practicing in Paris she would have
been Frau Wahrsagerin.) You had to be introduced by a friend, and sittings were by
appointment, well in advance; but this was an emergency call, arranged by Frau Ritter von
Fiebewitz, and was to cost a hundred marks. No Arabian costumes, or zodiacal charts, or other
hocus-pocus, but a reception-room with the latest furniture of tubular light metal, and an
elegant French lady with white hair and a St. Germain accent. She sometimes produced physical
phenomena, and spoke with various voices in languages of which she claimed not to know a
word. The seance was held in a tiny interior room which became utterly dark when a soft
fluorescent light was turned off.
There Lanny sat in silence for perhaps twenty minutes, and had about concluded that his
hundred marks had been wasted, when he heard a sort of cooing voice, like a child's, saying in
English: "What is it that you want, sir?" He replied: "I want news about a young friend who
may or may not be in the spirit world." After another wait the voice said: "An old gentleman
comes. He says you do not want him."
Lanny had learned that you must always be polite to any spirit. He said: "I am always glad to
meet an old friend. Who is he?"
So came an experience which a young philosopher would retain as a subject of speculation
for the rest of his life. A deep masculine voice seemed to burst the tiny room, declaring: "Men
have forgotten the Word of God:" Lanny didn't have to ask: "Who are you?" for it was just as
if he were sitting in the study of a rather dreary New England mansion with hundred-year-old
furniture, listening to his Grandfather Samuel expounding Holy Writ. Not the feeble old man
with the quavering voice who had said that he would not be there when Lanny came again,
but the grim gunmaker of the World War days who had talked about sin, knowing that Lanny
was a child of sin—but all of us were that in the sight of the Lord God of Sabaoth.
"All the troubles in the world are caused by men ceasing to hear the Word of God,"
announced this surprising voice in the darkness. "They will continue to suffer until they hear
and obey. So is it, world without end, amen."
"Yes, Grandfather," said Lanny, just as he had said many times in the ancestral study.
Wishing to be especially polite, he asked: "Is this really you, Grandfather?"
"All flesh is grass, and my voice is vain, except that I speak the words which God has given to
men. I have been young, and now am old; yet have I not seen the righteous forsaken, nor his
seed begging bread."
Either that was the late president of Budd Gunmakers, or else a highly skilled actor! Lanny
waited a respectful time, and then inquired: "What is it you wish of me, Grandfather?"
"You have not heeded the Word!" exploded the voice.
Lanny could think of many Words to which this statement might apply; so he waited, and after
another pause the voice went on: "Swear now therefore unto me by the Lord, that thou wilt
not cut off my seed after me."
Lanny knew only too well what that meant. The old man had objected strenuously to the
practice known as birth control. He had wanted grandchildren, plenty of them, because that was
the Lord's command. Be fruitful and multiply and replenish the earth. It had been one of
Samuel Budd's obsessions, and the first time Irma had been taken to see him he had quoted
the words of old King Saul to David. But Irma had disregarded the injunction; she didn't want
a lot of babies, she wanted to have a good time while she was young. The price which nature
exacts for babies is far too high for fashionable ladies to pay. So now the old man had come
back from the grave!
Or was it just Lanny's subconscious mind? His guilty conscience —plus that of Irma's, since
she was defying not merely Lanny's grandfather in the spirit world, but her own mother in this
world! A strange enough phenomenon in either case.
"I will bear your words in mind, Grandfather," said Lanny, with the tactfulness which had
become his very soul. "How am I to know that this really is you?"
"I have already taken steps to make sure that you know," replied the voice. "But do not try to
put me off with polite phrases."
That was convincing, and Lanny was really quite awestricken. But still, he wasn't going to
forget about Freddi. "Grandfather, do you remember Bess's husband, and his young brother?
Can you find out anything about him?"
But Grandfather could be just as stubborn as Grandson. "Remember the Word of the Lord,"
the voice commanded; and then no more. Lanny spoke two or three times, but got no answer.
At last he heard a sigh in the darkness, and the soft fluorescent light was switched on, and
there sat Madame Diseuse, asking in a dull, tired voice: "Did you get what you wanted?"
X
Lanny arrived at the hotel just a few minutes before Irma, who had consulted two other
mediums, chosen from advertisements in the newspapers because they had English names.
"Well, did you get anything?" she asked, and Lanny said: "Nothing about Clarinet. Did you?"
"I didn't get anything at all. It was pure waste of time. One of the mediums was supposed to
be a Hindu woman, and she said I would get a letter from a handsome dark lover. The other
was a greasy old creature with false teeth that didn't fit, and all she said was that an old man
was trying to talk to me. She wouldn't tell me his name, and all he wanted was for me to learn
some words."
"Did you learn them?"
"I couldn't help it; he made me repeat them three times, and he kept saying: 'You will know
what they mean.' They sounded like they came from the Bible."
"Say them!" exclaimed Lanny.
"And that thou wilt not destroy my name out of my father's house."
"Oh, my God, Irma! It's a cross-correspondence!"
"What is that?"
"Don't you remember the first time you met Grandfather, he quoted a verse from the Bible,
telling you to have babies, and not to interfere with the Lord's will?"
"Yes, but I don't remember the words."
"That is a part of what he said. He came to me just now and gave me the beginning of it.
'Swear now therefore unto me by the Lord, that thou wilt not cut off my seed after me, and
that thou wilt not destroy my name out of my father's house.'"
"Lanny, how perfectly amazing!" exclaimed the young wife.
"He said he had already taken steps to convince me that it was really he. He had probably
