preserving comfort and respectability at the same time. His card made him known as Herr
Privatdozent Doktor der Philosophie Aloysius Winckler zu Sturmschatten. In a polite
philosophical voice he informed Lanny that he was in position to promote the reputation of
Detaze—or otherwise. The Privatdozent spoke as one having both authority and
determination; he didn't evade or drop his eyes, but said: "Sie sind ein Weltmann, Herr
Budd. You know that a great deal of money can be made from the sale of these paintings if
properly presented; and it happens that I am a Parteigenosse from the early days, the
intimate friend of persons of great influence. In past times I have rendered them services and
they have done the same for me. You understand how such things go."
Lanny said that he understood; but that this was not entirely a commercial undertaking, he
was interested in making known the work of a man whom he had loved in life and admired
still.
"Yes, yes, of course," said the stranger, his voice as smooth and purring as that of a high-priced
motor-car. "I understand what you want, and I am in position to give it to you. For the sum of
twenty thousand marks I can make Marcel Detaze a celebrated painter, and for the sum of fifty
thousand marks I can make him the initiator of a new era in representational art."
"Well, that would be fine," said Lanny. "But how can I know that you are able to do these
things?"
"For the sum of two thousand marks I will cause the publication of an excellent critical
account of Detaze, with reproductions of a couple of his works, in any daily newspaper of Berlin
which you may select. This, you understand, will be a test, and you do not have to pay until
the article appears. But it must be part of the understanding that if I produce such an
article, you agree to go ahead on one of the larger projects I have suggested. I am not a cheap
person, and am not interested in what you Americans call kleine Kartoffeln. You may write the
article yourself, but it would be wiser for you to provide me with the material and let me
prepare it, for, knowing the Berlin public, I can produce something which will serve your
purposes more surely."
So it came about that the morning on which Zoltan Kertezsi arrived at the hotel, Lanny put
into his hands a fresh newspaper containing an account of Detaze at once critically competent
and journalistically lively. Zoltan ran his eyes over it and exclaimed: "How on earth did you
do that?"
"Oh, I found a competent press agent," said the other. He knew that Zoltan had scruples,
whereas Zoltan's partner had left his in the Austrian town whence he had crossed into
Naziland.
Later that morning the Herr Privatdozent called and took Lanny for a drive. The stepson of
Detaze said that he wanted his stepfather to become the initiator of a new era in
representational painting, and offered to pay the sum of ten thousand marks per week for one
week preceding the show and two weeks during it, conditioned upon the producing of publicity
in abundant quantities and of a standard up to that of the sample. The Herr Privatdozent
accepted, and they came back to the hotel, where Zoltan, possibly not so innocent as he
appeared, sat down with them to map out a plan of campaign.
VIII
Suitable showrooms were engaged, and the ever dependable Jerry Pendleton saw to the
packing of the pictures at Bienvenu. He hired a camion, and took turns with the driver,
sleeping inside and coming straight through with that precious cargo. Beauty and her husband
came by train—there could have been no keeping her away, and anyhow, she was worth the
expenses of the journey as an auxiliary show. She was in her middle fifties, and with Lanny at
her side couldn't deny it, but she was still a blooming rose, and if you questioned what she had
once been, there were two most beautiful paintings to prove it. Nothing intrigued the crowd
more than to have her standing near so that they could make comparisons. The widow of this
initiator of a new era, and her son—but not the painter's son —no, these Negroid races run to
promiscuity, and as for the Americans, their divorces are a joke, they have a special town in
the wild and woolly West where the broken-hearted ladies of fashion stay for a few weeks in
order to get them, and meantime are consoled by cowboys and Indians.
For the "professional beauty" it was a sort of public reception, afternoons and evenings for
two weeks, and she did not miss a minute of it. A delightfully distinguished thing to be able to
invite your friends to an exhibition of which you were so unique a part: hostess, biographer,
and historian, counselor and guide—and in case of need assistant saleslady! Always she was
genial and gracious, an intimate of the great, yet not spurning one lowly lover of die schonen
Kunste. Zoltan paid her a memorable compliment, saying: "My dear Beauty Budd, I should
have asked you to marry me and travel about the world promoting pictures." Beauty, with her
best dimpled smile, replied: "Why didn't you?" (Mr. Dingle was off visiting one of his
mediums, trying to get something about Freddi, but instead getting long messages from his
father, who was so happy in the spirit world, and morally much improved over what he had
been—so he assured his son.)
There were still rich men in Germany. The steelmasters of the Ruhr, the makers of electrical
power, the owners of plants which could turn out the means of defense—all these were sitting
on the top of the Fatherland. Having wiped out the labor unions, they could pay low wages
without fear of strikes, and thus count upon profits in ever-increasing floods. They looked about
them for sound investments, and had learned ten years ago that one inflation-proof material was
diamonds and another was old masters. As a rule the moneylords didn't possess much culture,
but they knew how to read, and when they saw in one newspaper after another that a new
school of representational art had come to the front, they decided that they ought to have at
least one sample of this style in their collections. If they were elderly and retired they came to
the show; if they were middle-aged and busy they sent their wives or daugh ters. Twenty or
thirty thousand marks for a landscape did not shock them, on the contrary it made a Detaze
something to brag about. So it was that the profits of Lanny, his mother, and his half-sister —less
the ten per cent commission of Zoltan—covered twenty times over what they had paid to the
efficient Herr Privatdozent, and Zoltan suggested that they should pay this able promoter and
continue the splurge of glory for another week. Even Irma was impressed, and began to look at
the familiar paintings with a new eye. She wondered if it mightn't be better to save them all for
the palace with modern plumbing which she meant some day to have in England or France. To
her husband she remarked: "You see how much better everything goes when you settle down
and stop talking like a Red!"
IX
The Detaze show coincided in time with one of the strangest public spectacles ever staged in
history. The Nazis had laid the attempt to burn the Reichstag upon the Communists, while the
enemies of Nazism were charging that the fire had been a plot of the Hitlerites to enable them
to seize power. The controversy was brought to a head by the publication in London of the
Brown Book of the Hitler Terror, which charged that the Nazi Chief of Police of Breslau, one
of the worst of their terrorists, had led a group of S.A. men through the tunnel from Göring's
residence into the Reichstag building; they had scattered loads of incendiary materials all over
the place, while another group had brought a half-witted Dutch tramp into the building by a
window and put him to work starting fires with a domestic gas-lighter. This was what the whole
world was coming to believe, and the Nazis couldn't very well dodge the issue. For six or seven
months they had been preparing evidence, and in September they began a great public trial. They
charged the Dutchman with the crime, and three Bulgarian Communists and a German with
being his accessories. The issue thus became a three-months' propaganda battle, not merely in
Germany but wherever news was read and public questions discussed. Ten thousand pages of
testimony were taken, and seven thousand electrical transcriptions made of portions of the
testimony for broadcasting.
The trial body was the Fourth Criminal Senate of the German Supreme Court in Leipzig;
oddly enough, the same tribunal before which, three years previously, Adolf Hitler had
proclaimed that "heads will roll in the sand." Now he was going to make good his threat.
Unfortunately he had neglected to "co-ordinate" all five of the court judges; perhaps he didn't
dare, because of world opinion. There was some conformity to established legal procedure, and
the result was such a fiasco that the Nazis learned a lesson, and never again would political
suspects have a chance to appear in public and cross-question their accusers.
In October and November the court came to Berlin, and it was a free show for persons who
had leisure; particularly for those who in their secret hearts were pleased to see the Nazis
humiliated. The five defendants had been kept in chains for seven months and wore chains in the
courtroom during the entire trial. The tragedy of the show was provided by the Dutchman, van
der Lubbe, half-blind as well as half-witted; mucus drooled from his mouth and nose, he giggled
and grinned, made vague answers, sat in a stupor when let alone. The melodrama was supplied by
the Bulgarian Dimitroff, who "stole the show"; a scholar as well as a man of the world, witty,
alert, and with the courage of a lion, he turned the trial into anti-Nazi propaganda; defying his
persecutors, mocking them, driving them into frenzies of rage. Three times they put him out
of the room, but they had to bring him back, and again there was sarcasm, defiance, and
exposition of revolutionary aims.
It soon became clear that neither Dimitroff nor the other defendants had ever known van der
Lubbe or had anything to do with the Reichstag fire. The mistake had arisen because there was a
parliamentary archivist in the Reichstag building who happened to resemble the half-witted
Dutchman, and it was with him that the Communist Torgler had been seen in conversation. The
proceedings gradually turned into a trial of the Brown Book, with the unseen British
committee as prosecutors and the Nazis as defendants.
Goebbels appeared and denounced the volume, and Dimitroff mocked him and made him
into a spectacle. Then came the corpulent head of the Prussian state; it was a serious matter
for him, because the incendiaries had operated from his residence and it was difficult indeed to
imagine that he hadn't known what was going on. Under the Bulgarian's stinging accusations
Göring lost his temper completely and had to be saved by the presiding judge, who ordered
Dimitroff dragged out, while Göring screamed after him: "I am not afraid of you, you
scoundrel. I am not here to be questioned by you . . . You crook, you belong to the gallows!
You'll be sorry yet, if I catch you when you come out of prison!" Not very dignified conduct
for a Minister-Präsident of Prussia and Reichsminister of all Germany!
X
During these entertaining events two communications came to Lanny Budd at his hotel. The
first was painful indeed; a cablegram from his father, saying that the newly elected directors of
Budd Gunmakers had met, and that both Robbie and his brother had been cheated of their
hopes. Seeing the younger on the verge of victory, Lawford had gone over to a Wall Street
group which had unexpectedly appeared on the scene, backed by the insurance company which
held the Budd bonds. The thing which Grandfather Samuel had dreaded and warned against all
his life—Budd's had been taken out of the hands of the family!
"Oh, Lanny, how terrible!" exclaimed Irma. "We should have been there to attend to it."
"I doubt if we could have done anything," he replied. "If Robbie had thought so, he would
surely have cabled us."
"What Uncle Lawford did was an act of treason to the family!"
"He is that kind of man; one of those dark souls who commit crimes. I have often had the
thought that he might shoot Robbie rather than let him get the prize which both have been
craving all their lives."
"What does he get out of the present arrangement?"
"The satisfaction of keeping Robbie out; and, of course, the Wall Street crowd may have paid
him. Anyhow, Robbie has his contract, so they can't fire him."
"I bought all that stock for nothing!" exclaimed the young wife.
"Not for nothing, but for a high price, I fear. You had best cable Uncle Joseph to look into the
matter thoroughly and advise you whether to sell it or hold on. Robbie, no doubt, will be
writing us the details."
The other communication was very different; a letter addressed to Lanny in his own
handwriting, and his heart gave a thump when he saw it, for he had given that envelope to
Hugo Behr. It was postmarked Munich and Lanny tore it open quickly, and saw that Hugo had
cut six letters out of a newspaper and pasted them onto a sheet of paper—a method of
avoiding identification well known to kidnapers and other conspirators. "Jawohl" can be one
word or two. With space after the first two letters, as Hugo had pasted them, it told Lanny that
Freddi Robin was in Dachau and that he was well.
So the American playboy forgot about his father's lost hopes and his own lost heritage. A
heavy load was lifted from his mind, and he sent two cablegrams, one to Mrs. Dingle in Juan—
the arrangement being that the Robins were to open such messages—and the other to Robbie
in Newcastle: "Clarinet music excellent," that being the code. To the latter message the dutiful
son added: "Sincere sympathy don't take it too hard we still love you." Robbie would take this
