When that movement came to an end, they asked for something else. Lanny’s fingers began to fly, and there came rippling out upon the air a stream of lovely notes, a beautifully woven pattern of sound, gentle murmurs in the bass and little bird-songs in the treble—the Waldweben from Siegfried. The Führer loved Wagner above all other composers, and the Nazis had taken him over, drums and trumpets, slide trombones, bass tubas, and all. Wotan the Thunderer was their god, Freya was their sex dream, and Loki, the tricky one, was the head of their propaganda department. Siegfried was Germany incarnate, and when the spear was driven into his back every German thought of 1918. The Nazis were in the process of rewriting the legend, bringing the young hero back to life and making sure that this time he would be properly armed and guarded.
Lanny said: “Herr Kannenberg brought his accordion and sang for the Führer.” He gave them a sample: “Tiroler sind lustig, so lustig und froh.” They gathered round and joined in, and that was a pleasant way to pass an evening that otherwise would have been one of nervous strain for Lanny. “There Was a King in Thule,” “When the Spring Comes and Looks from the Mountains,” “Ah, How Is It Possible for Me to Leave You?”—and so on and on—Lanny had sung these old songs when he had visited the Meissners as a boy, and if he didn’t know the accompaniments he could make something up as he went along. When his repertoire was exhausted, they suggested others, and after he had heard the first verse he could play the rest. No matter how many verses there may be, no German is ever known to tire; nor will you find any one of them in the plight of most Americans, who know the first two or three lines of their national anthem, and then have to sing “La-lá-la-la-lá.”
There came a pause, and Lanny said: “I will play you something that these old walls have heard before.” He pounded out the tune that he had played on his first visit: “Ah, ça ira, ça ira, ça ira—les aristocrats à la lanterne!” Only Rörich would know what it was, and Lanny looked at him and grinned. In his soul the husband was crying: “Trudi! Trudi! This is for you! I am coming!” Was she there, and could she hear it? He asked his subconscious mind but got no answer; instead, he played and the rest of the company joined in singing: “Mein Heimatland, du schönes, du he-errliches Land.”
The Germans have a poem to the effect that when you hear singing you may lie down in peace, for evil men have no songs. The Nazis were using this as one more camouflage, but for Lanny tonight it held good.
VI
The company broke up shortly after eleven and the refugee retired to his room. This was the worst period he had to spend, for he was alone, and could not sleep. He sat in a chair and tried to read; then he got up and paced the floor, back and forth, like a tiger in a cage. He had had weeks to think of every possible thing that might go wrong, but now he thought of more. The Graf had not come home; perhaps he was spending the night with his lady, but, on the other hand, he might come in late, or very early in the morning. Just what would Lanny say if his host should find him in the act of opening a pair of French windows in the library? “I am very restless, Ihre Hochgeboren. I couldn’t sleep. The news is bad. I want to walk outside.” That would be all right; Lanny didn’t care if they thought him a coward. But what would he say if the Graf caught him in the act of penning up the dogs? “They were barking, Ihre Hochgeboren. They kept me awake.” Not so good!
So many, many things might go wrong! They had picked a moonless night, and that wasn’t subject to change; but there was a wind blowing, and the opening of a door or window might create a draft and cause some other door to bang. It was apparently blowing up a rain, something to be expected in this part of France in November; if the ground was wet, he would leave tracks in the house and so would his fellow conspirators. In the general excitement, would they remember to clean their shoes? And then that unanswered question of a night-watchman! What would he be, an old servant or a young SS man?
Resolutely Lanny picked up the book of the Leipzig professor, and forced himself to read a paragraph. Then he realized that he didn’t know what he had read, so he went back and read it again. This learned scholar, after decades of investigation, had convinced himself that the phenomena of psychic research were genuine. “All minds are One in some last resort,”—such was the conclusion he drew. But all this meant to Lanny at the moment was: “Why doesn’t Trudi send me a psychic message?” Then he would wonder: “Did she get any of my psychic messages to her?”
His thoughts moved on to the musical signal, his Blondel song. If she had heard it tonight, she had probably heard it the previous time, and what had she made of it? A long wait between signals, and she must have become discouraged; perhaps she had decided that it was merely a coincidence. After all, there were plenty of people in France who knew the tune of the Ça ira; it was in the books, and some German might have been curious about it, or perhaps have thought of making up Nazi words for it!
Lanny was trying to retrace Trudi’s thoughts, using psychology where telepathy had failed. He had promised her that he wouldn’t endeavor to find her; but perhaps she would understand that this promise was beyond his power to keep. Would that worry her, or would they have broken her spirit to the extent that she would want to be rescued? Perhaps she wouldn’t have mind enough left to want anything, to know anything; they might have driven her entirely insane.
Oh, devils, that were committing such horrors upon human beings! Lanny recalled the seven men with whom he had just dined. All were “gentlemen,” in the sense that they had good manners, they ate their food properly, they listened to Beethoven and Wagner, they smiled and discussed world events. Then they went down into the cellars of this building and applied physical and mental tortures to a woman, to break her will and reduce her to a cringing wreck, an imbecile or a gibbering idiot! They did it, not because they were savages at heart, but because they had been taught it as a duty; they had been drilled in a creed of diabolism, the vilest perversion of faith and morals since the Spanish Inquisition.
Lanny had taken up a feud against it, and was leading a raid upon it. But he was not at one with himself, because he doubted the wisdom of his course. He had got himself into a position of danger, and was getting two other men into a position even worse. If they should get caught, he would have three persons to worry about instead of one, and he would have a long and costly campaign on his hands. Trudi might forgive him, but could he ever forgive himself if he destroyed his position of advantage in the struggle against the Nazi terror? Cold reason told him that at this moment he ought to be in Berlin, finding out what he could regarding Hitler’s intentions as to Austria. He ought to be dancing with some diplomat’s wife or mistress, picking up gossip, instead of being shut up in a room by himself, holding a book in two hands which trembled, looking at his watch every minute or two, then listening to make sure it hadn’t stopped running. Verily, “Time travels in divers paces with divers persons,” and right now Lanny Budd was the one for whom it “stands still withal.”
VII
When the lagging hands at last arrived at one-thirty, all these doubts and debates came to an end. All Lanny’s faculties were needed now for the job of outwitting his enemies. He put on his overcoat and hat, also his kid gloves; he must wear gloves through all these operations, to avoid leaving fingerprints. Into the coat’s capacious pockets he put the two bottles of cognac, also a tiny flashlight not much bigger than a fountain pen; you pressed a button at one end and a thin beam came from the other. Also, he had a handkerchief with a piece of twine securely tied to one corner; also a tape measure, and a well-drilled brain—such were the accessories required for Plan 147B.
He put out the light in his room and went to the door. Holding the knob firmly, he turned it and opened the door. Outside, a dim light burned in the hall; there was a row of doors, all closed, and behind them slept some of the Nazis, Lanny hadn’t made sure which. Softly he closed the door and stole down the carpeted hall. If anyone met him, he had his formula ready; he was jittery and couldn’t sleep.
; Down the stairs, one at a time, stopping to listen. A night light in the entrance hall, but no sound. There might be a watchman inside the building, but he was not to be seen. Lanny had learned the arrangement of the rooms thoroughly and he slipped silently into the almost dark library. Everything quiet here, except for the thumping of the intruder’s heart. He couldn’t be sure whether that was loud enough to be heard upstairs.
The third window from the northwest corner of the building. Lanny had studied it from the outside and made sure there could be no mistake. French windows are like two narrow doors, and one of them is enough for a man to pass through. The one on the right opens first, and that was the one on which Lanny worked. He hadn’t dared try the bolts in advance, and had wondered if they might be rusted in place. He tried the one at the top, holding his thumb under it to keep it from snapping suddenly. It was free, and he drew it carefully down. Then the one at the bottom, and last the one in the center, which held the two parts together. He opened it, and a blast of air struck him in the face. He reached his hand outside; there was a handle whereby the door could be opened from the outside when the bolt on the inside was pushed back; having tested this and made sure he would not be locking himself out, he slipped outside and closed the door behind him.
High up overhead, on the wall of the building, was a shaded floodlight of moderate intensity, shining directly down on Lanny’s head; illuminating the loggia, the terrace, and the shade trees in the background. Lanny had been prepared for this, having seen it more than once from the road at night. He started a stroll which he hoped would appear casual. He could be sure at least that the noise of the wind would keep anybody from hearing the pounding of his heart!
Around a corner of the building was a second light; no doubt he would find one on each side. Visibility was good, as the airmen say. The sky was black and mysterious, and so were the trees in the distance; but all around the house was a belt of light and anyone approaching would stand out as if in bright moonlight. Lanny strolled around another corner, watching carefully, prepared for anything. This side had a porte-cochere; under it was shadow, and from this shadow came a challenging voice: “Wer geht da?”
VIII
Lanny had been prepared for this, and he met it with his best society manner. “Herr Budd,” he answered, and came toward the porte-cochere. He was careful to keep his hands hanging, the palms open and the fingers extended; a harmless position, but not ostentatiously so. “Sie sind der Nachtwächter?” he inquired.
“Ja, mein Herr.”
“Heil Hitler!”
“Heil Hitler!”
“I am a guest in the château. You know me?”
“Ja, Herr Budd.” The servants had talked, of course.
“I couldn’t sleep. I had to come for a walk.”
“Eine böse Nacht, mein Herr.”
“You have heard perhaps what has been happening in Paris—the arrest of our friends?”
“Ja, Herr Budd; sehr unangenehm.”
“I am very much upset about it. I may be in danger, too. I had papers they may have found.”
“Leider, Herr Budd.”
“You walk at night?”
“Die ganze Nacht.”
“May I walk with you?”
“Gewiss, Herr Budd.” Never one sentence without the “Herr,” so Lanny knew it was an old-fashioned German. A man in his fifties, too old to be a perfect Nazi; perhaps a family servant of the Graf. He would have heard that Americans were free and easy in their ways, and would not be surprised if this one chatted as they strolled. Without doubt he had heard the visitor thoroughly discussed in the servants’ hall; his riches, his clothes, his manners, his love of dogs, his playing and singing, his having visited the Führer.
“It is a terrible thing to know that your friends are being arrested and perhaps mistreated. I couldn’t sleep and I couldn’t read. I didn’t want to disturb anybody, and I thought maybe if I got myself tired, I could get to sleep.”
“Ja, ja, mein Herr.”
“I tried taking a drink, but I’m afraid of taking too much. I need to have my wits about me in the morning.” He laughed, and took out one of the bottles of cognac, opened it, and took a pull, a small one. He put it back into his pocket. “It is easy to take too much when you are nervous.”
“Ja, mein Herr, das weiss ich gut.”
IX
They strolled, and Lanny chatted freely, as he had learned to do with all sorts and conditions of men. “I don’t suppose you can read French newspapers”—the guest set out to make himself a substitute therefor. He told about the Cagoulard conspiracy, and how important it would have been for Germany to get a new government in France, one that would break off the alliance with the wicked Reds, which of course was aimed at Germany and could have no other meaning. “They want to do what they did in the last war, compel Germany to fight on two fronts at once, and of course the Führer will never permit that.”
So the genial American explained French politics and the world situation to a humble Diener, and the Diener was impressed by his kindness, and every now and then would say: “Ja, ja, mein Herr,” or perhaps “Herrschaft,” which is equivalent to the English quality, or gentry, and is the same whether you are many or one. “Was wünschen der Herr?”—what does the quality desire?
Lanny desired another pull at the flask, and when he had taken it, he held it out to the man, saying: “Wollen Sie trinken?” This, of course, was unthinkable in Germany, and the man was taken aback and tried to refuse; but the genial American insisted that it was no fun to drink alone; he stopped while the man took a nip, and then, laughing, said that wasn’t enough and made him take a real one, einen richtigen. “I have had too much; you take the rest.”
He made the watchman drink until he coughed and sputtered; and after that they were real friends, and, as they strolled, Lanny told how the wicked Reds were working in Paris, with traitorous Germans to help them undermine the Fatherland, and how Lanny had tried to help in getting a new French government that would put down these evil Reds; but now, leider, the effort seemed to have collapsed, and Lanny didn’t know what would happen; he might have to flee into Germany and give up his labors in Paris, at least for a time. It was extremely sad and he became a bit melancholy, and stopped and took another nip, and saw to it that Max—the nightwatchman’s name—took a good one to brace him against the chilly damp wind of a November night. “Finish the bottle,” Lanny said, and added, with a slightly tipsy chuckle: “I have another.” Max obeyed.
It is well known that men who are in trouble are tempted to drown their sorrows in drink; but a serious and well-trained Nachtwächter, charged with a heavy responsibility, cannot afford to do such things, and der arme Max pleaded his duty. Lanny let up on him, and they took another circle of the château. The American Herr giggled and said he had had too much, but Hans would watch out for him; surely that was one of the duties of a proper Wächter. Max admitted that he had had to perform it upon occasions. He made a truly valiant effort to keep sober according to his honor. He was broken down only by Lanny’s assurance that this wasn’t real cognac, only an imitation; what tasted like alcohol was only a flavoring, and it wouldn’t make any able-bodied man really drunk. Have one more, in the name of Gemütlichkeit!
After a while the guest said that he was tired, and they might try sitting for a while; so they sat under the shelter of the porte-cochere, and Lanny took out the other bottle, loosened the cork, took a very small swig, and with laughter and mischief persuaded his companion to take a large one. Ja, gewiss, it couldn’t possibly do any harm! He kept this up until he was sure the man had got as much on board as even a German could carry; then he said: “I feel warm and sleepy; let’s rest.” He deposited the bottle between them, and rested his head against the wall and began to breathe heavily. Presently he heard Max taking the bottle and heard a gurgling sound, so he felt sure his game was won. In a very few minutes the man was snoring loudly; then Lanny took the bottle and slipped it into his pocket and
stole away.
X
One more duty, a dangerous one. Somewhere in these extensive grounds the dogs were roaming, and the visitor had to find them. Until they were penned up there was no possibility of entrance for any stranger, even in a Nazi uniform. When Lanny was a sufficient distance from the château, it was safe to call, and he did so. “Ho, Prinz! Komm, Lizzi!” He heard barking, and moved in that direction, calling now and then. It was so dark, and the wind in the trees so noisy, that the animals were almost upon him before he knew it. A moment of real fear when he heard them; but he mustn’t permit that, for he had read that fear has an odor which betrays it to dogs.
Really, the visitor had no cause for worry; he had made sure of these friends, and now he spoke their names and they came in a tumult of greeting. They were perfectly trained and did not leap up on him and put mud on his clothes; they whimpered their delight and no doubt tried to shake their tails off, though he could not see it in the dark. He greeted all four by name, and patted them, and they crowded against him and had a lovely time with all the smells they had learned to know and which told them that this was a friendly god, coming to keep them company in the dark.
Of course they would follow him, along the familiar path back to the familiar kennels. It wasn’t their usual time for entering, but if the friendly god opened the gate and took them in, it was not for them to question why. Both pairs knew their pens and their snug little houses, with fresh straw and old home odors. When the friendly god so commanded, they would crawl in out of the cold wind and sleep. The god would take all the responsibility upon his divine shoulders. He did so, and went out, fastening the gate behind him.
Presidential Agent (The Lanny Budd Novels) Page 33