“There will be a great many visitors in this crisis; the most important military men, diplomats, and Party leaders. It would be a strain on you to meet them, and there is no reason why you should. I will tell Rudi that you are shy and easily upset; most mediums are like that, and he knows it. You wish to give a séance to him, and perhaps to one or two others—no more. You will be conducted in by a side door and put in charge of a maid, who will be young and good-looking—none others are tolerated. You will have to reconcile yourself to being searched for weapons.”
“Oh, dear me!”
“Even the generals are now deprived of their sidearms when they enter the Führer’s home. I myself have never been searched, but that is because he has known me for so long. There are several stories of attempt on his life, and one is never sure what to believe; one story seems to be generally accepted, that a girl of the underground found means to make amorous advances to Hitler, and was admitted to his presence. When they searched her they found a stiletto concealed in her underclothing.”
“What happened to her?”
“That is a matter you had best not guess about. You, I take it, do not plan to assassinate him, and need not mind being searched by women. You will have a comfortable room assigned to you, and very good meals will be brought. You must take it as a possibility that your room is wired, and that someone may be listening to every word you speak, even the faintest whisper.”
“All this sounds rather grim,” commented the lady from Baltimore.
“It need not be. Dictaphones were invented, I believe, in our own country, and if you were playing the Wall Street game, or the political game anywhere, you would not be unaware of the possibility that some secretary or clerk might be selling your secrets. My father could tell you of many such cases.”
“One thing that is really embarrassing: am I to arrive at a strange house without even a handbag?”
“That will be an important part of our scheme. I will tell Hess that your bags were stolen from the car, and he will see that you are provided with the necessities. When the time comes for you to leave, I will tell him that your passport was among the lost belongings, and so be in a position to ask him for the necessary papers.”
“Truly ingenious!” exclaimed the passenger. “I begin to think you must have had a lot of experience in intrigue!” She said it with a laugh, and he judged that she would not have said it if she still harbored suspicions about him.
“My father is what is called a ‘merchant of death,’” he told her, “and has dealt with some of the most powerful rogues in Europe. All through my boyhood and up to recent years, he taught me to watch them and to anticipate their moves. That is why I am not so shocked by the sight of rascality as some of my friends, who come from a younger and more naïve human society.”
“America is learning fast, believe you me!”
VIII
Rudolf Hess was to be the amateur medium’s shining mark, so Lanny set out to tell all he had learned about this devotee of the Führer. There would be light enough in the séance room for the medium to recognize him, and Lanny described him as a man of athletic build, wearing a simple brownshirt uniform. He had black hair and black eyebrows forming a straight line across his face; his mouth made another straight line and his lower jaw was prominent and firm; he had a heavy scar on his head, where a beermug had been broken over it, in one of the so-called Saalschlachten, the beerhall battles of the early days of the NSDAP. He was a fanatical man, but disciplined in his fanaticism; a man stern and grim, feared by his subordinates, but capable of warmth and even of humor among his friends.
“He is the one whom Hitler trusts most completely,” explained Lanny; “he resembles one of those German shepherds which are called ‘one-man’ dogs. Their first meeting was on the western front in the year 1917; Hitler was a despatch rider, and Hess was a lieutenant, conducting transport to the front; we might work up a scene for the spirit of some soldier who had witnessed that meeting under the sound of the guns. Remember the most terrible scenes of battle that you have read—there has never been anything worse than Verdun.”
It was quite a biography that Lanny unfolded: the political turmoil in Munich after the war, with Hess shot in the leg in battle with the Reds; then his assignment to kidnap two members of the Bavarian government as a part of the Beerhall Putsch; then his sojourn in the fortress of Landsberg, with Hitler and the other defeated and discouraged revolutionaries. Every now and then Lanny would stop, and hear his friend recite her lessons; then some new details would pop into his head. His happiest thought was of a certain Professor Heinzelmann whom he had met in Munich, and of whose death he had read in a Berlin paper just a few days ago. This old man had been a friend and colleague of Karl Haushofer, the one-time army general who had represented his country in Tokyo, and then had become professor of what he called Geopolitics at the University of Munich. Haushofer was the man who had taught Hitler and Hess their theories about the “Heartland” of Europe and Asia, the new Lebensraum-to-be of the German Reich. Heinzelmann had been in on all this, and was one of the Nazi “old companions.”
“Immediately after Hess came out of prison,” Lanny explained, “these professors gave him a job as assistant, a sort of clerk. So now Heinzelmann is the proper party to appear in the spirit world and tell Hess to go slow, that the time has not yet come to seize the Heartland! You might have him refer to the fact that Haushofer has a Jewish wife, which is a source of embarrassment to Hitler and all the Nazis. Also, he can mention a Bavarian nobleman, Baron Zinszollern, who sold me some paintings, and who knew both these professors well and talked to me about them. Zinszollern also died recently; so you can have him appear first, and speak about Heinzelmann, and of course Hess will ask for him and Zinszollern will try to get him, and when he comes it will be a triumph, a little drama that will roll Rudi in the aisles. I had lunch with the Baron and no doubt the professor did the same many times, so you have a meeting—we can make up a dialogue between the two that will convince the most skeptical!”
So, as the car rolled along, skirting the edge of the Black Forest, the pair composed a scene which was almost a one-act play. Lanny described the appearance and imitated the manner of a round-headed, round-faced, convivial Bavarian who hated the Prussians, yet, as a German, couldn’t help being proud of their achievements. He was in the drawing-room of his palace, which Lanny described in detail, and to him came the elderly professor by the name of Andreas Heimann or Heisemann—“You mustn’t get the name too perfect,” said Lanny; “you must never be glib. You grope around—”
“Uncle Cicero gropes around,” reminded the other.
“Uncle Cicero complains that he cannot make out these strange names, and has to ask them to talk more slowly so that he can understand them. At first he is afraid to address them at all—they are talking together and may not wish to be interrupted. Hess will say: ‘Speak to them.’ So gradually you work up to a climax. It will be better if the old Negro makes mistakes, especially in the names—let him grope for them, and Hess correct him. You don’t ever have to worry about your own mistakes, because you can always hide behind Uncle Cicero’s; and he can always say: ‘I can’t make out what dey says; dey talks so funny”—anything that comes into your head, provided it is in character, the feeble yet jolly old ex-slave.”
“He always complained about the pains in his joints,” said Laurel Creston. “I begin to feel as if he and I might really be able to play this role.”
“It looks to me as if you will have to,” was the reply—“unless you can suggest some better way of getting an exit permit.”
IX
It was a long drive and a long conversation; Lanny’s voice became slightly husky, and in the back of his neck there was a feeling as if a needle were sticking into it. But he went on driving, eastward in southern Germany, which is the foothills of the Alps, heavily forested and cut by many streams of cold clear greenish water flowing from high glaciers melting in the August sun. The London
bus company had advised the public not to worry about Hitler, and apparently somebody had given the Germans the same advice as to Chamberlain and Daladier; there were many picnicking parties in these woods and many walking on the roads; also, of course, soldiers marching, and boys and girls in uniform, and now and then caravans of military equipment. Better to draw up by the roadside and wait while these rolled by; better that a woman who was wanted by the Polizei should slide down in her seat and close her eyes and pretend to be asleep.
They stopped and bought food, and ate it while driving—Lanny holding the steering wheel with one hand, and reaching for food with the other. His companion supplied it to him, and found this amusing; he discovered that she was good company—she was beginning to get over her fear, and could even laugh at her plight. She took to talking “Uncle Cicero,” by way of practice; she had been raised among Negro servants and had funny stories to tell about them. In the middle of one she would stop and say: “I am talking too much. Tell me, what next?”
“If you make a success with Rudi, this is what will happen: he will say: ‘I would like you to have a séance with one of my friends.’ If he asks you to let it be in a completely dark room, and offers to be present so as to translate, you can be sure that the person is Hitler. This will be the most delicate of your tasks, for which you must prepare carefully. The Führer is intensely concerned with the occult powers, but he considers that it would be bad for German morale to know this; his followers must think that he is sufficient unto himself, the repository of all wisdom. You hear rumors that he consults astrologers and fortune-tellers, but very few know whether or not it is true. I promised never to mention that he had sat with Madame, so you must consider this one of the things to forget.”
“I have forgotten.”
“You have perhaps heard the Führer’s voice over the radio, but you will hardly recognize it, for he converses quietly, even genially, and is not apt to become excited at your séance. At his first attempt with Madame he became quite wild, but that was because Tecumseh reminded him of a tragedy, the death of his niece Geli Raubal, for which he is believed to be responsible. But you must tell him only friendly and pleasant things and remind him that the world sits at his feet. The spirits can never say too much in his honor; all the spirit world, both German and foreign, rings with the glory of this great man who is making Europe over according to his vision.”
“I want to tell him not to go to war!” exclaimed the woman.
“We shall come to that, but first you must have the background of his character: the spoiled darling of a young mother married to a dull and domineering old man; a petty customs official who tried to manage his home in the fashion of a drill sergeant. Little Adi Hitler, whose father changed his name from Schicklgruber, hated the old man and had a wretchedly unhappy childhood; he wanted to become an artist, but got no encouragement and no training. After his mother’s death he became a wastrel in Vienna, sleeping in the public refuge for the shelterless and earning a few pfennigs by painting feeble landscapes on postcards.
“The war came,” continued the narrator, “and he seems to have been a faithful soldier; but it must have been a shattering experience for one of his excitable temperament. He genuinely believes his own legend, that the army was never defeated, but was betrayed by the vile Reds on the home front. He came to Munich, destitute and at loose ends, and became a police agent, spying upon the workers in that city. You won’t say anything about that period in his life, but you should understand the conditions he found in Munich, with half a dozen civil wars going on at once, and such political confusion that the historians have never been able to straighten it out. The ideas that dominated Adi’s mind were patriotism, which called itself Nationalism, and anti-Semitism—since many of the Red leaders were Jews. In Munich the leader of the Communists who seized power was Kurt Eisner, an idealistic Jewish professor who wore a long unkempt gray beard, a long overcoat and a big black hat which made him look grotesque. Vengeance on these Bolshevists, and on all Germany’s enemies, inside and out, became Adi’s one thought, and will remain his thought to the day he dies.”
“I cannot pretend to a desire to meet such a man, Mr. Budd.”
“You don’t need to worry; you only have to remember that deep within him he is still the frightened, lonely, thwarted child. Right now he confronts the climax of his life; he has to make a choice between two roads, one of which will lead him to eternal glory and the other to the abyss of ruin; he cannot be sure which road is which, and he would give anything in the world to have some old Teutonic god come down from Walhalla on a rainbow and tell him what to do. Barring that, he would prefer the spirit of the grim old Hindenburg, or better still, of Bismarck, founder of the first German Reich. I am afraid you had better not attempt either of those; but I will tell you of one of Hitler’s earliest Munich comrades whom I happen to know about—and not through Hitler himself, or through Hess.”
X
The audience of one wanted to know how in the world Lanny had got all this information, and he told her about a trip he had taken just a year ago, a raft excursion down the river Isar which runs through Munich. The host had been Adolf Wagner, one-legged political boss of Bavaria, and known as the “Führer voice,” because he could imitate Adolf Hitler so well that he sometimes took his master’s place on the radio. On that trip were several of the Munich old companions, and nothing pleased them so much as to tell an American visitor about the glorious old days, and the part they had played in them. “They spoke of some who had died,” said Lanny, “and in your séances their spirits can mention the living and send them greetings. I can give you some names in both worlds—but above all things be careful not to mix them up!”
The narrator went on to tell about the so-called Thule Society-pronouncing it German-fashion, Toola, and then spelling it so that she would be sure to get it straight. Thule was a legendary place from which the German race was supposed to have come in the far north. In Munich in 1919 a few war-shattered Nationalists and Jew-baiters who had cultural aspirations had got together and called themselves by that name. Hess was one of them, and another was the man Lanny had in mind for Laurel Creston to use—an elderly Munich actor by the name of Dietrich Eckart.
“He was a drunkard and drug addict, and had been in an asylum; but he was also a poet and a fiery orator, and to a despatch rider fresh out of the trenches he seemed at once elegant and inspired. His statue, with wreaths, adorns the Braune Haus in Munich—a large, benevolent-looking Aryan god with an immense round head, a bulging forehead, and surprisingly small eyes. He wore tortoise-shell glasses for reading, and when he looked at you he lifted them up onto his forehead. He spoke with an immense rumbling bass voice—all that is important for Uncle Cicero, and Hitler would find it irresistible. Der Führer had to change his mind about many of those old companions, but there was no chance for disillusionment in the case of Eckart, for he died just after the Beerhall Putsch, at the end of 1923. That was before Adi’s trial and sentence to prison, and the old hero can tell Cicero how he was present in spirit at the trial and in the fortress.”
“Would Hitler accept political advice from such a figure?”
“I see that you are bent on giving him advice,” said Lanny, with a smile. “He would think of him as a prophet and a seer; and the spirit could claim to be in touch with others of the great, and report what they said. But you must bear this in mind—Hitler had me listed among the ‘appeasers,’ and if you say too much about keeping out of war, he might become suspicious. It would be the part of wisdom to think first about getting yourself out of this predicament.”
“I’ll be guided by circumstances,” replied the lady, who had a mind of her own.
XI
Shortly before sunset they were approaching the city of Ulm, which is on the upper reaches of the Danube River, and has an immense cathedral, also an art gallery; but they were not going to look at either. Lanny said: “I believe you can do this stunt,” and she answered: “I am will
ing to try.” He said: “All right, I will telephone to the Berghof, and you can start in tonight.”
“Won’t we get there too late?”
“The Führer is a bad sleeper, and stays up until all hours. An appointment for midnight would be nothing unusual for him. You had better get into the back seat now and lie down and pretend to be asleep. You can recite your lessons to yourself.”
He drove into the town and parked not far from a hotel where he could get a telephone booth. He had been favored with the number of the Führer’s retreat, and after a couple of minutes he heard the Deputy’s deep-toned voice. “Is that you, Lanny?”
“Hello, Rudi!” exclaimed the caller. “I have a find for you; a medium, a real one—the best ever, I believe.”
“Oh, good!” exclaimed the other. “Where are you?”
“I am at Ulm, on a motoring trip. This is a young lady whom I met on the Riviera, and I have sort of kidnaped her, because I thought you and your friend would like to have her services at this critical moment. She has foretold the future for my mother and half a dozen of her friends, and we have never seen anything like it. I have explained to her that the affair must be confidential.”
“How soon can you come?”
“I can get there between twenty-two and twenty-three o’clock, and you can have a sitting tonight if you wish.”
“Splendid! I will expect you.”
“Let me explain, Rudi. This Miss Elvirita Jones is a delicate person and easily upset; her work depends upon her state of mind, and she does not want to meet a crowd of people. Let me suggest that you have someone meet us at the gate, and bring her in by a side door, and straight to her room, where she can rest and freshen up. Meantime, I’ll come in by the front door, and nobody need know that I have a lady with me.”