What Mr. Zaharoff wanted was for Hofman to take part in an expedition to bring up the ten million dollars’ worth of gold which was known to have been in the Hampshire strong room. Hofman had sworn off from diving long ago, but now he let himself be tempted by a “fabulous reward.” The sunken cruiser had been located and marked by a buoy, and a German salvage ship was fitted out with every sort of modern appliance. The Hampshire lay in some four hundred feet of water, and was found to be covered with deep sand; but this was dredged away and entrance was obtained with electric torches. No explosives could be used, because of the huge quantity of munitions inside the cruiser. The strong room was found to be full of great chests containing gold coins, but they were too heavy to be carried by divers and it was necessary to tear them open and scoop the coins into canvas bags, a tedious process. Storms are frequent in the North Sea, and the salvage ship would have to seek port; when it returned, the wreck would be found buried under sand again. It was heartbreaking labor and there were many mishaps, culminating in the steel door of the strong room slamming to on half a dozen divers and bringing them near to death. In all they had got about half a million dollars’ worth of the gold. There could be no doubt that the rest was there, just as Lanny had been told in the séance. “But somebody else will have to go for it,” remarked the key-master. “My fingers are insured for a hundred thousand dollars—but even so, I don’t want to lose them.”
“I have no interest in treasure-hunting,” replied the son of Budd-Erling, “except to hear about it. The reason I sought you out is not that I wanted to know where the Hampshire’s gold is lying, but how it came about that an old woman, a Polish ex-servant who lives in my mother’s home, came to know that there was gold in the cruiser, and that Sir Basil Zaharoff had sent a diver named Huff, or Huffy, or Huffner, to bring it up.”
“You can search me, Mr. Budd,” said the Meister-Schlosser.
IV
Lanny found himself attracted to this unusual personality, a man of French parentage who had made his way in the world by the American method of mechanical ingenuity. From childhood he had been fascinated by every sort of lock and had been tempted to take them apart and put them together again. He had made the subject his life study, and now it was his claim that he could open any safe that men could build. This ability had brought him many adventures, taking him to strange parts of the world and bringing him into touch with princes and millionaires. He had not been awed by any of these, but had told them in American fashion that he was pleased to meet them; he had done his job quietly, and at the same time had studied the personalities of his employers and formed shrewd judgments of them.
Lanny invited him to lunch, and listened to stories, some of them humorous, many terrible: children who had locked themselves in chests and were suffocating, butchers and furriers who had got themselves locked in refrigerators and were freezing; bankers who had lost the combinations to their own vaults; misers who had died leaving their fortunes locked up, and heirs-who fell to fighting when greenbacks or gold were brought to view. Of course there were unethical opportunities, and it took a strong character and sound judgment to make use of such a talent as Horace Hofman had acquired. He had been called to Moscow to open safes which contained some of the crown jewels, and there had met Stalin, and been allowed to purchase for a nominal sum a wonderful collection of Indian, Chinese, and Russian “animal locks.” Taking the gold of the Hampshire to Berlin, he had met Hjalmar Schacht, who had invited him to the May Day celebration at which Hitler spoke, soon after his becoming Chancellor. “I was close enough so that I could have stuck a knife into him,” said the Meister-Schlosser.
“What did you think of him?” inquired Lanny.
“I wasn’t impressed. He was bareheaded, and wore a shabby brown raincoat; he shouted in a high rasping voice—very bad German, I imagine.”
“He comes from Austria, the Inn Valley, country of the Steer-washers.” Lanny told the story of the peasants who had wished to compete for a prize offered for the best white steer; they had only a black steer, but every day they washed it, and at the competition they had insisted so loudly that it was white that they had carried off the prize.
Lanny himself expressed no opinions about Hitler, but kept the conversation on Germany for a while, so as to discover his guest’s point of view. He found that Hofman’s mind was not burdened with social theories, but he had the instinctive reaction of a man who has lived in a free country and resents militarism and its trappings. That was enough for Lanny’s purposes, and after they had spent part of the afternoon chatting he remarked: “Mr. Hofman, I don’t know whether you are able to accept my statement that Zaharoff never mentioned the cruiser Hampshire to me during his life. I wouldn’t blame you in the least if you couldn’t.”
“No, I am quite willing to accept it, Mr. Budd. I have heard stories of psychic experiences—though never anything quite so startling, I must admit.”
“I have been forced to give thought to the subject, because such things have happened to me many times. It seems to me this case ought to be followed up, and I am wondering if you would be interested to try.”
“What do you have in mind?”
“I would like you to try a series of sessions with this Polish medium, and see if you would get any sort of communication from Zaharoff or anybody connected with the treasure hunt.”
“Where is the medium?”
“At my mother’s home on the Cap d’Antibes. She is getting on in years and I couldn’t undertake to bring her to New York, but I would have my mother bring her to Paris, and I am wondering if you, who have done so much traveling, would care to come there as my guest. I would be happy to pay your expenses both ways in return for the satisfaction of my curiosity. Also, you might do a little locksmith work for me; at my mother’s estate we have a storeroom in which we keep the paintings of my former stepfather, Marcel Detaze, whose work seems to be acquiring value as the years pass. The keys have been lost, and you may help us to get in. Bring all your tools along, for there might be more work to do on that old place and others.”
“That is certainly a generous offer, Mr. Budd. When would you propose for me to come?”
“I am sailing for Southampton at midnight. That is rather short notice, I know, but you tell me you are used to being called at all hours to save people’s lives. Is your business in such shape that you could leave it, say for a month?”
“I have a wife and daughter who attend to my affairs when I am away, and we have a competent assistant. It is indeed sudden, as you say—”
“I will be pleased to put a check into your hands, and I will give you bank references.”
“That part of it is all right, Mr. Budd; I know your family and also its products. From the point of view of mechanics, there is a certain kinship between a lock and a machine gun. If you are quite certain that you want me to come, and wouldn’t be bored before you got through with the experiment—”
“Let me assure you, Mr. Hofman, I have been pursuing this subject patiently since I first got acquainted with this medium, eight years ago. I must have had several hundred sittings with her, and my present stepfather has had one nearly every day. I will show you many notebooks that I have filled, and some of the stories are as strange as any of the real ones you have to tell.”
“All right,” said the Meister-Schlosser. “You tell me yours and I’ll tell you mine!”
V
They traveled on a comfortable English steamer, and all the way Lanny laid himself out to win the confidence of this new friend. He talked psychic research and sometimes art, and in turn listened to locks and keys. He carefully avoided politics, but took the precaution to prepare Hofman’s mind for what might be coming, mentioning among Madame Zyszynski’s revelations a young artist couple whom Lanny had met in Berlin many years ago in the course of his business. Ludi and Trudi Schultz were their names, and it must be that they had been opposing the Nazis, for Ludi in a séance had declared that he had been killed by t
hem. Lanny didn’t know what had become of the wife, but she had been mentioned and apparently was trying to find her husband, or he to find her. Hofman remarked that the Nazis had evidently found ways to solve the problem of unemployment, but it was hard to excuse their cruelty to their opponents. Lanny answered with words he had heard his father use many times: “The Europeans have not yet learned to change their governments without violence.”
They went up to London for a couple of days, because Lanny wanted to see Rick. Nina drove her husband to town, and Lanny told them his story, and a dozen or more of the wild schemes which sprang up overnight like mushrooms in his head. He didn’t really know what he was going to do; it depended upon whether the Capitán came, and what that ally would approve. “But I’m never going to rest till somebody gets into the cellars of that château,” he vowed.
Rick said: “If there’s any way Alfy can help, he will drop his college work and come.”
“Alfy is a marked man,” was Lanny’s answer. “This is no job for him.”
He didn’t introduce his new friend to the old ones, because Rick, too, was a marked man, and Lanny wished to be rigidly nonpolitical. “Of course I may have to take Hofman into my confidence,” he said; “but first I’m going to try to get him to do the work as part of an experiment in psychic research.”
“When you get through, give me the story for an anti-Nazi play,” said the Englishman.
“You’re forgetting the Lord Chamberlain,” put in his wife. Nina was a quiet little woman, but now and then she made a remark that showed how well she understood the world she lived in. “Poor Rick! He’s always dreaming that if he can get a brilliant enough plot, he can persuade the propertied classes to pay him for threatening their property.”
“Beaumarchais did it before the French Revolution,” insisted the playwright.
“And then got into trouble, didn’t he?”
“He was in jail for a few days, I believe, but he lived to a ripe old age. I hope to do the same, so as to attend the funerals of Mussolini and Hitler!”
VI
Lanny had cabled his mother telling her to bring Madame to Paris for two or three weeks. There was nothing Beauty Budd loved so much in all the world as a trip; she made herself agreeable to her many rich friends so that they would invite her to come along, and one reason she had been heartbroken over Lanny’s divorce was that Irma also was a tireless tripper and did it à la princesse. This time Beauty was invited to bring her husband, and of course she never traveled without her maid. She guessed that Lanny had had some kind of successful business stroke, and it was like old times to have him spend the money on his mother instead of on some other man’s wife or widow.
Arriving at his Paris hotel, Lanny’s first thought was of the mail. Nothing from Trudi or Adler, but a note from Monck; he had got a month’s furlough, and would be in Paris in a few days. Then Lanny phoned Uncle Jesse and made an appointment to pick him up on the street. Lanny’s car had been stored in Paris and now he drove his uncle and listened to the news. Jean had rented the old mill for five hundred francs a month. Also he had found an architectural volume giving the ground plans of famous châteaux, and one of them was Belcour. The Michelin touring maps gave all details about the roads. Jean had become well acquainted with men who had worked in the place all their lives, and he knew several who could be trusted to take bribes.
Another item of information which Lanny had asked for: the Germans who were employed in the château never spent their time off in the neighborhood, but always in Paris, and Jean had found the café which they frequented—a German place, of course. There were several islands of Germans in this great metropolis; Red and Pink and Brown Germans, as Red and Pink and White Russians, and Red and Pink and Black Italians—and so on for most of the nations on the globe. Each of them spoke their home language, ate their home food, read their home newspapers, and argued and fought their home battles; each was a small village, full of intrigue and spying, jealousies and thwarted hopes; each had its heroes and saints, its traitors and informers, and those who lived by pretending to be whatever paid best at the moment.
Uncle Jesse asked no questions; but he was nobody’s fool and had his own thoughts. He had known for a score of years that his nephew trailed with the Pinks, at present denounced by the Reds as “Social-Fascists.” Jesse knew there was a Socialist underground, just as there was a Communist, and he had no difficulty in surmising that it was some worker of this movement whom the Nazis had seized. Jesse had no idea that his nephew was living a celibate life in Paris, and when the nephew suddenly took to spending a fortune to get somebody out of a dungeon, it was a natural assumption that it was some Freundin he was helping.
The deputy knew also that his nephew kept up his old intimacy with Kurt Meissner and the de Bruynes. Manifestly, he couldn’t do that without pretending to change his political color, and that was why he had to keep himself in the background. Jesse was willing to play this game for a proper price. He looked upon Lanny in much the same light that Lanny looked upon old Mrs. Fotheringay: a softshell crab that every creature in the sea would take a bite of—and why shouldn’t the biggest bite stay in the family? Lanny would bring his uncle large bundles of francs and never ask for an accounting; Jesse would spend part of the money to get Lanny what he wanted, and put the rest away against the time of another election, when a député de la république française would have to meet opponents well fortified by capitalist backers. Lanny wouldn’t wish to make contributions to Red campaign funds, but he was glad to pay anybody, of whatever political hue, to help him get his Socialist amie out of a Nazi dungeon.
VII
In the interest of psychic research, Lanny had agreed not to tell the members of his family anything about Hofman, but merely that he was obliging enough to come all the way from New York to make experiments. Nor would Lanny tell his mother that he was paying the visitor’s expenses, because that would excite her curiosity and possibly her discontent. Lanny gave his new friend a check and left it for him to pay his own bills. To Madame he was merely Monsieur Offmah, with a French nasal sound at the end; whenever he requested, she would come to his apartment and take a seat in an overstuffed chair, lean back her head, shut her eyes, sigh and groan a few times, and be in her trance. Lanny said: “I’d better stay out, at least the first few times. It will be interesting to see if Tecumseh connects you with me.”
They tried their first séance that evening, and the key-master came out of it quite staggered. The Indian chieftain hadn’t appeared, but from the first moment had come a voice which purported to be that of Hofman’s mother, who had died when he was a child. She had talked about the farm in the Blue Ridge mountains of Virginia, the house with a red clay floor, the half dozen brothers and sisters, and her own blond hair which had hung in two braids to her knees. She had mentioned various family details, some of which little Horace remembered only dimly. “Really, Mr. Budd, it is most astonishing!” The locksmith had purposely avoided revealing anything about his own origins, and had waited in the full expectation that “Madame” would produce only those episodes of his career about which he had given hints.
“I am glad,” Lanny said. “So often the results are disappointing, and I’d hate to have you come all this way for nothing.”
Here was a lock that would take the Meister-Schlosser quite a while to open. Was it his mother, or was it only the childhood memories buried in his subconscious mind? The old question of spiritualism versus telepathy; and what was telepathy and how did it work?
Hofman wanted to go right after this problem. He would have liked to have several séances every day, and being a systematic man, he started keeping notebooks like Lanny. He struck up a quick friendship with Parsifal Dingle, who never tired of talking about psychic matters, and had notebooks which would take anyone a long time to study. Parsifal took to attending Hofman’s séances, and that brought in the Bhikkhu Sinanayeke, a hundred years dead in a monastery of Ceylon. “Claribel,” most fortunatel
y, did not put in her appearance; Parsifal, who had dabbled in hypnotism in earlier years, had tried the experiment of hypnotizing Madame and seeing what he could do with her in that way; all that he got had been Madame’s own childhood life, something which had never before come into her séances. He had had the bright idea of giving Madame the hypnotic suggestion that Claribel wouldn’t appear any more, and that apparently had ended her.
Lanny in turn had an idea that Madame should be hypnotized and told that Zaharoff would appear. This was done, and the results were startling. “That old man with people shouting at him”—such was Tecumseh’s phrase—began speaking with direct voice, and was much pleased to hear the voice of his old friend of the cruiser Hampshire. Apparently he had only pleasant memories of this friend, and for the first time since he entered the “spirit world” he manifested that quiet irony which the Knight Commander and Grand Officer had possessed in his life on earth. He mentioned the list of sunken treasure ships which he had shown to Hofman, inviting him to choose the one he would go after; also, he told of the anxiety he had suffered when the salvage-ship came in with one dead and several injured divers, and the time he had had collecting insurance policies and otherwise carrying out his financial obligations to these men. Apparently he was now beyond reach of creditors, and no longer under the necessity of being the “mystery man of Europe.”