Upton Sinclair - Dragons’s teeth

"O.K." said the ex-tutor and ex-soldier; he sort of sang it, with the accent on the first syllable, and it was like a signature over the telephone.

Baron von Zinszollern possessed an Anton Mauve, a large and generous work portraying a shepherd leading home his flock in a pearly gray and green twilight. It seemed to Lanny a fine example of that painter’s poetical and serious feeling, and he had got the price down to thirty thousand marks. He had telegraphed Zoltan that he was disposed to buy it as a gamble, and did his friend care to go halves? His friend replied Yes, so he went that morning and bought the work, paying two thousand marks down and agreeing to pay the balance within a week. This involved signing papers, which Lanny would have on his person; also, an influential Nazi sympathizer would have an interest in testifying that he was really an art expert. Incidentally it gave Lanny a pretext for going to the Munich branch of the Hellstein Bank, and having them pay him thirty thousand marks in Nazi paper.

At noon the dependable Jerry telephoned. He and Cyprien and the camion were past Genoa. They would eat and sleep on board, and keep moving. Lanny told him to telephone about ten in the evening wherever they were. Jerry sang: "O.K."

A little later came a call from "Boecklin," and Lanny took him for a drive. He said: "It’s all fixed. You’re to pay twenty-three thousand marks, and your man will be delivered to you anywhere in Dachau at twenty-two o’clock tomorrow evening. Will you be ready?"

"I’m pretty sure to. Here’s your money." Lanny took out his wallet, and handed it to his friend beside him. "Help yourself."

It was improbable that Hugo Behr, son of a shipping clerk, had ever had so much money in his hands before. The hands trembled slightly as he took out the bundle of crisp new banknotes, each for one thousand marks; he counted out twenty-three of them, while Lanny went on driving and didn’t seem to be especially interested. Hugo counted them a second time, both times out loud.

"You’d better take your own, also," suggested the lordly one. "You know I might get into some trouble."

"If you do, I’d rather be able to say you hadn’t paid me anything. I’m doing it purely for friendship’s sake, and because you’re a friend of Heinrich and Kurt."

"Lay all the emphasis you can on them!" chuckled Lanny. "Mention that Heinrich told you how he had taken Kurt and me to visit the Führer last winter; and also that I told you about taking a hunting trip with Göring. So you were sure I must be all right."

Hugo had got some news about Freddi which the other heard gladly. Apparently Lanny had been right in what he had said about the Jewish prisoner; he had won the respect even of those who were trying to crush him. Unfortunately he was in the hands of the Gestapo, which kept him apart from the regular run of inmates. A prison inside the prison, it appeared! The rumor was that they had been trying to force Freddi to reveal the names of certain Social-Democrats who were operating an illegal press in Berlin; but he insisted that he knew nothing about it.

"He wouldn’t be apt to know," said Lanny. To himself he added: "Trudi Schultz!"

It had been his intention to make a casual remark to his friend: "Oh, by the way, I wonder if you could find out if there’s a man in Dachau by the name of Ludwig Schultz." But now he realized that it was not so simple as he had thought. To tell Hugo that he was trying to help another of the dreaded "Marxists" might sour him on the whole deal. And for Hugo to tell his friends in the concentration camp might have the same effect upon them. Lanny could do nothing for poor Trudi—at least not this trip.

He drove the car to Dachau, and they rolled about its streets, to decide upon a spot which would be dark and quiet. They learned the exact description of this place, so that Hugo could tell it to the men who were going to bring Freddi. Hugo said he had an appointment to pay the money to a man in Munich at twenty o’clock, or 8:00 p.m. according to the American way of stating it. Hugo was nervous about wandering around with such an unthinkable sum in his pocket, so Lanny drove him up into the hills, where they looked at beautiful scenery. The American quoted: "Where every prospect pleases and only man is vile." He didn’t translate it for his German friend.

Hugo had been talking to some of his party comrades in Munich, the birthplace of their movement, and had picked up news which didn’t get into the gleichgeschaltete Presse. There was a terrible state of tension in the party; everybody appeared to be quarreling with everybody else. Göring and Goebbels were at daggers drawn over the question of controlling policy—which, Lanny understood, meant controlling Hitler’s mind. Goebbels had announced a program of compelling industry to share profits with the workers, and this, of course, was criminal to Göring and his friends the industrialists. Just recently von Papen, still a Reichsminister, had made a speech demanding freedom of the press to discuss all public questions, and Göring had intervened and forbidden the publication of this speech. A day or two ago the man who was said to have written the speech for the "gentleman jockey" had been arrested in Munich, and the town was buzzing with gossip about the quarrel. It was rumored that a hundred and fifty of Goebbels’s personal guards had mutinied and been sent to a concentration camp. All sorts of wild tales like this, and who knew what to believe?

They had come to the Tegernsee, a lovely mountain lake, and there was a road-sign, reading: "Bad Wiessee, 7 km." Hugo said: "The papers report that Röhm is having his vacation there. I hear he’s had several conferences with the Führer in the past week or two, and they’ve had terrible rows."

"What’s the trouble between them?" inquired the gossip-hungry visitor.

"The same old story. Röhm and his friends want the original party program carried out. Now, of course, he’s wild over the idea of having his Stormtroopers disbanded."

Lanny could credit the latter motive, if not the former. He had heard the red-headed Chief of Staff speak at one of the Nazi Versammlungen, and had got the impression of an exceedingly tough military adventurer, untroubled by social ideals. Perhaps that was due in part to his battle-scars, the upper part of his nose having been shot away! Röhm wanted the powers of his Brownshirts increased, and naturally would fight desperately against having them wiped out.

Seven kilometers was nothing, so Lanny turned his car in the direction indicated by the sign. A lovely little village with tree-shaded streets, and cottages on the lakefront. In front of one of the largest, and also of the Gasthaus Heinzlbauer, were parked a great many fancy cars. Hugo said: "They must be having a conference. Only our leaders can afford cars like those." The note of bitterness indicated that he didn’t trust his new Führer much more than his old.

"Do you know him?" asked Lanny.

"I know one of the staff members in Berlin, and he has told the Chief that I am working on his behalf."

"Would you like to go in and meet him?"

"Do you know him?" countered Hugo, startled.

"No; but I thought he might be interested to meet an American art expert."

"Aber, Lanny!" exclaimed the young sports director, whose sense of humor was not his strongest suit. "I really don’t think he has much time to think about art right now!"

"He might take a fancy to a magnificent young athlete like yourself, Hugo."

" Gott behüte .'" was the reply.

It seemed almost blasphemy to talk about this subject while under the shadow of Röhm and his entourage; but when the American put the question point blank, Hugo admitted that he had heard about the habits of the Sturmabteilung Chief of Staff. Everybody in Germany knew about them, for Hauptmann Röhm, while acting as a military instructor in Bolivia, had written a series of letters home admitting his abnormal tastes, and these letters had been published in the German press. Now, said Hugo, his enemies gave that as the reason for not taking him and his staff into the regular army. "As if the Reichswehr officers were lily-white saints!" exclaimed the S.A. man.