Пользователь: WORLD'S END

II

Lanny Budd sat on a wooden stool in a stone cell with a narrow slit for a window, and a cot which had obviously been occupied by many predecessors in misfortune. Perhaps the police were trying to frighten him, and again, perhaps they were just treating him impartially. For company he had his thoughts: a trooping procиssion, taking their tone-color from the dismal clang of an iron door. Impossible to imagine anything more final, or more crushing! So far, emotions such as this had been communicated to Lanny through the medium of art works. But the reality was far different. You could turn away from a picture, stop playing music, close a book; but in a jail cell you stayed.

Lanny had no idea how old this barracks was. Had it stood here in the days when Richelieu was breaking the proud French nobility, and had some of them paced the floor of this cell? Had it stood when the Sun King was issuing his lettres de cachet? Had the Cardinal de Rohan been brought here when he was accused of stealing the diamond necklace? It seemed a reasonable guess that some of the aristocrats had sojourned here on their way аla lanterne; and doubtless a long string of those poisoners and wife stranglers who provided the French populace with their daily doses of thrill. All through the Peace Conference Paris had been entertained by the exploits of a certain Landru, who had married, murdered, and buried some eight or nine women. Every now and then the authorities would dig up a new one, and the press would forget the problems of the peace. This happened whenever the situation became tense, and it was freely said at the Crillon that it was done to divert attention from what the delegates were doing.

The jailers brought Lanny food and water; but he didn't like the looks of the former, and was afraid the latter might be drugged. He spent most of his time walking up and down - five steps one way and five the other - thinking about his possible mistakes and regretting them. Almost surely the bureau would be digging in its files, and coming upon the name of Lanning Budd as a nephew of Jesse Blackless, revolutionary. Would they find him as son of Beauty Detaze, mistress of Kurt Meissner, alias Dalcroze, much wanted German agent? Phrased in the language of police files, it was certainly most sinister. Lanny recalled the melodramas he had seen on the screen, with the hero lined up before the firing squad and rescuers galloping on horses, or rushing madly through automobile traffic. Invariably they arrived just before the triggers were pulled; but Lanny had been told that the movies were not always reliable. Ride, Robbie, ride!

The father was supposed to be in conference with some "big" men. Sooner or later he would return to the hotel and find that his belongings had been rifled. He would learn from the elevator boy that Lanny had gone away with two strange men. Would he think that his son had been kidnaped, and apply to the police? That, indeed, would be funny. But Robbie had a shrewd mind, and he knew about his revolutionary brother-in-law, also about Kurt Meissner, alias Dalcroze. He wouldn't fail to take these into his calculations. He had friends in high position in the city, and Mrs. Emily had still others. The commissaire of the Sыretй Gйnйrale would surely get a jolt before many hours had passed!

The trouble was, the hours passed so slowly. Lanny's watch was gone, so he couldn't follow them. He could only observe the slit of light; and at the end of June the days linger long in Paris. Lanny recalled that at three o'clock the treaty was to be signed, and he occupied his mind with picturing that historic scene. He knew the Galerie des Glaces, and how they would fix it up with a long horseshoe table, and gilded chairs for the delegates from all the nations of the earth. Most of them would be black-clad; but the military ones would be wearing bright-colored uniforms with rows of medals, and there would be silk-robed pashas and emirs and maharajas and mandarins from where the gorgeous East showers on her kings barbaric pearl and gold. He could picture the equipages rolling up the great avenue, lined with cavalry in steel-blue helmets, with red and white pennants fluttering on their lances. He visioned the palace, with the important personages ascending the great flight of steps, between rows of the Gardes Rйpublicaine, clad in brass cuirasses, white pants, and high black patent-leather boots; on their heads the shiniest of brass helmets with long horsetails stuck in the tops. There would be two of them to each step, their shining sabers at present arms. Inside, the hall would be crowded, and there would be a babel of whispering, the polite chit-chat of the grand monde which Lanny knew so well. How everlastingly delightful to be in places where you were assured that only the really important could come!

The treaty would be bulky, printed on vellum sheets decorated with numиrous red seals. Presumably somebody would have checked it this time and made certain it was right. The enemy signers would be escorted by those huissiers with silver chains who had been the bane of Lanny's life, because they were forever trying to stop a secretary-translator from entering rooms where his chief had told him to go. Lanny had seen pictures of the two unhappy Germans: one big and beefy, like the proprietor of a Bierstube, the other lean and timid-looking, like a private tutor. They were the scapegoats, carrying the sins of their people, and signing a confession on two dotted lines.

The huissiers would command silence, and a hush would fall while the pens scratched. A tedious ceremony, for the plenipotentiaries from all over the world had to fall in line and sign four documents: the treaty proper, the protocol with modifications extracted by the German clamor, an agreement regarding the administration of the Rhine districts, and an agreement with Poland regarding the treatment of minorities - she would keep the minorities but not the agreement, Professor Alston had remarked while helping to draft this document.

Lanny's imaginings were interrupted by the thunder of cannon. So! It was signed! Those would be the guns on the Place d'Armes; and then a booming farther away - that would be the old fort at Mont Valerien. Shouts from the crowds in the near-by streets - Lanny knew how people would behave, he had done it himself on Armistice day at St. Thomas's Academy in Connecticut. The biggest banker in that state had warned him that he might get into jail if he didn't mend his ideas; and sure enough, here he was! He got up and began to pace the floor again.

Better to go on thinking about the treaty. He had been told by some of the insiders that General Smuts, head of the South African delegation, was going to sign under protest, stating that "We have not yet achieved the real peace for which the peoples are looking." So, after all, the little group of liberals had not protested in vain! Alston had said that this treaty would keep the world in turmoil for ten years, twenty years, whatever time it took to bring it into line with the Fourteen Points. Was he right? Or was that French general right who had announced to the company at Mrs. Emily's: "This treaty is turning loose a wounded tiger on the world. He will crawl into a hole and nurse his wounds, and come out hungrier and fiercer than ever"?

Lanny couldn't make up his mind about it; nothing to do but wait and see. Some day he would know - provided, of course, the French army didn't shoot him at sunrise tomorrow morning.

III

The sun's rays do not linger very long in any place, and the light faded quickly from Lanny's cell. He sat in twilight, and thought: "Surely Robbie must have returned by now!" His stomach was complaining, and in many ways he was tiring of this bad joke. When at last he heard a jailer approaching his cell he was glad, even though it might mean a court martial. "Venez," said the man; and escorted him to the office of the commissaire again.