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coughing and sneezing sounds which Tecumseh had found too barbarous. To her husband she

said: "Really the craziest way to put words together! I will the blue bag with the white

trimmings to the hotel room immediately bring let. I will the eggs without the shells to be broken

have. It makes me feel all the time as if children were making it up."

But no one could question the right of Germans by the children their sentences to be shaped

let, and Irma was determined to speak properly if at all; never would she consent to sound to

anybody the way Mama Robin sounded to her. So she and the manicurist talked for hours about

the events of the day, and when Irma mentioned the Parteitag, Elsa said yes, her beloved Schatz

had been there. This "treasure" was the block leader for his neighborhood and an ardent party

worker, so he had received a badge and transportation and a permit to leave his work, also his

straw and two blankets and goulash and coffee—all free. Irma put many questions, and

ascertained what the duties of a block leader were, and how he had a subordinate in every

apartment building, and received immediate reports of any new person who appeared in it, and

of any whose actions were suspicious, or who failed to contribute to the various party funds, the

Büchsen, and so on. All this would be of interest to Lanny, who might use a block leader,

perhaps to give him information so that he could outwit some other block leader in an

emergency.

Elsa's "treasure" afforded an opportunity to check on the claims of Heinrich and to test the

efficiency of the Nazi machine. One of a hundred clerks in a great insurance office, Elsa's Karl

worked for wretched wages, and if it had not been for his "little treasure" would have had to

live in a lodging-house room. Yet he was marching on air because of his pride in the party and

its achievements. He worked nights and Sundays at a variety of voluntary tasks, and had never

received a penny of compensation—unless you counted the various party festivals, and the

fact that the party had power to force his employers to grant him a week's holiday to attend the

Parteitag. Both he and Elsa swelled with pride over this power, and a word of approval from his

party superior would keep Karl happy for months. He thought of the Führer as close to God,

and was proud of having been within a few feet of him, even though he had not seen him. The

"treasure" had been one of many thousands of Brownshirts who had been lined up on the street

in Nürnberg through which the Führer made his triumphal entrance. It had been Karl's duty to

hold the crowds back, and he had faced the crowds, keeping watch lest some fanatic should

attempt to harm the holy one.

Elsa told how Karl had seen the Minister-Präsident General Göring riding in an open car

with a magnificent green sash across his brown party uniform. He had heard the solemn words

of Rudolf Hess, Deputy of the Führer: "I open the Congress of Victory!" He had heard Hitler's

own proud announcement: "We shall meet here a year from now, we shall meet here ten

years from now, and a hundred, and even a thousand!" And Reichsminister Goebbels's

excoriation of the foreign Jews, the busy vilifiers of the Fatherland. "Not one hair of any Jewish

head was disturbed without reason," Frau Magda's husband had declared. When Irma told

Lanny about this, he thought of poor Freddi's hairs and hoped it might be true. He wondered

if this orgy of party fervor had been paid for out of the funds which Johannes Robin had

furnished. Doubtless that had been "reason" enough for disturbing the hairs of Johannes's head!

III

Lanny took Hugo Behr for a drive, that being the only way they could talk freely. Lanny

didn't say: "Did you write me that letter?" No, he was learning the spy business, and letting the

other fellow do the talking.

Right away the sports director opened up. "I'm terribly embarrassed not to have been of any

use to you, Lanny."

"You haven't been able to learn anything?"

"I would have written if I had. I paid out more than half the money to persons who agreed

to make inquiries in the prisons in Berlin, and also in Oranienburg and Sonnenburg and

Spandau. They all reported there was no such prisoner. I can't be sure if they did what they

promised, but I believe they did. I want to return the rest of the money."

"Nonsense," replied the other. "You gave your time and thought and that is all I asked. Do

you suppose there is any chance that Freddi might be in some camp outside of Prussia?"

"There would have to be some special reason for it."

"Well, somebody might have expected me to be making this inquiry. Suppose they had

removed him to Dachau, would you have any way of finding out?"

"I have friends in Munich, but I would have to go there and talk to them. I couldn't write."

"Of course not. Do you suppose you could get leave to go?"

"I might be able to think up some party matter."

"I would be very glad to pay your expenses, and another thousand marks for your trouble.

Everything that I told you about the case applies even more now. The longer Freddi is missing,

the more unhappy the father grows, and the more pressure on me to do something. If the Detaze

show should prove a success in Berlin, I may take it to Munich; meantime, if you could get the

information, I could be making plans."

"Have you any reason to think about Dachau, especially?"

"I'll tell you frankly. It may sound foolish, but during the World War I had an English friend

who was a flyer in France, and I was at my father's home in Connecticut, and just at dawn I was

awakened by a strange feeling and saw my friend standing at the foot of the bed, a shadowy

figure with a gash across his forehead. It turned out that this was just after the man had

crashed and was lying wounded in a field."

"One hears such stories," commented the other, "but one never knows whether to believe

them."

"Naturally, I believed this. I've never had another such experience until the other night. I was

awakened, I don't know how, and lying in the dark I distinctly heard a voice saying: 'Freddi is

in Dachau.' I waited a long time, thinking he might appear, or that I might hear more, but

nothing happened. I had no reason to think of Dachau-it seems a very unlikely place—so

naturally I am interested to follow it up and see if I am what they call 'psychic' "

Hugo agreed that he, too, would be interested; his interest increased when Lanny slipped

several hundred-mark notes into his pocket, saying, with a laugh: "My mother and stepfather

have paid much more than this to spiritualist mediums to see if they could get any news of our

friend."

IV

Hugo also had been to the Parteitag. To him it was not merely a marvelous demonstration

of loyalty, but a call to every Parteigenosse to see that the loyalty was not wasted. Those million

devoted workers gave their services without pay, because they had been promised a great

collective reward, the betterment of the lot of the common man in Germany. But so far they

had got nothing; not one of the promised economic reforms had been carried out, and indeed

many of the measures which had been taken were reactionary, making the reforms more remote

and difficult. The big employers had got a commanding voice in the control of the new shop

councils—which meant simply that wages would be frozen where they were, and the workers

deprived of all means of influencing them. The same was true of the peasants, because prices were