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"I don't mean that, Lanny. I mean some sort of plot or conspiracy, an attempt to overthrow

the government."

"You know that Freddi didn't believe in anything of the sort. I've heard him say a thousand

times that he believed in government by popular consent, such as we have in America, and such

as the Weimar Republic tried to be—or anyhow, was supposed to be."

"But isn't it conceivable that Freddi might have changed after the Reichstag fire, and after

seeing what was done to his comrades? It wouldn't have been the Weimar Republic he was

trying to overthrow, but Hitler. Isn't it likely that he and many of his friends changed their

minds?"

"Many did, no doubt; but hardly Freddi. What good would he have been? He shuts his eyes

when he aims a gun!"

"There are plenty of others who would do the shooting. What Freddi had was money—scads

of it that he could have got from his father. There were the months of March and April—and

how do you know what he was doing, or what his comrades were planning and drawing him

into?"

"I think he would have told us about it, Irma. He would have felt in honor, bound."

"He might have been in honor bound the other way, he couldn't talk about those comrades. It

might even be that he didn't know what was going on, but that others were using him. Some of

those fellows I met at the school—they were men who would have fought back, I know. Ludi

Schultz, for example—do you imagine he'd lie down and let the Nazi machine roll over him?

Wouldn't he have tried to arouse the workers to what they call 'mass action'? And wouldn't his

wife have helped him? Then again, suppose there was some Nazi agent among them, trying to

lure them into a trap, to catch them in some act of violence so that they could be arrested?"

"The Nazis don't have to have any excuses, Irma; they arrest people wholesale."

"I'm talking about the possibility that there might be some real guilt, or at any rate a charge

against Freddi. Some reason why Göring would consider him dangerous and hold onto him."

"The people who are in the concentration camps aren't those against whom they have

criminal charges. The latter are in the prisons, and the Nazis torture them to make them betray

their associates; then they shoot them in the back of the neck and cremate them. The men

who are in Dachau are Socialist politicians and editors and labor leaders—intellectuals of all

the groups that stand for freedom and justice and peace."

"You mean they're there without any charge against them?" "Exactly that. They've had no

trial, and they don't know what they're there for or how long they're going to stay. Two or

three thousand of the finest persons in Bavaria—and my guess is that Freddi has done no more

than any of the others."

Irma didn't say any more, and her husband knew the reason—she couldn't believe what he

said. It was too terrible to be true. All over the world people were saying that, and would go on

saying it, to Lanny's great exasperation.

V

The days passed, and it was time for the Munich opening, and still nobody had called to

admit a blunder on the part of an infallible governmental machine. Lanny brooded over the

problem continually. Did the fat General expect him to go ahead delivering the goods on credit,

and without ever presenting any bill? Lanny thought: "He can go to hell! And let it be soon!"

In his annoyance, the Socialist in disguise began thinking about those comrades whom he had

met at the school receptions. Rahel had given him addresses, and in his spare hours he had

dropped in at place after place, always taking the precaution to park his car some distance

away and to make sure that he was not followed. In no single case had he been able to find the

persons, or to find anyone who would admit knowing their whereabouts. In most cases people

wouldn't even admit having heard of them. They had vanished off the face of the Fatherland.

Was he to assume that they were all in prisons or concentration camps? Or had some of them

"gone underground"? Once more he debated how he might find his way to that nether region—

always being able to get back to the Hotel Adlon in time to receive a message from the second in

command of the Nazi government!

Irma went to à thé dansant at the American Embassy, and Lanny went to look at some

paintings in a near-by palace. But he didn't find anything he cared to recommend to his

clients, and the prices seemed high; he didn't feel like dancing, and could be sure that his wife

had other partners. His thoughts turned to a serious-minded young "commercial artist" who

wore large horn-rimmed spectacles and hated his work—the making of drawings of abnormally

slender Aryan ladies wearing lingerie, hosiery, and eccentric millinery. Also Lanny thought about

the young man's wife, a consecrated soul, and an art student with a genuine talent. Ludwig

and Gertrude Schultz —there was nothing striking about these names, but Ludi and Trudi

sounded like a vaudeville team or a comic strip.

Lanny had phoned to the advertising concern and been informed that the young man was no

longer employed there. He had called the art school and learned that the former student was

no longer studying. In neither place did he hear any tone of cordiality or have any information

volunteered. He guessed that if the young people had fled abroad they would surely have sent a

message to Bienvenu. If they were "sleeping out" in Germany, what would they be doing?

Would they go about only at night, or would they be wearing some sort of disguise? He could

be fairly sure they would be living among the workers; for they had never had much money,

and without jobs would probably be dependent upon worker comrades.

VI

How to get underground! Lanny could park his car, but he couldn't park his accent and

manners and fashionable little brown mustache. And above all, his clothes! He had no old ones;

and if he bought some in a secondhand place, how would he look going into a de luxe hotel? For

him to become a slum-dweller would be almost as hard as for a slum-dweller to become a

millionaire playboy.

He drove past the building where the workers' school had been. There was now a big swastika

banner hanging from a pole over the door; the Nazis had taken it for a district headquarters. No

information to be got there! So Lanny drove on to the neighborhood where the Schultzes had

lived. Six-story tenements, the least "slummy" workingclass quarter he had seen in Europe. The

people still stayed indoors as much as they could. Frost had come, and the window-boxes with

the flowers had been taken inside.

He drove past the house in which he had visited the Schultzes. Nothing to distinguish it from

any other house, except the number. He drove round the block and came again, and on a sudden

impulse stopped his car and got out and rang the Pfortner's bell. He had already made one

attempt to get something here, but perhaps he hadn't tried hard enough.

This time he begged permission to come in and talk to the janitor's wife, and it was grudgingly

granted. Seated on a wooden stool in a kitchen very clean, but with a strong smell of pork and

cabbage, he laid himself out to make friends with a suspicious woman of the people. He

explained that he was an American art dealer who had met an artist of talent and had taken

some of her work and sold it, and now he owed her money and was troubled because he was

unable to find her. He knew that Trudi Schultz had been an active Socialist, and perhaps for