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going on; Lanny counted through letter after letter: "E-R-S-C-H-O-S-." By that time the

little Jew must have felt Lanny's hand come alive beneath his gentle taps, and realized that

Lanny had got his meaning. But he finished the word to make sure. It took twice as long as it

would have taken in English: "Rohm shot!"

XI

That simple statement bore a tremendous weight of meaning for Lanny. It enabled him to

begin choosing among the variety of tales which he had constructed for himself in the past three

days and four nights. If Ernst Rohm, Chief of Staff of the Sturmabteilung, had been shot, it

must mean that the much-talked-of "Second Revolution" had failed. And especially when the

tapping continued, and Lanny counted out, letter by letter, the words "in Stadelheim." That

was a flash of lightning on a black night; it told Lanny what all the shooting had been about.

The S.A. Chief of Staff and his many lieutenants who had been gathered for a conference! They

must have been seized, carried from Wiessee, and shot somewhere in the grim old prison! The

quick finger tapped on, and spelled the name of Heines, followed again by the dread word

"erschossen." Lanny knew that this was the police chief of Breslau, who had led the gang which

had burned the Reichstag; he was one of the most notorious of the Nazi killers, and Hugo had

named him as one of Rohm's fellow-perverts, and a guest at the Wiessee villa.

And then the name of Strasser! Lanny put his hand on top of the little Jew's and spelled the

name "Otto"; but the other wiggled away and spelled "Gr—" so Lanny understood that it was

Gregor Strasser, whom he had heard getting a tongue-lashing from the Führer, and whom he

and Irma had heard speaking at a Versammlung in Stuttgart. Otto Strasser was the founder of

the hated "Black Front," and was an exile with a price on his head; but his elder brother

Gregor had retired from politics and become director of a chemical works. Lanny had been

surprised when Hugo had mentioned him as having had conferences with Rohm.

The little Jewish intellectual was having a delightful time breaking the rules and gossiping

with a fellow-prisoner, telling him the meaning of the terrific events of the past three days.

Even into a prison, news penetrates and is spread; and never in modern times had there been

news such as this! The eager finger tapped the name of Schleicher; the one-time Chancellor, the

self-styled "social general" who had tried so hard to keep Hitler out of power; who had

thwarted von Papen, and then been thwarted in turn. Of late he had been dickering with the

malcontents, hankering to taste the sweets of power again. "Schleicher erschossen!" A high

officer of the Reichswehr, a leading Junker, one of the sacred ruling caste! Lanny looked at the

face of the stoutish gentleman across the aisle, and understood why his eyes were wide and

frightened. Could he see the little Jew's finger resting on Lanny's hand, and was he perhaps

counting the taps? Or was he just horrified to be alive in such a world?

Lanny had heard enough names, and began tapping vigorously in his turn. "Wohin gehen

wir?" The answer was: "Munich Police Prison." When he asked: "What for?" the little Jew

didn't have to do any tapping. He just shrugged his shoulders and spread his two hands, the

Jewish way of saying in all languages: "Who knows?"

28

Bloody Instructions

I

IN THE city jail of Munich Lanny was treated like anybody else; which was a great relief to

him. He was duly "booked": his name, age, nationality, residence, and occupation—he gave the

latter as Kunstsachverständiger, which puzzled the man at the desk, as if he didn't get many of

that kind; with a four days' growth of brown beard Lanny looked more like a bandit, or felt

that he did. He was, it appeared, under "protective arrest"; there was grave danger that

somebody might hurt him, so the kindly Gestapo was guarding him from danger. By this device

a Führer with a "legality complex" was holding a hundred thousand men and women in

confinement without trial or charge. The American demanded to be allowed to notify his

consul, and was told he might make that request of the "inspector"; but he wasn't told when

or how he was to see that personage. Instead he was taken to be fingerprinted, and then to be

photographed.

All things are relative; after a "black cell" in Stadelheim, this city jail in the Ettstrasse seemed

homelike and friendly, echt suddeutsch-gemütlich . In the first place, he was put in a cell with

two other men, and never had human companionship been so welcome to Lanny Budd. In the

next place, the cell had a window, and while it was caked with dust, it was permitted to be

open at times, and for several hours the sun came through the bars. Furthermore, Lanny's

money had been credited to his account, and he could order food; for sixty pfennigs, about

fifteen cents, he could have a plate of cold meat and cheese; for forty pfennigs he could have a

shave by the prison barber. For half an hour in the morning while his cell was being cleaned he

was permitted to walk up and down in the corridor, and for an hour at midday he was taken

out into the exercise court and allowed to tramp round and round in a large circle, while from

the windows of the four-story building other inmates looked down upon him. Truly a

gemütlich place of confinement!

One of his cell-mates was the large business man who had been his fellow-passenger in the

Grüne Minna. It turned out that he was the director of a manufacturing concern, accused of

having violated some regulation regarding the payment of his employees; the real reason, he

declared, was that he had discharged an incompetent and dishonest Nazi, and now they were

going to force him out and put that Nazi in charge. He would stay in prison until he had made

up his mind to sign certain papers which had been put before him. The other victim was a

Hungarian count, who was a sort of Nazi, but not the right sort, and he, too, had made a

personal enemy, in this case his mistress. Lanny was astonished to find how large a percentage of

prisoners in this place were or thought they were loyal followers of the Führer. Apparently all

you had to do in order to get yourself into jail was to have a quarrel with someone who had

more influence than yourself, then you would be accused of any sort of offense, and you stayed

because in Naziland to be accused or even suspected was worse than being convicted.

Lanny discovered that having been in a "black cell" of Stadelheim for three days and four nights

had made him something of a distinguished person, a sort of Edmond Dantes, Count of Monte

Cristo. His cell-mates fell upon him and plied him with questions about what he had seen and

heard in those dreadful underground dungeons. Apparently they knew all about the killings;

they could even tell him about the courtyard with a wall against which the shooting was done,

and the hydrant for washing away the blood. Lanny could add nothing except the story of

how he had lain and listened; how many drum-rolls and volleys he had heard, and about the

man who had argued and protested, and Lanny's own frightful sensations. It was a relief to

describe them, he found; his Anglo-Saxon reticence broke down in these close quarters, where

human companionship was all that anybody had, and he must furnish his share of