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the code, and heard the story of Herr Doktor Willi Schmitt, music critic of the Neueste

Nachrichten and chairman of the Beethoven-Vereinigung; the most amiable of persons, so

Herr Klaussen declared, with body, mind, and soul made wholly of music. Lanny had read his

review of the Eroica performance, and other articles from his pen. The S.S. men came for him,

and when he learned that they thought he was Gruppenführer Willi Schmitt, a quite different

man, he was amused, and told his wife and children not to worry. He went with the Nazis, but

did not return; and when his frantic wife persisted in her clamors she received from Police

Headquarters a death certificate signed by the Burgermeister of the town of Dachau; there had

been "a very regrettable mistake," and they would see that it did not happen again.

Story after story, the most sensational, the most horrible! Truly, it was something fabulous,

Byzantine! Ex-Chancellor Franz von Papen, still a member of the Cabinet, had been attacked in

his office and had some of his teeth knocked out; now he was under "house arrest," his life

threatened, and the aged von Hindenburg, sick and near to death, trying to save his "dear

comrade." Edgar Jung, Papen's friend who had written his offending speech demanding

freedom of the press, had been shot here in Munich. Gregor Strasser had been kidnaped from

his home and beaten to death by S.S. men in Grunewald. General von Schleicher and his wife

had been riddled with bullets on the steps of their villa. Karl Ernst, leader of the Berlin S.A.,

had been slugged unconscious and taken to the city. His staff leader had decided that Göring

had gone crazy, and had flown to Munich to appeal to Hitler about it. He had been taken back

to Berlin and shot with seven of his adjutants. At Lichterfelde, in the courtyard of the old

military cadet school, tribunals under the direction of Göring were still holding "trials" averaging

seven minutes each; the victims were stood against a wall and shot while crying: "Heil Hitler!"

IV

About half the warders in this jail were men of the old regime and the other half S.A. men,

and there was much jealousy between them. The latter group had no way of knowing when the

lightning might strike them, so for the first time they had a fellow-feeling for their prisoners. If

one of the latter had a visitor and got some fresh information, everybody wanted to share it, and

a warder would find a pretext to come to the cell and hear what he had to report. Really, the

old Munich police prison became a delightfully sociable and exciting place! Lanny decided that

he wouldn't have missed it for anything. His own fears had diminished; he decided that when

the storm blew over, somebody in authority would have time to hear his statement and realize

that a blunder had been made. Possibly his three captors had put Hugo's money into their

own pockets, and if so, there was no evidence against Lanny himself. He had only to crouch in

his "better 'ole"—and meantime learn about human and especially Nazi nature.

The population of the jail was in part common criminals—thieves, burglars, and sex

offenders—while the other part comprised political suspects, or those who had got in the way of

some powerful official. A curious situation, in which one prisoner might be a blackmailer and

another the victim of a blackmailer—both in the same jail and supposedly under the same law!

One man guilty of killing, another guilty of refusing to kill, or of protesting against killing!

Lanny could have compiled a whole dossier of such antinomies. But he didn't dare to make

notes, and was careful not to say anything that would give offense to anybody. The place was

bound to be full of spies, and while the men in his own cell appeared to be genuine, either or

both might have been selected because they appeared to be that.

The Hungarian count was a gay companion, and told diverting stories of his liaisons; he had

a passion for playing the game of Halma, and Lanny learned it in order to oblige him. The

business man, Herr Klaussen, told stories illustrating the impossibility of conducting any honest

business under present conditions; then he would say: "Do you have things thus in America?"

Lanny would reply: "My father complains a great deal about politicians." He would tell some of

Robbie's stories, feeling certain that these wouldn't do him any harm in Germany.

Incidentally Herr Klaussen expressed the conviction that the talk about a plot against Hitler

was all Quatsch; there had been nothing but protest and discussion. Also, the talk about the

Führer's being shocked by what he had discovered in the villa at Wiessee was Dummheit,

because everybody in Germany had known about Röhm and his boys, and the Führer had

laughed about it. This worthy Bürger of Munich cherished a hearty dislike of those whom he

called die 'Preiss'n— the Prussians—regarding them as invaders and source of all corruptions.

These, of course, were frightfully dangerous utterances, and this was either a bold man or a

foolish one. Lanny said: "I have no basis to form an opinion, and in view of my position I'd

rather not try." He went back to playing Halma with the Hungarian, and collecting anecdotes

and local color which Eric Vivian Pomeroy-Nielson might some day use in a play.

V

Lanny had spent three days as a guest of the state of Bavaria, and now he spent ten as a guest of

the city of Munich. Then, just at the end of one day, a friendly warder came and said: "Bitte,

kommen Sie, Herr Budd."

It would do no good to ask questions, for the warders didn't know. When you left a cell, you

said Ade, having no way to tell if you would come back. Some went to freedom, others to be

beaten insensible, others to Dachau or some other camp. Lanny was led downstairs to an office

where he found two young S.S. men, dapper and correct, awaiting him. He was pleased to

observe that they were not the same who had arrested him. They came up, and almost before

he realized what was happening, one had taken his wrist and snapped a handcuff onto it. The

other cuff was on the young Nazi's wrist, and Lanny knew it was useless to offer objections.

They led him out to a courtyard, where he saw his own car, with another uniformed S.S. man

in the driver's seat. The rear door was opened. "Bitte einsteigen."

"May I ask where I'm being taken?" he ventured.

"It is not permitted to talk," was the reply. He got in, and the car rolled out into the tree-lined

avenue, and into the city of Munich. They drove straight through, and down the valley of the

Isar, northeastward.

On a dark night the landscape becomes a mystery; the car lights illumine a far-stretching

road, but it is possible to imagine any sort of thing to the right and left. Unless you are doing

the driving, you will even become uncertain whether the car is going uphill or down. But there

were the stars in their appointed places, and so Lanny could know they were headed north.

Having driven over this route, he knew the signposts; and when it was Regensburg and they

were still speeding rapidly, he made a guess that he was being taken to Berlin.

"There's where I get my examination," he thought. He would have one more night to do his

thinking, and then he would confront that colossal power known as the Geheime Staats-Polizei,

more dark than any night, more to be dreaded than anything that night contained.