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The prisoner had had plenty of sleep in the jail, so he used this time to choose his Ausrede,

his "alibi." But the more he tried, the worse his confusion became. They were bound to have

found out that he had drawn thirty thousand marks from the Hellstein bank in Munich; they

were bound to know that he had paid most of it to Hugo; they were bound to know that some

sort of effort had been made to take Freddi out of Dachau. All these spelled guilt on Lanny's part;

and the only course that seemed to hold hope was to be frank and naive; to laugh and say:

"Well, General Göring charged Johannes Robin his whole fortune to get out, and used me as

his agent, so naturally I thought that was the way it was done. When Hugo offered to do it for

only twenty-eight thousand marks, I thought I had a bargain."

In the early dawn, when nobody was about except the milkman and the machine-gun

detachments of the Berlin police, Lanny's car swept into the city, and in a workingclass

quarter which he took to be Moabit, drew up in front of a large brick building. He hadn't been

able to see the street signs, and nobody took the trouble to inform him. Was it the dreaded

Nazi barracks in Hedemannstrasse, about which the refugees talked with shudders? Was it the

notorious Columbus-Haus? Or perhaps the headquarters of the Feldpolizei, the most feared group

of all?

"Bitte aussteigen," said the leader. They had been perfectly polite, but hadn't spoken one

unnecessary word, either to him or to one another. They were machines; and if somewhere

inside them was a soul, they would have been deeply ashamed of it. They were trying to get

into the Reichswehr, and this was the way.

They went into the building. Once more they did not stop to "book" the prisoner, but

marched him with military steps along a corridor, and then down a flight of stone stairs into

a cellar. This time Lanny couldn't be mistaken; there was a smell of blood, and there were

cries somewhere in the distance. Once more he ventured a demand as to what he was being

held for, what was to be done to him? This time the young leader condescended to reply: "Sie

sind ein Schutzhäftling."

They were telling him that he was one of those hundred thousand persons, Germans and

foreigners, who were being held for their own good, to keep harm from being done to them.

"Aber," insisted Lanny, with his best society manner, "I haven't asked to be a Schutzhäftling —

I'm perfectly willing to take my chances outside." If any of them had a sense of humor, this was

not the place to show it. There was a row of steel doors, and one was opened. For the first time

since these men had confronted Lanny in the Munich jail the handcuff was taken from his

wrist, and he was pushed into a "black cell" and heard the door clang behind him.

VI

The same story as at Stadelheim; only it was more serious now, because that had been an

accident, whereas this was deliberate, this was after two weeks of investigation. Impossible to

doubt that his plight was as serious as could be. Fear took complete possession of him, and

turned his bones to some sort of pulp. Putting his ear to the opening in the door, he could have

no doubt that he heard screaming and crying; putting his nose to the opening, he made sure

that he smelled that odor which he had heretofore associated with slaughter-houses. He was in

one of those dreadful places about which he had been reading and hearing, where the Nazis

systematically broke the bodies and souls of men—yes, and of women, too. In the Brown Book

he had seen a photograph of the naked rear of an elderly stout woman, a city councilor of the

Social-Democratic party, from her shoulders to her knees one mass of stripes from a scientific

beating.

They weren't going to trouble to question him, or give him any chance to tell his story. They

were taking it for granted that he would lie, and so they would punish him first, and then he

would be more apt to tell the truth. Or were they just meaning to frighten him? To put him

where he could hear the sounds and smell the smells, and see if that would "soften him up"? It

had that effect; he decided that it would be futile to try to conceal anything, to tell a single lie.

He saw his whole past lying like an open book before some Kriminalkommissar, and it was a

very bad past indeed from the Nazi point of view; every bit as bad as that which had brought

Freddi Robin some fourteen months of torture.

Whatever it was, it was coming now. Steps in the corridor, and they stopped in front of his

door; the door was opened, and there were two S.S. men. New ones—they had an unlimited

supply, and all with the same set faces, all with the same code of Blut und Eisen. Black shirts,

black trousers, shiny black boots, and in their belts an automatic and a hard rubber truncheon

—an unlimited supply of these, also, it appeared.

They took him by the arms and led him down the corridor. Their whole manner, the whole

atmosphere, told him that his time had come. No use to resist; at least not physically; they

would drag him, and would make his punishment worse. He was conscious of a sudden surge

of anger; he loathed these subhuman creatures, and still more he loathed the hellish system

which had made them. He would walk straight, in spite of his trembling knees; he would hold

himself erect, and not give them the satisfaction of seeing him weaken. He dug his nails into

the palms of his hands, he gritted his teeth, and walked to whatever was beyond that door at

the end of the corridor.

VII

The sounds had died away as Lanny came nearer, and when the door was opened he heard

only low moans. Two men were in the act of leading a beaten man through a doorway at the

far side of the room. In the semi-darkness he saw only the dim forms, and saw one thrown into

the room beyond. Apparently there were many people there, victims of the torturing; moans

and cries came as from a section of Dante's inferno; the sounds made a sort of basso continuo to

all the infernal events which Lanny witnessed in that chamber of horrors.

A room about fifteen feet square, with a concrete floor and walls of stone; no windows, and

no light except half a dozen candles; only one article of furniture, a heavy wooden bench about

eight feet long and two feet broad, in the middle of the room. From end to end the bench was

smeared and dripping with blood, and there was blood all over the floor, and a stench of dried

blood, most sickening. Also there was the pungent odor of human sweat, strong, ammoniacal;

there were four Nazis standing near the bench, stripped to the waist, and evidently they had

been working hard and fast, for their smooth bodies shone with sweat and grease, even in the

feeble light. Several other Nazis stood by, and one man in civilian clothes, wearing spectacles.

Lanny had read all about this; every anti-Nazi had learned it by heart during the past year

and a half. He took it in at a glance, even to the flexible thin steel rods with handles, made for

the purpose of inflicting as much pain as possible and doing as little permanent damage. If you

did too much damage you lost the pleasure of inflicting more pain—and also you might lose

important evidence. Lanny had read about it, heard about it, brooded over it, wondered how he

would take it—and now here it was, here he was going to find out.

What happened was that a wave of fury swept over him; rage at these scientifically-trained