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clubbing them insensible.

Drive carefully, but fast, and stop only when necessary! The roads were good and the route

familiar, and meantime, safe from prying ears, they had much to talk about. The Robins were

informed that they owned some money which the Nazis had not been able to keep track of—those

sums which Johannes had spent in entertaining Irma Barnes. They would be repaid in

installments, as the family needed it, and the money was not to be considered a loan or a gift,

but board and passenger fares long overdue. Irma said this with the decisiveness which she was

acquiring; she had learned that her money gave her power to settle the destinies of other

people, and she found it pleasant exercising this power—always for their own good, of course.

There was the estate of Bienvenu with nobody in it but Hansi and Bess and Baby Frances

with her attendants. Mama and Rahel and her little one were to settle down in the Lodge and

learn to count their blessings. Johannes would probably wish to go to New York with Irma and

Lanny, for they had some business to transact with Robbie, and Johannes might be of help.

Lanny gave him Robbie's letter to read, and the spirits of this born trader began to show faint

signs of life. Yes, he might have ideas about the selling of Budd products; if Robbie should get

charge of the company, Johannes would offer to take his job as European representative. Or, if

Robbie preferred, he would see what he could do with the South American trade—he had sold

all sorts of goods there, including military, and had much information about revolutions, past,

present, and to come.

"Sufferance is the badge of all our tribe." So Shylock had spoken, and now these three

wearers of the badge confronted their future, for the most part in silence. Their long siege of

fear had exhausted them, and they still found it hard to believe that they were free, that the

papers which Lanny was carrying would actually have power to get them over the border. They

thought about the dear one they were leaving in the Hitler hell, and the tears would steal down

their cheeks; they wiped them away furtively, having no right to add to the unhappiness of

friends who had done so much for them. They ate the food and drank the bottled drinks

which Lanny put into their hands; a lovely dark-eyed little boy with curly black hair lay still in

his mother's or his grandmother's arms and never gave a whimper of complaint. He was only

three years and as many months old, but already he had learned that he was in a world full of

mysterious awful powers, which for some reason beyond his comprehension meant to harm him.

Sufferance was his badge.

V

They were traveling by way of Hanover and Cologne. The roads were perfect, and three or

four hundred miles was nothing to Lanny; they reached Aachen before nightfall, and then

came the border, and the critical moment—which proved to be anticlimactic. The examination of

baggage and persons for concealed money was usually made as disagreeable as possible for Jews;

but perhaps there was some special mark on their exit permits, or perhaps it was because they

were traveling in an expensive car and under the chaperonage of expensive-looking Americans—

anyhow the questioning was not too severe, and much sooner than anyone had expected the

anxious refugees were signaled to proceed across the line. The inspection of their passports on

the Belgian side was a matter that took only a minute or two; and when the last formality was

completed and the car rolled on through a peaceful countryside that wasn't Nazi, Mama broke

down and wept in the arms of her spouse. She just hadn't been able to believe that it would

happen.

They spent the night in the city of Liege, where Lanny's first duty was to send telegrams to

his mother and father, to Hansi, to Zoltan and Emily and Rick. In the morning they drove on to

Paris; and from there he telephoned to his friend Oberleutnant Furtwaengler in Berlin. What

news was there about Freddi Robin? The officer reported that the young man was nowhere in

the hands of the German authorities; unless by chance he had given a false name when arrested,

something which was often attempted but rarely successful. Lanny said he was quite certain

that Freddi would have no motive for doing this. The Oberleutnant promised to continue the

search, and if anything came of it he would send a telegram to Lanny at his permanent

address, Juan-les-Pins, Cap d'Antibes, Frankreich.

Lanny hung up and reported what he had heard. It meant little, of course. Long ago Lanny

had learned that diplomats lie when it suits their country's purposes, and police and other

officials do the same; among the Nazis, lying in the interest of party and Regierung was an heroic

action. The statement of Göring's aide meant simply that if Göring had Freddi he meant to keep

him. If and when he released him, he would doubtless say that an unfortunate mistake had

been made.

Beauty had gone to London with her husband, as guests of Lady Caillard. She now wired

Lanny to come and see if he could get any hints through Madame. Since it was as easy to go

to New York from England as from France, they decided upon this plan. But first they must

run down to Juan, because Irma couldn't cross the ocean without having at least a glimpse of

her little daughter. Also it would be "nice" for Johannes to see Hansi and Bess. In general it

was "nice" for people to dart here and there like humming-birds, sipping the honey of delight

from whatever flower caught the eye. So next morning the four Robins were again loaded into

the back seat, and in the evening they rolled through the gates of Bienvenu amid a chorus of

delighted cries in English, German, and Yiddish; cries mostly in the treble clef, but with an

undertone in the bass, because of the one sheep which had strayed and might already have

been devoured by the wolves.

VI

Once again the young couple had a debauch of parental emotions; Irma hugged little Frances

against all rules, talked baby-talk which interfered with the maturing of her speech, gave her

foods which were unwholesome, let her stay up too late—in short disarranged all schedules and

spread demoralization. She even talked about taking the whole entourage to Long Island—it

would give such pleasure to the grandmother. Lanny argued against it—the child had

everything that a three-year-old could really appreciate, and now was enjoying the

companionship of a young Robin. Lanny and Irma were planning only a short stay, and why

incur all the added expense, at a time when everything was so uncertain? Lanny was always

trying to economize with the Barnes fortune—overlooking the fact that the only fun in having a

fortune is if you don't economize. Just now he had the idea that they might have to buy Freddi

out of Germany; and who could guess the price?

All right, Irma would stay another day, and then tear herself loose. She would lay many

injunctions upon Bub Smith, the dependable bodyguard, and extract promises from Miss

Severne to cable her at the smallest symptom of malaise. "Do you realize how many millions

this tiny being represents?" Irma didn't say those crude words, but it was the clear implication

of every command, and of the circumstances surrounding Frances Barnes Budd. "The twenty-

three-million-dollar baby" was her newspaper name. The twenty-three-million-dollar baby had set

out on a yachting cruise, and the twenty-three-million-dollar baby had unexpectedly returned to

Bienvenu. All the expenses of maintaining the twenty-three-million-dollar baby might have

been collected in admission fees from tourists who would have flocked to see her if

arrangements had been made.

The men of the family had a conference in Lanny's studio. Johannes hadn't been willing to

tell the ladies what had happened to him in Germany, but he told Hansi and Lanny how he

had been taken to the S.A. barracks in Bremerhaven and there subjected to a long series of

indignities, obviously intended to break his spirit. They had given him strong purgatives, and

amused themselves by forcing him to paddle other prisoners in the same plight, and to be

paddled by them in turn, until all of them were a mess of one another's filth. While they did

this they had to shout: "Heil lieber Reichskanzler!" As a climax they had been forced to dig a

long trench, and were lined up to be shot and dumped into it—so they were told. It was only a

mock execution, but they had died psychologically, and Johannes had by then become so sick with

horror and pain that he had welcomed the end. He said now that he would never be the same

man again; he would go on living because of his family and friends, but the game of making

money would never hold the same zest. He said that, but then, being a clear-sighted man, he

added: "It's a habit, and I suppose I'll go on reacting in the old way; but I can't imagine I'll ever

be happy."

They talked about the problem of the missing one, and what was to be done. Lanny had

promised not to name Hugo Behr, and he didn't, but said that he had a confidential agent at

work, and had given him the Juan address. Hansi was to open all mail that might come from

Germany, and if it contained anything significant, he was to cable it. Johannes said that Hansi

and Bess would have to give up the pleasure of playing music at Red meetings, or doing anything

to advertise their anti-Nazi views. They were still Göring's prisoners; and that was, no doubt, the

way Göring intended it to be.

Hansi was "broke" because he and Bess had been spending all their money on refugees. That,

too, would have to stop. Since it would do no good to sit around and mourn, Hansi decided to

cable his New York agent to arrange a concert tour of the United States in the fall. Meantime,

Irma would open an account for him at her bank in Cannes. "But remember," she said, "no

more Reds and no Red talk!" Irma laying down the law!

All problems thus settled, one bright morning Irma and Lanny, with Papa in the back seat,

set out amid more cries in English, German, and Yiddish—this time not so happy. They arrived

in Paris and had dinner with Zoltan Kertezsi, and in the morning drove to Les Forêts, and told

Emily Chattersworth as much of their story as was permitted. In the afternoon they set out for

Calais, place of bitter memories forevermore. They took the night ferry, drove through England

in the loveliest of all months, and arrived at the Dorchester Hotel amid the gayest of all seasons.

VII

Sir Vincent Caillard, pronounced French-fashion, Ky-yahr, had been one of Zaharoff's

associates from the early days when they had bought Vickers; in the course of the years he had

become one of the richest men in England. Also, strangely enough, he had been a poet, and had

set Blake's Songs of Innocence to music; he had bequeathed these interests to his wife, along

with a huge block of Vickers shares. So it had come about that an elderly, gray-haired lady,

rather small, pale, and insignificant-looking, wielded power in London, and concentrated upon

herself the attention of a swarm of eccentric persons, some of them genuine idealists, more of

them genuine crooks.