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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

that reason did not wish to be known; but he was an entirely non-political person, and neither

Trudi nor her friends had anything to fear from him. He applied what psy chology he possessed

in an effort to win the woman's confidence, but it was in vain. She didn't know where the

Schultzes had gone; she didn't know anybody who might know. The apartment was now

occupied by a laborer with a family of several children. "Nein," and then again "Nein, mein

Herr."

Lanny gave up, and heard the door of the Pfortnerin close behind him. Then he saw coming

down the stairway of the tenement a girl of eight or ten, in a much patched dress and a black

woolen shawl about her head and shoulders. On an impulse he said, quickly: "Bitte, wo wohnt

Frau Trudi Schultz?"

The child halted and stared. She had large dark eyes and a pale undernourished face; he thought

she was Jewish, and perhaps that accounted for her startled look. Or perhaps it was because she

had never seen his kind of person in or near her home. "I am an old friend of Frau Schultz," he

continued, following up his attack.

"I don't know where she lives," murmured the child.

"Can you think of anybody who would know? I owe her some money and she would be glad to

have it." He added, on an inspiration: "I am a comrade."

"I know where she goes," replied the little one. "It is the tailor-shop of Aronson, down that

way, in the next block."

"Danke schön" said Lanny, and put a small coin into the frail hand of the hungry-looking

little one.

He left his car where it stood and found the tailorshop, which had a sign in Yiddish as well

as German. He walked by on the other side of the street, and again regretted his clothes, so

conspicuous in this neighborhood. "Aronson" would probably be a Socialist; but maybe he

wasn't, and for Lanny to stroll in and ask for Trudi might set going some train of events which he

could not imagine. On the other hand, he couldn't walk up and down in front of the place

without being noticed—and those inside the shop no doubt had reasons for keeping watch.