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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.

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