21 Greatest Spy Thrillers in One Premium Edition (Mystery & Espionage Series)

by E. Phillips Oppenheim

  “You have very good taste,” she told him.

  “I am glad they please you,” he answered. “I am afraid I can’t claim all the credit. There were two showcases—I took one and the housekeeper the other. I simply helped myself to an armful—everything that was displayed. The housekeeper was more selective. She explained that everything was likely to fit you because in showcases they always display the articles of women’s attire in the smaller sizes because they look more attractive.”

  “You pick up things very quickly,” she smiled, taking a long delicious sip of her cocktail. “Oh, what happiness!” she went on, with her eyes still half closed. “The feeling, the caress of this silk, the perfume of violets, the taste of a real cocktail, the smell of these cutlets! Mr. Mildenhall, you are a god and this is a personally conducted tour into Paradise!”

  “Entirely my sentiments,” Blute murmured, gripping at his trousers.

  “To be light-hearted again even for a moment—it is wonderful!” Patricia declared, patting her host’s hand.

  “Another part of my anatomy is aiming at other things,” Blute grunted. “I used to think I would be a happy man to lose four inches around the waist. They have gone, but the road to happiness—”

  “Not a word!” Patricia insisted. “Until dinner is over the past is dead. I am in Paradise and my guide is serving my food.”

  “Lamb cutlets with Sauce Béarnaise,” Blute murmured. “What a novelty but what a heavenly sauce!”

  The soft delicate wines were drunk almost with reverence. The cutlets disappeared in almost miraculous fashion. Patricia looked up guiltily as she finished her second and found the waiter by her side. He had entered into the spirit of the feast, however, and he gave her no time to hesitate. He served her and passed on.

  “It is my third cutlet,” she confessed. “They are so large, too, but oh, how delicious!”

  “The Viennese is the only school of cookery,” Charles pronounced, “which condescends to acknowledge the grill. The French will have none of it.”

  “As a hungry—let me throw away affectation and say a starving girl,” Patricia declared, “I am glad that we are in Vienna.”

  Not a single serious word was spoken during that meal from beginning to end. Towards its conclusion there was a knock at the door and the housekeeper reappeared. She was followed by two girls carrying frocks and coats upon each arm. She smiled graciously upon the diners.

  “I am too soon, I know,” she said. “I shall take my young ladies into the bedroom and await your convenience. I was fortunate enough to find my sister and my two nieces in our establishment. They were only too anxious to help.”

  Charles rose to his feet and directed them to his bedroom.

  “We will send you the young lady in a quarter-of-an-hour, Madame,” he promised. “Will you take your assistants in there and ring for the chambermaid if there is anything you want?”

  “Of course, this is a dream!” Patricia laughed a little jerkily. “Please, Mr. Mildenhall—”

  “Charles,” he interrupted.

  “Charles, then,” she went on. “This really isn’t necessary. We can telephone to one of the big establishments for a gown and a hat and I can buy anything else I want to-morrow if you let me have a little money.”

  “Can’t disappoint the dear old lady,” he said. “She’s knocked them all up and they’re quite excited about it. Don’t think those are all useless evening frocks. I particularly said a travelling gown, some tweeds and simple hats.”

  “You are an angel!” she told him. “All the same—”

  “Well?”

  “I am not going to say anything more. I am too happy to protest. I will talk reasonably about the clothes and everything soon—not now.”

  “I can quite see,” he said, “why Mr. Leopold Benjamin chose you for his perfect secretary. You have the practical mind.”

  “Wait till I get it working,” she warned him. “You must remember that even Mr. Benjamin’s chosen secretary, in hell one moment and in heaven the next, is finding it a little difficult to keep her feet upon the ground. But please let me warn you of this. You may be King Cophetua himself, but I am only going to have from that woman one travelling gown and perhaps one other, two hats, and someone will have to get me a pair of shoes. I have crossed the Atlantic with less than that. The oddments—if you are going to let me have a little money—I know where to get myself.”

  “We’ll deal with this soufflé,” he suggested, “and come to terms later on and then I’ll show you whether I can be practical, too.”

  He crossed the room and lifted the telephone receiver.

  “Is Mr. Herodin in his room?” he asked.

  “And speaking.”

  “I need your help, Herodin,” Charles said. “Mildenhall speaking.”

  “I will step up to your room at once, sir.”

  “Even when we have finished dinner,” Charles remarked as he resumed his seat, “you two will be too exhausted to discuss plans seriously. I must tell you, however, that there is a serious situation to be faced. The news to-day seems to be better but I’m afraid it’s rather a mistake to build upon it. The Germans here all think that because the Führer has consented to receive a Polish envoy there will be no war. I think the people are wrong. That is all I want to say for the moment, but we have to bear it in mind. It may alter our plans.”

  There was a knock at the door and Mr. Herodin entered.

  “Herodin,” Charles said, “I will not introduce you to my two guests. It will leave you freer to answer any questions you may be asked. I want you to arrange, however, rooms in a strictly private part of your hotel for the young lady and a room also for the gentleman.”

  Blute held up his hand.

  “Forgive me, Mr. Mildenhall,” he begged. “Through all my misadventures, except for the time I was temporarily cut off from the world, otherwise in prison, I have spent my nights always in one place. I cannot break that rule. I have a very grave responsibility upon my shoulders. Your offer is one of kindness and I will admit that I am not fit to be seen upon the streets, but I am going to make a few little changes in my attire and I can easily reach the place where it is my duty to sleep.”

  “That’s quite all right,” Charles agreed. “We’ll fix you up in the style of the perfect Viennese dandy to-morrow morning.”

  “You are very kind,” Blute acknowledged, “but I still must leave and enter by the back door.”

  “That,” Mr. Herodin observed with a smile, “can be arranged.”

  “The young lady,” Charles said, “will be ready for her room in an hour’s time. Will you kindly arrange to have a maid here then to show her where it is and look after her?”

  The hôtelier bowed.

  “I quite understand, Mr. Mildenhall. I will send a trusted chambermaid here at the time you say and I will have a room in the quietest part of the hotel prepared. I shall be honoured to do anything I can for your guests.”

  Charles nodded his acknowledgements. The manager bowed once more and left them.

  “Of course, I hope you don’t think I am butting in too much,” Charles observed. “I cannot help treating you two like Babes in the Wood to-night! We will all be more normal to-morrow morning, perhaps.”

  “You are being kindness itself,” Patricia declared. “Dear host,” she went on, taking his hand and holding it tightly, “if there is one thing that sometimes makes me shiver with joy, it is the continual reflection that I have not to return to the lodging house where I have spent the last two months. It costs—very little—but it is horrible. I am not used to fear, but I was afraid there.”

  “Thank God you’ll never see the beastly place again, then!” Charles exclaimed.

  In due course Charles escorted Patricia to the room where the housekeeper and her nieces were waiting. He returned to find Blute with a blissful expression on his face smoking a large cigar.

  “The waiter insisted,” he apologized. “This is the first time I have smoked a cig
ar for five months. I cannot tell you the happiness.”

  “Capital! How are you feeling now, Mr. Blute?”

  “I am a man again,” the other declared. “What I ache for still is one thing and one thing only—a few serious words with you.”

  “I was hoping you might,” was the quiet reply. “I will tell you why, or rather you have it in what I told you a few minutes ago. This country is on the threshold of war. I can tell you pretty well to an hour when that will come.”

  “I feared it,” Blute said gloomily. “Here the people are taking it lightly. They are too obsessed all over Austria with this stupefying chaos of German propaganda. They believe that England will threaten and barter and argue, but they do not believe that she will fight.”

  “They are wrong. In this room I can talk to you in a way I should not have ventured to a week ago. I have been on a special mission to Poland. On the one hand I have had to convince their leaders of a fact which they were only too ready to accept—that England would keep strictly to her obligations, that France would do the same and that the day Poland was invaded both countries would declare war against Germany. Well, as I said, they were only too eager to believe that. On the other hand, it was my duty to point out to them that no practical aid could be looked for from England or even from France for many months—neither by air, nor by land, nor by sea could we reach her with any fighting forces. She must bear that in mind every time she remembered the pact. Our help would come, our word would be kept but if she went to war at the present moment she must make up her mind that she would have to look after herself for at least six months.”

  “What was the reply to that?” Blute asked.

  “Well, they listened to me but all the time they shrugged their shoulders, they babbled about the British Fleet, the French Army, our united air strength. The practical side of the matter is that I have been over to drill into them hard facts which they seem determined to ignore. I left them with the plainest statement of the situation, exactly as it exists; and I insisted upon it that not only the politicians but also the Air Field-Marshal, the Commander-in-Chief of the Army and the man who is responsible for their Navy be given the opportunity of listening to me. I battered it into their understandings that they would probably have five to six months’ fighting without a soul to help them except by indirect pressure. It made no difference, I fear. I know for a fact that the plenipotentiary Hitler insists upon having will not be sent; I also know that if he does not arrive Hitler will move across the frontier immediately, and England and France will be at war with Germany twenty-four hours later.”

  “It is bad news. It affects, of course, what I have to say to you. It affects the position in which Miss Grey is placed. It affects my position…I fancy I hear her returning.”

  “I shall ring, then, for the coffee,” Charles announced, rising to his feet. “As soon as Miss Grey comes I can hear your story and we will consider what help I can give you.”

  CHAPTER XII

  Table of Contents

  Patricia came quietly back, helped herself to coffee, lit a cigarette and slipped into a corner of the couch. The housekeeper explained the situation to Charles, who went in search of her.

  “The very gracious young lady,” she said, “has made our task a pleasant one. She has moved us to admiration, but she is very firm. She has chosen two frocks of the least expensive stock, a travelling coat and two simple hats. She would look at nothing else. She has asked us to procure a pair of shoes and a pair of slippers, for which we have taken her measurements, and—the gnädiger Herr will pardon me—of the underclothes she has asked for two more sets to be supplied to-morrow morning with the other things. I have calculated out the amounts. I do not think that Herr Mildenhall will find the cost excessive. The Fräulein was very obstinate. The total amount of the indebtedness I have reckoned out at the figure shown here. The gnãdiger Herr may be grateful from his point of view that Fräulein is not like most of the young ladies we have to deal with.”

  Charles glanced at the bill.

  “But it is ridiculous!” he exclaimed.

  The housekeeper shook her head sadly.

  “Perhaps,” she remarked, smiling as the idea occurred to her, “Herr Mildenhall and the young lady will be in Vienna later on. They will bear in mind the fact that it is my sister who has been of assistance.”

  “That is indeed exceedingly likely,” Charles agreed, “and with your permission I shall add this note for distribution between yourself and the young ladies, to compensate you for your—er—unusual services.”

  The housekeeper dropped one of the curtsies of her youth.

  “The gift of mein Herr is joyously accepted,” she said. “The two young ladies will join me in my thanks.”

  Charles hurried back into the salon. He took a place by Patricia’s side upon the divan. Marius Blute disposed of himself in an easy chair opposite. Charles held up his hand.

  “One moment,” he begged.

  He pressed the bell for the waiter.

  “There are omissions here,” he said, pointing to the table. “We must rectify them.”

  From the waiter he ordered French brandy, an orange and lemon squash for Patricia, with a small Grand Marnier to drink with her coffee. The cigars were brought back again. The conversation began.

  “My one object,” Blute said, lighting a fresh cigar, “is to save words. I want to put my situation and the situation of Miss Grey before you, sir, in as short a time as possible.”

  “Excellent,” Charles murmured.

  “For ten years,” Blute continued, “I have been a sort of private confidential agent to Mr. Leopold Benjamin. His need of me was based upon this idea. He was the most far-seeing man I have ever come across. He foresaw twelve years ago a state of affairs very like the present one. He employed me for one purpose and one purpose only. It was my business to travel to the cities of Europe which contained sound banking institutions, to open up a correspondence with them on his behalf so that he could deposit money there at a reasonable rate of interest and assume possession of it when the necessity arrived. I shall speak only in sterling so that you, Mr. Mildenhall, who are perhaps not a great financier, will understand in a moment. I have invested nine millions sterling for Mr. Benjamin in this fashion. It has increased in value so that it is now ten millions. Besides this he had about three millions in Vienna. Two million the Nazis stripped him of the day they sacked his bank; one million he took away with him in cash and short-dated bills. Twenty thousand pounds are somewhere waiting for Miss Grey and fifty thousand for me—but we have not the faintest idea where.”

  “Let me get my breath,” Charles begged. “Did you draw no salary, Blute?”

  “A splendid one,” the latter acknowledged. “I spent more than half of it in expenses, the rest I left in Benjamin’s Bank. It was taken over by the government.”

  “That explains your situation,” Charles admitted. “Now, what about Miss Grey?”

  “My salary,” she confided, “was six hundred pounds a year. It was lodged to an account in my name. I drew the money exactly as I required it. Two years ago I thought I should like a small car. I bought it with Mr. Benjamin’s approval. He paid for my lessons in driving and that Christmas Mrs. Benjamin gave me a brooch which must have been worth two or three hundred pounds. When the assets of the bank were devoured by the raids following the Anschluss, they helped themselves to the deposits and mine went with the rest.”

  “This is all very clear,” Charles said, “but what I do not understand is this. Mr. Benjamin struck me as being a very delightful, a generous and a sympathetic person. I cannot conceive his suddenly flying out of the country and leaving you two—Miss Grey still in charge of his affairs and his secretary, and you, Blute, as his agent—without any form of farewell or without any certainty that your balances in the bank would not be touched. He must have known that if this happened you were penniless.”

  “Understand at once,” Blute begged, “that neither Miss Grey
nor I have a word of complaint against Leopold Benjamin. He would be incapable of any act of unkindness or inhumanity. On the night he received that terrible message and decided to leave the country he sent for us both. You will remember the occasion, Mr. Mildenhall. You yourself were dining in the house. His aeroplane was only a mile away. He told us his decision. We agreed that it was for the best. He laid upon us both a special task. He knew quite well that it would cost a great deal of money. We have both been working upon it for the last two years. He handed over to us, before he departed, ten thousand pounds in Bank of England notes. We were to deduct our own expenses or balances at the bank from this and the rest was to go towards the responsibility he laid upon us. Mr. Benjamin was princely in his departure from us as he had been through his life. He is not to be blamed in the least for our misfortunes or that we have come very near starvation.”

  “I’m glad to hear it,” Charles declared. “I hate to be disappointed in people. I believed in Mr. Benjamin. Now then, we come to the pith of the story. What happened to all the money?”

  “The simplest, most foolish thing that could possibly happen,” Blute groaned. “To carry an amount like that about with me was an utter impossibility. Miss Grey felt just the same about it. What we had to do for Mr. Benjamin was a costly affair. I spent a thousand pounds of it the first day, a second thousand the next day. By that time the trouble was getting worse here. Miss Grey, at my suggestion, decided to send a thousand pounds back to America. We arranged that. I sent my wife back home with another two thousand. We pooled the rest and I let Miss Grey have such money as she wanted as occasion arose. She was still living in the house. I was living not a quarter of a mile away—soon I shall have occasion to tell you where. The night that the house was raided by the Nazis all Vienna went mad. The Nazis were bitterly disappointed. They searched every person in the house. They took Miss Grey’s money and they simply treated it as a terrific joke when she assured them that it was part of her salary and without it she was penniless. They found me in the library where I worked most evenings and they found also my money which I kept in a safe behind the desk. I fought for it but I hadn’t a chance. I was carried away on a stretcher and was found by Miss Grey a week afterwards in a hospital. Not a penny of my money was left. Miss Grey went to the bank. It was already too late. The assets had been seized, a seal put upon the safes and not a schilling was parted with to any of the depositors. She and I were left very nearly destitute. I lodged a complaint in the Courts. I was perhaps foolish but it seemed to me there was nothing else to be done. As a result we were thrown into prison. When I was freed I found Miss Grey with difficulty. I tried to get a job at a tourist agency. Meanwhile I wrote home to my wife for money. Miss Grey wrote to America. We both of us wrote to Mr. Benjamin at every address we could think of. No answer came to either of us from anywhere. Soon we saw official notices in all the Austrian and German papers. What they called ‘a moratorium’ existed.”