The very luxurious little saloon which the gilded youth of Vienna were accustomed to frequent for the purpose of having their nails manicured was almost empty when Charles presented himself. A lady in a gorgeous coiffure, who was seated at a table near the entrance, flashed a dazzling smile at him and indicated the line of shrouded chairs beyond. A young woman, becomingly attired in a black silk frock of Viennese design, motioned him into a small apartment which she had just left. She spoke in French.
“You are a little late. Monsieur Mildenhall.”
“It is unfortunately true,” he apologized. “Everyone, I think, is half-an-hour late in Vienna to-day. They are all getting ready to leave to-morrow. Nevertheless, I apologize.”
“I have waited for you,” she said simply. “You are a friend of Monsieur Lascelles?”
“Quite true. I have to bring you two farewell offerings. This one,” he added, handing her the thousand schilling note in an envelope, “and this,” raising her fingers to his lips.
“Monsieur Lascelles was more generous with his money than with his little caress,” she remarked.
“It is the only fault the genuine Englishman possesses,” he assured her. “We are a jealous race. My friend, I can tell you, left the city with much reluctance.”
“They told me before I came that everyone was always happy in Vienna,” she sighed. “I did not find it so in London, nor even in Paris. Here I do not think it will remain so. One feels the change coming.”
“Mademoiselle,” he agreed, “you are entirely right. If I were you I would at once return to Paris. The joys of Vienna are passing. Soon they will become history.”
She looked at him disconsolately.
“But you are depressing! Monsieur Lascelles, he told me that however seriously you really felt you had the gift of appearing light-hearted, that you made the world always seem a carefree place. He said that part of your success in your profession was that you seemed always to be a trifler, even when you were dealing with serious things.”
“Well, do you disapprove?” he asked. “One should not ask the world to share one’s sorrows.”
She glanced through the curtains to where her employer had been seated. Her chair was vacant. The lights of the place were burning dimly. She drew back the curtain and returned to the side of the client’s chair where Charles was seated. She slipped a little bowl of hot water into the ring for its reception.
“You are already tired, Mademoiselle,” he remarked.
“I am not proposing,” she said, “to attend to your nails. This is what they call in English a bluff. It is in case a chance client should present himself, although it is after hours. Did you know, Mr. Mildenhall, that your friend left a message with me for you?
“Not an idea,” he answered. “He said nothing about it.”
“That is rather like him. You were not formally attached to the Embassy, were you?”
“Not now,” he told her. “I am a free lance. I call in there whenever I am in Austria for old association’s sake.”
“Just so. Monsieur Lascelles had a fixed post there, had he not?”
“Certainly. He was First Secretary. Do you know, Mademoiselle,” Charles went on, “I dare say Monsieur Lascelles told you that I had queer habits and ideas. One of my ideas is that I do not like very much to talk about politics or what goes on at the Embassy, even though I have now no responsibilities.”
“I expected that speech,” she said smiling. “I am very much to be trusted, though, Monsieur Mildenhall. I might tell you something which would surprise you quite a great deal, but it is not necessary. You received from your friend. Monsieur Lascelles, to-day three black boxes with a request that you go through them and destroy everything that was worthless and preserve for your own transportation to London what you thought should be kept.”
Mildenhall’s stern grey eyes were fixed upon the girl. The smile had gone from his lips. She felt the difference at once. It was like a little draught of icy wind passing through the overperfumed atmosphere. He made no answer to her statement nor did he comment upon it. He simply waited.
“I tell myself,” she went on softly, “that tomorrow morning Monsieur Mildenhall will be leaving Vienna. It must be that he will come and see me to-night. I get your message. I wait.”
There was another pause. Charles knocked the ash from the cigarette that he had been smoking. It was his only movement. His face remained expressionless.
“In one of the three boxes,” she continued, “you found a sealed letter which you have without doubt preserved. The letter was contained in a long brown envelope sealed with green wax and addressed to Monsieur Lascelles at the Embassy.”
She paused.
“You will forgive me if I light another cigarette,” Charles observed. “The atmosphere of this place is a little overpowering.”
She accepted one from his case, struck a match and offered it to him.
“Well,” he said, “Mademoiselle Rosette, your little story about the three boxes is absolutely correct. Now what about this message?”
“The envelope addressed to Monsieur Lascelles,” she demanded breathlessly, “the brown envelope with the green seals—you have preserved that?”
There was again that uncompromising and brutal silence. She failed to penetrate it by gesture, the eloquence of her pleading eyes, the touch of her fingers. He remained stony and immutable.
“The message is simply this,” she went on. “I was to say that he had changed his mind with regard to the contents of that letter and that you were to hand it over to me just as it was. Monsieur Lascelles told me to say that the proof of my good faith would be the fact that I knew of its existence.”
For several moments Charles seemed absorbed in thought. Nevertheless, the girl, who was watching him closely, was conscious of a change. The quality of his silence was altered. Her fear of him was slowly passing. After all, he was human. He leaned over and felt her hand. She returned the pressure of his fingers eagerly. He felt her cheek. She crept nearer to him.
“Your fingers are icy cold!” he exclaimed. “So is your cheek! Yet the temperature of this place is almost overpowering. Mademoiselle Rosette, you are not well, I fear.”
“I am perfectly well,” she assured him. “For a moment or two you frightened me. Indeed—indeed, Mr. Mildenhall, it was that which did upset me very much. I had the idea that I was talking to a lay figure, to someone who listened only with his ears but not with his brain.”
“Very clever,” he smiled. “Well, I don’t seem to remember coming across a brown envelope with green seals. I must go through the boxes again.”
“But you have been through them once and you cannot have missed a letter like that!”
He shook his head.
“You have no idea how careless I am,” he confided. “Lascelles did not seem to attribute very much importance to the affair. I think I shall go through them after dinner.”
She gazed at him as though doubting the sound of his words.
“But you have been through the boxes!” she gasped.
“How do you know that?” he asked quickly.
She was breathing fast now. All her fears seemed to be returning. That delicately shaped bosom was rising and falling quickly. She pressed closer to him. He held out his hand.
“I shall go through them more carefully after dinner,” he told her, patting her gently but at the same time rising to his feet.
“Ah, but you must not go away like this,” she begged. “Let me go with you to your room. If I feel cold, if I seem ill, it is because I am hungry. I am worried, too. I do not understand—”
“What is it that you do not understand?” he asked calmly.
“You are strange with me, you act as though you did not believe.”
He was infinitely remote again. He had picked up his hat. He was leaving—leaving her in this terrible state of uncertainty. She clung to his arm as he moved towards the door.
“Mademoiselle Rosette,” he said, smil
ing down at her, “you are certainly very attractive. Let me give you a word of advice. One profession should be enough for you. Stick to the manicuring.”
Charles, still dinnerless, returned nevertheless to his rooms. He found the valet in his bedchamber talking eagerly to Patricia. The latter welcomed him with immense relief.
“Charles,” she cried, “Franz has just been across to fetch me. He declares that someone has been in your room.”
“How do you know that, Franz?” Charles asked.
“These three tin boxes, sir,” the man replied, pointing to them. “I brought them out, as you instructed me, empty from the salon. I put them together in that corner of the room. I came in here after you had descended and I found that the boxes had been moved.”
“They were empty,” Charles pointed out.
“Empty or not,” the valet continued, still shaking, “someone has been in the room with a master key. A bureau drawer was open.”
“Well, well,” Charles said smiling, “it might have been worse. There is not a thing of value or importance in this room. Calm yourself, my dear fellow. If you will feel easier for knowing it there was a letter once in number two of these tin boxes. The letter itself is in ashes, its contents are here,” he concluded, tapping his forehead.
The valet breathed a sigh of relief. Charles and Patricia walked arm in arm through into the salon.
“There is just one point about this,” Charles observed. “I have now more confidence than ever in Mr. Blute. This affair is not of vast importance but it supplies a test. Blute is quite right. We have spies all round us. Run along and finish your dinner. I shall be up in half-an-hour, unless someone drops some strychnine into my coffee.”
“Don’t run the risk,” she begged. “I’ll make the coffee myself up here—and tell the waiter—coffee for one but bring enough for two.”
“It’s an idea,” he assented.
CHAPTER XXII
Table of Contents
“Baroness!” Charles exclaimed, waking apparently from a profound slumber, sleepily stifling a yawn, sitting up in his corner seat and staring in well-simulated amazement at his neighbour. “What the mischief are you doing in this train and how on earth did you find your way into my coupé?”
The Baroness’ exclamation was without a doubt sincere. A few seconds before, Charles had appeared to be in the deepest of slumbers. She withdrew her eyes from the tin despatch box in the rack opposite and stared at him.
“How long have you been awake?” she asked.
“That is no answer to my question,” he reminded her. “What are you doing in this train and how does it happen that we have become neighbours?”
“You are not pleased to find me here?”
His eyes still seemed full of sleep. He yawned once more. He tapped the label gummed on the window of the compartment.
“How did you find your way in here. Baroness?”
“Baroness!” she complained. “I like better Beatrice.”
“I wish that you would answer my question.”
“My dear, what would you have?” she protested. “Last night I got into serious trouble. It was because my thoughts were with you. I could not help it. He wearied me—that young German Nazi. He wanted me to stay with him until the hour of his departure. I refused. He left me white with fury.”
“It sounds as though you had been very unkind to the young man, but I scarcely see how that explains your presence here,” he said patiently.
“Am I doing any harm?” she asked. “The Herr Lieutenant lodged a complaint about me with the police. The under-chief of the police is a friend of mine. He sent me a word of warning. He advised me to get away from Vienna without delay. I pack a few things and I come. I arrive at the station. It is a seething mass of human beings. The station master, the officials, they were all in despair—but what could they do? ‘Only let me get on the train,’ I begged. That is what happened. They put me in the corridor and they lifted my dressing-case and bag after me. I sit on my bag very unhappy. Then I walk a little way and what do I see? It is the one man of whom I have been thinking, the one man for whose sake I am in trouble. I was brave. An inspector passed. I pointed to the empty seats in your coupé. I said, ‘Monsieur has locked the door by accident. I wish to enter.’ He read the label and hesitated. I empty my purse into his hand and he opens the door. That is how I come here.”
“Do not think,” Charles begged, sitting still a little more upright, “that I complain of my good fortune, but you will admit that when I woke up it was a shock to see you there.”
“I have explained,” she pointed out. “You have a good word for it in English. It is a coincidence. Believe me, I did not intrude upon you willingly. I do not look my best at this hour of the morning. I need a great deal of sleep always and I have had very little.”
“But where are you going to?” he asked.
“I have yet to make my plans. Paris, I think. Believe me, though, I shall be no encumbrance to you. I have money, I have a passport, I have a ticket as far as Zürich. I think I shall go to Paris. Why do you ask? You are not really interested.”
“I can assure you that I am.”
“It is not interest of the sort I desire. It is curiosity. It is perhaps suspicion. Why should you feel like that towards me, Charles?”
“There was that little affair of Mr. Benjamin’s catalogue, you know,” he reflected. “Then the number and variety of your admirers keeps me disquieted. By the by, where is His Highness?”
“Your namesake?”
“Yes.”
“From Zürich I telephone,” she confided. “It is possible that he is at Monte Carlo. Monte Carlo would suit me very well for a short time unless something more amusing suggested itself. What are your plans, Charles?”
“Already,” he told her severely, “you have begun to interfere with them. That box is full of papers, most of which need destroying. I ought to begin work on them at once.”
Her eyes, he decided, were beautiful even at this time in the morning, although they rather resembled a cat’s. They were watching him sleepily yet intently.
“I do not wish to interfere with your work,” she said. “I will help you.”
“I am not yet sufficiently awake,” he confessed. “Perhaps I will doze a little longer.”
“But you are ungallant,” she complained. “I know what I will do. I have a thermos full of coffee here. I will give you a cup. Then you will wake up. You will be your old self. How is that? What do you say?”
She drew her dressing-case a little closer to her and unlocked it. She brought out a very beautiful thermos and two collapsible cups. She filled them with coffee and held one out towards him. He shook his head.
“You will excuse me,” he begged, glancing at his watch. “I had coffee at the hotel. Before long I shall shock you by bringing out a little apparatus of my own which makes something more palatable.”
“You will not take a half a cup?” she pleaded. “It is of my own making.”
He shook his head again.
“Don’t let me stop you, though.”
She poured the contents of the cups carefully back into the thermos.
“I will wait,” she murmured.
“If you wait for me to drink that coffee,” he said gently, “you will wait a long time.”
“What do you mean?”
“Only that I do not drink coffee in the middle of the morning,” he replied. “Do not let us bandy words any longer, Baroness—or Beatrice—which you like. I must think and I must think very hard.”
“What about?”
“I must try to solve the question which is at present puzzling me. I must try to find out why you have chosen to board this train and why I opened my eyes to find you staring at that tin box.”
“All these things you could find out quickly,” she assured him, “if you would give me your own confidence.”
“And in return?”
“What do you want?” she asked. “Not me, I a
m afraid. Never have I gone so near offering myself to anyone as I have to you. All the time you keep me at a distance. At night I begin to look for the crow’s-feet round my eyes. I look at my body before the glass. I ask myself what you can find fault with. Sometimes I fancy that your voice grows a little kinder. The moment passes and the suspicions are all back again, the cold light is fixed in your eyes. And I could do so much for you!”
He threw down the window and looked out. They were passing across a great stretch of upland country and a fresh tingling wind from the distant mountains was blowing in their faces. He moved to the other side of the carriage and glanced down the corridor. The train seemed packed with a monumental burden of human beings, men and women from every walk of life, from a little herd of terrified Jews to the scattered members of a British touring company. The heat was overpowering. People were wedged together in the corridors until there was scarcely room for them to breathe. The air which swept through the window brought fresh life with it. The smell of the fields and woods seemed to chase away the heavy odours of the overcrowded train. Charles turned and dabbled his fingers in the tiny toilet basin and passed them over his eyes. He took Eau de Cologne from his dressing-case and offered it to his companion. She moistened her hands and lips.
“My bath this morning was a farce,” he remarked. “It was five o’clock and the water was unheated. A swim in some southern sea, and a sun bath afterwards, I think that is what we need.”
“We could have it,” she murmured.
“Ah, my dear, but there is work to be done,” he reminded her. “There is work before me now.”
“Where do you sleep to-night?”
“How can I tell.” he answered. “Somewhere in Switzerland, I hope.”
“There is always a doubt,” she said, “whether we shall cross the frontier to-night. There is another huge train behind ours. I cannot really see how everyone can expect to get through the Customs. Is this all your luggage?” she concluded, looking round the coupé,
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