E. Phillips Oppenheim - 21 Greatest Spy Thrillers in One Premium Edition (Mystery & Espionage Series)

Heinrich, the single manservant who had been visible during the service of dinner except for the seneschal and aide from the wine cellar, threw open the door.

“The automobiles await Her Highness the Princess von Dorlingen, the Baroness von Ballinstrode and Dr. and Mrs. Schwarz,” he announced.

The Baroness glanced around the room.

“But our host?” she exclaimed. “I rather fancy that was an urgent message he received,” Mildenhall confided. “I saw that funny little man Blute slip in from behind the screen with a note.”

“We’d better wait for a short time, I suppose,” she suggested. “I will show you the music room. It is very famous but there are no treasures there.”

Outside in the great hall Heinrich was standing by the opened door and the cars were in line. There was no sign of Patricia.

“The little girl secretary seems to be a sort of hostess,” Mildenhall reflected. “Perhaps we ought to see if she is about.”

“I do not see any necessity,” the Baroness declared, as one of the maids brought her cloak. “I think we go together—you and 1.1 drop you where you like. You change your clothes, perhaps, before you go to the ball?”

“I must,” he assented. “For that I shall have to go to the Embassy.”

“Would you like to drive with me, or would you rather walk?” she asked.

“I should not feel in the least happy,” he assured her, “if I let you go alone. There are all sorts of wild people in the streets.”

“Perhaps you had better take me to my apartment first, then,” she proposed.

“It will give me great pleasure.”

“Come then.”

“Mr. Mildenhall!”

He turned around. Patricia was coming towards him across the hall.

“Could you please come with me for a moment or two? I have a message for you.”

“Of course.”

He glanced towards the Baroness with a gesture of helplessness. The latter looked across at Patricia.

“The little lady can give you her message quickly,” she suggested. “I will wait.”

Patricia turned to her courteously.

“I cannot ask you to share in the message,” she explained, “because it is rather important and very private, but if Mr. Mildenhall is driving you home, would you mind waiting in the dining-room? Heinrich will look after you.”

“Thank you,” the Baroness said. “Heinrich can show me into the car. I shall sit there and await Herr Mildenhall. Do not keep him too long. He has to change into uniform and make himself very beautiful for the ball.”

She wrapped herself a little more closely in her ermine cloak. In the soft gleam from the shaded electric light near which she stood her anxious expression of a few minutes ago seemed entirely to have passed. There was something Grecian about her beauty, her superbly graceful pose as she stood there smiling with her eyes fixed upon Mildenhall’s.

“You will not be long?” she asked.

“A minute or two only,” he promised.

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Patricia led her companion almost in silence across the hall into the library. Neither of them found speech an easy matter. Mildenhall, curiously enough, was a little ashamed at the tumult of sensations which had suddenly disturbed the even progress of his life. Patricia, because of this moment of deep anxiety for all that she held dear in life, felt an irritated sense of disquietude of which she also was ashamed. She turned on two of the lights in the library, motioned him to close the door and listened for a moment. There were footsteps in the street outside, but not the sort of footsteps for which she was listening—wild, undisciplined footsteps these, mostly, of men and women running, or the shuffling footsteps of the Viennese beggars seeking always for shelter. What she was dreading was the iron tramp of soldiers, the voice of discipline, the harsh, raucous commands from an officer of the invaders.

“I must not keep you long, Mr. Mildenhall,” she said. “Please listen. Air. Benjamin is a strange man. He is the kindest and best person in the world, but he has queer ideas. He is mortified to-night because you asked to see his pictures and he could not show them to you.”

“But that is ridiculous,” Mildenhall told her. “I was sorry afterwards that I had asked. I do hope he realized that it wasn’t idle curiosity.”

“He never thought that,” she assured him. “It is odd how understanding he is. He seemed to divine that you were a lover of beautiful things, that you shared his own taste to some extent.”

“It is remarkable that he should have known that,” the young man agreed, “but it is quite true. Most of my leisure time, when I am wandering about Europe on political affairs, is spent in the picture galleries. I am only an amateur, of course. My grandfather had a fine collection of Italian Masters.”

“Mr. Benjamin was just saying that he had only been to three private collections in Europe and it was your uncle’s—I think he said in Norfolk—which pleased him best.”

“Why are you speaking in the past tense?” he asked her suddenly. “Mr. Benjamin hasn’t gone away, has he?”

“Please don’t ask me that,” she begged.

“But surely they wouldn’t have touched him?”

“What did they do to the Rothschilds?”

“The Rothschilds were more or less politicians,” he reminded her. “Our own Ambassador here has told me that Mr. Benjamin has never taken any part in the life of the city except to interest himself in every work of philanthropy and charity of every sort.”

“I’m afraid that doesn’t seem to go for much with Germans. Anyhow, I will tell you what has happened. That message Mr. Blute brought to-night was peremptory.”

“Who the mischief is Mr. Blute?” he asked.

“Another time,” she answered restlessly. “The Baroness is waiting for you outside. I want to show you something. Come this way, please.”

He followed her obediently. She led him into the farthest corner of the room and through a heavy door into a smaller apartment, also lined to the ceiling with books but with a desk in a corner and more signs of habitation. In a few seconds she paused.

“Would you please close your eyes tightly,” she begged.

He obeyed at once, raising his hands and pressing them against his eyeballs. A moment later she passed him. He felt the swish of her gown and caught a whiff of the perfume of roses. Then she called to him from a few yards away. She was standing with the handle of a door between her fingers, a door which comprised a portion of the bookcases themselves. Beyond was what seemed to be a vast apartment as black as night.

“Come here quickly,” she enjoined.

He hurried to her side. She leaned forward and touched an electric switch in the wall. A few lights shone out in the room, which must have been at least a hundred and fifty feet long. He stared into its shadows in amazement. Then the walls themselves disclosed their secret.

“This is the main picture gallery,” she whispered. “You see?”

There were plenty of spaces on the walls where pictures had hung, but of pictures there was not a trace. She looked up into his face.

“You understand now?” she asked.

“I understand,” he replied.

She led him back again into the smaller room and passed out of it into the main library. She was a little breathless and she listened intently before she spoke.

“Quite half of the most valuable pictures have gone,” she said.

“Safely out of Austria?”

There was distress in her eyes as she answered him.

“Not yet. We have sworn that they shall be got out, or Mr. Benjamin would never have left. He ought to have gone weeks ago. His wife is in Paris. I can’t tell you how wonderful Mr. Blute has been, and how clever, but nothing would make Mr. Benjamin leave this place until the very last moment. He knows now that his name is first on the list of the Jews who are to be thrown into prison. The Nazis may come to-night. Certainly they will be here tomorrow. All we have to pray for is that he will get away safely.”