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

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Charles Mildenhall, having been as near starvation during the past four days as he was ever likely to be, found his dinner excellent, the wine, personally vouched for by Mr. Herodin, of the best year and in perfect condition. The manager’s warning, however, concerning the company, was fully justified. There were one or two small groups of German officers who kept carefully to themselves and whose bearing was almost offensive. It was curious to notice how the few Austrians dining there, especially those with their womenkind, took care to remain on the other side of the room. One woman, who was dining alone, Charles recognized, and towards the end of dinner, at her request brought by a waiter, he went and sat with her for coffee. She dropped her heavy monocle at his approach and beamed up at him with a ready greeting.

“I was afraid that you might not recognize me, Mr. Mildenhall,” she said. “We dined together, you know, at Mr. Leopold Benjamin’s some time ago—on the night of his disappearance. I am the Princess Sophie von Dorlingen.”

“I remember you perfectly. Princess,” Charles assured her as he took the chair the waiter had drawn out for him. “I scarcely flattered myself that you would remember me, however. We were seated some distance apart at that memorable dinner and I had not the pleasure of much conversation with you.”

She shook her head ponderously.

“It is so sad, this,” she continued in her rather guttural voice. “So sad about Mr. Benjamin.”

“Tell me,” he begged. “I have been away for so long travelling that I really seem to have had but little news. Nothing has happened to him, I hope?”

The Princess rolled her eyes.

“Rumours, my young friend,” she sighed. “Rumours—many of them. All bad. Some of them we hope not true. But you can see for yourself his beautiful house, the bank—”

“I only arrived here a couple of hours ago,” Charles confided. “I’ve had a roughish journey down from Poland. I drove straight to the hotel and I have spent most of my time since changing.”

She raised her hands.

“The bank is closed,” she told him. “There are boards across the windows. As for the house—it is a wreck.”

“And the picture galleries—the museum?” he asked breathlessly.

“There are all manner of stories,” she went on, “but one thing is certain. Within an hour of the German invasion of Vienna a picked band of Nazis went straight to the house. They demanded to be shown to the picture galleries. They were stripped! There was not a picture upon the walls. Everything was gone. The museum was empty. The Nazis were in such a fury that they wanted to burn the house down. Since then there have been no end of stories. This much is true, at any rate—Mr. Leopold Benjamin was a much cleverer man than people believed. The bank vaults were almost empty. What has become of his possessions no one knows. The Nazis declare, though, that the pictures and a great many of the curios are still in the city. There are people who believe that Mr. Benjamin himself is still in Vienna. You and I know that he was at his house just before Hitler’s Nazis swept through the place.”

“I sincerely trust that he got away,” Charles said earnestly. “Surely we would have heard of it if anything had happened to him?”

“I don’t know,” she answered with doleful pessimism. “Terrible things have been done here, and from the moment they entered the city the Nazis took control of all the newspapers. Then there was that sweet young lady—Mr. Benjamin’s secretary. They say she was marched off to prison.”

“Princess!” he exclaimed in a tone of horror.

“It is true,” she assured him. “I believe that the American Minister went to her rescue but that they were furious at having to let her go. I am not sure that they did not arrest her again later on. Let me see—she sat next to you at dinner.”

“I sat between her and the Baroness von Ballinstrode. The Baroness was attractive, of course, in her way, but one meets that type in the civilized places all over Europe. Miss Grey had a queer Watteau-like grace of movement and figure, and a wonderful smile. I am not a very impressionable person, Princess, but I don’t mind confessing that I have thought of her more often and with more pleasure than any of these famous beauties.”

“She was, indeed, very charming,” the Princess agreed. “Beatrice von Ballinstrode, of course, I knew much better, but of the two I would much rather trust the little lady you were speaking of. They both seem to have disappeared now. Oh, it is a sad place, this Vienna, Mr. Mildenhall! My life—what has it become? I was born in a palace. I live now in four rooms with a maid, almost as old as myself, to look after me. She cannot cook. Three times a week I come here and I eat—sometimes a mittagessen , sometimes a dinner. Seldom do I see any of my friends. To-night I have been lucky. I used to see you sometimes, Mr. Mildenhall, at the Embassy parties. You are like a shadow from the old times, anyway. It has done me good to talk to you. Now, outside, in a few moments you will see an old woman, fatter than I am, in a black dress, a white apron and a shawl around her head. That is my maid Madeline. We shall hobble home together.”

“If I stay long enough,” Charles proposed, “you must dine with me one night, Princess.”

“You will not stay,” she sighed. “There is war in the air, more terror that is coming. I can scent it, almost I can smell it. Austria is full of German troops. In a few nights you will hear the tramp of feet, the roaring of planes, the shrieking of locomotive whistles. They will be off then to the north. A million or two more lives, rivers of blood, all for the lustful joy of one man.”

“The war may still not come,” he reminded her.

“If you really think that, all I can say is that I see the future more clearly than you,” she said.

“We should have hope, at any rate,” he declared. “I do not often talk of my missions. Princess, but I will tell you this. I have talked with the fighting men of Poland within the last ten days. I was on a special and a secret mission. It is over now. There is no secret about it any longer. I went to tell them frankly that England and France both recognize their responsibility in their guarantees to her, but though the guarantees would hold, time would not stand still. My mission was to beg them to count up their resources, to ask them whether they could maintain the defence of their country long enough for us to reach her. They only laughed at me. They are full of confidence, but I feel they over-estimate the value of bravery against science. They laughed at the idea of Germany’s facing a declaration of war from England and France!”

“So do I,” the Princess agreed. “In my saner moments I, too, feel the same way.”

“It is always,” he ventured with a smile as he followed her example and rose to his feet, “the women who are the bravest.”

He accompanied her to the door, handed her over to her strange escort, then he returned to his own table. He sipped his brandy thoughtfully. What he had half expected happened. One of the little group of German officers seated at a round table whose attention, for the past quarter-of-an-hour, seemed to have been focused upon him rose to his feet. He crossed the room and came to a standstill before Mildenhall’s table. He was a young man with closely cropped hair and the pink and white complexion of a boy. He had an immovable eyeglass and his manner was not ingratiating.

“I have the honour to address Mr. Charles Mildenhall?” he enquired frigidly.

Charles eyed him with some surprise.

“You have the advantage of me, sir,” he said.

“I am Lieutenant von Hessen of the Third Army Corps, now quartered in Vienna. The Commanding Officer of my regiment desires a few words with you.”