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

“Quite right,” he agreed. “Same thing. We’ll have it up here. Telephone down, there’s a dear—ask especially for Frederick. Say we want White Lady cocktails in a shaker—four of them.”

She telephoned down the order, then she came back to his side.

“My temporary work is spoiling me for real work,” she sighed. “I’ve been with Mr. Benjamin for two years and he has never offered me a cocktail.”

“Quite right. You couldn’t have been out of your teens two years ago and cocktail drinking is not a child’s habit.”

“My teens, as you call them,” she confided, “were finished long before I went to Mr. Benjamin’s bank. It is time you began to treat me with a little more respect.”

“We don’t have time to play games,” he told her. “Every time I’ve met you we’ve been facing a crisis.”

“It is quite true,” she admitted. “I wish we could get you to take this one a little more seriously.”

“It is difficult to take anything seriously in Vienna,” he said. “To tell you the truth, the ways of even our diplomats here are strange. In this medley which I have been requested to clean up and leave nothing behind me are some quite important notes concerning a conversation between two important people. The same rubber band enclosed the account for Her Ladyship’s lingerie.”

“Very slack,” she criticized.

“Don’t be too severe,” he begged. “These are just the scraps left over from about a ton of rubbish which bothered our very respectable Consul, Mr. Porter. Kindly collect for me, dear secretary-in-chief and wife-that-is-to-be, every wastepaper basket you can find in the apartment. I can count three from here.”

“Aren’t you rather harping on that matrimonial business?” she asked as she started on her tour round the room.

“It drives everything else out of my mind,” he confided. “Especially when you look as sweet as you do this evening.”

She paused in the centre of the apartment with a basket in either hand.

“Come and kiss me,” he insisted.

She moved slowly towards him without any marked reluctance.

“Tell me,” she enquired, “have you ever had a secretary before?”

“Heaps of them.”

“Did you expect them to come and kiss you whenever you felt amorous?”

“I never felt that way.”

“Why not?”

“They were all men.”

“Do you mean that you never had a girl secretary?”

“Never in my life,” he assured her. “When I’ve been staying down at home I’ve sometimes dictated a few letters to my mother’s amanuensis but as she is well over fifty, wears most unbecoming glasses and has taken a degree at Oxford I refrained from taking liberties.”

She brought the baskets and succeeded in slipping from his knee just as the waiter arrived with the cocktails.

“Never,” Patricia confessed, opening her vanity-bag, “have I been driven to my mirror so often as I have been during the last few hours.”

“Well, there’s a slight difference between the atmosphere of New York and Vienna, isn’t there?” he remarked. “Waiter,” he added, “you can leave the shaker and come back again in half-an-hour.”

Two more wastepaper baskets were discovered and filled. Charles leaned back in his chair and lit a cigarette.

“Is it my fancy,” he asked, “or has my charming helper and bride-to-be been afflicted with a sudden seriousness?”

“I have been wondering,” she confided, “where we shall find Mr. Benjamin.”

“I can’t think how you ever completely lost him,” Charles reflected. “I should have thought Blute would have had a special emergency address which would have reached him.”

“He had several—and pseudonyms, too. He had tried them all before we got into the state in which you found us. The censorship here is simply devastating. Practically everything in any sort of code was destroyed.”

“It’s a mistake,” he told her, “to attempt to get a code letter through a censor anywhere. But let’s abandon this discussion now and talk about something really interesting.”

“Suggest something, then.”

“Getting married.”

“Lovely! Go on, please.”

“You see, I’m slightly interested in what happens the other side of that frontier, but when we find ourselves in the bracing climate of Switzerland I can’t carry a private chaplain in my waistcoat pocket and I believe it’s a terribly complicated thing, anyway, to get married in Switzerland.”

“Let’s talk about it,” she insisted. “It’s a heavenly thing to talk about, anyway.”

The floor valet knocked at the door and interposed.

“Shall you be changing to-night, sir?” he enquired.

Charles hesitated.

“Remember,” she told him, “Mr. Blute was terribly anxious that you should do everything according to your usual custom. He can’t somehow get it out of his head that we’re being watched.”

“Dear old boy, he’s probably right,” Charles acknowledged. “All right, Franz, I’ll be round in two minutes. Will you order your dinner yourself, child?” he asked. “The waiter will be here directly.”

She shook her head firmly.

“For me to dine up here is forbidden, too. Mr. Blute has been very firm about it. I suppose it is quite easy if anyone is watching these apartments for them to find out whether any extra meals are served up here.”

“What about my ordering dinner for one, but plenty of it? We can eat off the same plate and fool them that way.”

“You’re ridiculous,” she laughed. “Mr. Blute showed me a very clean little restaurant out at the back part of the hotel where some of the courriers and hotel clerks go sometimes. I can use the service stairs to it and I’ll hurry back for coffee.”

Charles took her into his arms for a moment before she slipped off. Then he held her about a yard away and looked into her face.

“It’s the deep setting of your eyes, child, which has so completely disturbed my affections. Rather theatric, you know, but it’s frightfully attractive.”

“Don’t dare to look into any others,” she enjoined, releasing herself reluctantly. “Especially beware of the beautiful Baroness!”

Table of Contents

The Baroness was there all right. She was seated on a divan in Frederick’s small private bar and by her side was the young German officer. She waved her hand to Charles and patted the place by her side.

“Come, Mr. Mildenhall,” she invited. “This is somewhat piquant. Come and amuse a tired woman. Come and have a glass of wine with us. To-morrow it will not be possible.”

Charles bowed to both of them and accepted the invitation.

“To-morrow,” she went on, “if that brave little island of yours makes up its mind to stand up and fight the mighty German Empire, if you two should meet one of you will be interned. Is that not so, Count?”

“I have no idea,” the young man replied formally, “as to what Herr Mildenhall’s exact diplomatic position is. If he claims no privileges he will certainly have to be dealt with as an enemy.”

“I have at present no diplomatic position,” Charles admitted, “which is the reason why I am running away. I am taking the last train to the frontier. If you will excuse me,” he added, waving on one side the bottle of champagne, “I will ask Frederick to mix me one of his White Lady cocktails.”

“You will not, I fear,” the young officer observed, “have a comfortable journey.”

“I am a seasoned traveller,” was the careless reply. “I am used to hardships.”

The Baroness shivered.

“Hardships,” she echoed. “I hate even the sound of the word. I like comfort.”

There was a single moment in their lives when Lieutenant Count von Hessen and Charles Mildenhall were en rapport . They both glanced involuntarily at the Baroness, who gave one the impression of a gorgeous butterfly stretched out on the divan in the gentle and voluptuous abandon of her soulless, insect life. The beauty of her limbs if anything was a little too much displayed under the light chiffon of her gown. Her neck and shoulders were exquisite. As a matter of fact she was looking her best that night. There was a twin gleam of humour in the eyes of the two men as they met for a moment.