“The matter which I wish to discuss with you, Major, is not altogether a military one,” he confessed. “It is in a sense passed on to us from our Intelligence Department. It concerns the disappearance of a well-known Jewish banker and financier from his house and bank here in Vienna.”
“Mr. Leopold Benjamin?” Charles ventured.
“Precisely. It appears that just before our Führer decided to rescue these poor people and draw them into the Reich, Mr. Benjamin gave a small dinner party at his house. From that dinner party he disappeared.”
Charles nodded thoughtfully. He said nothing.
“In the course of my investigations,” the Major continued, “I received a list of the guests who were present. Your name was amongst them.”
“That is quite probable,” Charles assented. “I was present.”
“I have had an opportunity,” the Major went on, “of questioning most of the other guests—I or someone representing our Intelligence Corps. Not one of them was able to give me the slightest clue as to Mr. Benjamin’s probable whereabouts.”
“I am sorry to hear it,” Charles replied. “I was going to call at the bank to-morrow morning.”
“I am afraid,” the other observed, “you would find that a waste of time. The bank has ceased to operate.”
“Bad luck,” Charles remarked carelessly. “My visit was of no importance, however. Just a slight matter of business.”
“Mr. Benjamin is not, to our knowledge, engaged in any business in Vienna at the present moment,” the Major said. “He is a member of a race which is entirely out of favour with our Führer. He is a Jew.”
“I think everyone in Europe knows that,” Charles smiled. “However, if he is no longer in business I must find the small amount of money I need somewhere else.”
“That is an easy matter for you, no doubt, Major. With our Intelligence Department, which I represent, it is a different matter. Mr. Benjamin is heavily in our debt. It seems highly improbable that he has left the country and the department is determined to find him.”
“That he should be heavily in debt to your country astonishes me,” Charles observed.
“He owes,” Major von Metternich confided, “a very large sum for unpaid taxes. The Treasury of the Reich has decided that if he should show any indisposition to pay, it would be necessary to seize his great collection of pictures and other objects d’art. They have been famous throughout Europe for many years.”
“Quite true.”
“You have seen them, without a doubt?”
“Never,” Charles replied. “I was to have seen them, I believe, the night of the dinner party of which you speak and from which Mr. Benjamin was summoned away.”
“Did you ask to see them on that occasion?”
Charles’s eyebrows went slowly up.
“You must excuse me. Major von Metternich,” he said, “but you seem to be cross-examining me on a purely private matter.”
“This is a friendly conversation,” was the irritated reply. “If you cannot regard it in that light it may be necessary for me to pass the affair on to another tribunal.”
“Is that a threat?”
“You may accept it as such, if you like.”
Charles considered the matter for a moment quietly.
“I will tell you all that I know about the Benjamin collection,” he proposed.
“That is all I can expect, Major,” was the somewhat mollified response.
“My request to see the pictures,” Mildenhall told his companion, “was received as quite an ordinary one, but, to be frank with you, there was a sense of excitement and unrest at that dinner party which I suppose was due to the fact that Vienna was at any moment expecting the arrival of your invading army. Towards the end of dinner Mr. Benjamin received a message and left the room. A short time afterwards word came that he had been called away. I left at once. So did most of the other guests. As soon as it was daylight I continued my journey.”
“To England?”
“To England. I had stayed over for the Princess von Liebenstrahl’s ball that night.”
“And you have not seen Mr. Benjamin since?”
“I have not seen him since.”
“Nor any of his household or family?”
“Nor any of his household or family.”
“In that case, Major, it does not seem that you are going to be very much use to us,” the Nazi remarked.
“Not the slightest,” Charles agreed.
“You stay long in Vienna?”
Charles smiled.
“I am rather feeling the instinct of the homing pigeon,” he confided.
Major von Metternich smiled grimly, then he rose to his feet.
“You are without a home here for the moment,” he observed.
“I was not officially connected with the Embassy on my last visit,” Charles explained. “I am staying here in the hotel. This time also I am on my way back to England.”
“It remains for me to wish you a pleasant journey,” the Major said with a bow.
“I thank you,” Charles answered with equal politeness.
CHAPTER X
Table of Contents
Soon after ten o’clock that night Charles Mildenhall suddenly realized that he was half dead with sleepiness and fatigue. He mounted to his rooms, rang for the valet and in a quarter-of-an-hour was in bed. Twelve hours later he awoke to find Herodin, frock-coated, smiling, the perfect hôtelier, standing by his side. He bowed apologetically.
“Mr. Mildenhall,” he said, “the floor waiter reported that you gave no orders for calling.”
“Quite right,” Charles replied, sitting up in bed. “I was dead tired. This morning I am rested. If you will be so good as to send the valet to turn on my bath, and the waiter?”
“With pleasure, Mr. Mildenhall. I ventured to come up myself this morning because I thought that you would like to know that the news looks slightly better. The Führer has consented to receive an emissary from Poland. It will at least mean a few more days’ delay.”
“Excellent!” Charles exclaimed, rubbing his eyes.
“There is also,” Herodin continued, “the very shabby taxicab in which you arrived last night.”
“The chauffeur is to wait,” Charles replied. “It would be a kindness, Mr. Herodin, if you could send him round to the back and supply him with coffee and anything else he wants. He is an old friend, once valet at the Embassy. I picked him up at the station on my arrival and have engaged him for my few days here.”
“It is a very gracious action,” Herodin murmured.
Charles Mildenhall was of an age when nature speedily reasserts itself. He drank his coffee, then he sent down for Fritz, who presently arrived already a different person and dressed in an entirely new suit of clothes.
“Feeling better, Fritz?” his patron enquired.
The chauffeur grinned.
“And the wife, sir,” he replied. “Food and wine, they do make a difference. We drank your health, sir—yes, I can promise you that—more than once, too.”
“Now listen,” Charles said, tapping a cigarette and lighting it. “I have two to three days to spare in this city and I am very anxious to discover the whereabouts of a young lady and a man called Blute who was an agent of Mr. Leopold Benjamin, the banker.”
“Yes, sir.”
“That is going to be our work,” Charles went on, “for every minute of the time until I have to leave for England. I know they will be difficult to find, because they were in a way members of Mr. Benjamin’s household and that has been broken up, but we must set our minds to it.”
“We will find them, sir,” Fritz declared confidently. “The young lady, now,” he went on, “would she be a young lady with red hair?”
“Good God, how did you know that? Of course she has red hair—very beautiful and plenty of it.”
Fritz smiled.
“Rather small in figure—very pleasant voice and a real smile?”
“What d
o you know about her?” Charles demanded eagerly. “Have you seen her lately?”
Fritz shook his head.
“Well over a year ago, sir,” he admitted, “and it’s a queer thing how I come to remember it, except that she was almost the first fare I had. The young lady you are looking for, she came out of the porter’s lodge of the Palais Franz Josef where she had been talking to the woman there. Why, it could not have been more than a day or a couple of days after you left. I was to drive her to the Benjamin Bank, but when we got within a street of it she stopped me. We could see that there were soldiers guarding the place. She jumped out, paid me and slipped away.”
“Patricia Grey her name was.”
“I never heard any name,” Fritz admitted, “but that young lady came out of the lodge and I drove her to Benjamin’s Bank or should have done, if the soldiers had not been there—and she had marvellous red hair. It’s an easy guess, sir, that she was the young lady you are looking for.”
“The man’s name was Marius Blute.”
“Never heard of him, sir. But the young lady, I should know her again if I ever saw her, and don’t you forget, sir, she came out of the porter’s lodge at the Benjamin palace. She would not have been there if she had not had something to do with the place. She asked to be driven to Benjamin’s Bank. That is proof that she belonged to the staff, and there isn’t another young woman in Vienna with hair like that—a sort of golden red it is, sir. Shines like—”
“That,” Charles interrupted, “is the young lady I want to find.”
“We’ll do it, sir,” Fritz assured his patron confidently. “Where shall we start?”
“We will go to the Benjamin Hospital. We may hear something about the whereabouts of Mr. Benjamin there and that will be a start.”
“Very good, sir. Shall I bring the taxi round to the front?”
“In ten minutes.”
At the Krankenhaus Benjamin, Charles received his first knock-down blow. He was received by a German doctor and surrounded on all sides by Nazi Germans. The doctor was brusque in manner and downright in speech.
“The Austrian, Schwarz,” he announced, in reply to Charles’s enquiry, “is in prison. His wife has been banished.”
Charles was staggered.
“What have they done?” he asked. “What was the charge?”
“They are Jews,” the doctor replied, “and they dared to have a notice that Jews and Jewesses could claim priority here for treatment.”
“But the hospital,” Charles reminded the speaker gently, “was built and endowed by a Jew.”
“What does that matter?” the doctor retorted.
“It is Nazi Germany now which owns Austria. We have control of the hospital and we have not a Jewish patient left. That I can tell you. The beds are filled with Germans who suffered during the fighting outside the city. What do you want with Dr. Schwarz?”
“I wanted news of Mr. Leopold Benjamin, if there was any. If not, of his secretary. There was a man, too, named Marius Blute, who managed some of his affairs.”
“You will get no news of any of those people here,” he was told promptly. “The man Blute has been here and was sent away again pretty quickly. He had the impudence to ask for money. It is true this hospital is endowed with Jewish money, but the money would have been taken away from the Jew Benjamin if the authorities had been able to find him. This hospital and the endowment money and everything else belongs now to the German Government.”
“Do you think I would be allowed to see Dr. Schwarz at the prison?” Charles asked.
“I should think they would be more likely to send you in to keep him company,” was the insolent reply. “Go away, please. I have no more time to waste—especially on an Englishman.”
Charles was thoughtful when he regained the street.
“Fritz,” he confided, “things are looking bad here. This is no longer the Benjamin Hospital. The two people I am anxious to find out about have been here—at least, Blute has—and been turned away. The whole of the funds and the endowment have been taken over by the Germans.”
“Swine!” Fritz murmured equably.
“Yes, but what about it? I have only a day or two here. I want to find Miss Grey or Blute—Miss Grey particularly—and I don’t know where to look.”
Fritz’s queer, puckered-up little face was full of concern. He looked doubtfully at his patron.
“You will excuse me, sir?” he begged. “But were they living together, these two—any relation or anything of that sort?”
Charles brushed the idea away without hesitation.
“That was quite impossible,” he answered. “Mr. Blute has brains, of course, and I should think he’s a very decent fellow, but I am sure they weren’t related and I don’t think anything else would be possible. Mr. Benjamin thought highly of Miss Grey. She came to him from the New York branch of his bank and she soon became his personal secretary.”
“I should suggest we drive up to the old porter’s lodge, sir, and make enquiry there. We might even get into what remains of the house. If we can find out nothing there we shall have to try the restaurants. Everyone’s obliged to eat, anyway, and there are more than ever that are doing it in restaurants.”
“As you say, Fritz,” Charles assented.
They drove immediately to the fine porter’s lodge which guarded the approach to the Benjamin mansion. The entrance gates they found were locked. Fritz descended and rang the bell. The door of the lodge was opened in due course by a weary-faced woman. Fritz talked to her for a few moments, after which he returned to his employer.
“Nothing to be learned, sir,” he reported. “This woman is the widow of the old doorkeeper. He was killed in the fighting when the Nazis first marched in. She says the place was overrun afterwards for weeks, first by disciplined soldiers and searchers, and then by a rabble. No one can get into the house now. The doors are locked and the windows barred. Forty vanloads of furniture have been taken away.”
“Did you ask her what was in the vans?” Charles asked.
“No, but I will.”
Fritz called back the woman and Charles descended from the taxi. She answered his questions through the railings.
“The vans were mostly locked up, sir,” she told him, “but one thing is very certain. The first Germans who came were very disappointed. There were many officers amongst them and one or two civilians. They walked up and down the quadrangle and argued. Sometimes they went back into the house as though for another search. Then a fresh lot came. It was always the same—they went away angry.”
Charles searched his pocket and dropped a few reichsmarks into the woman’s eagerly outstretched hand.
“I want you to try and remember something for me.”
There were tears in her eyes. Her clenched fingers were gripping the silver coins. She was shaking from head to foot.
“Tell me what it is, mein gnädiger Herr,” she half sobbed.
“There is one person whom you must remember coming here often—Miss Patricia Grey, Mr. Benjamin’s secretary.”
“The little one?” she asked. “Always with a smile—with the hair—ach, so lovely?”
“That is she,” Charles acknowledged. “Tell me, have you seen anything of her lately? Can you tell me where to find her?”
The woman’s face fell. She shook her head drearily.
“The last time I saw her, mein Herr,” she confided, “she was between two great Nazi soldiers or policemen—I do not know which—who were bringing her away from the house. She had passed through the gates only an hour before, waved her hand and thrown me a kiss. She was always so gay. When she went out her face was white and set, her hair was disarranged, it looked as though she had been struggling.”
“What do you suppose they were doing with her?”
“They were taking her to prison, mein Herr. That I know.”
“And you have never seen or heard of her since?”
“Not once.”
“She was a v
ery important person in the household,” he persisted. “You have not heard anything from the other servants or seen anything in the papers about her?”
She shook her head.
“Mein Herr will understand,” she recounted sorrowfully, “that I have lost my husband and two sons. My daughter has disappeared. There is no one left. The young lady, she passed out of my mind.”
“I am afraid that is quite natural,” he murmured sympathetically. “Well, the other person was a man—a rather thickset, short man. His name was Blute. He talked a great deal. He was very clever and he worked for Mr. Benjamin.”
“Mein Herr, you have not the chance this morning,” she said. “Two days after the Nazis’ first visit here he was carried out on a stretcher. He had been in the house working in the library. The soldiers had been asking him many questions. There was a quarrel and a fight. They said that he was keeping something back and they took him away to be examined in the prison. Never once has he been back, neither have I heard of him. There were others who were servants of Mr. Benjamin and Dr. Schwarz, the President of his hospital. They have all disappeared.”
Charles wrote down his name and his address at the hotel.
“If you hear anything,” he begged, “will you let me know—especially about the Fräulein.”
The woman nodded.
“I will let you know,” she promised, “but all the people of that world have gone—gone—gone.”
She waved her hands downwards in despair. Charles stepped back into the taxicab.
“Fritz,” he said firmly, “I want to find that young lady.”
“One young lady,” Fritz sighed, “in all this city! It is so many months ago—”
“Look here,” Charles interrupted, “you are a sensible person. I shall try the police only as a last resource because, to tell you the truth, I do not think the police would help me. But think now—in what quarter of the city would they seek to live when they were set free from prison, if ever they were taken there? Remember, it must not be too far away. Herr Blute would stay in a hotel, I should think. The girl would try to find cheap lodgings. Drive me to the quarter where people in that condition of life would live. I will sit at the cafés, the cheap cafés. We will take it by turns, Fritz. You must eat six meals a day. We must go to all the restaurants. You must drink beer or coffee at all the cafés. A spirit of restlessness must drive you from place to place. We must find them, Fritz. Succeed, and I will take you to England into my own household, or, if you prefer it, I will establish you here.”
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