LITMIR.BIZ

      CHAPTER VIII

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      Seventeen months and twenty-four days later Charles Mildenhall, weary to death of trans-European railways, of shouting and gesticulating crowds, unwashed for two days, with parched throat and the smell of all evil things in his nostrils, sat upon the porter’s luggage barrow in the great railway station of Vienna and succeeded in achieving a state of utter disgust and weariness of life. He had been four days on a twenty-four hour journey, leaving behind him a commandeered car. He had stood in queues—a thing he loathed—he had had to make fairy-tale explanations of his business and his passport to a dozen unsympathetic officials rather than tell them the truth. He had reached Vienna in the gloom of a stormy evening to find not a taxicab at the station, not a single bowing commissionaire from any of the hotels, not a friendly face or a smile to be seen amongst the great cosmopolitan crowd who were pushing, apparently aimlessly, in every direction. Then, just as he sat up in despair to look out once more up and down the broad empty thoroughfare leading from the station, he beheld a wonderful sight and heard a wonderful sound. He saw a rather antiquated but a solid and veritable taxicab drawing up a few yards from the kerb-stone of the pavement and he heard what was far more wonderful still—a familiar voice. With his hand holding his cap raised high above his head, his countenance wreathed in one huge grin of welcome, was his ex-valet from the Embassy!

      “Fritz!” he gasped.

      “Mein Herr!” the little man exclaimed, only to wander off a minute later into a stream of mispronounced English. “What a joy! I am very happy. It is Herr Mildenhall.”

      “The remains of him,” Charles uttered mournfully, rising to his feet. “Fritz, the sight of you has saved my life. I am worn out. I am hungry. I am thirsty. I am penniless. Take my dressing case, take my small bag, help me into your heaven-directed vehicle.”

      Fritz leaped lightly off the box and did everything he was told.

      “Ach, it is many, many months since I saw you last,” he cried. “Vienna is a rubbish heap. We are all starving. Where does Monsieur wish to drive?”

      “What a joyous sound is your voice, Fritz!” Charles exclaimed. “Is there by any chance a hostelry open in this melancholy city?”

      “The Sacher,” Fritz replied. “One wing is closed, the rest remains.”

      “The Sacher!” Charles repeated as though in a dream of frenzied joy. “The Sacher by all means. But do not leave me when we get there, Fritz. I shall need you for a dozen things. I must have news of the place. I buy you—you and your vehicle—from this moment for the duration of my visit.”

      “Thank God for that, sir!” Fritz said gratefully. “It is to be hoped mein Herr has enough money for his fare. If not, it is equal to me but there will be a tax owing to the hall porter—”

      “Have no fear,” was the joyous interruption. “I’ll arrange all that. Let’s get along.”

      They drove off. Charles lolled back against the cushions with a little groan of content. For two nights his head had rested on a wooden pillow. With every turn of the wheels the little vehicle seemed to be passing into the richer quarters of the city. There were more lights already. The fronts of many of the shops were barricaded with sandbags but here and there an open one invited customers. The line of cafés commenced, the lights of the Ringstrasse glowed feebly in their magic circle. There were men and women in the streets, crawling about, it is true, but civilized people. Marvellous! They drove up to the hotel and a porter stepped out for the luggage. Charles stumbled from the cab.

      “Draw up and wait a minute, Fritz,” he ordered. “I will be with you directly.”

      He walked to the cashier’s office. What joy! A familiar face was there, a familiar smile, the same deeply respectful bow.

      “It is Herr Mildenhall!” the man exclaimed. “Welcome, mein Herr. We have money for you.”

      “Thank God!” was all that Charles could say at that moment.

      “What will you have, mein Herr?” the cashier asked. “There is money from England, money from Budapest and money from the Société Générale.”

      “Give me some local money and fifty pounds in English notes.”

      The clerk leaned across the desk.

      “I would beg you, sir, not to display this too freely,” he said. “There is very little money in Vienna just now. Here is Mr. Herodin to ask what apartment he can give you.”

      “A suite on the first floor,” Charles ordered, welcoming the manager with joy. “Mr. Herodin, I am glad to see you. I have not changed my linen or washed for days! I have not drunk a glass of wine or smoked a cigarette for a week! You have a trunk of mine here. Let it be unpacked—set a valet to work at once. Let a waiter provide a meal, a bottle of wine—in my sitting-room. Do not be alarmed if I bring my taxicab driver up with me. He was my valet when I was last here.”

      “Suite number seventeen, Herr Mildenhall. I will set the quickest servants we have to work,” the manager promised. “Dinner will be served before you are out of your bath. We have rooms, we have food, we have wine. What we need are clients. The hotel is almost empty.”

      “In a few moments,” Charles promised, “I will denude your larders and empty your cellars.”

      He returned to the entrance. He poured small change into Fritz’s hand for the taxi drive. He tipped the hall porter. He tipped the porters who were guarding his luggage. He turned back to the stupefied Fritz, who was gazing at his handful of silver.

      “There is enough there?” Charles asked him.

      “Gnãdiger Herr,” Fritz replied, “this money would buy the taxicab and me! I am not sure that it would not buy the hotel!”

      “Listen,” Charles went on. “Park the taxicab anywhere, go and sit down at a café—eat, drink moderately, but eat, man! You look half starved. Then come back here to-morrow morning at ten o’clock. Suite number seventeen. Come up to me—suite seventeen.”

      There was joy mingled with a pitiful anxiety upon the man’s face.

      “Herr Mildenhall,” he stammered. “You remember Suzette, my wife? She is starving, too.”

      “Fetch her, you idiot!” Charles cried. “Drive away in your taxi and fetch her wherever she is. Take her to the café. Eat and drink—both of you. Here—take some more money.”

      Fritz stepped back and shook his head.

      “Mein Herr,” he confided, “I could buy the café we go to with this.”

      “Go to a better one, then.”

      “Oh, we shall eat, I promise you,” the man declared with tears in his eyes. “We will eat and we will drink and I will be here at ten in the morning—do not fear. One has not prayed for deliverance all this time in vain,” he added as he stumbled into his seat.

      For a moment Charles forgot his own discomfort. He watched Fritz drive off.

      “There are many like that?” he asked the hall porter.

      “The

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