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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 do 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,

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