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Charles Mildenhall’s very pleasant salon, soon after nine o’clock on the following morning, resembled something between a tourists’ bureau and the enquiry office of a great newspaper. In a remote corner sat Blute with a map spread out before him, a directory and a heap of notepaper by his side. Down below in the square bells were ringing, military bands playing and large detachments of German troops who had taken part in the formal entry into Vienna marched through the streets for re-embarkation to Poland. The crowds were on the whole apathetic, but the German side of the Gestapo were doing their best to whip them into some sort of enthusiasm. Charles had established several contacts with his friends in London and elsewhere, and telegrams in various foreign languages were streaming in. Amongst others was a rather curt intimation from the Foreign Office in London that his return to that capital was greatly desired. Patricia, who was in her element amidst the stream of communications, handed him the British telegram, which was not in code, a little anxiously.

“I expected that,” he remarked, “but it can’t be helped. I’ve never taken a liberty with the authorities in my life and in this case it’s only a matter of days. Lascelles is really my senior and I have loaded him up with every scrap of information I had.”

“I do hope you won’t get into trouble,” she sighed. “It’s marvellous what you are doing for us.”

“My dear,” he assured her, “I’m enjoying it. When I think of last night I realize how empty life has seemed without an adventure of this sort…Come in, Mr. Herodin,” he called out as the manager appeared on the threshold. “Sorry to insist upon seeing you but it was necessary. Blute, you had better come and join in this consultation.”

Blute rose at once and seated himself at the round table. He exchanged greetings with the manager.

“Pretty busy, I expect,” Blute remarked.

“I am glad to get out of my office for a moment or two,” Herodin confessed.

He sank into the chair which Charles pointed out.

“In the first place,” the latter began, “as I gave you warning, I am going to drain you dry of every penny you can spare in German, English and American currencies.”

“I quite understand that, sir, and I have brought you something to be going on with,” Herodin declared. “In reichsmarks I can do you pretty well. Then I have some sterling and a certain amount of dollar currency.”

He drew some wads of notes from his pocket which he passed on to Patricia.

“I’ll just check the amounts,” she said. “Then I expect Mr. Mildenhall will have to give you a draft on account. No one can tell exactly what the exchange is likely to be—especially with war almost a certainty.”

“You think war is a certainty, Mr. Mildenhall?” Herodin asked anxiously.

“I am afraid so. In fact I know it. At the rate they’re going now Hitler’s troops will cross the frontier to-morrow. The Poles will appeal to England and France; England will declare war first and France will follow suit. Now, Mr. Herodin, you may wonder what I want all this money for. Well, I am not going to tell you!”

“I am not curious, sir,” Herodin assured his patron. “I told you that you should have all I could spare and, of course, I had about five hundred pounds’ balance on the amount you always leave with me. I think the young lady will find that I can spare altogether somewhere about three thousand pounds.”

“Marvellous!” Charles exclaimed. “What do you say, Blute?”

“We couldn’t possibly need more than that,” the latter declared. “We have some heavy expenses to face, but we shall get the whole of the money back again.”

“Well, Miss Grey will give you a receipt for this, Herodin,” Charles said. “I will also leave a cheque with you for about the amount in case anything happens to us. So far as you are concerned I don’t want you to think any more about this money. You might get into trouble with the Nazis if they knew that you were mixed up in my affairs. All that you know is that I wanted to get away from here in a hurry, I had a great many friends who were in the same predicament, I had a credit with you and you gave me what I asked for. The money is the great thing, of course, but there’s something else. I want every scrap of influence I can get with the railway here and some of this money that I am taking away from you is going to be used for what we call in the Secret Service: ‘quiet money.’ My friend Mr. Blute here knows a great deal about this. You’ve always done everything I wanted, of course, but I don’t wish to involve you in this matter. What about Joseph?”

“I really believe, sir,” the manager said impressively, “that Joseph could do even more than I could with the railway people. He knows exactly who is approachable and who is not. You want to get to the frontier, I suppose?”

“With a great deal of luggage,” Charles told him, “and, at the very latest, the day after to-morrow.”

Herodin looked grave.

“You must go before war is declared.”

“That is absolutely and entirely necessary,” Charles agreed. “As a matter of fact I expect we shall be in the train when war is declared, but we must be en route. Now, if I were you, Mr. Herodin, I would not have anything more to do with us. Send Joseph up. Drag him out of his office if you must, but I must have him here within ten minutes.”

“The people are standing ten or a dozen deep round his bureau,” the manager confided. “I’ll have to get him out at the back through my office.”

“You must do it, Herodin,” Charles insisted cheerfully. “Drag him out by those nice fat little ears of his, if you have to. I shall be down below very soon and I will bring in your cheque.”

“Very good, sir. By the by,” Herodin added, rising to his feet, “I forgot to mention it in all this excitement but there has been a terrible motor accident in the north. Four or five young people—all Americans, I believe—have lost their lives.”

Charles and Blute exchanged significant glances.

“Dear me, I’m very sorry to hear that,” the former remarked. “Racing down here to get out of Austria, I suppose.”

“Some of the roads coming south,” Herodin observed, “are in a very poor state just now and very dangerous…I’ll send Joseph right away, Mr. Mildenhall.”

“And could you send us up a paper with an account of the accident?” Blute asked eagerly. “I have some friends up north.”

“They’re selling the papers in the streets now, sir,” the manager declared. “I’ll get one and send it up at once.”

He departed, closing the door quietly behind him. Charles grinned as he took a cigarette from the box on the table and lit it.

“That’s quick work!” he exclaimed. “How did you manage it?”

“I’ve had the particulars of the accident written out for several months,” Blute confided. “When you went into the cable office on your way up here I slipped into the newspaper bureau and caught my friend just going in. I’m sorry to seem a little precipitate, Mr. Mildenhall,” he went on, “but to tell you the truth, my friend, the journalist, is sitting downstairs waiting. He’s afraid he may get the sack if the truth leaks out.”

“So he wants the money quick,” Charles observed.

“Wise fellow. How much for half a column of lurid tragedy?”

“Well, I told him it would be worth five hundred reichsmarks to him.”

“If you please, young lady,” Charles said, holding out his hand.

Patricia counted out the notes and gave them to him. Charles passed them on to Blute, who stuffed them into his pocket.

“If you will excuse me,” he begged, “I’ll just finish with that young man. I must get a few copies of the paper, too,” he added, hurrying off.

Charles and his companion were suddenly amazingly aware of each other’s presence. Patricia rose to her feet. Never in the world had she found speech so difficult. Forever afterwards, mingled with her gratitude and her genuine affection for him, she was conscious of those few moments of deep and sincere admiration for his supreme tact.

“Any time that fat old lady in the silk dress and the starched manners wants a testimonial,” Charles declared, “she can have it from me. Do you know, Patricia,” he said, leaning back in his chair and regarding her critically, “notwithstanding the fact that you possess charm of a very peculiar and distinctive order, a fact I have no doubt men have been telling you of ever since you crawled out of your cradle, I never saw you look so well as you do at the present moment. That black and white checked gown you are wearing fits marvellously and the little bit of lace at your throat is an inspiration. How on earth did you get your hair to look like that? All its fire back in a moment—and really a little colour in your cheeks.”

“Extravagance with your money, I’m afraid,” she laughed. “Do you know that in the small hours of the morning I looked at myself in the looking-glass and ten minutes after the maid came to wake me I had a coiffeur in the room—at your expense!”

“Starvation,” he observed, “agrees with you.”

“Thank you,” she answered. “I don’t want to try it again.”

“I’ll see that you don’t!”

It was too much. The tears were in her eyes.

“I shall have several small attacks like this,” she warned him with a little choke. “Don’t take any notice of them, please.”

“I was just thinking,” he remarked, “that I should like to kiss that one away.”

“You can do just as you like,” she said, moving her handkerchief from her eyes and looking at him.

There was no doubt whatever about his inclinations or the exquisite touch of her arms around his neck. There was no doubt at all, either, about the sincerity of his imprecation at the sound of that stiff official knocking at the door. He drew quickly away.

“Come in!”

Joseph, the world-famed concierge of one of the most famous hotels in Europe, entered the room cap in hand. He was a large, rotund person whose spreading stomach was scarcely noticeable, owing to his upright carriage and agile movements. He had the face of a Napoleon and the smile of a Cheeryble brother. The supreme unconsciousness of his manner was in itself proof positive of his diplomatic gifts.

“Mr. Mildenhall, sir,” he said, “I am told that you have urgent need of me.”

“I have indeed, Joseph,” Charles replied. “I do not suppose that anyone in this world has ever been in such need of you.”

“Anything that I can do for you, sir, has always been a great pleasure,” the man assured him.

“It isn’t deeds I require, it’s miracles.”

“I am at your service, sir.”

“Very well. I want a special luggage van attached to the earliest possible train to Innsbruck and Switzerland and I also want three first-class tickets on the same train.”

The smile slowly faded from Joseph’s lips.

“Mr. Mildenhall!” he exclaimed. “May I ask you one question?”

“Go ahead.”

“Do you realize that if things proceed as now seems inevitable, the morning train to-morrow will be the last train to leave Austrian territory before the declaration of war?”

“Better than you do, Joseph, because I know for a fact what you only surmise. You are quite right. That is the last train which will leave Austro-German territory before the declaration of war and that is why it is absolutely imperative that I and my friends travel by it together with the special luggage truck.”

“You wouldn’t care to risk your plane, I suppose, Mr. Mildenhall?” Joseph suggested.

“My plane is at the present moment on its way over from England,” Charles replied. “It is bound for Switzerland and it wouldn’t carry a tenth part of the luggage.”

“I have at the present moment,” Joseph confided, “nearly a hundred people around my desk demanding accommodations by that train. Of telephone calls I take no account. There are about the same number.”

“Seems to be quite a rush of people wanting to get away,” Charles observed.

“For many of them,” the concierge replied, “it is a question of getting away or being interned.”

“You wouldn’t like that to happen to me, Joseph, I’m sure?

“I should not, sir,” was the devout answer, “but I do not think it is possible, because you are a diplomatic gentleman.”

“No use nowadays. Our Embassy here is broken up. Then there are my friends and the luggage.”

“Would the luggage be very heavy, sir?”

“Let me see—the weight of four people might be—what do you think, Blute?”

“I do not think,” Blute, who had just re-entered the room, replied, “that you need reckon it that way. Together with the weight of the guard of four men I can assure our friend here that the weight would be less than half what any ordinary luggage truck is supposed to carry.”

“What does the gentleman mean by a guard, sir?” Joseph asked anxiously.

“I rather forgot that, I’m afraid,” Charles confessed. “Can’t carry everything in your mind, though, these unusual times. Would you work for us, Joseph, with more confidence if I let you into a secret as regards the proposed contents of that truck?”

“It certainly would be helpful, sir.”

“Very well. Do you happen to have read the special edition of the paper?” he asked, taking one from the roll upon the table which Blute had brought up and holding it out. “There has been a terrible accident to some motorists driving here from Moravia. They were apparently in as great a hurry as we are to get out of the country. The chief contents of this luggage van will be four large coffins.”

Joseph’s equanimity was for once troubled. He gazed incredulously at the speaker.

“Coffins?” he repeated.

“Caskets which contain the remains of these four unfortunate people,” Charles said gravely. “Quick work, isn’t it? I can explain that, though. This accident happened several days ago, but the Press have only just got hold of it. The four guards who will travel with the coffins are the representatives of the undertakers. We shall want tickets for them, of course.”

Joseph coughed and looked up towards the ceiling. When he spoke again there was a faint change in his manner.

“As I presume you know, sir,” he remarked, “the linings of the coffins would be of lead, to conform with the regulations. This would add considerably to the weight. Then there are the four guards. Nearly all the undertakers’ assistants whom I have ever come across,” he went on thoughtfully, “have been small, straggly types of men—”

“I hope these won’t be anything of the sort,” Charles interrupted, “but anyhow, I think that my friend Mr. Blute over here is right when he says that the weight will not be a difficulty. The tickets for the four guards I shall require as a matter of course. Even though they must travel in the luggage truck I have no desire to smuggle them out of the country. This is a perfectly straightforward transaction, you understand, Joseph, carried out at the desire of the—er—relations.”

Joseph’s eyes once more sought the ceiling. They lingered there for a moment. When they came down his gaze was perfectly respectful, his tone gently enquiring.

“I am well aware of the regulation rates for merchandise, Mr. Mildenhall,” he said, “but I think if by any miraculous means I was able to put this affair through for you the charges would be something in excess of the ordinary.”

Charles smiled—a very understanding gesture.

“I think that you are probably right, Joseph,” he acknowledged. “Now, if you should be successful in carrying this little affair through and procuring for me a compartment in the train, or, at any rate, three first-class seats, I would show my appreciation of the fact that the charges of a miracle-monger must necessarily be high. I should hand over to you, Joseph, a sum which would roughly represent a thousand pounds in English money. I should look upon it as being necessary to dispense a considerable portion of this amongst the officials of the railway company—what proportion I should have to leave to your judgment. The balance of the thousand pounds would belong to you. Miss Grey,” he added, turning round, “the equivalent of one thousand pounds sterling in reichsmarks, if you please. Now, Joseph,” he concluded, “I would suggest that before your luncheon hour you take a little carriage down to the railway station, fill your pockets with cigars and interview your friends.”

“The guard of the train,” Joseph reflected, “will be at his house for his day off before the journey. He is a very good friend of mine. Something, of course, might be arranged, but the station authorities will also require a little special information. The length of the train is probably already prodigious. I think your idea is a good one, Mr. Mildenhall. I will see what I can do personally. In any case sir,” he wound up, picking up his cap from the chair, “if I fail I shall have to introduce a new word into my vocabulary. I shall report as soon as possible. Fräulein, Herr Mildenhall, Herr Blute, I wish you good morning.”

“One of nature’s dictators,” was Charles’s only remark after the door was closed.