Читать книгу Tales of Mystery & Espionage: 21 Spy Thrillers in One Edition - E. Phillips Oppenheim - Страница 87

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Charles Mildenhall’s elegantly furnished salon had lost its character. It had become a bureau of industry. Blute, in his shirt sleeves, was seated at a writing-table with piles of accounts on one side and time-tables and maps on the other. He was a very different person from the Marius Blute who had been dragging wheezy music from a broken-down violin in the café des Voyageurs not many hours ago. He helped Charles arrange the black tin boxes by the side of the other writing-table and tipped the porter who brought them up. He could scarcely restrain himself until he had bundled the fellow out of the room. His manner still retained something of its phlegmatic calm but his speech was cut and dried and unhesitating.

“Mr. Mildenhall,” he announced, “we have been obliged to change some of our plans. We have been very successful in everything so far but we must bend a little where it is necessary.”

“Proceed,” Charles enjoined, throwing himself into an easy chair and casting a discontented glance around the apartment. “First of all, though, where is Miss Grey?”

“She has gone out to do a little shopping,” Blute replied. “I showed her the way out at the back and she will only be a few minutes. I don’t want to leave the place myself until I go down for the caskets. Miss Grey as Mr. Benjamin’s secretary and I as his agent might easily be recognized in the principal streets, and I am just as anxious to avoid that as I am to avoid your being seen with us.”

“I expect you’re right,” Charles agreed. “Get along with it and make your report now.”

“This is what has happened,” Blute continued. “The railway company, through sheer necessity, have had to alter their plans. The last train for the frontier leaves to-morrow morning and must run in two portions.”

“The mischief!” Charles exclaimed. “That’s rather a nuisance for us, isn’t it?”

“On the contrary,” Blute assured him, “it is a great advantage. If the three of us were to be seen on the platform, even if we were not absolutely together, it might set people thinking.”

“All right. You’re in charge of the expedition, Blute.”

“Thank you, Mr. Mildenhall. The first train, or portion of the train, will leave here at six o’clock in the morning, the second part at eight. I want to persuade you, Mr. Mildenhall, to travel on the first portion.”

“Six o’clock!” Charles groaned.

“It cannot be helped. The special van must be on the second portion, therefore Miss Grey and myself, the coffins, the four men from the undertaker’s, who will sit with the coffins, and the three cases must leave at eight o’clock.”

“I can’t see why we all can’t go by the second portion if we occupy different compartments,” Charles suggested.

His companion hesitated.

“Mr. Mildenhall,” he pointed out at last, “even if we are in separate compartments, the fact that we arc travelling in the same train might easily be noticed by anyone who was on the lookout. You must remember that I am not altogether a stranger in this city. You only know me as Mr. Benjamin’s agent, but I have worked for others besides him in Vienna. If any man could be called a professional spy I think I could fairly lay claim to that title.”

“What company I am keeping!” Charles sighed.

“You needn’t worry,” Blute assured him. “My operations have been confined to finance, politics have never interested me particularly. I have agents in every capital of Europe worth mentioning. It was with their help that I was able to arrange Mr. Benjamin’s affairs so successfully and it is through them also that I have been able to make all the preliminary arrangements for to-morrow’s expedition.”

“Useful chap to know in a crisis, aren’t you?” Charles observed. “All the same, I was able to help you a little through Joseph.”

“I most gratefully acknowledge it,” Blute declared. “What I was anxious to point out, however, was this. I have talked with every one of our expeditionary force this afternoon and I have noticed the same thing with all of them. They are looking forward to to-morrow’s journey with a certain degree of apprehension.”

“What have they to worry about? We practically own the train until we get to the frontier and as soon as we are over that we’ve nothing to fear from anybody.”

“I admire your confidence, and honestly I am inclined to share it, but that feeling I have spoken of does exist amongst the others, although I cannot understand why. Our friend, the guard, this morning I think looked upon this as a gay adventure. This afternoon he is just as keen, just as confident of carrying it through, even with these altered arrangements, but he is more serious. Then those four men that I have engaged from the undertaker, who were quite content with their little Viennese weapon, something like your English jemmy, to start with, now each one of them decide that in case anything goes wrong they would like to have a gun.”

“I don’t blame them for that,” Charles declared. “A jemmy is not much use except in a scrap and it’s astonishing what a feeling of confidence a loaded Colt gives you.”

“I notice you don’t carry a Colt yourself.”

Charles shook his head.

“I like something smaller,” he confided. “Revolver shooting is one of my few accomplishments in life. If you know where to put the bullet, it doesn’t need to be very large. By the by, how is my chauffeur, Fritz? Feeling a little better, I hope, than this morning. Were you able to make use of him?”

“Yes,” Blute replied. “I took him round to the scene of last night’s debauch to clear things up. I can tell you it wasn’t a pleasant sight, Mr. Mildenhall. We dropped in at a café on our way back and had a double brandy quick. Fritz had pretty well plastered his German friend.”

“What did you do with his remains?”

“Don’t ask me! It is not necessary, anyway, for you to know anything about that. I can tell you this, though—unless something exceptional happens it will be a good many years before anyone comes across them.”

“How is the fellow at the hospital?”

“Safe to keep his Ups closed for a few days, I think,” Blute said dryly. “The only thing Fritz seems to be afraid of is that there might be a death-bed confession. I looked at his chart, though, and I don’t think he’s as bad as that. Faithful dog, that fellow Fritz. He can’t think of anyone but his master. He is terrified lest the Gestapo get on your track. Of course, I’m a little anxious about that, too, but they’ve nothing really against you.”

“Of course they haven’t,” Charles said impatiently. “Fritz is like a lot of these Viennese. He is as impressionable and sensitive as he can be. I expect I shall end by having to take him to England.”

Patricia glided into the room. She sat on the arm of Charles’s chair.

“Everything all right?” she asked anxiously.

“Of course,” he smiled. “What is there to go wrong? Nothing—absolutely nothing.”

“Everything is O.K., so far,” Blute reported a little less enthusiastically.

“You’ve lost your colour,” Charles told Patricia. “You’re worrying, young woman.”

“I’m not.”

“You’ve had no lunch, then.”

“I have. I’ve had an omelette and a glass of red wine.”

“Not enough.”

“I’m afraid that Miss Grey is taking this affair a little too seriously,” Blute said, crossing the room towards them. “Just look at the matter for a moment as I look at it, Mr. Mildenhall. If we go crash on this enterprise what’s the odds to those four men when they know that they’re secure for life if they bring it off, and probably only in for a short imprisonment if they fail? The guard of the train—pretty well the same thing with him. Joseph—”

“Joseph is impregnable, I admit,” Charles declared. “If anyone laid a finger upon Joseph I think there would be a minor revolution here. He’ll be mayor of the city before he’s finished. He has more friends than any man I ever knew.”

“I quite agree,” Blute assented. “I haven’t a shadow of anxiety myself about Joseph, Then there’s myself. I stand to make a million if we succeed. It’s the end of work for me—the beginning of a life of leisure. If I fail—well, Mr. Mildenhall, I’ll only say this. I have had a nasty shock these last few months—I will admit that—but it will never happen again. Everything was against Miss Grey and myself in this wretched city. It could never happen to us again to be censored out of existence.”

“From what I’ve seen of you, Blute, I think you’d get out of anything in time,” Charles declared, “but there’s Miss Grey here.”

“She isn’t really in it,” Blute pointed out. “She and I were both employees of Leopold Benjamin, but she has only the slightest association with the job I am trying to work.”

“Well, then we’ve no one to worry about.”

“We have,” the girl cried eagerly.

“Indeed we have,” Blute agreed. “There is you, sir.”

“Bosh!”

“What I’m afraid of,” Blute explained, “is this. With the war coming on, if there are any of these Gestapo about they’ll try to drag you into it. Please listen to me, Mr. Mildenhall,” he went on as Charles showed signs of escaping. “We should never have had a chance but for you. You found us the whole of the money, we are going about now—at least I am—with our pockets bursting. Think where you found us! We were down and out completely. I don’t say it would have lasted but when help came it would very likely have been too late. You’ve helped with the plans here, you’ve been wonderful, sir. If I let you get into trouble I don’t think Mr. Benjamin, or this young lady here, for that matter, would ever forgive me. I’ve been working to keep you out of it this morning and you must please do all that I ask of you.”

“You shall have your own way as long as it’s reasonable,” Charles assured him. “I don’t like that six o’clock train, though. I’ve heaps of things I want to say to Miss Grey and I can’t bear the thought of that long journey alone.”

“Never mind, sir,” Blute insisted. “Remember this. There will be as many spies about the Westbahnhof to-morrow as there will be passengers. As I have arranged it everyone in the city will know that you left in a Diplomatic coupé locked up by yourself two hours before the—what shall I call it?—the conspiracy. Not one of us, not Miss Grey, not the caskets, not the guard, not the railway agent, not I—will be on your train. If you travel with us or even with Miss Grey you’re in it up to the neck. Not one of us counts. They tell me you’ve a great future before you, you’re the nephew of a peer of England and you belong to a great family who would be disgraced if you were mixed up with this.”

“That’s all very well,” Charles said discontentedly. “I have been working at this thing with you practically the whole of the last two days. You’re turning me out of bed at five o’clock to-morrow morning, and then if any adventure should come of it when we reach the frontier or thereabouts I’m to miss all the fun.”

Blute shook his head.

“It won’t be fun, Mr. Mildenhall,” he said. “I can assure you of that. I don’t believe for a single moment that anything can go wrong with our plans but if it does,” he added gravely, “it will be anything you like to call it, but it won’t be amusing!”

“All the more reason why I should be on the spot,” Charles persisted stubbornly.

Blute’s tone and manner were alike changed. He spoke coldly but vigorously. His frown was forbidding.

“Mr. Mildenhall,” he said, “Miss Grey and I have talked this over and it’s come to this. We will let chance take care of what happens afterwards, but unless you consent to go by the first train and go by yourself I shall give you a cheque payable in London for the whole of the money you have advanced and we shall ask you to retire.”

Charles smoked nearly the whole of a cigarette and held Patricia’s hand firmly in his before he answered. Then he rose to his feet with a sigh, moved to the other writing-table, lifted one of the tin boxes to his side and unlocked it.

“All right,” he decided, “have it your own way. All the same, I hate travelling at six o’clock in the morning.”