Читать книгу Last Train Out - E. Phillips Oppenheim - Страница 3

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Mr. Paul Schlesser, number-one cashier to the banking firm of Leopold Benjamin & Co., Ludenstrasse, Vienna, broke off in his conversation with the distinguished-looking young Englishman who was leaning over his portion of the counter and, in an undertone, directed the latter’s attention to the taller of the two men who were issuing from the private office the other side of the marble tiled floor.

“That,” he announced with bated breath and a note of deep respect in his tone, “is the present head of our firm—Mr. Leopold Benjamin. He comes here very seldom nowadays. It is a great pleasure for us to welcome him.”

Mr. Schlesser, who was an insignificant-looking person, seemed to expand and grow almost into dignity as he bowed low to the tall, thin man who was passing by. Mr. Leopold Benjamin did not in the least resemble his cashier. No one would have imagined them to belong to the same race, a race which in those days stood in hourly peril of its life. His smile was scarcely cheerful, but pleasant enough in its way as he half paused to return his employee’s greeting. His eyes looked enquiringly at the stranger. The cashier slipped open the wire partition which separated him from the outside world.

“If you will pardon me, Mr. Benjamin,” he said, “this gentleman, Mr. Charles Mildenhall, has a Letter of Credit here from Barclay’s in London. This is the head of our firm, Mr. Mildenhall—Mr. Leopold Benjamin.”

The banker let his fingers slip from his companion’s shoulder. He held out his hand. His voice was pleasant, almost musical.

“You are perhaps related to my old friend—Sir Philip Mildenhall?” he asked.

“Sir Philip is my uncle, sir,” the young man replied. “He was First Secretary here in his younger days.”

Mr. Benjamin nodded reminiscently.

“He was a delightful companion. He dined with me often. A connoisseur, too, of pictures—in fact, of all objets d’art. I missed him very much when he went to Bucharest.”

“I think in a way he was sorry to go,” Mildenhall remarked. “He had many friends here. Amongst them I have heard him speak of you, sir. I heard from him of your marvellous collection of Old Masters.”

“You are in the Diplomatic Service yourself?” the banker asked.

“In a way I am,” the young man answered. “Just now I am on long leave.”

“Your uncle is well, I trust?”

“In excellent health, I thank you, sir. I shall tell him of our meeting.”

“You must come and see me before you leave the city,” the banker invited. “How long do you stay here?”

“Only a few days longer, I fear.”

“Will you dine with me on Thursday night?” the other suggested. “I am compelled to choose an early date because my movements are a little uncertain.”

“I will do so with pleasure,” the young man assented. “It will interest my uncle very much to have news of you.”

Mr. Benjamin shrugged his high, stooping shoulders. There was a momentary look of sadness in his sunken eyes.

“Not too good news, I am afraid,” he said. “Our race becomes less and less popular in this country as the days go by. Things were different in your uncle’s time. At present we find the future full of anxiety. One pleasure at least I shall make sure of,” he concluded with a smile. “I shall have the pleasure of seeing you on Thursday at eight o’clock. I trust that you do not mind our early hours.”

“Not in the least, sir.”

“Our friend here at the desk,” Leopold Benjamin said, with a benevolent smile towards the cashier, “will write down my address for you. Auf Wiedersehen, Mr. Mildenhall.”

He passed on, his companion—a short, thick-set man with a very intelligent face—by his side. The cashier looked at his client with increased respect.

“We regard it as a great honour,” he confided as he counted out some notes, “to be received by Mr. Benjamin. He entertains very little now. Your money, sir—also your Letter of Credit,” he went on, returning the latter to its parchment envelope. “It will always be a pleasure to serve you here when you are in need of more money or if there is any general information about the city we can give you. I am writing here the address of Mr. Benjamin: Palais Franz Josef. Any vehicle you engage would drive you there without hesitation.”

The young man gathered up his belongings, nodded in friendly fashion and took his leave. On the broad steps of the very handsome bank building he hesitated for a few moments, then decided to walk for a while in the Ringstrasse. It was barely five o’clock and, notwithstanding that these were days of strain and anxiety, something of the spirit of levity was visible on the countenances of most of the passers-by. The day’s work was over. The evening and night were at hand. The true Viennese is seldom sensitive to the call of domesticity. It is the music of the cafés, the light laughter of the women, the flavour of his apéritif which appeal to him with the coming of the twilight. Mildenhall yielded to the general spirit. After an hour’s promenade he entered one of the most attractive of the famous cafés, purchased an evening paper and installed himself at a comfortable table. He ordered a drink and lit a cigarette. His Thursday evening rendezvous pleased him. It was a great thing to have met Leopold Benjamin so entirely by accident and to have received so interesting an invitation. The Viennese cafés are not made for isolation. Mildenhall was seated in the corner place of the long settee which stretched down one side of the room. The table in front of him was sufficiently large to accommodate several customers. There were two chairs unoccupied. Mildenhall shook out his newspaper and turned it so that he could read the leading article. His attention, however, was suddenly distracted.

“I do not disturb you, sir, if I take this chair?” a friendly voice asked in excellent English.

Mildenhall glanced up and recognized the man who had been Mr. Benjamin’s companion in the bank a short time before.

“By no means,” he answered courteously. “Why not the settee? It is more comfortable and, after all, I don’t take up much room.”

With a bow the newcomer seated himself, handed his coat and hat to a waiter and gave an order. He glanced at the paper in Mildenhall’s hands.

“One wastes much time nowadays,” he remarked, “with these fugitive journals. It seems to me that much is written which is not worth the ink.”

“I gather that you are not a journalist!”

“I am not,” was the quiet reply. “Clever men, no doubt, but what they are responsible for! Half the wars in the world are caused by the Press. Every grievance of mankind is nurtured by their pens. News itself is good, but news is the last thing one finds—in the evening papers, at any rate. The one you have there is engaged in an unholy crusade. It is doing great harm in the city. It is stirring up bad feeling in this place of beautiful things and kindly people.”

“Did I not see you an hour ago in Benjamin’s bank?” Mildenhall asked.

“You did indeed, sir. Mr. Leopold Benjamin is one of the men I admire most in the world. He is a great philanthropist, a great artist, a lover of the human race, a good man. But life for him at the present moment is poisoned by the campaign in a certain section of the Press.”

Mildenhall nodded sympathetically.

“This crusade against the Jews,” he murmured.

“It is a wicked and outrageous crusade,” his companion said almost under his breath and after a careful glance around. “I should not, perhaps, speak like this in a public place, but I know who you are. I heard your introduction to Leopold Benjamin. I know, too, that you are an Englishman, and the English have always been the protectors of any persecuted race.”

“Isn’t ‘persecuted’ rather a harsh term?” Mildenhall asked. “The Austrian is such a kindly person—at least, so I have fancied from the little I have seen of him.”

“The Austrian by himself is well enough,” the other acknowledged. “It is what there is behind him, driving him on, that is dangerous. You permit?”

He drew a small case from his pocket and handed a card to his companion.

“I myself am not a Jew,” he went on, “although my name, which you see there, rather suggests it. I have a profession which keeps me wandering all over the world. There are few countries, well-populated countries, which I have not visited. The empty places do not interest me. I like work, and my work is amongst human beings. My name, as you see, is Marius Blute and I am a naturalized Finn.”

“From your speech,” Mildenhall remarked, “I should have taken you to be English. From your appearance I should have thought that you were perhaps a Scandinavian.”

“I was really born,” Blute confided, “in Finland. My mother was a Finn and my father, a Russian.”

“And your profession?” Mildenhall asked pleasantly.

“Ah, perhaps you will guess that before long,” the other replied. “I understand that we are to meet again at dinner on Thursday.”

“Delighted to hear it,” Mildenhall assured him. “Tell me, do you think our host will show us any of his treasures? I have always been told that I should find choicer pictures in his rooms than in any European gallery.”

“That is easily the truth,” Blute acquiesced. “As to whether he will open up the galleries for you, I have my doubts. These are dangerous times for a man who has such possessions.”

“He has dangerous neighbours?”

“Of that we will not speak here. Vienna, alas, is greatly changed. We have a perfect affliction of the Gestapo here amongst us. The Viennese themselves, the townspeople, have lost the control of their city. It is sad but it is true. One by one the men who have made Vienna a great and joyous place have been obliged to leave it. Those who have added most to its riches and its beauty are the very ones who are now the most persecuted. What the world of to-morrow may be, one sometimes wonders! I could take you to the house of one great Austrian aristocrat at this moment, Mr. Mildenhall. It is not far from here. You would find him sitting in one small room. At the further end is a curtain and behind that curtain, which is, I might tell you, of priceless Chinese silk, there is a bed, and on that bed he sleeps. At the other end there is a table surrounded by screens the beauty of which no words could describe, and there he dines. There is a great window hung with curtains which once adorned a Doge’s palace. When they are drawn aside he has one of the most beautiful views in Vienna. That room and its little antechamber, Mr. Mildenhall, he has not left for twenty years, and in that room he will die. But if one of the experts, from any part of the world, who belonged to Benjamin’s race and had a sense of financial values as well as appreciation saw that room, he would tell you that millions of your English pounds would not buy the contents of that one chamber. There he sits. He is content so long as he is undisturbed. He gave his life to beauty and he fears to lose his treasures. He fears so much that he has concentrated them, weeded them out, kept everything that was a little more beautiful than anything else of its sort. ‘It is too small a room,’ he says sometimes, ‘to rob.’ But there is fear in his heart at the thought. Some day he will lose everything. I passed his house not three days ago. I saw one of those loathed spies watching it. They begin to know where to find what their masters are craving for—anything, anything they can turn into gold. One more was added to the list that afternoon.”

Blute’s story had been so simply told, was so obviously the result of the man’s own observation, that his companion felt a sudden surge of interest in the princely hermit guarding his treasures.

“Can’t you warn him?” he asked. “Can’t he be told that they have marked him down?”

The other shook his head slowly.

“What would be the good? He is too old to escape, he is too old and tired to leave his treasures. He will sit there with them all around him until the day comes that the Gestapo cross his threshold and he hears their fateful summons. When that time comes it is my belief that he will kill himself.”

Mildenhall sighed. The orchestra was playing gay music, the place was filled with chattering and laughing groups of people who had been able for an hour or two to put all cares behind them.

“What about our friend Benjamin?” he asked. “Is he in any danger, do you think?”

“Leopold Benjamin,” Blute said solemnly, “has the spotlight of fate playing on him at the present moment. Sometimes I wonder that he has escaped so long. He is the most prominent Jew in the city, he has been fined huge sums, he gives large amounts to charity, the old aristocracy of the country who refuse to open their doors even to their highly-born neighbours have welcomed him into their midst. He holds a great place in the hearts of the people here but, to tell you the truth, he is the anxiety of my life. Even I dare not tell him that if he remains in the city he is doomed. He is too rich, too powerful to escape. He will be one of the first victims of the disaster which threatens Austria. I have been here for two years doing nothing else but looking after him. I shall do all I can, although it will very likely cost me my life. I shall give it without hesitation. Nevertheless, Leopold Benjamin is doomed. I sat with him in that beautiful office of his this afternoon. I showed him a way to escape. ‘And my pictures?’ he asked. ‘My treasures?’ ‘We could smuggle some things away,’ I told him. He shook his head. ‘I am a greedy man,’ he said. ‘I can part with nothing.’ What are you to do with anyone like that? I keep the way open, but I fear that he will be obstinate to the end.”

Mildenhall glanced at his watch and rose to his feet.

“Perhaps I shall be able to tell you better in a few days,” he said. “I dine there then and I hope to see a few of the Old Masters, anyhow.”

Marius Blute sighed.

“A few days,” he murmured. “Yes, I should think a few days is about the limit of time. You may still eat your dinner at the Palais Franz Josef, Mr. Mildenhall. You will drink the choicest wines in Austria and eat the food prepared by our one great chef, but it will be rather like the feast before the descent of the Philistines.”

Charles Mildenhall, with a farewell nod, left the place with his companion’s words ringing in his ears, but more poignantly even than those words he remembered the shadow which seemed to be lurking in the sad eyes of the man with whom he had spoken only for a few minutes in the bank. Leopold Benjamin had indeed the air of a man on his way towards death.