Читать книгу Last Train Out - E. Phillips Oppenheim - Страница 5

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Victor’s smooth face was wreathed in smiles as he led Lascelles and Mildenhall, his two distinguished guests, to their places an hour later in the most famous of Vienna’s smaller restaurants. He was reputed to speak the language of every recognized nation in Europe and his English was smooth and faultless.

“It is a great pleasure for me,” he said, “to welcome Mr. Mildenhall back to Vienna. Mr. Lascelles has always his table here, although he dines at his beautiful Embassy more often than I could wish. To-night many of my valued patrons are honouring me. Sometimes I see them—sometimes I do not. The Archduke to-night, par exemple, I do not see, but Mr. Mildenhall will agree with me, I am sure, that his companion is very, very beautiful.”

He ushered the two men into their boîte. A bowl of dark red roses stood in the centre of the small round table prepared for two, and the array of glass would have looked equally at home in a museum. They took their places. Victor spread out his hands.

“For the guests whom I would like to honour,” he confided, “I carry no menu. I think that I know well the tastes of Monsieur Lascelles, I believe that I can divine those of Monsieur Mildenhall. I shall not shock you if I offer you the new season’s caviar with the ninety-year-old vodka, the first of the young salmon from our own noble river, a baby deer with some garnishings of young hog’s flesh, a salad which I prepare here and a soufflé incomparable, something invented only last week by the nephew of my chef, the Cordon Bleu Maurice, who serves his apprenticeship here. With the salmon a Berncasteler Doktor of ’84 will serve to help you forget the crudeness of the vodka. With the deer I would offer a Château Mouton-Rothschild of 1870. Of the brandy we speak later.”

“Victor has ideas!” Mildenhall murmured.

“Such a meal should be set to poetry,” Lascelles suggested.

“But for poetry or for music where else would you go?” Victor demanded. “They all tell me that my restaurant is the meeting-place of lovely women, and you are precisely the right distance away to appreciate the most wonderful music Strauss ever wrote, played by the maestro.”

“We submit, Victor,” Mildenhall remarked with a twinkle in his eyes. “You are the Emperor of Gastronomy!”

Victor bowed low and left them.

Mildenhall’s whole attention during the next few minutes was concentrated, as far as discretion permitted, upon the table exactly opposite.

“I think,” he pronounced, “the woman with Karl Sebastian is the most beautiful creature I have ever seen in my life.”

Lascelles permitted himself a glance across the room.

“Most of Vienna thinks as you do, my friend,” he admitted. “An introduction would be quite in order, but—not to-night.”

“Tell me her name,” Mildenhall asked. “I can’t remember having seen her here before.”

“The name by which she is generally known, and to which I believe she is absolutely entitled, is the Baroness von Ballinstrode. I have heard there was a previous marriage, to a man whose name I have forgotten, which was annulled, but I don’t think the divorce was properly legalized. Very complicated, some of these religious quibbles.”

“Overwhelmingly Teutonic,” Mildenhall murmured, “but nevertheless exquisite. I have never seen such a complexion—bluer eyes—a more fascinating smile. She has almost too much animation for her type.”

“If you stay long enough I must certainly see about that introduction,” Lascelles observed. “The Archduke is here for the Von Liebenstrahls’ dance on Thursday. A day or two afterwards he and the Archduchess will return to their castle in the mountains, unless he can get off on his own for a few weeks to Monte Carlo. A week is about as long as he dare spend in Vienna, nowadays. Lucky for him if another Putsch doesn’t come while he’s in the city. He’s not much of a politician but he’s quite a figurehead.”

“What about the Anschluss?”

“No politics, there’s a dear fellow,” Lascelles begged. “I don’t know where the Germans got the idea from,” he added, looking round, “but they always think that Englishmen—especially if they are connected with diplomacy in any way—are nothing but ‘gasbags.’ This place is a favourite rendezvous of the Royalists—the few of them that are left. I should think we are certain to have a visit from the Gestapo, unless Victor succeeds in keeping them away. Wish I were going back with you, Charles. Central Europe is getting on my nerves.”

The caviar arrived and with its many et ceteras absorbed the attention of the two men for a time.

“There is no vodka like this in the world,” Lascelles remarked as he sipped it slowly. “Soft as velvet, isn’t it?”

“It’s marvellous,” his friend agreed. “Perfect food, perfect wine and glorious women. Think what would happen to us if anything went wrong with Vienna!”

Lascelles’ face seemed suddenly to have lost all expression. His fingers were toying with the flask of vodka.

“Gestapo!” he murmured under his breath. “The one thing I regret in Vienna just now is the passing of the polo. Since the Hungarian team broke up there hasn’t been a decent game.”

“It’s the County cricket I miss through travelling so much,” Mildenhall observed with equal seriousness. “I saw Yorkshire play twice last year but I missed the West Indian Test Match. Free hitting and lots of it—that’s the type of cricket I like to see.”

Four members of the Gestapo—brawny, muscular young men with evil faces—stood in the middle of the restaurant talking to a very solemn-faced Victor. One of them detached himself and strolled in leisurely fashion about the place gazing insolently at the diners. Before one of the least conspicuous tables, where a man was dining alone, he stopped. The man continued to eat, taking apparently no notice of what was going on around him. The intruder knocked on the table with his knuckles. The diner looked up and asked what seemed to be a simple question. The S.S. man shouted at him angrily. His voice was heard all over the room.

“What’s your name?” he demanded.

“Behrling—Antoine Behrling,” was the distinctly spoken reply.

“Your papers!”

The man looked up.

“It is not necessary for me to carry papers,” he said. “I am Viennese.”

“You are a Jew,” the other declared angrily.

The diner shrugged his shoulders.

“I am nothing of the sort,” he answered. “I am a Catholic.”

“We’ll see about that!”

Victor came hurrying across the room. It evidently cost him an effort to speak politely.

“This gentleman,” he said, “is a well-known lawyer. His name is Behrling and he is not the kind of person you are looking for at all.”

“How do you know?”

Victor turned away. The man looked after him scowling.

“If you’re a lawyer, why didn’t you say so?” he asked, turning back to the table.

“You did not ask me my profession.”

“Do not leave your place until I give you permission!”

The Nazi swaggered across the room towards where his companions were standing. They had a final look round, discussed Behrling for a moment but the apparent leader of the little band shook his head.

“A lucky night for you, Victor,” one of the younger men remarked.

“Not particularly,” was the quiet reply. “It is not a matter of chance at all. I have no patrons who would be likely to interest you.”

“No impudence!” the sergeant snapped, pointing to a table. “Send us four glasses of beer over there.”

“I regret,” Victor said, “that we do not serve beer in this restaurant.”

“You’ll serve what I order!” was the angry retort.

It was several moments before Victor spoke again. When he did so his voice seemed to have faded away. It was raised scarcely above a whisper. It was none the less impressive.

“We natives and citizens of Vienna,” he said, “are well aware of the danger in which we stand. In a very short time you may be within your rights in forcing your way into a hundred-year-old restaurant and demanding that its rules shall be broken and that you shall occupy a table unbecomingly clothed. But to-night I am still master here. The Chief of the Police of the city has booked a table here to-night and is already due, so you will be able to state your grievances in a few minutes. Until that time comes you will kindly take your leave.”

There was a moment’s hesitation. The situation was beginning to present difficulties.

“What if we order champagne?” one of the men blustered.

“I should still refuse to serve you here as guests,” Victor announced. “I should also warn you that my champagne is very expensive.”

Herr Antoine Behrling seemed to have been entirely forgotten. The four men swaggered out of the place. Victor watched them leave, waiting until he heard the door close behind them. Then he returned, making his way towards his office. Lascelles leaned forward towards him as he passed their boîte. The words of congratulation, however, died away upon his lips. He could see that the restaurateur was still shivering.

“Bravely done, Victor,” he said pleasantly. “We shall enjoy all the more your most wonderful dinner.”

“I have never tasted anything to compare with your young deer,” Mildenhall declared. “As for your Château Mouton-Rothschild—it has a fault.”

Nothing could have galvanized Victor more suddenly into his ordinary self.

“It was perhaps a little overwarm?” he suggested anxiously.

“Not in the least, my friend,” his patron assured him. “But for wine drinkers—”

“Yes?”

“One bottle!”

A smile broke across Victor’s lips. He was himself again. He drew a little silver thermometer from his pocket.

“Five minutes, gentlemen. It shall be no longer,” he assured them. “I will guarantee you exactly the same temperature.”

On their way out the Archduke summoned them. He shook hands with both.

“My friend Lascelles I often see,” he remarked. “We play bridge sometimes at the club. You, Mr. Mildenhall, are more of a stranger. I believe, though, that we have met.”

“I have had the honour of dining with you, sir, two years ago, after a shooting party near your Schloss,” Mildenhall reminded him.

“Of course I remember,” the Archduke said graciously. “You were staying with the Von Liebenstrahls. I remember remarking how well you young Englishmen shot considering the different conditions over here.... Baroness, you must permit me to present my two friends—Mr. Lascelles from the British Embassy and Mr. Mildenhall, whom I heard someone once call a ‘diplomatic vagrant.’ ”

The Baroness held out her fingers to Lascelles and afterwards received Mildenhall’s bow. Upon Lascelles she bestowed a smile of courtesy. She looked into Charles Mildenhall’s eyes with a different expression. It seemed to him, and he was by no means conceited, that she withdrew her fingers almost with reluctance.

“Mr. Mildenhall does not come often enough to Vienna,” she remarked.

“To-night’s experience tells me that you speak the truth, Baroness,” he replied.

“What does His Highness mean when he calls you a ‘diplomatic vagrant’?” she asked.

“I started life in the Diplomatic Service,” he told her, “but for some years I have been only partially attached.”

“You lack fidelity?”

“Scarcely that, Baroness. I happen to possess a gift which we English, I fear, acquire with too much difficulty. I have the knack of speaking most European languages. Therefore, if there is any small trouble in any one of these countries whose language seems to be brimming over with consonants, I act for our government as messenger boy or peacemaker. The occupation has its advantages, but I can conceive nothing more wonderful than being in my friend Lascelles’ position.”

“And why?” she asked softly.

He leaned a little farther across the table. Certainly hers were the bluest eyes he had ever seen.

“Because I find Vienna the centre of civilization,” he told her. “It possesses the best food, the most wonderful wines and the most beautiful women in the world.”

“And since when,” she persisted, “have you arrived at that conclusion?”

He glanced at his platinum wrist watch.

“Two hours and five minutes ago, Baroness.”

“You are evidently a gourmet,” she smiled. “I noticed that you were taking great interest in those wonderful dishes which were being served at your table.”

“A gesture, Baroness,” he assured her. “When one is so utterly content with one’s surroundings it is necessary, sometimes, to dissemble.”

She leaned back in her place and laughed frankly.

“From now on,” she declared, “I change my opinion of all Englishmen.”

The Archduke grunted.

“Mr. Lascelles,” he said, “you must remove your young friend. I am becoming jealous. Nevertheless, I hope that we shall all meet again before long.”

He waved them graciously away.

“Your opinion is unchanged?” Lascelles asked as he took his friend’s arm outside.

“I still think,” Mildenhall replied, “that she is the most perfectly beautiful creature I have ever seen.”