guest. Then he read through once more the brief note from Lascelles.
My dear Charles,
I was on the way back to confer with you in Vienna and hand you some further instructions to take up to Warsaw after you had visited our friend. They cabled the news to me and ordered me home. There is not the slightest doubt that we are in for it and the whole affair at first will be a horrible muddle, for there Is nothing on God’s earth we can do for the wretched Poles, and if our friend’s troops are anything Uke what I’ve seen entraining to-day for the Polish frontier they will walk through any half-armed rabble, however brave they may be.
I expect poor old P. will be in an awful fuss. Don’t let him worry you but the contents of 17 A, B and C black despatch boxes in the main safe must be gone through and destroyed. Please see to this yourself. Then, if you take my advice, you will leg it for home as quickly as you can.
F. L.
P.S. If you have time, and for the love of her sweet little figure find time, Charles, drop in at the hair-dressing rooms at the Bristol Hotel. Give Mademoiselle Rosette a kiss and a thousand schilling note from me.
“Well, I’m damned!” Charles exclaimed with a sudden twinkle in his eyes.
“I beg your pardon?”
“It was the postscript to my friend Lascelles’ note. I suppose one must expect one’s friends to take a little advantage these times.”
“We must certainly make allowances,” the Consul admitted. “I always found Mr. Lascelles exceedingly considerate the few times I came across him.”
“I’m not complaining,” Charles murmured.
“I am instructed,” Mr. Porter said, finishing his coffee, “to hand you over the keys of the black boxes. Here they are, Mr. Mildenhall. You will see the numbers upon the labels.”
“And the boxes?”
“They are in the charge of the great Joseph here,” Mr. Porter declared. “With your permission I will now take my departure.”
Charles walked with his visitor out into the hall. Joseph came from his bureau to meet them.
“If you are going up to your room, Mr. Mildenhall,” he said, “I will send up those three cases which the gentleman has left for you.”
“Send them up as quickly as you can,” Charles replied. “I am in the humour for a little frivolous work. Don’t send any strangers up, though. If the spies of Vienna—they tell me that every other man is a spy here, Joseph—knew what was in those black tin boxes they would blow me sky high.”
Mr. Porter, for the first time for many days, smiled slightly as he held out his hand to Charles.
“Our young friend,” he remarked to the concierge, “if I may venture to call you so, Mr. Mildenhall, treats our sacred profession a little lightly.”
“Before I leave this city,” Charles promised, “I will tell you what I think of our profession!”
He bade his visitor farewell and walked with Joseph to the lift.
“You will find them very anxious to see you upstairs, sir,” Joseph told him. “We have had to make a few changes in the arrangements. All is well, though. Everything has been carried out according to Mr. Blute’s latest instructions. The despatch cases are coming up in the lift with you, sir. I have kept them within sight ever since they were handed over into my keeping.”
Charles watched the cases placed inside, then he Spoke through the grille of the lift gate to the concierge.
“Joseph, at what time will the manicure department for gentlemen close at the Bristol Hotel this evening?”
“At about eight o’clock, sir,” was the prompt reply.
“Telephone across, if you please, and speak to Mademoiselle Rosette. Tell her not to leave the premises until an ambassador from Mr. Lascelles has visited her this evening.”
The man bowed without even the flicker of a smile.
“Your message will be delivered, sir,” he promised.
CHAPTER XIX
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