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
